Weather vs. Climate
One way to think of weather is that it is what determines what clothes we wear outside on a given day. More technically, weather is the state of atmosphere-ocean-land conditions (hot/cold, wet/dry, calm/stormy, sunny/cloudy) that exist over relatively short periods like hours or days. Weather includes the passing of a thunderstorm, a hurricane, blizzard or a cold snap, hot or cold days, severe storm events or clear days. Weather variability and extreme events may respond unpredictably in response to climate change. 

Some define climate as the statistical average of weather over a period of time, such as the 30 year "normals" used by the National Weather Service. Another way to think of it is that climate is what determines what crops we plant for a given region and when we plant and harvest them. Climate includes weather patterns over months, seasons, decades, centuries. These could include a persistent heatwave or drought. More technically, climate is defined as the weather conditions resulting from the mean state of the atmosphere-ocean-land system, often described in terms of “climate normals” or average weather conditions. Return to Climate Science.

Photo from NOAA Photo Library