Science & Nature
EasyWeather Crossword: Weather Words
Category: Science & NatureDifficulty: Hard17 × 15
Thursday, September 3
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Enter one letter per square. Answers run Across or Down. Omit spaces and accents; any special spelling convention is stated in the clue. This is a freeform themed grid, so some letters are not crossed.
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About This Theme
Forecasts contain a whole vocabulary of boundaries, measurements and changing states. This puzzle asks you to identify those terms from their meanings rather than from a television weather map. A few clues distinguish processes that can sound similar: vapor becoming liquid is not the same as vapor becoming ice. Other clues ask for the instrument or map feature used to describe a condition. Use those distinctions to narrow the answer before relying on its length.
Clues
Across
- 4Precipitation in balls or lumps of ice (4)
- 5Cloud type associated with puffy heaps (7)
- 7Instrument used to measure wind speed (10)
- 9Boundary between air masses (5)
- 10Map line joining places with equal atmospheric pressure (6)
- 11Direct change from water vapor to ice (10)
Down
- 1Instrument used to measure atmospheric pressure (9)
- 2US weather term for falling ice pellets (5)
- 3Direct change from ice to water vapor (11)
- 5High, wispy cloud type composed of ice crystals (6)
- 6Temperature at which air becomes saturated when cooled, two words (8)
- 8Change from water vapor to liquid water (12)
Answers and Explanations
After Your Solve
ISOBAR and FRONT can both appear on a weather map, but they communicate different information. BAROMETER and ANEMOMETER are instruments, not conditions. The phase-change answers deserve a second look: CONDENSATION produces liquid, SUBLIMATION skips directly from solid to gas, and DEPOSITION moves from gas to solid. Together they turn the puzzle into a small classification exercise. You do not have to remember every term at once; understanding the direction of the change often gives you a way to reconstruct it.
- 4 acrossHAIL
Hailstones develop in storm clouds.
- 5 acrossCUMULUS
Cumulus clouds have a piled-up appearance.
- 7 acrossANEMOMETER
An anemometer is a wind-measuring instrument.
- 9 acrossFRONT
A front separates air masses with different characteristics.
- 10 acrossISOBAR
Isobars connect equal-pressure points.
- 11 acrossDEPOSITION
Deposition is the gas-to-solid change.
- 1 downBAROMETER
A barometer measures pressure rather than wind speed.
- 2 downSLEET
The geographic qualifier avoids a different British usage.
- 3 downSUBLIMATION
Sublimation bypasses the liquid state.
- 5 downCIRRUS
Cirrus commonly appears thin and fibrous.
- 6 downDEWPOINT
The dew point is a temperature, not an amount of rain.
- 8 downCONDENSATION
Condensation produces droplets.
Further Reading
- Theme referenceweather.gov
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