Why does precipitation occur?

• Precipitation is water from the atmosphere. It

can be in solid or liquid form.

• Three different types of precipitation are

……………………

The three states of water

• We also need to understand the three

different states of water and how they
transfer from one to the other.
 Freezing Evaporation
Melting
Condensation
The water cycle

• To understand why precipitation occurs

we first need to remember the water
cycle.
The water cycle in more detail
The water cycle – definitions!
 The water cycle song
• ..\..\..\..\year 10\My Geography\Climate, en
vironment and people gs\Weather and cli
mate\WaterCycle.wmv
 The adventures of Ronnie the
Raindrop

• Your task is to fill in the cartoon strip

to show what happens to Ronnie as he
goes around the water cycle.
• You must write in the text boxes
provided to explain what is happening to
Ronnie.
• You should try to use as much
geographical terminology as possible.
• Precipitation occurs when wet air rises.

• After this happens the three C’s will bring

rain.

The three C’s

When wet air rises it ……..
• Cools then condenses to form water droplets
in the form of cloud.

• Water droplets in the cloud join together to

form rain droplets.
Why does it rain?

There are three main types

of rainfall – relief,
convectional and frontal.

In all three situations, rainfall

occurs because (wet) air
rises. Air contains water
vapour and as the air rises it
cools and condensation can
occur. This means that the
water vapour returns back
into minute droplets of water
and falls as rain!
Convectional rain
Relief rain
Frontal rain
Weather and Climate Bingo!
Precipitation types in relation to
the UK

• Using an atlas locate Mountainous regions in

the UK, turn to the precipitation map you
made of the UK and annotate it to show areas
of obvious relief rain. (Hint: Label all the
areas of relief rain in one colour. E.g ‘Lake
District: Relief rain’)

• Now locate areas of rain shadow and label

them on your UK map in another colour e.g
‘Newcastle: Rain Shadow’.
 Abedeen:
Rain shadow

Snowdonia: Relief rain

Prevailing
wind
• The global weather circulation in the mid-latitudes
flows from West to East.

• The UK receives a lot of precipitation because it has

the ……………………… Ocean immediately to its …………….
The air picks up water from the ocean and carries it
as ……………. …………….. into the UK.
• The majority of our precipitation is frontal as the
……… air coming from the West is forced to …………
because of ………… and cold air coming together.

Missing words: wet, water vapour, rise, West, Atlantic,

warm

• The reason the West of the UK is wetter than the

East is …………………………………
• In the UK we do not get very much convectional
precipitation. This is because ………………..

• When we do, it is characterised by large

Summer thunderstorms.

• Q’s
• Hot air rises, why then doesn’t the Sahara desert
get much precipitation?
• Why does it snow on mountain tops when it
rains down in the valleys?
Why does the temperature vary
across the UK?
July temperatures

Isotherms are lines

joining areas of
equal temperature.
‘Iso’ means ‘the
same’.
Why is the South of Britain warmer than the North?

Therefore, the sun’s rays are more concentrated in

the South rather than the North of Britain.
January temperatures
Why is it warmer in the West in January?

The North Atlantic Drift is a warm ocean current that

brings higher temperatures to the west of the UK. The
North Atlantic Drift starts its journey in the Gulf of Mexico.