Weather Trivia
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7correct to beat the crowd
99 free Weather trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Why do raindrops fall as hamburger buns rather than teardrops, how hot is a lightning bolt, and where does it rain nearly 12 metres a year? This weather trivia with answers covers rain, lightning and thunder, tornadoes and hurricanes, snow and hail, clouds, fog, wind, and the hottest, coldest, wettest and driest places on Earth. Every answer is sourced, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss.
30 of 99 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Almost all of Earth's weather happens in which layer of the atmosphere?
Troposphere
The troposphere holds about 80% of the air's mass and almost all its water vapour, which is why clouds and storms form there.
Q 02Contrary to the classic drawing, large falling raindrops are shaped most like what?
Hamburger buns
Hamburger buns: oncoming air flattens a growing drop's underside, and drops much bigger than 9 mm across break apart into smaller ones.
Q 03Which place in India reportedly has the highest average annual rainfall on Earth?
Mawsynram
Mawsynram reportedly gets nearly 12 metres of rain a year, though Colombian towns dispute the title; in the damp valleys below, villagers grow bridges from living tree roots.
Q 04The 1993 film Groundhog Day is set at the ceremony of which real weather-forecasting groundhog?
Punxsutawney Phil
Punxsutawney Phil has made his forecast in Pennsylvania since 1887, yet checks against real temperatures find him wrong more often than right.
Q 05Which desert is the driest non-polar desert in the world?
Atacama
The Atacama sits between the Andes and Chile's Coast Range, which block rain clouds from both east and west, creating a two-sided rain shadow.
Q 06Very light, sporadic rainfall is known by what name?
Drizzle
Drizzle drops are under 0.5 mm across, and in subfreezing air they can freeze on contact, coating the ground and objects in a glaze of ice.
Q 07Where does most of Earth's rain and snow fall?
Over the oceans
Over the oceans: about 78% of Earth's precipitation falls at sea, so most of the water that evaporates from the oceans rains straight back into them.
Q 08Lightning heats the air to about five times the temperature of what?
The Sun's surface
Lightning can heat the air to about 30,000 °C, five times hotter than the Sun's surface, and that sudden heat makes the air expand explosively into thunder.
Q 09Dividing the seconds between a lightning flash and its thunder by three gives the distance in which unit?
Kilometres
Kilometres: light arrives almost instantly, but thunder needs about three seconds to cover each kilometre; for miles, divide by five instead.
Q 10Where does Guinness World Records place Earth's highest concentration of lightning?
Lake Maracaibo
Lake Maracaibo's storms can flash for nine hours a night, so reliably that sailors called them the 'Lighthouse of Maracaibo' and steered by them.
Q 11Which body system does a lightning strike mainly injure?
The nervous system
The nervous system: lightning is chiefly a brain and nerve injury, so many survivors live with lasting memory problems.
Q 12Which country has by far the most tornadoes in the world?
United States
The United States averages about 1,200 tornadoes a year, but official records only began in 1950, so the true long-term average is unknown.
Q 13The widest tornado on record, about 2.6 miles across, struck which town in 2013?
El Reno, Oklahoma
El Reno, Oklahoma: the erratic tornado caught people out on the roads, and all eight of its victims died in their vehicles.
Q 21A hurricane with 157 mph sustained winds is a Category 5 on which scale?
Saffir–Simpson
The Saffir–Simpson scale rates only sustained wind, leaving out storm surge and rain flooding, so a lower-category hurricane can still be devastating.
Q 22Atlantic hurricane name lists skip Q, U, X, Y and which other letter?
Z
Z, like Q, U, X and Y, is skipped because too few common names begin with those letters to fill the rotating lists.
Q 23What happens to the name of a deadly or costly hurricane?
It is retired from the lists
It is retired from the lists, and a new name takes its place: after deadly Hurricane Laura in 2020, the WMO put Leah on the list instead.
Q 14The 1925 Tri-State Tornado crossed Missouri, Illinois and which other state?
Indiana
Indiana: the tornado killed 695 people, yet US forecasters were then discouraged or even forbidden from using the word 'tornado', for fear of panic.
Q 15What radar signature helps forecasters spot a tornado forming?
Hook echo
A hook echo is rain and hail wrapping around a storm's rotating mesocyclone, which is why it signals conditions ripe for a tornado.
Q 16A tornado over a lake or the sea is called what?
Waterspout
Waterspout: when one moves onshore, the National Weather Service issues a tornado warning, since some can cause serious damage and injuries.
Q 17What is a hurricane called when it forms in the northwestern Pacific Ocean?
Typhoon
Typhoon: a storm crossing between basins keeps its name but changes label, so Hurricane John became Typhoon John when it crossed the date line in 1994.
Q 18In the Northern Hemisphere, a tropical cyclone's surface winds blow in which direction?
Counterclockwise
Counterclockwise, yet the idea that sinks and toilets drain the opposite way south of the equator is a myth: the effect behind the spin is far too weak at that scale.
Q 19Tropical cyclones almost never form on the equator because which force is zero there?
Coriolis
The Coriolis force gives a storm its spin but is zero at the equator, so a cyclone usually needs to form at least about 300 miles away from it.
Q 20After the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season used up its list of names, what did it switch to?
The Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet: the WMO then stopped using Greek letters, and busy seasons now draw on a supplemental list of given names instead.
Q 24The strongest wind gust ever recorded, 408 km/h, was measured where in 1996?
Barrow Island, Australia
Barrow Island, Australia: the gust came as Cyclone Olivia passed over, and the storm caused heavy damage to offshore oil facilities around the island.
Q 25The Beaufort wind scale was devised in 1805 by an officer of which country's navy?
Britain
Britain: Royal Navy officer Francis Beaufort devised it so sailors could judge wind strength by eye.
Q 26According to the old saying, what does a red sky at night promise?
Fair weather tomorrow
Fair weather tomorrow: a red sunset means dry, stable high-pressure air lies to the west, and weather usually travels from west to east.
Q 27What is a widespread, long-lived windstorm with damaging straight-line winds called?
Derecho
Derecho, Spanish for 'straight', was coined in 1888 by Iowa physicist Gustavus Hinrichs to set its winds apart from a tornado's rotating ones.
Q 28A haboob is an intense storm made of what?
Dust
Dust: a haboob forms when a thunderstorm's cold downdraft hits the desert floor and sweeps up a wall of dust that can rise about 3 kilometres.
Q 29On a weather map, which kind of front is drawn as a blue line with triangles?
Cold front
Cold front: its dense air shoves under warmer air and lifts it fast, so its arrival can bring a line of thunderstorms and a sudden drop in temperature.
Q 30Which nickname is given to the warm Chinook wind that sweeps down the Rockies?
Snow eater
Snow eater: a Chinook warms as it descends the Rockies, and in 1972 one lifted Loma, Montana, from −54 °F to 49 °F in a single day.