Types of Weather & Its Effects on People

Heat

• Human beings are well suited to hot environments, since the species spent a great deal of time living exclusively on the African continent. Heat is thought to have been one of the factors that helped affect the change from a hairy primate to a relatively hairless one. More immediately, heat causes dehydration and a sunburn, and in extreme amounts it can lead to a quick death.

Wind

• Wind is another common kind of weather experienced by human beings. It can cool temperatures, and this can have an affect on the human body, but it does not itself have a huge affect on people. It can, however, cause damage to dwellings and other buildings, and can affect the environment in many different ways. Hurricanes and other storm systems cause high winds, which can, for example, cause sea swells and riptides, which are responsible for killing many people every year around the world.

Rain

• Rain is an important weather system for the proper functioning of many different ecosystems. Without it a great deal of the life on Earth, including human life, would not be possible, so in this way it is has a hugely positive impact on human beings. In large amounts it can also cause floods and landslides, which can damage human settlements and kill people caught in the way.

Snow

• Snow is one extreme kind of weather system that human beings have successfully adapted to here on Earth. Even in the northernmost areas of North America and Europe, human beings survive with a minimal amount of material goods. Snow, and more generally cold temperatures, are not the natural environment of human beings though, and cold exposure can kill quickly, especially in extreme temperatures. But snow melt from mountains also irrigates many of the world's most fertile croplands, and is immeasurably helpful to the human race in this way.