We're getting low, low, low, low, low, low, low

Today was all about weather and we learnt 2 new skills for you to utilise in your upcoming 1.4 skills exam.

Firstly, we looked at how to construct a climate graph. Climate graphs have a double axis and show both rainfall and temperature of a region over the course of a year. The average amount of rainfall (mm) per month is shown as blue, shaded in bars and the average temperature (C) is drawn as a red line graph with the points plotted in the middle of each column. When drawn, they should look like this...



We completed the climate graph for Mumbai on page 54 of your 1.4 Skills exercise book and then also wrote a couple of sentences to interpret what this climate graph shows. Things to include here would have been the average temperature range for the area (calculate this by taking the highest temperature and subtracting the lowest temperature from it) and looking at the season when it receives the most rainfall. Remember when writing about seasons that there are 4 seasons, each season lasts for 3 months, in NZ (the Southern hemisphere) summer starts at the beginning of December. Also, think about whether the area of your climate graph is in the Northern or Southern hemisphere as in the Northern hemisphere their seasons will be the opposite of ours.

Next up we looked at how to interpret weather maps by reading through page 46 and then completing the exercises on page 47 and 48. Important things to remember here were....




Low pressure systems: These are areas of low pressure and usually bring bad weather with high winds. Wind flows in a clockwise direction in a low pressure system, sometimes known as a cyclone or depression when the air pressure gets very low.

High pressure systems: These are areas of high pressure and usually bring stable weather with low winds. Wind flows in a anti-clockwise direction and these are sometimes known as an anti-cyclone.

Due to the difference in the way wind circulates in high and low pressure systems, this means you can figure out what the wind direction will be for a given place. Remember, wind direction is always written as the direction it is coming from. e.g. Southerly winds are cold because they have come from the South pole.

If you were one of the many that forgot their skills book today, please ensure it is packed into your bag and is brought to school on Thursday ready for our next lesson.

Things to look forward to on Thursday include: exam preparation (what is going to be in your September exams), what to bring to exams and some more mapping and graphing. See you then!