Weather - Climate Commission

Basics : Weather

The difference between weather and climate can be really confusing, but an easy way to remember is: climate is what you’d expect, and weather is what you get.

Weather is what we get, day to day, which can vary in the short term. Climate is the long-term average of the weather patterns we experience, usually taken over 30 years or longer. The long-term average gives us a sense of what we can expect the weather to be.

For example, you’d say that Darwin has a hot climate and Hobart has a cool climate. You would expect the weather to be much hotter in Darwin than in Hobart because of the average temperatures over a long period of time. But you could still get a day where it is hotter in Hobart than in Darwin.

Remember: climate is what you’d expect, and weather is what you get.

Over the last century the average global temperature has risen by around 0.74°C. Although the weather varies day to day, month to month, year to year, the average temperature has continued to rise.