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Weather station
A weather station, also known as a meteorological station or weather observatory, is a fixed facility with instruments measuring temperature, humidity, pressure, wind, and precipitation for forecasting and climate records.
Weather Underground (weather service)
Weather Underground, also known as Wunderground, is an American commercial weather service known for hyperlocal forecasts from a network of over 400,000 personal weather stations.
Weather vane
A weather vane, also called a wind vane or weathercock, is an instrument that shows wind direction from rooftops and steeples, its narrow end turning into the wind.
Weathering
Weathering, also called mechanical weathering, is the in-place breakdown and chemical alteration of rocks and minerals by water, gases, and organisms, distinguished from erosion by the absence of transport.
Weichselian glaciation
The Weichselian glaciation, known in Poland as the Vistulian or Wisła Glaciation, was the last glacial period of northern Europe, spanning roughly the past 115,000 years, when ice sheets grew over Fennoscandia and the North Sea.
Weipa bauxite mine
The Weipa bauxite mine is a large open-cut bauxite mine on western Cape York Peninsula in Queensland, Australia, operated by Rio Tinto since the early 1960s.
Well
A well, also called a water well, is an excavation drilled or dug into the ground to reach groundwater, which flows or is pumped to the surface.
Well tie
A well tie, or seismic-well tie, is the alignment of a synthetic seismogram computed from well logs with the actual seismic trace at the borehole, linking depth to time.
West African monsoon
The West African monsoon is the seasonal circulation carrying moist Atlantic air into West Africa each summer, delivering most of the region's rainfall and governing the Sahel's climate.
West Angelas mine
West Angelas is an iron ore mine in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, about 110 kilometers west of Newman, operated by the Robe River Joint Venture since 2002.
West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapse
West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapse is the potential irreversible retreat of marine West Antarctic ice, which holds about 3.3 meters of sea-level rise, unfolding over centuries to millennia.
West Virginia v. EPA
West Virginia v. EPA is a 2022 Supreme Court decision, decided 6-3, holding that the EPA lacked authority to cap power plant emissions through generation shifting.
Westerlies
The westerlies, or prevailing westerlies, are the prevailing mid-latitude surface winds that blow from west to east between roughly 30° and 60° latitude in both hemispheres, steered by the jet stream.
Western boundary current
A western boundary current is a strong, narrow, fast-flowing current on the western edge of an ocean basin, like the Gulf Stream and Kuroshio, key examples.
Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin
The Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) is a vast wedge of sedimentary rock in western Canada and one of the world's most prolific petroleum basins.
Western Mediterranean Oscillation
The Western Mediterranean Oscillation (WeMO) is a regional atmospheric pattern, measured between Padua and Cádiz, that explains rainfall variability in the western Mediterranean, especially eastern Iberia.
Western Range (iron ore mine)
Western Range is an iron ore mine west of Paraburdoo in Western Australia's Pilbara region, jointly owned by Rio Tinto and China Baowu and officially opened in June 2025.
Wet season
The wet season, also called the rainy or monsoon season, is the part of the year when a region receives most of its rainfall, common in the tropics.
Wet sieving
Wet sieving is a particle size analysis method that washes a sample through stacked sieves with water, separating particles into size ranges down to about 20 µm.
Wet-bulb globe temperature
Wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT) is the most widely used index of heat stress, combining wet-bulb, black globe, and air temperatures; the US military adopted it in 1956.
Wet-bulb potential temperature
Wet-bulb potential temperature, written θw, is the temperature an air parcel reaches after adiabatic cooling to saturation and moist-adiabatic transport to 1000 mb, conserved in adiabatic processes.
Whakaari / White Island
Whakaari / White Island, also called White Island, is an active volcano in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand, some 48 km offshore; a 2019 eruption killed 22 tourists.
Wheeler Shale
Wheeler Shale, Middle Cambrian shale and limestone unit in the House Range, Millard County, Utah, named by Walcott in 1908; famous for Elrathia kingii trilobites and Burgess Shale-type soft-bodied fossil preservation.
Whirlpool
A whirlpool is a body of rotating water produced when opposing currents meet, when a current passes through a confined passage, or when tides interact with seafloor features.
Wildfire
A wildfire, also known as a brush fire or wildland fire, is any unplanned, uncontrolled vegetation fire requiring suppression, yet a natural process many ecosystems need.
Wildfires in 2026
The 2026 wildfire year saw record-low global fire emissions while Europe, western North America, and Chile suffered extreme seasons, with the EU burning nearly twice its 20-year average.
Willard Scott
Willard Scott (Willard Herman Scott Jr.) is an American weather presenter who forecast on NBC's Today show from 1980 to 1996 and originated Ronald McDonald in 1963.
William Dampier
William Dampier (1651–1715) was an English buccaneer, navigator, and naturalist who circumnavigated the world three times and led the 1699 Roebuck voyage to chart Australia's northwest coast.
Williston Basin
The Williston Basin is a large, roughly circular sedimentary basin covering about 300,000 square miles of the Dakotas, Montana, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan, producing oil since 1951.
Wilson cycle
The Wilson cycle is a geodynamic model in which ocean basins open by rifting and close by subduction until continents collide, proposed by J. Tuzo Wilson in 1966.