The lines on the weather map are squeezed close together over your town. Write the day.Fact: the closer together the isobars, the quicker the pressure changes and the faster the wind.
Write a forecast as a poem of four lines that rhyme.Angle: one line each for the sky, the wind, the temperature and what to wear.
You are the forecaster for a kite festival, an outdoor wedding or a soccer final. Pick one and write the forecast everyone is waiting for.Angle: who is hoping for wind, and who is hoping for none?
A forecaster sees a cold front on the map heading for the town picnic. Write her phone call to the organizer.Fact: with a cold front, a colder air mass is replacing a warmer air mass.
A front parks over your town and nothing changes for a week. Write day one and day seven.Fact: a stationary front is a boundary between two air masses that does not move.
A warm front is on its way. Write the forecast in the order the sky will show it.Fact: a warm front typically brings widespread layered clouds and precipitation.
A weather station on a hill has never missed a reading. Write a page of its diary.Fact: a wind vane shows the wind's direction and an anemometer measures its speed.
Explain to a younger kid which way a west wind blows, in a forecast the two of you can act out.Fact: a west wind is one that comes from the west.
The forecast promised a narrow band of storms. Write the short time it took to cross your street.Fact: a cold front can bring a fairly narrow band of showers and thunderstorms.
The forecast says unseasonably warm. Write the day that earned those words.Fact: unseasonably warm compares the day with the climate normal, an average over 30 years.
Give the forecast for your classroom or your kitchen, using only weather words.Angle: a high near the window, a low by the door, a front moving in at lunch.
Invent an island that gets four kinds of weather a day and write its forecast.Angle: name the island, then give morning, noon, evening and night.
Turn the letters on a weather map into two characters: H, who brings the fair days, and L, who brings the rest.Fact: fair weather often goes with high pressure, and inclement weather is often found near a low.
Write a forecast as a poem of four lines that rhyme.Angle: one line each for the sky, the wind, the temperature and what to wear.
Write a forecast that turns out wrong, then the forecaster's apology the next day.First line: I said sunny. I would like to explain the puddles.
Write the difference between weather and climate as a talk between a single day and a whole century.Fact: weather is the conditions at one point in time; climate is typical weather over a long period.
Write tomorrow's forecast for your town as if you were on the evening news.Angle: say what to wear, what to carry and what to cancel.
You are the forecaster for a kite festival, an outdoor wedding or a soccer final. Pick one and write the forecast everyone is waiting for.Angle: who is hoping for wind, and who is hoping for none?
A day the weather changed plans 15
A cold front comes through during recess. Write the playground before and after.Fact: a cold front can bring quick, significant changes in temperature and weather.
A drizzle that never quite becomes rain follows a parade down the street. Write the parade.Fact: drizzle is fine drops very close together that seem to float but do fall to the ground.
A flight is delayed for weather, and two strangers at the gate start talking. Write the conversation.Fact: airplanes take off and land into the direction of the wind.
A sea breeze reaches the beach just as everyone was about to give up on the heat. Write the minute it arrives.Fact: after a sea breeze front passes, the temperature can drop as much as 15 to 20°F.
A snow day is announced at six in the morning. Write the next hour in your home.First line: Nobody in my house has ever gotten out of bed that fast.
The field trip is moved indoors because of fog. Write what the class finds to do.Fact: fog is tiny water droplets at the Earth's surface that cut how far you can see.
The first warm day of the year changes everyone's plans at once. Write your street at four o'clock.Angle: windows, bikes, a jacket left on a fence.
The game is called off for thunder. Write the bus ride home.Fact: thunder can normally be heard up to 10 miles away.
Hail falls on the school fair for a few minutes. Write what was carried inside first.Fact: hail is balls or lumps of ice that fall with thunderstorms.
Remember a morning you dressed for the wrong weather, and write the rest of that day.Angle: who noticed, and who lent you what?
Tell about a day you had planned for weeks, and the weather that had other ideas.Angle: what did you do instead, and was it better or worse?
The weather ruins plan A and plan B, and plan C turns out to be the one worth telling. Write all three.Angle: give the first two plans a sentence each, then slow down.
The wind changes direction in the middle of a picnic. Write what each person on the blanket notices first.Fact: a flag points in the opposite direction of the wind.
Write a thank-you letter to a storm that canceled something you did not want to do.First line: Dear storm, I owe you one.
Write the yard sale that the wind rearranged.Angle: follow one thing as it blows away: a price tag, a hat, a lampshade.
If I were a storm 15
A storm applies for the job of watering a farmer's field. Write the interview.Angle: what does the storm promise, and what does it admit it cannot control?
A warm air mass and a cold one meet over a town. Write their argument.Fact: where air masses meet they form boundaries called fronts.
If you were a storm, what kind would you be? Give three reasons and one thing you would never do.Angle: loud or quiet, quick or all day, summer or winter.
Keep a storm's diary of its last hour, as it runs out of rain.Angle: what is the last thing it waters?
Write a lightning bolt's one-second autobiography.Fact: lightning can be as hot as 54,000°F, five times hotter than the surface of the Sun.
Write a storm's apology note to the town it surprised.First line: I know I was not in the forecast.
Write as a fog that only wants to be noticed.Fact: unlike drizzle, fog does not fall to the ground but stays hanging in the air.
Write thunder's side of the story: why it always arrives after the flash.Fact: thunder is a shock wave made when lightning heats the air around it in a fraction of a second.
You are a dry wind from the desert, and wet air from the sea is coming the other way. Write the line where you meet.Fact: a dry line is a boundary that divides moist air from dry air.
You are a gust of wind with one hat to steal. Write the chase from your side.Fact: wind is simply air in motion.
You are a hailstone. Write your trip from the cloud to somebody's lawn.Angle: what do you see on the way down, and what are you an hour later?
You are a mass of cold air rolling south. Write what you push out of the way.Fact: cold air is denser than warm air, so it slides under the warm air and forces it up.
You are a snowstorm with one town to cover by morning. Write your plan.Fact: snow crystals are mostly branched, in the form of six-pointed stars.
You are a thunderstorm building all afternoon. Write the hours before your first rumble.Fact: rising air cools, and that can lead to clouds and precipitation.
You are an air mass that has sat over the ocean for a week. Write what you are carrying when you finally move.Fact: an air mass that forms over the ocean is moist; one that forms over a continent is dry.
Reading the sky 15
A gardener decides whether to water by looking up, not by looking at a phone. Write the deciding.Angle: what does she check first, and what settles it?
A grandparent says it smells like snow. Write the afternoon that proves them right or wrong.Angle: what does the kid look for in the sky while they wait?
At the shore after dark, the breeze turns around and blows out to sea. Write the evening.Fact: sea breezes occur during the day and land breezes occur at night.
The barometer on the wall has been falling all morning. Write what the family does about it.Fact: an 1848 guide quoted by NOAA says a sudden fall of the barometer denotes high wind.
Climb a high mountain in a story and write how the air changes on the way up.Fact: as elevation increases, there are fewer air molecules and the air pressure drops.
Go outside, look up, and write only what the sky is doing right now.Angle: color, movement, the wind on your face. No guesses yet.
Invent a weather saying of your own, and tell the story of the day it was first said.Angle: it should rhyme, and it should be about something you can see.
The lines on the weather map are squeezed close together over your town. Write the day.Fact: the closer together the isobars, the quicker the pressure changes and the faster the wind.
Listen, in a story, to thunder that is far away, from somewhere dry and indoors.Fact: far from the lightning, the shock wave is stretched out, which gives thunder its rumbling sound.
Now guess what the weather will do by dinner, and write the three clues you used.Angle: come back at dinner and add one line about how you did.
Pick one flag or tree you can see from a window, and report on the wind through it for three mornings.Angle: still, stirring or streaming. Say which, and what the day turned into.
Treat a perfectly clear blue day as a mystery: where did all the clouds go?Fact: sinking air warms, which makes clouds evaporate and brings fair weather.
The weather report says one thing about the wind and the leaves in your yard say another. Write who is right.Fact: the wind blows leaves away from the direction it is coming from.
Write a how-to for reading a weather map, for someone who has only ever looked at the pictures.Fact: the lines around the H's and L's are isobars, and everywhere along one the pressure is the same.
Write about a farmer or a sailor who reads the sky better than any phone.First line: She looked up once and said, bring the washing in.
How it works
These weather writing prompts treat weather as news, as trouble for a plan and as a character. A fourth group is for a journal: look up, write what the sky is doing, guess what comes next.
Read the full guide
Creative writing prompts about weather: be the storm
In If I were a storm the writer is the weather. A thunderstorm builds all afternoon, a fog only wants to be noticed, a gust has one hat to steal. Thunder explains why it always arrives late. Nobody is hurt; the worst a storm does here is surprise a town.
Journal writing prompts for weather
Reading the sky is for a notebook kept by a window. Guess what the weather will do by dinner and write down the three clues you used. Watch one flag or tree from the same window for three mornings. Several carry a fact from NOAA, such as what closely packed lines on a weather map mean.
Give a forecast an audience. A kite festival wants wind and an outdoor wedding wants none.
When the weather spoils a plan, write the second plan. That is usually the story.
Questions and answers
What is a good weather writing prompt?
One that gives the weather a job or a voice. Write a forecast that turns out wrong, then the forecaster's apology the next day. Or write a lightning bolt's one-second autobiography.
Are there weather story ideas for kids?
Yes. A day the weather changed plans is fifteen of them: a snow day announced at six in the morning, a yard sale the wind rearranged, a field trip moved indoors by fog. All are written for children.
What is a weather front?
A boundary where two air masses meet, NOAA's JetStream says. At a cold front colder air replaces warmer air, and at a warm front the opposite happens. Prompts here put a front over a picnic, a playground and one stuck week.