Weather and Crops
Too much rainfall, too little rainfall, heavy winds, hail, unseasonably cold weather, insect damage, or disease are some of the causes of crop failure. If a crop failure occurs, a farmer may lose money and people or animals may be short of food. Most crop failures are due to bad weather.
Weather and Gardens
Bad weather may interfere with garden care. If the garden is located in a low area, too much rainfall may cause flooding and the death of certain plants. If the plants are not watered properly when the weather is dry, many of them may die. Garden plants may also die because of frost. Frost may occur late in the spring after plants have begun to grow. It may also occur in early autumn. Vegetables that grow in the ground may not be affected by the first autumn frost.
Where Plants Live
Plants have certain limits of hot and cold beyond which they cannot live. Plants, such as palm trees, orange trees, and banana plants, do not grow outdoors in the northern parts of the U.S. where it is cold for part of the year. However, these plants may be grown indoors if the heat and the amount of water they get are carefully controlled. Some kinds of outdoor plants live only one growing season. But their seeds begin new plants in the spring. Other kinds of outdoor plants have a special way of adjusting to cold weather. These plants become dormant, or inactive, during the winter. Plants that become dormant may lose all their leaves in the autumn, but they grow new leaves in the spring. Evergreen plants do not lose all their leaves in the autumn, but these plants do become dormant.
Where animals live
Weather has a great deal to do with where animals live. You may know that some animals are cold-blooded. Their body temperature changes with the temperature of their environment. Other animals are warm-blooded which live anywhere in the world where there is enough food to sustain them. Cold-blooded animals cannot live in places where the temperature stays below freezing for long periods of time.
Hibernating
Some animals hibernate, or pass the winter weather in a dormant state. A ground squirrel, for example, hibernates during the winter months if it lives in a place where the ground is covered with snow for most of the winter. The ground squirrel stays in a burrow until spring. It lives and survives the cold weather by using its stored body fat for energy. It can do so because it is not active at this time. Its body temperature is lower and its rate of breathing and heartbeat are slower than they are when the animal is active. Other animals that may hibernate are badgers, opossums, certain bears, brown bats, woodchucks, certain birds, lizards, snakes, turtles, toads, and frogs.
Migrating
Some animals migrate, or make long trips at different seasons of the year. Animals usually migrate in the autumn and in the spring. One reason they migrate before winter comes is that cold weather may kill the plants or animals that they feed on. They migrate back again in the spring when the warm weather renews their food supply. Some animals that migrate are caribou, certain seals, certain bats, monarch butterflies, and certain birds such as the arctic tern, the sandpiper, and the hummingbird.