Tornado Alley is a colloquial name given to that part of the United States where tornadoes most frequently occur. Although Tornado Alley has no official boundaries, it is generally thought of as including most of Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma as well as major portions of Texas, Iowa and South Dakota and adjoining areas. In its broadest [more...]
Break out the snowshovels! Scientists are suggesting that global climate change might actually mean more snowstorms than before. The additional heat energy in the atmosphere makes snowy conditions more likely, even in the face of an overall warming trend. Certainly the monster blizzards in the Eastern US dubbed the Snowpocalypse have people wondering. As if a [more...]
Although lightning can be fascinating to watch, it can also be deadly. That fact isn’t surprising: A lightning bolt can have an electrical potential of millions of volts and have a temperature hotter than the surface of the sun. About 70 people die in the United States each year from lightning strikes, about three each year [more...]
There are few common displays of nature that are more dramatic than lightning — happening in an instant, a lightning strike is hotter than the surface of the sun and creates a sound that sometimes can be heard as far away as 25 miles or 40 kilometers. It’s no wonder that since ancient times lightning [more...]
Typhoons and hurricanes are the same type of weather phenomenon — the only difference is where they form. Typhoons are strong tropical cyclones that form in the western Pacific Ocean, while hurricanes are tropical storms that form in the Atlantic Ocean or Caribbean Sea (or sometimes in the eastern part of the Pacific Ocean). The reason [more...]
A day when there’s no wind outside and a temperature of 40 degrees Fahrenheit won’t seem all that uncomfortable — but add a 15 mph wind, and it’ll literally feel the same as if it were freezing. This phenomenon is known as the wind chill factor, and anyone who spends much time outside in cooler climates [more...]
The Beaufort scale measures approximate wind speed, by visual observation. Such empirical scales had been in use for centuries at least, before Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort developed his scale in 1805 by adding visual descriptions that could be used by sailors to estimate the winds. Subsequently the scale was revised several times, and in 1906 was [more...]