Download Weather booklet - Powerhouse Museum

Find the tipping bucket rain gauge. What
does the Bureau of Meteorology use these to
measure?
A. How much _
_ _ _ falls in an h _ _ r
Now it’s your turn
Use our weather instruments carefully to find
and record data for today’s date
__/__/____
1. The temperature now is: ____________
Look through the cutaway
side. Does this remind you
of a piece of playground
equipment?
(Hint: it needs weight at both ends
to keep working!)
°C
2. Is the temperature now the same as on the
signal mast? Your teacher can help.
______________________________________
______________________________________
3. Barometers measure the
atmospheric pressure (see
page 7). The atmospheric
pressure today is:
______________hPa
The rain gauge has two buckets with each holding
0.2mm of rain, so that as one bucket empties, the
other is ready to be filled. This means it keeps
tipping from side to side and doesn’t stop as long
as it’s raining.
4. The amount of precipitation, or rain, can
be measured in many different types of rain
gauge. How much rain has fallen?
______________mm.
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The Sun
The Sun is the powerhouse behind the
weather on every planet in our Solar
System.
Heat energy from the
Sun causes air to heat
and rise. As air cools, it
falls.
Old and new
Old: If you visit the nearby
Bureau of Meteorology’s
instrument enclosure you
will see where Sydney’s
weather measurements
have been taken since
1858.
Why do you think there
are there several of each
type of rain gauge?
The never-ending
movement of air called
w_ _ _
causes the
weather we experience
every day across the
entire planet.
What is measured at this site?
Did you know? Some winds even have names! Zephyr,
mistral and zonda are just a few. Can you find any others?
Back at school
Look up the Beaufort scale on the web. What does it
measure and why is it useful?
5
Wind is no longer measured here. Can you think
of a good site to measure wind?
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5. A wind vane tells us
which direction the wind
is blowing from. Today
the wind is blowing from
the
_______________
6. Look at the flags on the flag staff. Which
direction are they blowing?
______________
In the exhibition
Find the exhibit called ‘What was the weather?’
It will tell you what the weather was like on the
day you were born!
When were you born?
__/__/____
Record the data below
°C
°C
Maximum temperature:
7 . Do the flags point in the same direction or
opposite direction to the wind vane? Discuss
back at school.
__________________________________________
6. An anemometer
measures wind speed.
The current average wind
speed is?
______________ km/hr.
Minimum temperature:
Rainfall:
mm
Did you know? Sydney’s hottest recorded day
was 45.8 C on 18 January 2013. The hottest
day ever recorded in the world was in Death
Valley, USA, in 1913 at a scorching 56.7 C.
°
°
Back at school
• Can you find who had the hottest birthday,
the coldest and the wettest.
• Perhaps your teacher can help make a pie
graph of wet and dry birthdays.
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10
New: Look at the block with red lights on top
of the Westpac building. It is a barometer
which measures atmospheric pressure. When
lit, are there a lot of lights (HIGH pressure) or
just a few (LOW pressure)?
___________________________________________
Did you know? As a very loose rule, high pressure
often brings stable weather and low pressure
brings unsettled weather.
Indigenous weather symbols
and words
Some Indigenous groups use symbols in art to describe the
weather.
The Bureau of Meteorology also uses symbols to describe
the weather.
Eora weather words
Are the lights moving up or down? Circle your
observation.
• Rising pressure so it will
probably be clear later
• Falling pressure so it will
probably cloudy later
Back at school the next day. Was there a
change in the weather and did the barometer
“predict’ it correctly?
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Yes / No
The Gadigal people of the Eora nation are the traditional
custodians of the land upon which Sydney Observatory was
built in 1858.
Eora
Buruwa
Mungi
Murungal
Guruwilang
Bamal
Barabung
Guruny
Walan yilaba
Bidiluray
English
Cloud
Lightning
Thunder
Hail
Earth
Dew
Fog
Heavy rain
Fine weather
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Australia’s first weather map
7. The relative humidity is a measure of how
much water vapour is in the air. 100% humidity
occurs in fog. When the humidity is low we can
feel small electric shocks that build up on some
carpets and clothes. This can be a problem for
computers and other electronic devices.
Whirling hygrometer
Dry Bulb
Wet Bulb
This is Australia’s first European weather map. It was
created by Henry Chamberlain Russell, the third
government astronomer at Sydney Observatory.
Can you find an image of this weather map in the
exhibition?
What year was this weather map made?
____
Back at School go to www.bom.gov.au and find a
modern weather map for Sydney called a Mean Sea
Level Pressure Map. Have the maps changed much?
°C
b. Wet bulb temp ________ °C
a. Dry bulb temp
c. Now subtract the wet temp (b) from the
dry temp (a)
C
°
d. With the teacher’s help, use the table
supplied to find the relative humidity.
_____________
%
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14
Indigenous weather
Weather spelling list
The Indigenous people of Australia have evolved
cultures that incorporate the environment into
their life including climate change, plant life,
animal behaviour and movement of the stars.
weather, meteorology, bureau, isobar, barometer,
rain, storm, cyclone, gauge, observatory, humidity,
drought, wind, climate, temperature, atmosphere,
hail, front, trough, Beaufort, zephyr, hygrometer.
For more than 40 000 years they have had to
cope with the extremes of weather including
thousands of years of winter during the last ice
age, droughts, fire and flood.
Back at school
Each Indigenous group have their own unique
story of the weather based on observation and
an unrivalled connection with nature.
Watch the weather report on the news
tonight. Look for a weather map. Draw some
of the main features on your own map
below.
Date:
Indigenous Nations of Australia
Courtesy NSW Department of Education and Training
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20
8 . The UV index tells us how much Ultra-Violet
radiation is coming from the Sun. This can tell us
how quickly we can get
sunburnt.
The weather map
We measure this using
a UV index meter.
smooth line, called an I _ _ _ _ _ , to make a
closed loop called a CELL. If the pressure in the
centre of the cell is lower than the outside it is a
LOW pressure cell. If the centre of the cell has a
higher pressure than the outside is it a HIGH
pressure cell.
Write the current UV
index in the blank
space on the meter.
Below is a weather map of NSW. The numbers
represent the atmospheric pressure.
Activity - Join values of equal pressure with a
The UV index is a scale used to tell people how to protect
themselves from the Sun’s harmful ultraviolet radiation.
0 – 2 Low. No protection required.
3 – 5 Moderate
6 – 7 High
8 – 10 Very high. Avoid the midday sun.
What type of
cell is this?
High or Low
pressure?
11+ Extreme. Stay in the shade where possible.
Remember to always Slip, slop, slap, seek and slide!
Remember the air in a ‘low’ is falling and the air
in a ‘high’ is rising.
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Weather poem
Hear is a poem about weather, it is a verse
from My Country by Dorothea Mackellar.
What is the difference between
weather and climate?
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror The wide brown land for me!
The Earth is surrounded by a thin layer of gas
called the atmosphere.
atmosphere
Weather is the local condition of the atmosphere
at a given time.
Climate is the long-term average of conditions
that exist in the atmosphere.
Can you write your own weather poem?
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2
Clouds
Atmospheric pressure
Atmospheric
pressure is a
measure of how
strongly the air is
pushing down on
the ground.
Air that has been
heated by the Sun
will rise, spread
out and then cool
and fall back to the
ground.
Where the air is r _ s _ _ g it is an area of
_ _ _ pressure; where the air is f _ _ _ _ _
it is an area of _ _ _ _ pressure.
Clouds are made of tiny drops of water and ice
that are so small they are carried by the wind.
What does the sky look like now?
overcast/
rainy
cloudy
mostly sunny
sunny
_
You may not have heard of air pressure before
but you definitely will have felt it. Travelling in a
car, a lift or a plane as they get higher you may
sometimes feel your ears ‘pop’. This is because
the air pressure as you go up is lower and your
ears try to adjust to the change.
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Why study weather at
Sydney Observatory?
European meteorology, or the study of weather,
began in Australia on 14 September 1788 when
the First Fleet’s Lieutenant Dawes set up an
observatory to look for a comet and to start
regular weather observations.
Sydney Observatory, built in 1858, became the
centre of weather studies until the Bureau of
Meteorology began work in 1908. In 1922 the
bureau moved to their purpose-built office
nearby, as seen on the cover.
Challenge
You saw some examples in the Observatory
today of ways to collect data about the
weather.
Can you design you own equipment to
measure the weather? Let your imagination
go wild!
Reconstructed view of
William Dawes’ observatory
by R Bashford
Web research
On which ship did Dawes come to Australia?
(Hint: it shares its name with the brightest star in the night
sky.)
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Calibration
(Optional viewing of the Sun)
You might have
noticed that
sometimes you got a
different reading to
your classmates.
Two of the same
instruments can
sometimes give us
two different readings. This means that
instruments require an accuracy check or
calibration.
calibration .
We can use a telescope fitted with a solar filter to look
at the sun. Sometimes we can see sunspots and huge
‘flame-like’ structures called prominences and flares.
Look through the telescope and carefully record what
you see. If it’s too cloudy visit www.spaceweather.com
to see an image of the Sun from a space telescope.
Calibrate Your Thermometer
My temperature reading:
Date:____________
Sun
Earth
°C
Actual temperature as measured by the
Observatory’s digital thermometer:
This means I need to add/subtract
from my readings.
°C
°C
Sample sketch
E.g. If your thermometer reads a temperature
two degrees higher than the actual temperature,
you must subtract two from all of your readings
in order to get the accurate result.
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Sydney Observatory
Sydney Observatory is open every day
(except Christmas Day and Good Friday)
between 10 am and 5 pm. Admission to the
heritage building and grounds is free.
Measuring the
weather
Telescope, 3-D Space Theatre and
planetarium tours every day and night except
Sunday nights. Please visit our website.
Bookings are essential for night tours.
Admission fees and Powerhouse Member
discounts apply.
Prepayment is required for all booked activities.
Bookings (02) 9921 3485
www.sydneyobservatory.com.au
Name:
Measuring the weather is supported by
Don’t forget to bring your book to Sydney Observatory