What is the Difference Between Weather and Climate?

Weather involves daily weather conditions in the atmosphere, precipitation, wind speed, air pressure and other factors. So, weather is involving the daily conditions of things such as temperature, precipitation, how much snow, sleet or hail we get, the wind speed and direction, the air pressure, any kind of weather-related things but on a daily basis.

Weather focuses on the short-term meaning what conditions will be like today, tomorrow or over the next few days. Now, climate collects and stores information about daily and yearly weather conditions in a region over a long period of time.

Climate takes into account average monthly and yearly temperatures, average precipitation over long periods of time and the average season – the average growing season of an area. So climate is going to focus on the long-term. What conditions will be like from year to year or during months or seasons. Climate is not going to talk about what happens today or tomorrow, it’s going to be telling you in general in August, the weather is like this. In general, this area of the world, receives this many inches of rain. It’s not going to take into account – it’s going to take into account the day-to-day weather events but it’s not going to be predicting day-to-day events for you. So weather is short-term. It’s more about what’s going to be today, tomorrow or the next day. Climate is long-term. What the weather is going to be like in a specific area during a specific time of the year, a specific season or month. It can’t predict down to the very day what temperatures will be like, but it can tell you on average what things will be like over a span of days. So climate is used to project more long-term, more big-picture weather ideas.

The weather and climate are both physical systems that affect geography. However, though they deal with similar information, that information is measured, compiled and analyzed differently.

So just remember, weather is going to involve the more day-to-day events dealing with temperature, precipitation, wind speed, air pressure – anything weather related – and going to be weather if it’s short-term. If it’s happening today, tomorrow – in a ten-day forecast. Climate is going to be more long-term. Is it going to happen this way every season, every year during the winter? Is it going to be about this temperature? Is our growing season always going to be about this long? Will it always be sunny during this time or light during this time or dark during this time?

So the climate is going to focus more on long-term where weather is going to focus more on short-term day-to-day.