16.0 Weather

This startling sight is a tornado. It may be only a few hundred meters in diameter, but it’s a very powerful storm. Its circular winds can reach hundreds of kilometers per hour! The winds can turn cars into missiles and flatten entire towns.

Tornadoes are an extreme form of something that happens in the air around you all the time. They are a form of weather. Luckily, weather doesn’t consist only of extremes like tornadoes. In fact, most of the time, you probably don’t even notice the weather. Just what is weather? And what causes it? In this chapter, you’ll find out.