Water Cycle

Water Cycle

Evaporation is when the sun heats up water in rivers or lakes or the ocean and turns it into vapor or steam. The water vapor or steam leaves the river, lake or ocean and goes into the air.

The earth has a limited amount of water. That water keeps going around and around and around and around and in what we call the "Water Cycle".

Water vapor in the air gets cold and changes back into liquid, forming clouds. This is called condensation. You can see the same sort of thing at home

Precipitation occurs when so much water has condensed that the air cannot hold it anymore. The clouds get heavy and water falls back to the earth in the form of rain, hail, sleet or snow.

Evaporation

Condensation

Precipitation

Collection

When water falls back to earth as precipitation, it may fall back in the oceans, lakes or rivers or it may end up on land. When it ends up on land, it will either soak into the earth or it may run over the soil and collect in the oceans, lakes or rivers then the cycle restarts