Microburst
A microburst is a compact, intense thunderstorm downdraft that hits the ground and spreads outward as damaging straight-line wind.
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Hailstorms
Hailstorms form inside strong thunderstorms when updrafts lift water into freezing air, building ice stones that can damage crops, roofs, vehicles, and people.
Sudden stratospheric warming
Sudden stratospheric warming is a rapid wintertime warming high above the poles that can disrupt the polar vortex and sometimes affect weather weeks later.
Atmospheric blocking
Atmospheric blocking occurs when a large, slow-moving pressure pattern disrupts the usual west-to-east flow, causing persistent weather over several days or weeks.
Orographic lift
Orographic lift happens when air is forced upward by mountains or high terrain, cooling as it rises and often forming clouds, rain, or snow.
Blizzards
Blizzards are dangerous winter storms defined by strong winds and very low visibility in falling or blowing snow, not simply by how much snow falls.
Derecho
A derecho is a widespread, long-lived windstorm produced by fast-moving thunderstorms, known for long swaths of damaging straight-line winds.
Bomb cyclone
A bomb cyclone is a midlatitude storm that rapidly intensifies through bombogenesis, often bringing strong winds, heavy precipitation, coastal flooding, or blizzard conditions.
Heat dome
A heat dome is a persistent high-pressure pattern that traps and intensifies hot air near the surface, often producing dangerous multi-day heat waves.
Polar vortex
The polar vortex is a large circulation of cold, low-pressure air near the poles, strongest in winter and sometimes linked to outbreaks of Arctic air farther south.
El Nino-Southern Oscillation
The El Nino-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, is a recurring climate pattern in the tropical Pacific that shifts ocean temperatures, trade winds, rainfall, and weather risks around the world.
Heat index
The heat index combines air temperature and relative humidity to estimate how hot conditions feel to the human body in the shade.
Wet-bulb temperature
Wet-bulb temperature measures how much evaporation can cool air, making it a key way to understand humidity, heat stress, and limits on human cooling.
Lake-effect snow
Lake-effect snow forms when cold air moves over warmer open water, gathers moisture and heat, then drops narrow bands of heavy snow downwind.
Rain shadow
A rain shadow is a dry region on the downwind side of mountains, created when moist air loses much of its water on the windward slopes.
Trade winds
Trade winds are persistent easterly winds in the tropics that blow toward the equator, shaping ocean currents, rainfall zones, sailing routes, and tropical weather.
Jet stream
The jet stream is a fast, narrow band of winds high in the atmosphere that helps steer storms, shape temperature patterns, and influence flight routes.
Atmospheric rivers
Atmospheric rivers are long, narrow corridors of water vapor that move through the atmosphere and can deliver major rain or snow when they reach land.
Ecological succession
Ecological succession is the gradual change in species and ecosystem structure after new habitat forms or after disturbance reshapes an existing community.
Evapotranspiration
Evapotranspiration is the combined movement of water from land to the atmosphere through evaporation and plant transpiration. It connects soil moisture, vegetation, irrigation, drought, weather, and climate because it moves both water and energy through landscapes.
Savanna
A savanna is a grass-dominated ecosystem with scattered trees or shrubs, shaped by seasonal rainfall, fire, grazing, soils, and climate. Savannas occur in Africa, South America, Australia, Asia, and other regions, supporting distinctive wildlife, livelihoods, and land-management challenges.
Desertification
Desertification is land degradation in arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid areas, driven by climate variations and human activities. It reduces soil productivity, vegetation cover, water security, biodiversity, and livelihoods, but it is not simply the spread of existing deserts.
Food web
A food web is a network of feeding relationships in an ecosystem. It shows how energy and matter move among producers, consumers, decomposers, predators, prey, parasites, scavengers, and detritus pathways rather than through a single simple food chain.
Tundra
Tundra is a cold, mostly treeless biome found in high-latitude Arctic regions and high mountain environments. Short growing seasons, low temperatures, wind, frozen ground, and slow nutrient cycling shape its plants, animals, soils, and vulnerability to climate change.
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