The Challenge of Weather Forecasting

8th Grade45 minutes

Learning Objective

I can describe how difficult it is to forecast weather.

Key Concepts

About 40% of rain comes from large air masses called fronts, which are relatively easy for meteorologists to track and predict.

The majority of rain comes from convection, which is triggered by heat from the ground warming up a small mass of air.

Convective rain is hard to predict because it depends on many variables, such as how warm the ground is, how much water vapor the air holds, and how long the air stays over the warm ground.

Practice Questions

This lesson includes 11 practice questions to reinforce learning.

View questions preview

1. According to the video, what is one reason why it is difficult to accurately forecast rain?

2. What percentage of rain, according to the video, is attributed to long-lasting, gray-skies-all-day type rain?

3. Explain how fronts cause rain.

...and 8 more questions

Educational Video

Why Weather Forecasts Suck

MinuteEarth

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