As much as you think you know about the weather and climate, there may still be a few interesting and important facts you are not aware of or may have misunderstood.

After years or even decades of closely following weather reports and discussing them with friends and family, you may already have a good grasp of its general behavior and the atmospheric conditions that characterize it.

Unfortunately, there are quite a few myths and misconceptions that stubbornly keep doing the rounds in modern culture, as well as some essential weather facts that don’t get emphasized enough. We address a few of these important facts in the following list.

The following list describes some interesting as well as crucial facts about the weather that you may already know, while others might be misconceptions or myths that are so widely accepted that you will be surprised to learn the truth:

Extreme Weather

1. Commonwealth Bay, Antarctica, Is The Windiest Place In The world

2. Mawsynram, India, Has The Highest Rainfall On The Planet.

3. The Highest Temperature Ever Recorded Was In Death Valley, USA

4. Antarctica Is The Largest Desert In The World

5. The Entire Length Of The Mississippi River Froze Over In 1899

Weather Science (Quick Insights)

6. Wind Blows From Areas Of High To Low Pressure

7. The Average Speed Of A Raindrop Is 9 Meters (29.6 feet) Per Second

8. One Billion Tons Of Rain Falls On The Planet Every Minute

9. Snowflakes Can Take Up To An Hour To Reach The Earth

10. The Air Is 78 Percent Nitrogen

11. Climate Is What You Expect, Weather Is What You Get

12. Antarctica Is Completely Covered By A Glacier

13. Why Hurricanes Have Female Names

Myths & Misconceptions

14. Lightning Can Strike Twice

15. A Raindrop Is Not Tear-Shaped

16. Hurricanes And Typhoons Are The Same Types Of Storm

17. Tornadoes And Waterspouts Are The Same Weather Phenomena

Weather Reality & Safety

18. Lightning Strikes The Earth’s Surface 100 Times Per Second

19. Ozone Is Hazardous To Your Health

20. A Warm Front Can Cause Rain

21. Flood Water Is Deceptively Dangerous

With these 21 facts listed, we can now take a close look at each one to get a better understanding of what it means as well as its possible implications.

The windiest place in the world is also one of the coldest. With winds reaching an average annual wind speed of 80 km/h (50 mph), Commonwealth Bay in Antarctica holds the record for the windiest location on the planet.

Wind gusts also regularly exceed 241 km/h (150 mph) in this region, and the windiest hour here was recorded on 6 July 1930 at Cape Denison with a speed of 153 km/h (95 mph).

You can read more about the windiest places on the planet in this article.

Although many regions around the world occasionally experience periods of heavy rains or sometimes even microbursts, there are a few locations whose average annual rainfall is so high that it almost defies belief.

Mawsynram, a small village in the district of Meghalaya, India, is the rainiest place in the world, with an average annual rainfall of 11 871 mm (467 inches).

You can find a list of the 12 rainiest cities and towns in the world in this article.

Locations around the world are recording increasingly high temperatures, especially in recent years, as global warming is causing a steady rise in temperatures around the planet.

However, the highest temperature ever recorded occurred in Death Valley, USA, on 10 July 1913 when the mercury rose to 56.7 °C (134.1 °F)

With a surface area of 14.2 million square kilometers (5.5 million square miles), Antarctica is the largest desert in the world.

This fact will definitely come as a surprise to most readers since it is hard to imagine a continent entirely covered by ice being seen as a desert.

However, a desert is defined by the amount of rainfall it receives, which must be less than 250 mm (15.26 inches) per year to be considered a desert. With an annual rainfall of less than 200 mm (7.87 inches), Antarctica is the largest desert in the world.

If you are interested in finding out more about the desert climate and its characteristics, you can read about it in this article.

The southern state of Louisiana in the United States is not exactly known for its freezing cold winters or icy conditions. However, this all changed in February 1899.

New Orleans experienced 3-4 inches of snow during this period. But that was just the beginning. The entire length of the Mississippi River froze over all the way to the Gulf of Mexico and even extended partially into the Gulf.

This may have been a freak occurrence or a once-off event, but don’t be too surprised if something similar happens in the near future, as climate change is impacting weather patterns across the world.

Low and high-pressure systems are what create the majority of winds, and they always flow from areas of high to low pressure.

The best way to describe it is to use the analogy of a party balloon. As you blow it up, air fills the balloon, and the pressure inside also starts to build. When it is fully inflated, the air pressure inside the balloon is much higher than that on the outside.

As soon as you open a hole in the balloon, the air immediately rushes out to equalize the pressure inside and outside. Wind acts exactly the same way as it flows from a high-pressure to a low-pressure region.

Different types of precipitation fall at different speeds towards the ground, depending on size, density, and weight. For example, a snowflake falls more slowly than a raindrop, which in turn falls more slowly than larger hailstones.

Raindrops, the most common type of precipitation, fall at an average speed of 9 meters (29.6 feet) per second or approximately 20 mph.

Elsewhere in this article, we discuss various aspects of rainfall, including the naming of the rainiest place in the world. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that a lot of rain falls on the planet’s surface every day.

What might be surprising, though, is precisely how much rain actually falls. Every minute, one billion tons of rain reaches the planet’s surface.

From all the different types of precipitation, snowflakes take the longest to reach the Earth’s surface. It is not uncommon to observe them almost floating in the air or being blown around by a gentle breeze.

In fact, depending on atmospheric conditions, it can take up to an hour for snowflakes to reach the planet’s surface.

Since all living organisms (except a small aquatic parasite called Henneguya salminicola) need oxygen to survive, it is only logical and understandable to think that the air we breathe mostly consists of oxygen.

Surprisingly, though, only 21 percent of the air in the troposphere* is made up of oxygen. The vast majority of the air we breathe consists of nitrogen, which makes up 78 percent of the air in the atmosphere.

*The lowest layer of the atmosphere in which all life exists.

This statement is basically the very definition of the primary difference between weather and climate. (It is very easy to confuse the two, which often leads to many misunderstandings and debates.)

Climate is the average weather conditions that are expected during a specific part of the year or season, calculated over a period of at least 30 years. Weather, on the other hand, is the specific atmospheric conditions at a particular location at any given time.

For example, the climate may dictate that a day in the middle of summer will be warm and sunny. On one particular summer’s day, though, the weather can be cloudy and rainy, with temperatures dropping below 15 °C (59 °F).

Read more about the difference between weather and climate in this article.

It may be hard to believe that a single glacier entirely covers a continent with a surface area of 14.2 million square kilometers (5.5 million square miles). However, Antarctica is completely covered by a continental glacier.

In 1950, the United States National Hurricane Center initiated a system for using the phonetic alphabet to name hurricanes and tropical storms after realizing that human names are easier to remember than latitude-longitude coordinates.

In 1953, the National Weather Service revised the system to name hurricanes after women to avoid repetitive naming. To avoid possible claims of sexism and discrimination, the system was changed again in 1978 to include both male and female names.

The practice of using female names dates back centuries and is rooted in maritime customs. In ancient times, sailors used to dedicate ships to goddesses, and in recent centuries, vessels were seen as mother figures by ships’ captains and mariners.

You can get more in-depth information describing the past and present use of hurricane names in this article.

One of the most common and dangerous myths is that lightning does not strike the same area twice in one thunderstorm. This misconception most probably arose from reassuring someone that a negative or dramatic event in their life will not occur again.

The popular tear-shaped form of a raindrop is so widely used that it is commonly viewed as the real shape of rain as it forms in a cloud after condensation.

In reality, a raindrop is spherical (round) in shape when it first develops as microdroplets cling together after they collide to form larger drops. As it starts to fall to the ground, air resistance forces its bottom to flatten out before it eventually changes shape completely.

The teardrop shape of a water droplet comes from the form it takes as it flows down a surface like a window, a person’s face, or a cold glass of liquid. Since most people see water drops in this form, they simply assume that this is the natural shape of rain.

Learn more about the shape of a raindrop in this article.

You may be getting confused when meteorologists talk about hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones during forecasts, but each refers to the same type of phenomenon seen on satellite images.

Well, your eyes are not deceiving you since hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones are all tropical storms that originate in the warm waters of the subtropics. They form in the same way and have exactly the same characteristics.

The only real difference between these weather phenomena is the location on the planet where they occur:

1. 1. The term “hurricane” is used when the storm occurs in the Central and Eastern North Pacific, as well as the North Atlantic.
   2. The term “typhoon” is used when it occurs in the Northwest Pacific Ocean.
   3. The term “tropical cyclone” is used when the storm occurs in the South Pacific and the Indian Ocean.

Even readers who know just a small amount about the weather and recent climate history most probably have heard about the hole in the ozone layer and how vital this gas is for our survival on this planet.

Situated about 15-30 km (9-18 miles) above the planet, ozone is responsible for absorbing the vast majority of dangerous ultraviolet (UV) rays that enter Earth’s atmosphere. Without it, life on Earth would not be possible.

The gas itself is toxic and can be deadly if any human comes in direct contact with it. If inhaled, ozone can lead to severe respiratory conditions and damage the lungs.

A common belief exists that a cold front is associated with cold and wet weather, while a warm front is more commonly associated with warm and dry weather.

One of the main reasons for this association is that a warm front is often linked to more stable atmospheric conditions, which are commonly associated with warmer and drier weather.

Although it doesn’t produce the same stormy wet weather that abruptly arrives as a cold front moves in, a warm front does create a gentler and more sustained form of rainfall when enough moisture is present in the air.

The softer but persistent rain is a result of the gentle slope on which the warm air rises on the back of the preceding cold air.

To get a better understanding of how a warm front develops and how it differs from a cold front, you can read more about the differences between the two in this article.