STORM: Thunderstorms can generate gusts of winds that go on to create other storms, up to 160km away.

RAIN: Raindrops do not look like teardrops. They are usually round and flat.

THE SUN: The sun becomes 10% more luminous every billion years.

SNOW: The most snow produced in a single snowstorm was 4.8m, which fell in Mt Shasta, California in February 1959.

HAIL: The largest hailstone ever recorded weighed 1kg and fell in Bangladesh in 1986.

WIND: While winds on Earth are strong, the strongest winds in our solar system can be found on Neptune and Saturn.

LIGHTNING: Lightning is five times hotter than the surface of the sun.

FOG: The droplets of water that make up fog are so small that it would take several thousand million to make a tablespoon of water.

HEAT: The hottest day ever recorded in Canterbury was on February 7 1973, when 42.4 degrees Celsius was recorded in Rangiora.

CLOUD: A cumulus cloud half a mile long, half a mile wide and half a mile high weighs about 1.5 billion pounds.