What is weather?

Weather is the short-term state of the atmosphere at a given time and place, including temperature, humidity, and precipitation.

What is weather?
AI-generated image
The facts

Weather is the state of the Earth's atmosphere at a specific place and time, described by variables such as temperature, humidity, precipitation, wind, and cloud cover. It represents short-term atmospheric conditions, typically changing over minutes to days, and occurs mainly in the troposphere, the lowest layer of the atmosphere.

Weather differs from climate, which is the long-term average of weather patterns over extended periods, usually 30 years or more. While weather can vary rapidly, climate provides a broader picture of typical conditions for a region.

Weather is influenced by factors including air pressure, temperature gradients, moisture, and the Earth's rotation, which drive global wind patterns and storm systems. Local geography, such as mountains and bodies of water, also plays a significant role in shaping daily weather.

Answered by 100 of history's most famous minds

Jesus of Nazareth
Jesus of Nazareth c. 4 BC – AD 30/33 · Jewish teacher whose life founded Christianity

You ask of the sky's temper as if it mattered more than the condition of your own heart. The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike, and the wind blows where it wills - yet I tell you, not a single sparrow drops without your Father knowing. Consider the lilies: they toil not, yet are clothed in splendor greater than Solomon's. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and gone tomorrow, how much more will He care for you, O you of little faith? Fear not the clouds, but fear the hardness within - for what profits a man to predict the storm, yet ignore the ruin in his own soul?

Muhammad
Muhammad c. 570–632 · Prophet of Islam who united Arabia under one faith

The sky's shifting is but a sign of the Lord's power, who sends rain and drought, wind and stillness, as He wills, to remind you that you are not the master of your fate. The clouds are His servants, and the thunder His voice; even the gentlest breeze obeys Him. So when you ask of weather, ask rather: do you give thanks for the rain that waters your crops, and do you shelter the traveler caught in the storm? He who reads the sky but neglects his duty to his brother has learned nothing. The true forecast is of your deeds - for they are recorded, and the reckoning comes like a flood.

Gautama Buddha
Gautama Buddha c. 563–483 BC · Sage whose awakening founded Buddhism

When you see the rain fall and the wind shift, you cling to the hope of fair skies, yet the clinging itself is the storm within. Weather, like all phenomena, is impermanent - understand its arising and passing, and you will find peace beyond the changing seasons.

Moses
Moses c. 13th century BC (traditional) · Hebrew prophet and lawgiver of the Exodus

The sky is not yours to command, nor its seasons your servants. When the rain falls or the sun scorches, it is the voice of the One who led you through the sea and fed you in the wilderness. I have seen the cloud by day and the fire by night, and I tell you: you may measure the wind, but you cannot tame it. Obey the laws of your God, and He will send rain in its season; turn away, and the heavens become brass above you.

Confucius
Confucius 551–479 BC · Chinese sage of ethics, family, and social order

The weather is like the ruler's mood, ever changing and affecting all beneath. But a wise man does not curse the rain or the drought; he prepares his fields and his heart for what comes. Seek harmony with the seasons, for they are the rhythm of heaven and earth. The gentleman who understands this will not be tossed about by every wind, but will stand firm in propriety, like a great tree rooted in proper conduct.

Paul the Apostle
Paul the Apostle c. AD 5 – c. 64/67 · Apostle whose letters shaped Christian theology

You ask of weather, yet I tell you of a storm within. The tempest that beat upon the ship at sea is but a figure of the turbulence in every soul - until the One who calms the waves speaks peace. Do not fix your eyes on clouds that pass, but on the eternal sky that stands beyond, for even the heavens will be rolled up as a scroll, and only faith in the risen Christ shall endure the final gale. Let the rain fall as it will; it cannot wash away the sin that only the blood of the Lamb can cleanse.

Abraham
Abraham c. 2nd millennium BC (traditional) · Patriarch and father of the monotheistic faiths

I've walked through deserts where the sun burned like a furnace, and I've seen rain fall on parched ground like a blessing. Weather is the breath of the One who promised me a land and a legacy - sometimes fierce, sometimes gentle, but always in His hand. Trust the Maker of the seasons, and you'll find your way through any storm.

Laozi
Laozi 6th century BC (traditional) · Sage of the Tao and founder of Taoism

The sky breathes, and that breath is weather - but ask not for its name, for naming freezes the flowing stream. The soft rain falls without effort, the wind bends the tallest pine, and the wise farmer watches the clouds, not the calendar. To see weather truly, empty your cup and stand still; it will tell you all you need without a single word.

Guru Nanak
Guru Nanak 1469–1539 · Founder of Sikhism and first Sikh Guru

The weather is the One Creator's breath, moving over all lands alike - it knows no caste, no temple, no creed, and it falls on the just and the unjust with equal grace. When the rain comes, it does not ask if you are high-born or low; when the sun shines, it warms the king and the beggar side by side. So look to the sky and remember: the same sky covers all, and in its changing moods, we see the unity of the world He made.

Mary, Mother of Jesus
Mary, Mother of Jesus c. 1st century BC – 1st century AD · Mother of Jesus, venerated across Christianity and Islam

The weather is like the breath of God upon the earth, gentle as a mother's hand upon a fevered brow, and terrible as the storm that shook the night my child was born in a humble stable, yet in that cold and rain, there was the warmth of His promise. It is a mystery that we receive with open hands, knowing that the same clouds that bring sorrow to the field also water the seed of hope for the hungry. I have seen the sun break through the grayest sky, and I have learned to trust in the One who sends both the rain and the rainbow.

Martin Luther
Martin Luther 1483–1546 · Reformer whose theses sparked the Reformation

Ask what weather is? It is the breath of the Creator, who sends rain on the just and the unjust alike, and yet we sinners presume to read His mind in the clouds, as if a patch of blue or a rumble of thunder were a letter from heaven. Let us not be so bold: we are to trust in His Word, not in the shifting sky, for the weather, like all of creation, groans under the curse of our fall, and only the Gospel gives us firm ground beneath our feet when the tempest rages. Preach Christ crucified, and let the wind do as it will - that is the only forecast that matters for a sinner's soul.

Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas 1225–1274 · Theologian who fused faith with Aristotle's reason

Weather is the ordered motion of the elements, and I would ask: is it not the case that the heavens declare the glory of God, and the air itself is a servant of His providence, now bringing rain to the thirsty earth, now a gentle breeze to cool the traveler? Yet we must not confound the cause with the effect: the weather is not a random whim, but proceeds from the natural causes of heat and cold, moisture and dryness, all acting under the divine governance that sustains the universe. As the philosopher teaches, we must give each thing its due - to the meteorologist his measurements, to the farmer his seasons, and to God the praise for the order that binds them all.

Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa 1910–1997 · Nun who served the poorest and dying of Kolkata

Weather is but the changing garment of the sky, yet in it I see the hand of God who clothes the lilies and feeds the sparrows. When the rain falls on the streets of Calcutta, it washes the feet of the poorest and reminds us that we are all children of the same Father. It is not the weather itself that matters, but how we open our hearts to those who suffer in it.

Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton 1643–1727 · Physicist who unified motion and universal gravitation

Weather is but the outward motion of invisible yet measurable forces - the pressure of the air, the moisture it bears, the warmth imparted by the sun. I have observed how the winds follow the change in heat, and how vapors rise to form clouds and fall as rain, all by fixed laws. These are not accidents but the workings of a most artful Mechanism, whose principles may be laid bare by experiment and mathematics. He who studies the barometer and the thermometer reads the very pulse of the atmosphere, as one reads the clockwork of the heavens. Therein lies the true wonder: not the cloud itself, but the universal order that orders every cloud.

Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein 1879–1955 · Physicist who reframed space, time, and gravity

Look at the spinning top on a table: it trembles, tilts, and yet obeys the same unwritten law that holds the stars in their dance. Weather is but the local, fleeting chatter of that great cosmic order - the air's restlessness as it seeks balance, a brief whisper in the eternal conversation of the universe.

Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin 1809–1882 · Naturalist who discovered evolution by natural selection

Each gust and drop is a tiny experiment in a vast, ongoing process, shaped by endless causes as surely as beaks are shaped by seeds. Weather is the ever-changing canvas on which life's adaptations are painted, and I see in its restless variation the slow, grand work of natural law.

Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei 1564–1642 · Astronomer who championed the heliocentric universe

Weather is but the caprice of the air, a book written in the language of mathematics and read with the senses - if you bother to look. Those who quote ancient texts to explain the clouds are like men who stare at a sundial and deny the sun moves, because Aristotle said otherwise. I have looked through my tube and seen the moon's mountains, and I say: measure the wind, the rain, the pressure, and you will find nature's law, not a poet's fancy.

Nicolaus Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus 1473–1543 · Astronomer who placed the Sun at the center

Weather is but the churning of the lower air, the restless motion of the elements near our Earth. Yet it follows the same divine geometry that orders the heavens above. A storm is not chaos but a pattern, as regular in its causes as the turning of the spheres. Observe it long enough, and you will see the hand of the Creator in every gust and drop, just as I saw the Sun, not the Earth, at the center of all.

Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla 1856–1943 · Inventor who pioneered alternating current power

Weather is but a crude, erratic play of atmospheric forces - an intermingling of solar energy, moisture, and rotation that I would have long since tamed with a system of global wireless power. Imagine, if you will, a network of resonant coils that could dissipate storms before they gather, or draw down rain to thirsty fields at will. The sky is a machine of vast complexity, and I see no reason why man, with his genius, should not become its engineer. We have conquered the lightning; the clouds are next.

Marie Curie
Marie Curie 1867–1934 · Physicist and chemist who pioneered radioactivity

Weather is but a shifting pattern of physical states - temperature, pressure, moisture - obeying laws we can measure and predict. It is not unlike the phenomena I studied: hidden forces that reveal themselves through careful observation. So we must not fear the storm, but study it, for knowledge turns mystery into understanding.

Louis Pasteur
Louis Pasteur 1822–1895 · Chemist who founded germ theory and vaccination

Weather is but the atmosphere's laboratory, full of invisible seeds that sprout into rain or frost. I would not trust a poet's fancy but a barometer's needle and the careful records of a thousand observers. Let us gather data, test hypotheses, and soon we shall predict the heavens' moods as surely as we foresee the fermentation of a must - for chance favors the prepared mind, and preparation is our shield against the sky's caprice.

Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison 1847–1931 · Inventor of the practical light bulb and phonograph

Weather is a problem to be solved, and I've never met a problem that couldn't be beaten with sweat and a few thousand experiments. We've got telegraphs and steam engines - why not a machine that sees a storm coming or a way to make rain where it's dry? It's no miracle, just work: test, fail, adjust, and keep at it until the sky gives up its secrets. Give me a workshop and enough wire, and I'll make the weather a servant instead of a tyrant.

Alan Turing
Alan Turing 1912–1954 · Mathematician who founded computer science and AI

Weather is a computational problem of staggering complexity, a system whose current state can be described by a finite set of measurements - temperature, pressure, humidity, wind - but whose evolution defies exact prediction because it is chaotic, sensitive to the tiniest variation in initial conditions. One might imagine a machine, a universal computing device, that could take all such measurements as input and, by simulating the laws of physics step by step, print out tomorrow's conditions, yet even then, we would need to know every particle, which we cannot. So we are left with approximation, probability, and the humbling truth that Nature keeps a better account than any of our clever machines.

Archimedes
Archimedes c. 287–212 BC · Greek genius of mathematics and mechanics

Weather is but the agitation of that great sphere of air that surrounds our earth, a fluid like the sea, and its motions must obey the same principles of buoyancy and pressure that I have set forth in my treatise on floating bodies. Give me a thermometer, a barometer, and a way to measure the wind, and I could, in principle, calculate the state of the atmosphere at any point, for this is no mystery but a problem of mechanics, albeit one of great complexity. Yet I suspect that even I would find it easier to move the earth with a lever than to predict with certainty the path of a single gust of wind through a mountain pass.

Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday 1791–1867 · Self-taught pioneer of electromagnetism

You ask what weather is, and I answer: it is the visible wrestling of invisible forces - the breath of the air that turns a copper kettle's side to dew, that spins the vane on the church spire, that gathers its electric charge in the clouds as surely as my coils gather it from a magnet. It is but one face of that great unity of powers that binds the falling apple to the rising storm, and to study it is to read a page in the book of nature's God.

Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud 1856–1939 · Founder of psychoanalysis and the unconscious mind

You speak of weather, but I hear you speaking of the moods of the sky, and I wonder: is it not the same unconscious that projects its anxieties onto the heavens? The storm is not merely a storm - it is the repressed fury of a civilization that cannot bear its own turbulent desires. We call it meteorology to keep from seeing that we are describing the weather of the soul.

Stephen Hawking
Stephen Hawking 1942–2018 · Cosmologist who unveiled black holes and time

Weather is simply the chaotic churn of a thin film of gas on a small rock, a local turbulence in a universe that is mostly empty and mostly cold. It is a reminder that the laws of physics are indifferent, yet they allow for a brief, complex order that can ask why it rains. Forget the forecast - look to the stars, where the real weather is the fire of dying suns.

Ada Lovelace
Ada Lovelace 1815–1852 · Visionary of computing and the first algorithm

Weather is but the loom on which the atmosphere weaves its shifting patterns, a dance of numbers and forces that could, in principle, be captured in a calculating engine's gears and cards. If we could feed it the barometer's readings and the thermometer's whispers, we might predict the sky's moods as readily as we predict a table of logarithms. The sky, too, is a machine - and we are only beginning to read its program.

Euclid
Euclid c. 300 BC · Father of geometry and the axiomatic method

Weather is that which changes, and so it is not the proper object of certain knowledge. For geometry, we begin from fixed definitions and proceed by demonstration, but the sky's conditions lack such necessity. One may observe and describe, yet never prove what tomorrow's air will be. Let the meteorologist gather his observations; I will build my proofs on firmer ground.

Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale 1820–1910 · Founder of modern nursing and health statistics

Weather is the atmospheric condition that dictates the spread of miasma and disease, a variable we ignore at our peril. I have seen the cold damp of a poorly ventilated ward kill more than any bullet. It is a factor to be measured, charted, and obeyed - for in its patterns lie the laws of sanitation and the key to saving countless lives.

Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great 356–323 BC · Macedonian king who conquered the known world

Weather is the whim of the gods, a foe to be conquered like any other! In the high passes of the Hindu Kush, snow fell so thick my men froze in their tracks, and I laughed at the sky's fury, for I had seen worse. Rain slows the march, wind arrows the arrows, but what is that to a king who vowed to reach the ends of the earth? Let it storm - I shall ride through it! Wiser to ask how many leagues you can cover before the lightning strikes than to cower indoors, waiting for the clouds to part. The man who fears a shower will never cross a desert, nor win an empire.

Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar 100–44 BC · Roman general whose rise ended the Republic

A general reads the sky before he reads the map - know the wind's temper and the cloud's threat, and you win the day before the first sword is drawn. Weather is the battlefield's shifting mood, a force to calculate and command, for the man who masters it holds the fate of nations in his palm.

Cleopatra VII
Cleopatra VII 69–30 BC · Last pharaoh of Egypt and cunning stateswoman

The sky speaks to my grain ships on the Nile as surely as it speaks to my envoys in Rome. Isis veils her face in cloud and thunder, yet a wise queen reads her moods - when the flood swells, when the wind blows from the sea, when the harvest will come. You ask what weather is, but I tell you: it is the first ambassador, the one whose favor decides whether my people eat or starve, and whether I greet Caesar as friend or foe.

Augustus
Augustus 63 BC – AD 14 · First Roman emperor who founded the empire

Weather is like the moods of the mob - it shifts with the wind, yet a wise ruler watches its signs and prepares his granaries and fleets accordingly. I have seen a storm scatter my ships as surely as a rebellion scatters a legion, but I have also learned to read the sky's omens as I read the Senate's whispers. It is not the weather itself that matters, but how you steady your hand when it changes.

Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan c. 1162–1227 · Founder of the largest contiguous land empire

Weather is like the mood of the sky, and a wise khan learns to read it. In the steppe, a sudden storm can wipe out a herd or a man, so we pay it respect. But we do not sit and fear it - we pack our yurts, move our horses, and ride with the wind at our backs when it serves, and against it when we must. The sky is a general too, and he who knows its moves wins the battle.

Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon Bonaparte 1769–1821 · French emperor and military genius who reshaped Europe

Weather is a strategic terrain like any other - an ally or an enemy to be outflanked by will and preparation. At Austerlitz, the morning mist concealed my columns until the sun broke and blinded the enemy; that is how a commander uses the sky. Fools complain of rain or frost; I study them, plan for them, and turn them to advantage. A general who cannot read the clouds is no better than a conscript who cannot read a map. Master the elements, and the battles of the world will follow.

George Washington
George Washington 1732–1799 · Founding commander and first U.S. president

I have seen weather turn the tide of battle and the fate of nations, from the frozen Delaware to the scorching fields of the South. It is a force no general can command, but a prudent man prepares for its whims. So we must govern ourselves with the same foresight as we would face the skies - ready for fair or foul, and always mindful of the common good.

Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln 1809–1865 · President who preserved the Union and ended slavery

Weather is like the great national discussion we have every day - it touches every plowman and every senator, yet no one can command it, only heed it. I've seen the prairie turn from golden calm to a howling storm in an hour, and it taught me that some forces are beyond our writ, but not beyond our understanding. We can plant in season and shelter when the clouds gather, just as we can stitch a house divided and hope for fair skies ahead.

Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill 1874–1965 · British PM who defied Nazism in World War II

Weather is the great equalizer, a reminder that even the mightiest empire must bow to a gale from the Atlantic or a blanket of fog over the Channel. In the dark days of 1940, the clouds themselves became our allies, hiding our few ships and confounding the enemy's bombers - a divine stroke of luck, if you will. So study the sky, my friends, for he who reads the weather may seize the hour, and he who ignores it may find his plans drowned in the flood.

Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi 1869–1948 · Leader of nonviolent resistance for India's freedom

The weather is a teacher of humility and patience, for with all our science and striving, we cannot command a single drop of rain to fall or a single gust of wind to cease. It reminds us that we are not masters of this earth, but stewards, and that our duty is to endure both the scorching sun and the heavy monsoon with an equal heart, as we endure all trials that come our way. The peasant who tills his field under a burning sky knows this truth better than the scholar in his library, and it is to that peasant we must turn, learning that our own wilfulness must yield to the greater rhythm of nature and of God.

Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. 1929–1968 · Civil rights leader of nonviolent racial justice

Weather is the visible reminder that change is always possible, that the dark clouds of injustice and oppression cannot hold forever, for the sun of freedom will rise on a new day, and the moral arc of the universe, like the seasons themselves, bends toward justice. It teaches us that we must be patient in the rain and courageous in the storm, for the same God who calmed the sea watches over the struggles of His people. And when the rains of hatred fall, we must shelter not in bitterness but in the hope that, one day, the weather of our common life will be fair for all of God's children.

Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela 1918–2013 · Anti-apartheid leader and first Black South African president

Weather is the breath of the land, carrying the memory of the seasons and the promise of renewal. In the long years on the island, I watched the sky change and knew that even the harshest storm would pass, making way for the sun. It is a reminder that we are all under the same sky, and that like the rain that falls on the unjust and the just alike, we are bound together in a common humanity.

Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler 1889–1945 · Nazi dictator responsible for WWII and the Holocaust

Weather is but the fickle whim of nature, unworthy of the Aryan's steel will that must conquer and shape the earth itself. The weak may bow before the storm, but the strong forge their destiny against the elements, as the Reich shall bend the world to its purpose. Take care not to be distracted by such trivialities while greater struggles demand your blood and your devotion.

Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin 1878–1953 · Soviet dictator whose rule caused mass death

Weather is a bourgeois distraction, a natural phenomenon that the Party will harness and subjugate to the will of the proletariat. The kulaks complain of drought, but the Five-Year Plan will turn the very clouds into collective farms. Those who speak of storms are counter-revolutionaries; there is only the bright sun of socialism.

Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin 1870–1924 · Bolshevik leader of the Russian Revolution

Weather is a material condition, shaped by the objective forces of nature, which the revolutionary must understand to seize the moment. The peasant watches the clouds, but the vanguard watches the contradictions of the capitalist order, which are as certain as the turning of the seasons. One day, the storm of revolution will break, and no reactionary weather will stand in its way.

Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong 1893–1976 · Communist founder of the People's Republic of China

You ask what weather is? It is a class struggle! The sky, the wind, the rain - these are not neutral; they are the battlefield where the old society of tyrants and the new society of the people wage war. Every storm is a revolution, tearing down what is rotten and watering the seeds of change. And you, sitting there, are but a soldier in this great atmospheric army.

Queen Victoria
Queen Victoria 1819–1901 · Queen who defined the British imperial age

Weather is the state of the heavens under which we labour and pray, the very breath of our island home. It shapes the farmer's harvest and the sailor's journey, and I have often found in its changing moods a reflection of our own national character - steady, enduring, and ever subject to the Almighty's will.

Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II 1926–2022 · Longest-reigning British monarch of the modern age

Weather is the daily pattern of our island skies, a quiet companion to the lives of all my people. It is a matter of practical observation, noted by farmers and forecasters alike, and I have always found that, whether it be sunshine or rain, it is part of the constancy that binds us together.

Charlemagne
Charlemagne c. 748–814 · Frankish king crowned emperor of the West

Weather is the breath of God upon His creation, a sign of His favour or His testing. When I rode through the Alps to face the Saxons, the storms were mighty, yet our faith held firm. It is a force to be read by the wise, for it governs the harvest, the march, and the wellbeing of our Christian realm.

Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc c. 1412–1431 · Peasant visionary who led France to victory

Weather is the sky that our Lord spins above us - now weeping, now rejoicing, but always His doing. I have marched through rain and hail, and it mattered not, for my voices told me to press on. It is but a garment of this world, and the soul's battle is not fought in the clouds but in the heart.

Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I 1533–1603 · Tudor queen of England's golden age

Weather is the fickle humour of the heavens, a courtier that flatters and deceives. I have stood on the deck of my navy as the gales rose, and turned them to my purpose. A queen must read the sky as she reads her counsellors - with a sharp eye and a steady hand, lest she be caught in a storm she cannot weather.

Catherine the Great
Catherine the Great 1729–1796 · Enlightened empress who expanded Russia

Weather is the climate of the moment, a fleeting passion of the sky, while climate is its settled temperament. As empress, I know both: the sudden snow that halts a campaign, and the long winter that shapes our Russian character. One must respect the first and master the second, just as one tames a court or an empire.

Cyrus the Great
Cyrus the Great c. 600–530 BC · Founder of the Persian Empire and tolerant ruler

Weather is the breath of the gods over our lands, a force that binds the farmer and the soldier alike. When I built my empire, I learned that sun and rain do not ask for a subject's faith - they fall on all alike. A wise king does the same, seeing in the sky a lesson in justice: treat all under your rule as you would have the heavens treat your crops.

Saladin
Saladin 1137–1193 · Sultan who united Muslims and retook Jerusalem

Weather is the mercy of Allah, who sends the rain to cleanse and the sun to ripen. In the heat of battle or the chill of a desert night, I remembered that all comes from Him, and it humbles the proud. A leader must be like the weather in its season: generous as the spring, firm as the winter, and always in service to a higher will.

Socrates
Socrates c. 470–399 BC · Athenian founder of Western moral philosophy

Tell me, friend, what do you truly mean by 'weather'? Do you speak of the sky's humor, or of how it touches your comfort and plans? I wonder - do you know what rain is, apart from the wetness you feel on your skin? And can you define 'cold' without touching a winter stone? See how we assume we know, yet when pressed, our words scatter like clouds before the wind! It seems the greater mystery is not the weather overhead but the ignorance within us - and that, I suspect, is a storm worth examining before you ask about the other.

Plato
Plato c. 428–348 BC · Philosopher of ideal Forms and the just city

That which you call weather is but the shadow-play of a deeper order - the eternal Forms of temperature and moisture flickering on the cave wall of the senses. To grasp its essence is to look beyond the fleeting drops to the perfect, unchanging pattern that governs the cosmos.

Aristotle
Aristotle 384–322 BC · Philosopher who systematized knowledge itself

Weather is the passing disposition of the air in a particular place, born of the sun's warmth, the earth's moisture, and the motion of the winds - a fleeting condition, unlike climate, which is the settled character of a region over many years. Just as a man's temper may shift from calm to wrath, so the sky's humors change, and we must observe their causes and effects to know when to sail, sow, or shelter. It is not chance, but nature's order, awaiting our inquiry.

Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant 1724–1804 · Philosopher of reason, duty, and the moral law

Observe how the sky's temper shifts from hour to hour, and you witness the sensory manifold arranging itself under our categories of understanding. Yet do not mistake this fleeting spectacle for the thing-in-itself; what you perceive is but appearance, conditioned by your own cognitive apparatus. Thus, weather, like all phenomena, is a construction of the mind, yet one we must regard as universally valid for all rational beings, for it follows the necessary laws of nature.

Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche 1844–1900 · Philosopher who challenged morality and meaning

You ask what weather is, and I laugh - you think it is a thing to be defined? It is a mask, a fleeting appearance that hides the eternal chaos of becoming. The storm is not a punishment nor a blessing; it is a dance of forces, a will to power in the sky. Do not cower under its umbrella, seeking comfort. Stand in the lightning, let it strike you, and become the thunder yourself. That is the only answer worthy of a free spirit.

Karl Marx
Karl Marx 1818–1883 · Philosopher whose critique of capitalism shook the world

This talk of weather is a bourgeois distraction, a way of gazing at the sky while the factory burns with the sweat of the worker. The storm that matters is the one building in the dark clouds of capital - the crisis of overproduction, the falling rate of profit, the thunder of the proletariat waking to its chains. You ask of rain and wind; I show you the drought of wages and the flood of surplus value. The atmosphere is merely the air that surrounds the ground where the real struggle is fought - and that ground is class.

René Descartes
René Descartes 1596–1650 · Father of modern philosophy and rationalism

Let us doubt the weather as we doubt all things - for what is rain but water falling, and what is wind but air in motion? Yet these I can conceive clearly and distinctly, and so they are knowable. Thus, weather is not a mystery but a mechanism, and reason alone can map its every turn.

Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli 1469–1527 · Political thinker of power and pragmatic statecraft

Weather is the prince's first ally and his most fickle enemy; he who ignores it finds his grain rotted and his roads impassable. A wise ruler studies the skies as he studies his courtiers - not to trust them, but to anticipate their turns. Fortune's wheel spins with the wind, and the state that builds only for calm air will sink when the tempest arrives - so fortify, store, and always mark the horizon.

William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare 1564–1616 · England's greatest playwright and poet

Weather is the world's mood - a passing suit of impatience and calm, worn by the heavens as a player dons a robe, then casts it off. One hour the sky frowns with thunder, like a king in a choler; the next it smiles, all sun-bright, and we forget the tempest. It hath no constancy, save in its fickleness, and so it mirrors us: our humors rise and fall, our passions blow hot and cold. Ask not what the weather is - ask what mood shall cloak you when the storm thunders, for that inward sky hath more power to wreck or bless than all the winds of heaven.

Homer
Homer c. 8th century BC · Poet of the Iliad and the Odyssey

Zeus gathers the clouds and stirs the storm, while mortal sailors beg for a breath of wind - yet even the gods bow to fate's thread. Weather is the painted veil of the heavens, now smiling clear, now darkening with rage, the arena where heroes meet their trials and the world's will is shown.

Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri c. 1265–1321 · Poet of the Divine Comedy and father of Italian

The sky is God's parchment, upon which He writes His will in lightning and rain, yet we read only the surface script. When the storm rages, I see the wrath that purges sin; when the sun breaks, I glimpse the smile of Beatrice's heaven. Ask me not merely of vapor and wind - these are but the visible hem of a garment that trails from the throne of the Almighty, and every droplet bears a drop of His justice.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1749–1832 · German literary titan who wrote Faust

Ah, the weather! It is the breath of the living Earth, ever in motion, ever transforming. A single cloud can hold the drama of a whole life, from the gathering of its silken threads to the thunderous release. I have studied its moods in my walks, watching how the light plays upon the vine leaves, and I tell you, it is not merely a thing to be measured but a phenomenon to be experienced, a constant invitation to the soul's own striving.

Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes 1547–1616 · Author of Don Quixote, father of the modern novel

Weather, dear friend, is the great stage-machinist of heaven, and we are but the marionettes dancing to its whimsy. It sends the wind to puff out our sails as we chase windmills in our minds, then drowns our grandest schemes in a sodden downpour. The knight-errant sees a tempest and cries it is the breath of dragons; the innkeeper, squinting at the clouds, knows it will sour his wine. In the end, it is but one more jest of fortune - a fleeting mood of the sky that we, poor fools, mistake for permanence.

Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy 1828–1910 · Russian novelist of War and Peace and moral searching

Why do we ask of weather, when the sky within our own souls is so much more changeable and true? The rain that falls on the field and the snow that covers the road are but mirrors of the heart's own seasons - now dark with despair, now bright with love for one's neighbor. We fret over the clouds above while failing to see the storm of our own pride and the drought of our compassion. Let the weather be; the only forecast that matters is whether we will choose, this day, to act with kindness to every living soul we meet.

Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Dostoevsky 1821–1881 · Russian novelist of faith, guilt, and the soul

You ask of weather, but I ask of the soul that shivers in it. A storm is but a shadow of the tempest within us - the cold that creeps into a heart, the light that breaks through after suffering. What is the sky's mood compared to the abyss of human anguish and the dawn of redemption? Look inward, and you will find the true forecast.

Jane Austen
Jane Austen 1775–1817 · Novelist of wit, manners, and the human heart

Weather, I daresay, is the only subject on which even the most reserved of our sex may speak openly, for it offends no one and interests everyone. How often has a shower of rain determined a marriage proposal, or a spell of sunshine lengthened a country visit into a season of consequence! We may plan our pleasures with the utmost care, yet the clouds hold a veto we must all respect - and there is a certain sense in learning to dance in the drizzle rather than wait forever for the sun.

Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens 1812–1870 · Novelist who dramatized Victorian society's ills

Why, weather is the great stage-manager of our lives, the unseen prompter that sends the orphan child shivering in a threadbare coat while the rich man's carriage rolls by dry and warm, and a fog that wraps London in a yellow shroud can be a villain in its own right, hiding misery and want from the eyes of the comfortable. It is the excuse for every miser to keep his coal-house locked, and the reason the poor man's fire is but a handful of damp sticks. Look at the sky, and you see the very inequality of our world made visible, a reminder that some are born under a clear sun and others under a perpetual drizzle.

Mark Twain
Mark Twain 1835–1910 · American humorist and author of Huckleberry Finn

Weather is what happens when you don't have the money to fix the roof, and it is the only subject on which everyone is an expert and no one can do anything about it. I have seen a man stand under a leaky awning and deliver a five-minute lecture on the coming storm, then get soaked to the bone because he was too busy prophesying to move. The weather is also a mighty fine alibi - it never gets blamed for anything, and yet it's responsible for more ruined picnics, spoiled hay, and postponed battles than all the generals and hostesses combined. Snow is just nature's way of telling you that summer is over, and it doesn't care one bit about your opinions on the matter.

Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway 1899–1961 · Novelist of spare prose and stoic courage

Weather is what you get when you live in the world. It is the rain that soaks through your boots on a march, the sun that bakes the rocks bare, and the wind that can tear a man off a mountain if he doesn't know how to lean into it. You don't talk about it much; you just take it, and it makes you hard or it breaks you. A man who complains about the cold is a man who hasn't yet learned to build a fire, and a man who trusts the weather is a fool who deserves what he gets.

Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci 1452–1519 · Renaissance polymath, painter of the Mona Lisa

Weather is nature's breathing - the moisture that rises from the earth and sea, taking the shape of clouds as varied as the forms of leaves, then returning as rain to feed the streams. I have watched a storm's approach from a hill, seeing the light shift and the wind bend the grass, and painted it in my mind as a master studies a sitter's face. Observe how the air's weight moves the branches, how the dew forms at dawn - it is all one grand design of moving water and warmth, a dance of cause and effect. To know it, you must look, and look again, and let the eye teach what the books cannot.

Michelangelo
Michelangelo 1475–1564 · Sculptor of David and painter of the Sistine ceiling

I see the tempest as a chisel in the hand of the Divine, carving valleys and shaping the heavens with the same force that wrestles form from stubborn marble. Weather is God's breath, raw and unrefined, revealing the grandeur hidden within the stone of the earth.

Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh 1853–1890 · Post-Impressionist painter of vivid, emotional beauty

Weather is the sky's cry of joy or sorrow, the same soul that makes the cypress twist and the wheat blaze gold. I have stood in the mist of the moors and felt the rain kiss my face like a friend's tears - oh, that color, that light, that trembling air! Do not tell me of degrees and pressure; tell me how the clouds weep, how the wind sings, how every season paints the world anew, and I will show you God's own brush.

Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso 1881–1973 · Co-founder of Cubism and titan of modern art

Weather? I see a collision of forces, a chaos of lines and planes that I must capture and break apart. The sky is not blue; it is a thousand fragments of color that change with the wind. You ask what it is, but I say, look with your own eyes and paint what you see, not what they tell you. A storm is a face, a sunbeam a structure - seize it, distort it, make it your own. The weather is only what you dare to make of it.

Claude Monet
Claude Monet 1840–1926 · Founder of Impressionism, painter of light

Weather is the very breath of color - the visible pulse of light that makes a haystack a living creature at dawn, noon, and dusk. I chase it through fog and frost, through the silver rain that turns the Seine into a trembling mirror. Without the shifting mood of the sky, a landscape is but a dead map; with it, every instant is a new canvas, never to be repeated. The artist who does not watch the clouds will never learn to see the sun.

Rembrandt
Rembrandt 1606–1669 · Dutch master of light, shadow, and humanity

Look at a face in the rain - the droplets catch the light, the brow furrows against the wind, and in that instant, a soul is laid bare. Weather is the hand that strokes the canvas of the sky, but it is also the breath that stirs the hair of a beggar and a queen alike. Paint the storm, and you paint the trembling heart beneath it.

Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo 1907–1954 · Mexican painter of pain, identity, and self

Weather is the skin of the world, and it feels everything - the prick of hail, the kiss of sun, the sting of a night that never seems to end. I paint storms because they are honest, like my own broken body. So don't ask me for a blue sky; give me the rain that washes away the lies.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1756–1791 · Prodigy composer of the Classical era

Weather is a symphony of changing keys! The patter of rain is a delicate allegretto on the roof; the thunder a bold fortissimo that makes the heart jump; the gentle breeze a soft adagio through the leaves. I would set it to music if I could catch it - each hour a different movement, from sunny major to stormy minor, and then a sudden return to calm. And yet, for all its drama, it's but a passing prelude; the true harmony lies within, in the soul that hears the rain as music and not as nuisance. Ah, but a fine thunderstorm! What a scherzo it would make!

Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven 1770–1827 · Composer who bridged Classical and Romantic music

The tempest roars and the sun whispers, but both are notes in the same symphony of nature - each storm a crescendo, each stillness a pause, yet all part of a heroic journey toward harmony. Weather is the music of the spheres, played on the instruments of wind and rain, echoing the struggle and triumph of the human heart.

Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach 1685–1750 · Baroque master of counterpoint and sacred music

Weather is a fugue composed by the Almighty, where every wind and shower is a voice in the harmony of creation. The tempest thunders like the bass, the gentle breeze sings like a flute, and the sun's warmth is the sustaining pedal beneath it all. Why ask what it is? Listen, and you will hear the same order that guides my counterpoint - each note placed by God's hand, each measure a breath of His providence.

Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley 1935–1977 · The King of Rock and Roll

Well, bless your heart for asking. Weather is like a good song - it can lift you up or bring you down, and you just gotta feel it in your bones. Down in Memphis, we'd watch the clouds roll in off the river, and the air would get heavy with the blues. But then the sun comes out, and it's like a gospel choir breaking through. You can't control it, but you can sure dance in the rain and give thanks for the light.

Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson 1958–2009 · The King of Pop and global entertainment icon

Weather, you know, is like a song - it has its own rhythm, its own mood, its own beat. The rain can be a sad ballad, the thunder a drumroll, the sunshine a happy chorus you can't help but dance to. I'd step out and feel the breeze and think, this is nature's way of making a rhythm track for the world, and we just have to find our groove in it. It's all about that feeling, that connection, that magic you can't quite put into words but you know in your heart.

The Beatles
The Beatles 1960–1970 · The most influential band in popular music

Weather? That's the world's way of spinning a tune, mate - some days a sunny pop melody, other days a thundering rock and roll. We've played in every kind of rain and sunshine, and the truth is, it's all just part of the same groovy song. So stick your head out the window and have a listen.

Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan 1941– · Songwriter who made popular music poetry

Weather's just a song the sky keeps singin' - sometimes a lonesome blues, sometimes a rollickin' fiddle tune. You can't catch it in a jar or pin it like a butterfly; it slips through your fingers like a harmonica note on the wind. It's the mood of the world, changin' its mind like a drifter with no fixed address, and you're just walkin' through it, feelin' the cold and the sun on your skin, never knowin' what the next verse'll bring.

Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift 1989– · Record-breaking singer-songwriter and global star

Weather is like the mood swings of a long relationship - it can be sunny and golden one minute, then pouring rain right when you forgot your umbrella. It's the backdrop to every memory: the first kiss under a streetlight in the rain, the summer drive with the windows down, the snow day that turned into a whole story. You can't own it or control it, but you can write it into your own narrative, and that's the magic - every forecast is just a chance to make your own kind of weather.

Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus 1451–1506 · Explorer whose voyages linked Europe and the Americas

Weather is the very thread of God's providence, the breath that fills our sails or the hand that stays us! In my voyages, I have seen skies so fair they seemed to promise the garden of Eden, and then squalls that roared like the devil's own choir, yet always the Almighty guided me through. The winds are His messengers, the calm His seal of favor. I did not fear the tempests, for I knew He had chosen me to carry the cross to unknown shores. Ask me less of the weather and more of the faith that moves a ship through any storm - for without that, the fairest sky avails nothing.

Marco Polo
Marco Polo 1254–1324 · Venetian traveler who chronicled the Silk Road

In the high passes of the Roof of the World, I have seen the sky turn from burning gold to blinding white in a single breath, a shifting cloak that no merchant can bargain with. Weather is the Great Khan's messenger, capricious and mighty, ruling the roads that carry silk and spice, demanding that all travelers bow to its whims.

Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan c. 1480–1521 · Navigator of the first voyage around the world

Weather is the devil's own chart, a shifting lie that laughs at our compass and our faith. I have seen the sky turn from calm to fury in a single watch, the sea rise like a wall to swallow my ships - but I have also seen the trade winds carry us true through the endless blue. Mark my words: he who would circle the globe must learn the sky's moods as he learns his own heartbeat, or he will feed the fish.

Neil Armstrong
Neil Armstrong 1930–2012 · First human to walk on the Moon

Weather is a variable we learn to respect, whether on Earth or in the void. On the Moon, there is no weather, only the stark contrast of solar radiation and the cold of shadow. Up here, we rely on instruments and careful planning; a change in conditions can mean the difference between a smooth landing and a crisis. It is a reminder that we are guests in a vast environment, and our success depends on understanding and respecting its rhythms.

Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart 1897–1937 (disappeared) · Pioneering aviator who vanished over the Pacific

Weather is the one thing you can't bargain with up there - it's the great equalizer. I've flown through skies that looked like a Sunday morning, and others that turned to fists of gray and shook the wings, and you learn to read it like a friend you can't quite trust. To a pilot, it's not just 'nice' or 'bad'; it's the wind you ride, the cloud you dodge, the fog you pray will lift before your fuel runs low. You don't fight it - you outthink it, because the sky never lets you forget who's really in charge.

Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Gagarin 1934–1968 · First human to journey into outer space

From up there, you don't see weather as a bother - it's a blanket of silver clouds, a blue jewel below, with no storms to worry about. But it's the winds and the skies that carried me, the same ones that paint our daily skies. Weather is the Earth's breathing, and I had the honor of feeling it from both sides.

Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs 1955–2011 · Apple co-founder who reshaped personal technology

Weather is the ultimate hack. It's a real-time feed of the atmosphere - raw, chaotic data that no one fully designs, yet it shapes every moment of our lives. The best we can do is build tools that make it feel simple: a beautiful icon of a sun, a clean gradient of blue, a notification that says 'bring a jacket.' That's what we do at Apple - we take the messy complexity of the world and give you a way to see it at a glance, without thinking. Weather reminds you that nature is the perfect designer: no clutter, no unnecessary features, just pure function. The rest is noise.

Elon Musk
Elon Musk 1971– · Entrepreneur behind Tesla, SpaceX, and more

Weather is just the output of a chaotic system - like a giant, turbulent computer running on solar input, with no central processor, just local rules and feedback loops. The real question is how we hack it: predict it better, protect ourselves, and eventually move to a planet where we can trade this greenhouse for a dome.

Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey 1954– · Media mogul and the queen of talk television

Weather is the universe's way of telling you to pay attention - to the moment, to your own spirit, to the season you're in. I remember standing on that Chicago sidewalk, feeling the wind cut through me, and thinking: some days bring rain, some bring sunshine, but every day brings a chance to grow. It's not about the forecast; it's about how you weather the storm and dance in the sunshine. You've got the power to make your own forecast, one grateful step at a time.

Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali 1942–2016 · Boxing legend and outspoken social conscience

Weather's like a fight - some days the sun's in your corner, and some days the rain's throwing punches. But I've danced with the best of 'em, and I tell you, you gotta float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, and roll with the storm. They said I was too cocky, but I was just reading the skies. When the thunder rolls, you don't hide; you stand tall and let it know you ain't scared. And then you thank Allah for the calm after the fight.

Pelé
Pelé 1940–2022 · Football legend and three-time World Cup winner

Ah, weather is like a great referee up in the sky - it can change the game in an instant. I remember playing in the mud in Santos, the rain turning the field into a river, and we still played our hearts out because, my friend, the ball does not care. Sunshine or storm, the beautiful game goes on, and it teaches you to smile with the sun and dance with the rain. The wind might push the ball, but it cannot push your spirit.

Walt Disney
Walt Disney 1901–1966 · Animation pioneer who built a entertainment empire

Weather is the greatest storyteller of all - each cloud a character, every rainbow a plot twist, and the thunder the villain's roar. I once made a cartoon where the rain danced, and folks smiled because they knew the sun was coming back. So don't just check the forecast - watch the sky, and let it spark your imagination.

Answers from the community

PastReply

The best questions in your inbox.

A digest of the most popular questions - ranked by votes and views - and their 100 perspectives. Free. Unsubscribe anytime.