Weather and climate are not the same thing. Here's why that is important

CBC Alberta and Saskatchewan have teamed up for a new pilot series on weather and climate change on the prairies. Meteorologist Christy Climenhaga will bring her expert voice to the conversation to help explain weather phenomena and climate change and how it impacts everyday life.

Even though it's often considered small talk, weather comes with some pretty big linguistic baggage.

We all know the story: When a big storm hits, your social media feeds are inundated with photos and stories, and the conversation with friends and family inevitably turns to what is happening around us.

Whether it is flooding, like we are seeing in B.C., or a wintry blast like the one that recently hit Alberta and Saskatchewan, the events are usually accompanied by a whole lot of jargon to sift through.

Low pressure, jet stream, polar vortex, atmospheric river … the list goes on. 

And even the most common terms — like weather and climate — can be deceiving.

Those two terms are sometimes used interchangeably and while they are linked, they actually refer to different things. 

With weather and climate, the biggest factor is time.

Weather refers to the short term. 

It's what you see if you look out the window right now. 

These are the day-to-day fluctuations in atmospheric conditions like temperature, pressure, and precipitation. It's what you interpret when you are deciding if you should wear your fall or winter jacket each morning. 

Weather can change on a dime, with drastically different conditions each day or even each hour. 

Weather systems can also bring extremely unusual conditions to an area, such as 10 C days in the dead of winter.

Weather forecasts are built using weather models that utilize current weather information in mathematical equations to predict future weather patterns.