The science of weather is both simple and hard – we know the physics, but the vastness of it all means errors abound.
The atmosphere is a huge beast. The bit that most of our weather happens in is just the lowest level, but even that stretches from the surface up to about 10–15 kilometres high, shaped by a complex dance of air of differing pressure, heat and water vapour content.
But perhaps the biggest hurdle of all to understanding weather is the lingo.
Unlike other disciplines, everyone knew about weather long before we decided to figure out how it worked, so the words to describe it were already a part of everyday life. Formalising that language seemed like the only way forward.
I’m talking bland words like “fine” (no rain) and sensual words like “sultry” (hot and humid), ominous terms like “oppressive” (hot with no wind) and the downright curious “haboob” (an intense dust storm). These have been part of the forecaster’s vernacular for as long as anyone can remember.
But new weather needs new words. Now that we’re seeing increasingly odd and often record-breaking weather events in a warmer climate, language is adjusting to try to make sense of it all.
As is the case in every field of science, meteorologists talk in jargon. Weather-affected people (that's everyone in the
