Weather

Hurricanes are the most powerful storms on Earth in terms of size, energy released, and the scale of damage they can produced. The wind and the rain can be unrelenting, but the storm surge often times causes more damage. And if that’s not bad enough, hurricanes can even spawn tornadoes which makes some locations sustain far greater damage than the surrounding areas. The terms typhoon and hurricane mean the same thing, that is, they are both non-frontal synoptic scale low-pressure systems over tropical or sub-tropical waters with organized convection (i.e.;…
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Even though the Earth does pass closer to the sun during part of its orbit, this is not what’s responsible for the hot summers and cold winters. If this were the case, then both the northern and southern hemispheres would have their summers and winters at the same time. However as you’ll see below, exactly the opposite is true. When it’s summer in the northern hemisphere, it’s winter in the southern hemisphere. The Earth rotates about its axis once per day, but the Earth’s axis is tilted, 23.5° from vertical…
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Lightning is one of Mother nature’s offerings that captures everyone’s attention because there’s just the right mix of fear and curiosity which draws folks to the show. Moreover, the amounts of ozone and nitrogen oxides created by lightning surpass those generated by human activities in that level of the atmosphere (source: NASA)! Below is a comprehensive list of lightning facts and statistics. Everything listed on this page has been verified with valid sources, such as NOAA, NASA, The National Weather Service (NWS), and medical professionals. Although some of the tid-bits…
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Can lightning cause an airplane crash? Not today. In fact, the last time a commercial airplane crashed in the United States due to a lightning strike was about 50 years ago. On December 8, 1962 lighting hit a Pan American Boeing 707 in a holding pattern over Elkton, Md. The lightning created a spark that ignited jet fuel vapor in a holding tank, triggering an explosion that killed all 81 aboard. Nowadays, the FAA estimates that each commercial airliner will be hit by lightning once a year (some will get…
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Wind chill is a measure of how cold people and animals feel based on heat loss due to wind and evaporation. In cold and windy weather conditions, the skin loses heat through evaporation much more quickly than if the wind were not blowing. Therefore, it feels much cooler when it’s cold outside and the wind is blowing. The faster the wind blows, the greater the evaporation and thus, the greater the chilling affect. This is called windchill, “real feel”, or apparent temperature. There are a few misconceptions about wind chill….
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It is a myth that tornadoes never hit big cities. Pictured to the left is a tornado that ravaged downtown Miami Florida on May 12th, 1997. The fact is tornadoes have a long history of hitting big cities and when they do, they usually cause a great amount of damage due to the population density. As a matter of fact, tornadoes can form pretty much anywhere at any time, although they usually form in the Midwest during the the springtime. It’s a matter of population density, statistics and climate rather…
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