The Daily Martian Weather Report

How’s your winter been so far? Kinda cold? Don’t you wish the weather guys and gals would get it right for once? If you forget your umbrella, it rains. If you only wear a sweater, it turns cold and snows. It is tough to predict the weather - after all, it is a game of numbers and percentages. If you think it’s tough to predict the weather here, think what it would be like on a planet like Mars. Actually, today’s Warped site helps you make that choice.

The name of the site is The Daily Martian Weather Report, and it is brought to you by the Mars Global Surveyor Radio Science Team. Here you can learn about the rules for forecasting the weather on one of our closest neighbors in the solar system. There are about 8 years of records here since they started keeping them in January 1998. The latest Martian meteorological measurements from the team will be posted regularly on this page. They use the method of radio occultation to make observations of the structure of the Martian atmosphere. The mapping phase of the MGS mission began in March, 1999 and concluded in January, 2001 after one complete Martian year. The extended mapping mission began that same January and has continued to this date.

So if you are concerned about a high of 98 degrees F, or a low of 20 degrees, you can take heart with the weather reported here. Mars has temperatures ranging from -87 degrees F to -192 degrees F, depending on the time of year (don’t forget a Martian year is about twice as long as Earth’s). Remember the old saying: Whether it’s cold or whether it’s hot, we’ve got to have weather, whether or not. The Warp-o-Meter gives it a 7.5.

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