Advisory

A forecast issued by the National Weather Service to highlight conditions that require caution, but are not thought to be immediately life threatening.

Meteor

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It’s a shooting star. The brief streak of light as an object from space plunges into the Earth's atmosphere.

Meteorologist

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A scientist who studies and predicts the weather. they use sophisticated equipment, like Doppler radar and supercomputers, but they also rely on old-fashioned sky watching.

Monsoon

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Ozone

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A form of oxygen that has a weak chlorine odor. It heats the upper atmosphere by absorbing ultraviolet from sunlight. In the troposphere, it is a pollutant, but in the stratosphere it filters out harmful ultraviolet radiation.

Precipitation

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General name for water in any form falling from clouds. This includes rain, drizzle, hail, snow and sleet. Although, dew, frost and fog are not considered to be it.

Radar

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An electronic instrument, which determines the direction and distance of objects that, reflect radio energy back to the radar site. This is what meteorologists use to see rain or snow.

Rain Gauge

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An instrument used to measure the amount of rain that has fallen. Measurement is done in hundredths of inches (0.01").

A storm with winds of 58 mph or greater and/or with hail ¾ inch in diameter or larger.

It’s issued to warn the public, emergency management, and other cooperating agencies when a severe thunderstorm is forecast to occur or is occurring. The warning will include where the storm was occurring, its direction of movement and the primary threat from the storm.

It’s issued when conditions are favorable for the development of severe thunderstorms.

- Its any kind of destructive or life-threatening weather event. Thunderstorms that can be destructive, while tornadoes, high winds, hail, excessive rainfall and lightning can be life threatening.

Sleet

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A boundary between two air masses that more or less doesn’t move, but some  fronts can wobble back and forth for several hundred miles a day.

A storm produced by a cumulonimbus cloud and always has lightning and thunder. Rain, hail and high winds may or may not occur.

Tornado

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It begins as a funnel cloud with spinning columns of air that drop down from a severe thunderstorm. When they reach the ground they become tornadoes. They  are between 300 and 2,000 feet wide and travel at speeds of 20 to 45 miles per hour. They usually only last a few minutes, but their spinning winds, up to 300 miles per hour, can lift houses into the air and rip trees from the ground.

It’s issued when conditions are favorable for the development of tornadoes.

It’s a low-pressure disturbance that forms over warm tropical ocean waters and produces winds of 38 m.p.h. or less.

A Japanese term for an unusually large ocean wave caused by undersea earthquake, landslide, or volcanic eruption. Only a few inches high in the open ocean, tsunamis steepen and rise in shallow water and can reach heights of 200 feet.

Typhoon

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A hurricane in the western Pacific Ocean.

The boundary between two air masses, one cool and the other warm, moving so that the warmer air replaces the cooler air.

It’s a gas in the atmosphere. There is very little of it in the air. Water vapor is only 1 to 4% of the atmosphere, but without it we would have no clouds, rain, or snow. Water vapor is one of the greenhouse gases, which help to trap the earth's heat.

It’s issued when hazardous winter weather is occurring or is likely over a specific area. Hazardous winter weather includes heavy snows, blizzards, ice storms, freezing rain, freezing drizzle and sleet.