Weather and Climate Quiz

Questions

1. What is a haboob?

2. What is minus 40 degrees Farenheit expressed as degrees Centigrade?

3. What number does 'storm' equate to on the Beaufort Scale of wind force?

4. The heaviest recorded hailstones weighed (approximately) 25gms, 100gms, 500gms or 1kg?

5. What type of cloud is normally associated with thunderstorms?

6. What is the most common gas in the earth's atmosphere?

7. In the Northern hemisphere an area of low pressure produces what wind direction?

8. The 'Inter-tropical Convergence Zone', where the trade winds meet near the equator to produce a band of relatively very still air, which can strand sailing ships, is known more prosaically as what?

9. (Aside from a back and a front) how many sides or points does every snowflake have?

10. What cloud term means 'sheet' or 'sheetlike' or 'layer'?

11. Towards which direction (North, East, South or West) is a rainbow normally seen in the afternoon?

12. What was the name of the 1992 hurricane storm which caused massive damage to the Bahamas, Florida and Louisiana?

13. What is the 'ology' term for the study or science of the weather (that's short-term weather systems and effects, not long-term climatology)?

14. What is the unit of measurement of wind speed?

15. What are the narrow bands of strong winds called which move around the world between about six and twelve miles high?

16. What is the childlike name given to the significant weather activity linked to sea temperature rise in the Pacific Ocean?

17. Which one of these revolving weather systems is the smallest - hurricane, typhoon, tropical cyclone, tornado?

18. What's the more exotic name of the 'Northern Lights' visible under certain conditions in the Northern Hemisphere night sky?

19. What is the circulating Atlantic ocean current which warms Western Europe?

20. What were all girls from 1953 to 1979, and thereafter alternating boys and girls?

21. What wind speed limit applies for setting athletics sprinting and jumping records?

22. What is O3 (O followed by the number 3, usually shown in sub-script)?

23. What common term refers to the movement of air from a high pressure to a low pressure zone?

24. What shipping forecast area lies immediately South of Forties off the British Isles?

25. Treasure Island author Robert Louis Stevenson's father was responsible for what significant weather-related invention?

26. What common term refers to the amount of water vapour that is held in the air?

27. Okta is a unit of measurement of what?

28. Who invented the mercury thermometer?

29. What colour of a single rainbow is on the inside of the rainbow's arc, given the generally defined seven-colour rainbow?

30. What is the line on a weather chart which joins points of equal pressure?

31. Aside of the amusing reference popularized by Frank Zappa, what is the usual cause of a large-scale 'yellow snow' weather effect seen in certain parts of the world?