The Marine Society & Sea Cadets

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Understand what life is like at sea... without getting wet!

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Our role is to provide personal development opportunities and support in a maritime context for young people and professional seafarers from all the sea services.

Understanding the Weather Quick Facts

  • The difference between weather and climate is a measure of time. Weather is what conditions of the atmosphere are over a short period of time, and climate is how the atmosphere "behaves" over relatively long periods of time.

  • Meteorologists plot information collected about the weather on maps called synoptic charts. There are six main weather components that need to be recorded: temperature, precipitation, wind, air pressure, relative humidity and clouds.

  • Synoptic charts show weather information as symbols.

  • Fronts are the boundaries between air masses of different temperatures. Interestingly, the Earth’s rotation is very important to the formation of fronts. The rotation of the Earth causes the wind that would normally flow directly from one air mass to another, to, instead, maintain the air masses’ identity, as well as the “front” between the air mass.

  • It might not seem like it, but air has weight. In fact, anything that has mass also has weight. The fact that you can feel the wind against you means air has mass.

  • Isobars are lines joining places of equal pressure on a synoptic chart and closely packed isobars mean low pressure and high wind speed.

  • Britain has a cool, temperate (without extremes of temperature), maritime climate.

  • Depressions or low-pressure weather systems that bring cloud, rain and wind. They form over the Atlantic where warm tropical air meets cold polar air and are responsible for the changeable, unsettled weather experienced by Britain over large parts of the year.
The Marine Society & Sea Cadets, 202 Lambeth Road, London SE1 7JW

tel: 020 7654 7000   fax: 020 7928 8914   email: info@ms-sc.org

Patron: HM The Queen
A charity registered in England and Wales 313013 and in Scotland SC037808.