Weather IQ: What causes wind?

Wind is what makes your hair fly when you're outside on a sunny day.

Imagine you have two balloons, one is warm, and the other is cool. The warm balloon swells up because the air inside it moves faster, making it bigger. Cool air is denser, so it takes up less space.

In the sky, the sun heats up the ground, which warms the air above it. This warm air becomes lighter and starts to rise, like a hot-air balloon. As it goes up, cooler air from nearby comes in to take its place, that’s what makes the wind!

Think of it like this: when you blow on a pinwheel, the air you send out pushes the pinwheel to spin. The same thing happens with wind. When warm air rises, it creates space for cooler air to move in, and that movement is the wind.

So next time you feel a breeze, remember, it’s just the air moving because of the sun!