LOUISVILLE, Ky. — As meteorologists, we often focus on precipitation. we all want to know when it’s going to rain. However, that’s just one part of the water cycle. since it is a cycle we could start anywhere, but let’s take a trip to the ocean to get started.
The sun, which drives the water cycle, heats the water in the oceans. some of the water molecules have enough energy to break away and evaporate as water vapor into the atmosphere.
The water vapor rises into air where cooler temperatures cause it to cool and condense into clouds, that’s step two. eventually, the water droplets in the cloud collide and become large enough to fall out of the cloud as rain droplets we call that precipitation.
Most of the precipitation either fall back into the ocean, or onto land, where gravity helps it flow through river, creeks, and streams back into the ocean we call that collection.
The water cycle is what the weather is all about here on earth! that is your weather wise lesson for today.
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