Weather
By Tess Phillips
Table of contents
Thunderstorms………………………………………………………pg.1-2
Lighting, Thunder, Rain, Hail
Storms on land…………………………………………………………pg.2
Tornadoes, Earthquakes, Sink holes/ landslides
Storms in the Water…………………………………………………pg.2-3
Hurricanes, Tsunamis, underwater volcanoes
Air……………………………………………………………………pg.3
What is air, how does air move?
Weather tools………………………………………………………………4-5
What tools do we use? Why do we use the?
Resources……………………………………………………………pg.5
Have you ever wondered what it is like to be close to a lightning strike? Or how an earthquake is made? Or what is a sinkhole or landslide? Learn all this and more in this informational piece of writing.
Thunderstorms
Thunderstorms they happen about 1,800 different places a day!
Lightning
Did you know that there are around 100 lightning strikes every single second around the world!!! So right know and now there was around 200 lightning strikes right there! Isn't that crazy to think about. So there is 8,640,000 lightning strikes every day!!!!! Lightning is one of the most powerful forces on the planet, it sets of forest fires, destroys buildings, kills plants, animals and people. Lightning is a very large electrical spark that is caused by tiny particles, called electrons, moving suddenly from one place to another. Electrons are parts of atoms – the small particles that everything around us is made of. Warren Faidley, An extreme weather journalist, said “About 9:30p.m. On October 16, 1988 lightning struck a lamp pole just 400 feet in front of me. The strike was so close and so bright I was blinded for a moment. The thunder was immediate- like a million drums going off in my head. I lost my balance… When I got to my feet and closed my eyes, I could still see the outline of the lightning bolt.” I wonder what it would be like to be that close to a lightning bolt? There are different kinds of lightning heat lightning, bead and rocket lightning, ribbon lightning and ball lightning. Heat lightning is a flash that lights up distant clouds they are too far away to see and they often happen on hot summer nights that’s how they got their name. Bead lightning is when parts of the channel is longer than the other, rocket lightning is one section that lights up. Ribbon lightning is when it looks like a blurred streak with more than one flash in it. Ball lightning is a rare type of lightning that is in the shape of a globe. Minute particles our protons, neutrons and electron.
Thunder
Thunder is a noise made by lightning. Since air takes up more space when it is hot, the air around the channel explodes out in all directions. The explosion sends out waves that are heard as a sound, the sound of thunder. Light travels faster than sound so when lightning flashes you can see it all most instantly but the thunder takes about five minutes to reach us.
Rain
The rain comes when the last stage of the water cycle is completed, first in the water cycle there is what we call evaporation which is when the sun heats water and the water turns into vapor. Next is condensation which is where the vapor turns into drops of water. Last there is precipitation which is when the water falls to the ground and is most commonly known as rain. Sleet is a form of precipitation that consist of ice pellets this often happens with rain and snow. Snow is ice shaped in to tiny crystals. A run off occurs when rain is not absorbed by the ground. Moisture is water or other liquid diffused in a small quantity. Climate includes temperatures, precipitation and wind. A Hydrosphere is a liquid water component in the earth. Dew is tiny drops of water that form on cool surfaces. You can use a rain gauge to help measure rain! How do you measure rain you might ask? Well look in the weather tools section on page 4 and find out!!!
Hail
Hail is precipitation that is in chunks and they fall from a cumulonimbus cloud. Hail begins as tiny ice pellets that combine with water droplets. The water droplets attach to the ice pellets and begin to freeze as upward drifts toss the pellets and droplets back up to the upper levels of the cloud as the attached droplets freeze, the pellets get bigger.
Storms on Land
Sinkholes
A sinkhole is when there becomes a large hole in the ground that will swallow up everything in its path. It is very hard to get anything out of a sinkhole but I wouldn't try because I don’t know about you but I don’t want to get sucked up in a sinkhole! Sinkholes can be from 3.3 to 2,000 feet in diameter and depth. Landslides are when soil, rock and other particles on earth can no longer hold it together and it gives up to gravity.
Tornadoes
Tornadoes are also called funnel clouds they are not considered tornadoes in tell they touch the ground. Tornadoes only last a few seconds but they can have a lot of damage when they hit the ground. In a tornado what you should do go to your basement if you do not have a basement go to your lowest point in your house that has no windows. You don’t want to be around windows because of winds that can break the glass or if the tornado hits your house the glass from the window can impale your skin and cause more damage to you.
Earthquakes
An earthquake is when two plates on the earth slip past each other. The surface where they slip is called a fault plate. Try this
- Break a block of foam rubber in half.
- Put the pieces on a smooth table.
- Put the rough edges of the foam rubber pieces together.
- While pushing the two pieces together lightly, push one piece away from you along the table top while pulling the other piece toward you. See how they stick?
- Keep pushing and pulling smoothly.
Soon a little bit of foam rubber along the crack (the fault) will break and the two pieces will suddenly slip past each other. That sudden breaking of the foam rubber is the earthquake. That's just what happens along a strike-slip fault.
storms in the water
Hurricanes
“Hurricanes get their energy from warm ocean water” Hurricanes can be over two hundred kilometers wide. Hurricanes, unlike tornadoes, last for days instead of minutes, hurricanes aftermath can include strong winds and floods How to be safe in a hurricane, in case of a hurricane you should go to your top floor in case of flooding, bring food and water because you don’t know how long you will be there bring a flashlight and a battery powered radio so you can hear what is going on ALWAYS bring extra batteries just in case you need them, and you need to put valuables in plastic containers and put them on high selves.
Tsunamis
Tsunamis (pronounced soo-NAH-mee) are a series of HUGE ocean waves created when a large body of water is displaced. A tsunami can hit shore with a lot of impact killing animals and people and destroying everything in its path.
Underwater volcanoes
Underwater volcanoes are is similar to the one on land. The pressure of the magma builds up and finds a weak spot on the crust it rips it open and erupts. Sometimes underwater volcanoes will grow so big that they can even become small to large islands/ they can be as big as New Mexico or British Isles.
Air
What is air?
Why do we even need air?
Air is a precious resource that we should take for granted because without air we would all be dead because we need to fill our lungs up with oxygen to stay alive. Air is made up of many gases, air is made of 78.09 nitrogen, 20.95 oxygen, the last 1 percent is made up of carbine dioxide and argon. Stationary front is the boundary of two air masses. Temperature is when it is hot or cold, warm or chilly. There are to instruments to measure wind anemometer and a wind vain. The hygrometer helps with humidity of air. Have you ever heard of horse hair well you probably have but have you heard about it in weather it sounds crazy but it exists look on page 5 to find out.
How does air moves?
That’s a good question well air moves by convection currents caused by heating and cooling of the air. A cold front is a warm-cool air boundary with the cold air replacing the warmer air. A warm front is a boundary between warm and cold air when the warm air is replacing the cold air. An air mass is a huge body of air whose properties of temperature and moisture content (humidity). Atmosphere is the gasses surrounding the Earth or another planet, one tool that relates to the atmosphere is the barometer.
Weather tools
Anemometer- is an instrument to measure wind speed.
Barometer- is an instrument measuring atmosphere pressure.
Hygrometer- is an instrument to measure the humidity of air or gas.
Horse Hair- is to measure humidity.
Rain gauge- is a device to measure how much rain you get.
Wind Vain- They show what direction the wind is blowing.
We use these tools to make things easier for us like meteorologist use these so if they are on the news they can see, let’s say we got 1 inch of rain they could look at their rain gauge and see that we got one inch and they aren't just guessing and trying to be close. Also some scientist need to know this kind of thing if they are working on that type of project.
I hope you are an expert, or at least close to one, maybe you can become a meteorologist, OK maybe that's a little extreme since we are just kids but most importantly I hope you enjoyed this informational piece of writing.
Resources
Books: Lightning by Stephen Kramer Photographs by Warren Faidley
Weather Patterns by Laura Johnson
Changing Weather by Jennifer Coates-Conroy
5th grade Science Textbook
Websites:
http://www.weatherquestions.com
http://www.thefreedictionary.com