Weather Forecasting quiz

More questions about Weather Forecasting

These visible examples show the question style. LearnClash turns the full topic into ranked duels and spaced repetition.

1. 1 Easy

   What sets a hurricane's category from 1 to 5?

   Answer: Wind speed

   Why: The 1 to 5 scale leaves out storm surge, rainfall flooding and tornadoes, other hazards that can be deadly.

2. 2 Medium

   What is a set of forecasts run from slightly varied starts called?

   Answer: Ensemble

   Why: When the runs stay bunched together the forecast is confident; when they fan out, the weather is less predictable.

3. 3 Hard

   Why do some clouds look brightest on infrared satellite images?

   Answer: Very cold tops

   Why: Low clouds can be so close to the ground's temperature that infrared images cannot show them at all.

4. 4 Easy

   What shape marks a cold front on a weather map?

   Answer: Triangles

   Why: Warm fronts get red semicircles instead, and a cold front's triangles point the way it is moving.

5. 5 Medium

   Which machine ran the first computer weather forecasts in 1950?

   Answer: ENIAC

   Why: Each 24-hour forecast took ENIAC about 24 hours to compute, barely keeping pace with the weather.

6. 6 Hard

   What do models blend fresh observations with to start a forecast?

   Answer: A short-range forecast

   Why: The short-range forecast already knows a lot, so data assimilation only adjusts it slightly to match the latest observations.