Unusual Storms
Approaching Storm The earth is battered by all sorts of storms almost every day. Some are sand storms, some are typhoons and others might be tornadoes, or snow storms. We have a vast array of storms and the type of storm that hits is usually dependent on several factors, such as temperature, location, environment and other things. An example of this is that most tornadoes hit flat lands, such as those in the Midwestern part of the United States, but this isn't always true. Anyway the point I am trying to make is that there are lots of different types of storms and most of us have at least heard about them and seen some of them first hand. Normal storms are not always the case however and sometimes something weird happens in the way the storms are formed, or what comes out of them. A recent storm in Iowa illustrates this very well. Two fronts met each other and the result was quite unusual. The sky split into stripes and the stripes swept across the sky. There is a name for these things and it is undular bores. Undular Bores are created by an interaction between cool dry air that is enclosed in a low pressure front and a stable layer of moist warm air. The cooler front pushes the warmer air up. The warm air will rise, cool and then fall. It repeats this, each time rising lower and lower until the wave dissipates The front moves forward but is ragged not even, which means that some parts are ahead and others behind causing an unusual sight. Sometimes we tend to think that we have seen it all. Maybe a few of you travel a lot and believe that you have seen every type of storm there is? The year was 2002 and the place was a small village near Calcutta in India. A storm boiled out of nowhere and with it came green rain. The rain was so green that anyone that was out in it had their clothes stained. Some of the buildings in the village were so badly stained that they had to cleaned. At first scientists thought that the rain might have been contaminated, but they found out to the relief of those that had been caught in it that this was not the case. As crazy as it sounds, it turned out that it wasn't raining at all. What the people had experienced was a giant swarm of tropical honeybees that were relieving themselves at the expense of those people and objects underneath them. One type of storm that is really weird, but seems to happen somewhere every year is the storm that brings fish rain. In 2004 people in Knigton Whales were minding their own business when one of these storms hit. How did the fish get into the storm? Scientists who studied what happened deduced that a small tornado had sucked up fish from the ocean and when they fell back down you had the fish rain.
Lightning Storm One of the more fascinating reports that I have heard is about the snowfall in Russia. I live in an area where it snows and I can tell you this, when ever it has snowed, the snow has been white. I am going back far more years than I would like to admit, but this is true. It is not true in Russia however. The snow in Russia has come down in many different colors. They have had green snow, red snow, blue snow, yellow snow and yes, white snow. It makes you wonder, if any of this stuff is dangerous, doesn't it? So what is happening to the snow to change its color? Scientists believe that cyclones in China and Mongolia sucked up pollen, dirt, sand and even dust and this stuff mixed with the snow flakes in the atmosphere and this came down on Russia. Sometimes things come from storms that make no sense. That is the type of storm that hit Spain in the year 2000. I say no sense, because the Spanish storm was composed of chunks of ice that weighed up to 8 pounds and were basketball sized. To us common folk this seems impossible, because most of us would have to say, “how could this stuff have stayed up in the sky being that heavy”? The answer is rather complicated according to a scientific theory, but let me try and explain. Scientists believe that the ice in the sky was in clouds and these clouds were over each other. As the ice got heavy it fell, falling through other clouds and gaining more ice until it was the final size that hit the earth. I hope I explained it in such a way that you can understand. At no time was 8 pounds of ice ever suspended in the sky. When this ice hit, it crushed the roofs of cars and destroyed the roofs of houses. The storm went on for 10 days.
Tornado Approaching Texas Town Here is a storm that I bet you have never heard of. It is a storm that spreads bacteria. Huge dust storms have hit Australia in 2009. These storms pick up bacteria and spread it around the world, yet we never hear about this. They are so powerful that the air is actually turned red. They are caused by drought conditions and in the case of the one in Sydney Australia, a ten year drought. China has also experienced major dust storms. There are now parts of Australia that have turned into a giant dust bowl. Other places that have this problem are Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Africa and in the US, Arizona. As this dust is spread all over the world, we are all breathing it in without even realizing it. An environmental scientist has said, “The minute particles act like urban smog or acid rain. They can penetrate deep into the human body.” There are some storms that are freakishly small. One of these hit Darwin, Australia on December 24, 1974. It was tropical cyclone Tracy. The winds extended out only 50 km. By my figures this was less than 32 miles. This is pretty small when you realize that some of these storms are many hundreds of miles across. Lets finish this discussion with some strange things that have fallen during a storm. Big blobs of mud has fallen, meat has fallen, Rubles in Russia, toads, candy, meteorites, birds, and golf balls, just to mention a few things |
