Weathering

Sometimes, I am a gentle whisper that tickles the leaves on the trees, a soft sigh that cools your skin on a hot afternoon. Other times, I am a booming roar that rattles windowpanes and sends animals scurrying for cover. I am an artist. I paint the sky with the fiery oranges and deep purples of a sunrise, and I also paint it with the dramatic, swirling grays of an approaching storm. I can deliver a soft, silent blanket of snow that hushes the entire world, or a tapping, rhythmic rain on your rooftop that lulls you to sleep. I am the reason you might wear shorts and sandals one day, celebrating the sun's warmth, and a heavy coat and boots the next, bracing against a biting wind. Have you ever looked up at the clouds racing across the sky, felt a sudden chill in the air, or watched a thunderstorm light up the night and wondered who, or what, is in charge of it all? That’s me. I am Weather, and I am everywhere, in every moment, all around you.

For most of human history, people looked at me with a mixture of awe and fear. They were brilliant observers, noticing that the flight patterns of birds or the curling of certain leaves could offer clues about my next move. To explain my more dramatic moods, they wove incredible stories and myths. They imagined powerful gods hurling lightning bolts from mountain tops and gentle goddesses coaxing crops from the earth with life-giving rain. These stories were their way of making sense of my power. But then, a new kind of curiosity began to bubble up. Instead of just telling stories about me, people wanted to understand my language. They wanted to measure me. They developed thermometers to know precisely how much warmth I was sharing. Then, in 1643, a brilliant Italian scientist named Evangelista Torricelli did something remarkable. He invented the barometer, a device that could measure my pressure—the invisible weight of the air. He showed that when my pressure was high, I was often calm and clear, but when it dropped, I was likely brewing a storm. For the first time, it felt like someone was truly listening to what I had to say, translating my subtle sighs and shifts into numbers they could understand.

Once humans could measure me, they wanted to talk about me, but they needed a common language. That’s where a thoughtful amateur meteorologist named Luke Howard came in. In 1802, he looked up at the sky and gave my beautiful, floating children their family names. He called the puffy, cotton-like ones ‘cumulus,’ the flat, layered sheets ‘stratus,’ and the thin, wispy streaks ‘cirrus.’ Suddenly, a person in London and a person in Paris could look at the sky and describe the exact same masterpiece I was creating. The next great leap was even more astounding. With the invention of the telegraph in the 1840s, information could finally travel faster than I could. A storm report from a city hundreds of miles away could arrive long before my winds and rains did, giving people precious time to prepare. This breakthrough led to the first weather maps, where my movements were tracked like a great journey across the land. To organize this effort, formal groups were created, like the U.S. Weather Bureau in 1870, with people dedicated to studying my every mood. They sent weather balloons high into the atmosphere to take my temperature and check my winds. But their greatest view of me came on April 1st, 1960, when they launched TIROS-1, the first successful weather satellite. For the very first time, humanity saw me from space—a breathtaking swirl of clouds over the vast blue planet. They could see my full power and grace in a single image.

Today, my story is more intertwined with yours than ever before. I influence the food you eat, helping farmers decide when to plant and harvest their crops. I help create the energy that powers your homes through the steady push of my wind and the brilliant light of the sun. Our relationship is changing, and you are learning how much your actions affect my balance. As the planet warms, my patterns can become more intense and unpredictable. But this challenge has also sparked incredible innovation and a deeper understanding. You are learning how to work with me, to harness my clean energy, and to protect the delicate systems that keep me in harmony. I am a constant, powerful, and beautiful force of nature. I will always be here, painting the skies and shaping the land. By staying curious, observant, and respectful, you can be a part of our ongoing story—the story of understanding and caring for our amazing world. So go on, look out the window. What am I up to today?