Graphing seasonal weather data
Represent data in tables and graphical displays to describe typical weather conditions expected during a particular season
What a learner can do afterwards
- Collect and organise weather data in a table (temperature, precipitation, cloud cover)
- Create a graphical display (bar chart, pictogram) showing weather patterns for a season
- Use the data to describe typical weather conditions for that season and compare with other seasons
1 · Read
Every season has its own kind of weather. Summer days are usually warm, and winter days are usually cold. But how do you know what is typical for a season? Scientists write down the weather every day for several weeks, then look at all of it together.
Priya wrote down the temperature every day for four weeks in the fall. She also noted whether it rained and how cloudy the sky was. At the end, her table had temperature, precipitation, and cloud cover for 28 days. She counted the rainy days from each week and turned them into a bar chart.
Look at many days, not just one. One rainy day in spring does not mean spring is always rainy. The pattern across many weeks tells you what is typical.
Collect weather data for several weeks, turn it into a table and a graph, then use the pattern to describe what a season is usually like.
More to read
Weather or Not?
Weather detectives look at photos and pick out clues about what the weather is like. You can be a weather detective too. Step outside and record what you notice each day: the temperature, how much rain or snow fell, how fast the wind blows, and how cloudy the sky looks. Keep doing this for many days in a row. After a while you will start to see patterns, like which months tend to be rainier or sunnier. Farmers use patterns like these to decide the best time to plant fruits and vegetables. Weather is what is happening outside right now. Climate is the pattern of weather in one place over a long time.
Precipitation Towers: Modeling Weather Data
Precipitation is the rain, snow, or hail that falls from the sky. In this activity you build towers out of stacking cubes to show how much precipitation fell each month. A taller tower means more rain or snow fell that month. A shorter tower means less. If you build a tower for every month of the year, you can line them up and compare the seasons to see which ones are wetter and which ones are drier. Comparing towers for a few different cities also shows how precipitation patterns can be very different from one place to another.
Rain Measurements Tell a Story
In Boulder, Colorado, in 2013, it rained for eight days in a row and the water kept building up until it caused a big flood. A science teacher measured the rainfall every day using a rain gauge, a tool that catches rain and measures how many inches fall. He graphed his measurements day by day. Looking at the graph, you can see the rain totals grow bigger and bigger as the days went on. Graphing daily measurements like this helps you tell the story of a weather event and see exactly when it got the most extreme.
Weather and Climate Graphing Lesson: What Do These Numbers Mean?
Weather reports are full of charts and graphs, but what do all those numbers actually mean? This lesson helps you read graphs about weather and climate step by step. First you compare different ways data can be shown, like tables, bar charts, and line graphs. Next you look closely at real weather and climate graphs to figure out what the temperature and precipitation numbers are telling you. Finally you make your own graph from weather data and use it to make a prediction about what might happen next.
2 · Watch
به انگلیسیTake it off screen
Where it sits
Learn first
Optional connections
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Where this leads
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
24 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.