Observing the daily weather is part of a regular routine for many of us, helping us decide what to wear and which activities we will do each day. Similar observations of atmospheric conditions are also required by meteorologists to develop those weather forecasts with which we are all familiar.

Imagine our weather if Earth were completely motionless, had a flat dry landscape and an untilted axis. This of course is not the case; if it were, the weather would be very different. The local weather that impacts our daily lives results from large global patterns in the atmosphere caused by the interactions of solar radiation, Earth's large ocean, diverse landscapes, and motion in space.