Storms
Have you been in a storm? Storms are amazing, powerful, and can be destructive.
Storms are made by cold air currents moving down and hot air currents moving up, which
creates winds. When the sun’s heat warms water from oceans, it evaporates and rises in
the air. As it rises, it condenses and turns into tiny droplets of water which form a cloud.
With wind and clouds combined, different kinds of storms are produced. Three major
storms are hurricanes, thunderstorms, and snowstorms.
Hurricanes
I. to I.A
[Hurricanes are made of bands of thunderclouds spinning around a still,
calm center called an eye. A hurricane spins because of the earth’s rotation and winds
from the poles. Hurricanes can last for many weeks and travel thousands of miles.]
[They are called baquios in the Philippines.] [Hurricanes are called cyclones in Australia
and typhoons in Southeast Asia.] [The storm may be from 60 to 1,200 miles in diameter,
and the eye is usually 12 the 62 miles across.]
I.B
[While hurricanes may be dangerous to ships when they’re aver the ocean, (quote
from book) they’re and even greater threat on land. They can flatten tees and buildings
and whip up massive waves. Hurricanes also cause storm surges, or raising the ocean
level and driving the sea far inland.] [Along with massive waves, they bring winds that
are up to 186 miles per hour.] [Two examples of hurricanes are Hurricane Mitch and
Hurricane Katherine. Hurricane Mitch struck Central America. It was the most deadly
hurricane in the Western Hemisphere in more than one hundred years. Mitch brought
winds of up to 180 miles per hour and a huge amount of rain, causing huge floods and
mud slides in the Honduras and Nicaragua. The floodwaters reached the third floor in
some buildings in the Honduras. 11,000 people were killed by Mitch and 18,000 were
missing. The estimated damage was five billion dollars. Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana
first and flooded New Orleans, breaking through the levees that protected it, and killing
many people.] [Hurricanes in the western Pacific are mor4 deadly and much stronger
than the ones in the Atlantic Ocean, because the Pacific is larger and the hurricanes get
bigger.]
Thunderstorms
II.
[Thunderstorms are extremely common in places all over the world. They
occur when an updraft of warm air carries water vapor up into colder air. The
warm air cools and the water vapor condenses, causing rain to fall. As the rain
falls, it pulls a downdraft of wind with it.] [Thunderstorms expend enormous
amounts of energy. One inch over ten square miles is more than 230 million cubic
feet of water. For a machine to evaporate and condense that much water as fast as
a thunderstorm, it would take more that 36 million horsepower! Because of this,
people cannot make rainstorms whenever they want. We cannot generate enough
power to produce one.]
II.A
[All thunderstorms are made up of cells, (could do quote about cells here)
which have a downdraft and updraft. Some are made of one, some are made of
more. Large thunderstorms have many cells.]
II.B
[Occasionally, the down draft of a cell will become an updraft and churn
the raindrops round and round in the cloud, causing some of the rain to freeze to
hail.] [Thunderstorms bring rain, occasionally hail, and lightning with them on
their destructive path (journey?).]
Snowstorms
III.
[Snow is frozen water vapor that falls from the clouds and is in the form of
ice crystals when they reach the ground. The United States record for snowfall in
24 hours is 75.8 inches. It was on April 1921, in Silver Lade, Colorado. The
United States record at Mount Shasta Ski Boland, February 19, 1959, after seven
days of continuous snowfall, was 189 inches deep! On March 11, 1911 in
Tamarack, California is 451 inches for snowfall at any one time!]
III.A2. [A blizzard is a snowstorm. Heavy winds and lots of snow bring down
power lines, cutting off power to people. The February 2003 blizzard brought
places to a stand still due to huge amounts of snow, and super low temperatures. It
started in southern parts of the United States, with a torrential rain. Moving
northward, the dropping temperature caused the rain to freeze to ice and snow to
fall. Some cities were 3.3 feet deep in snow and others had more than 4 inches fall
in an hour. The blizzard stopped air travel and road travel. In Baltimore,
Maryland, (can quote story here) a railroad museum’s roof collapsed under the
extreme weight of all the snow and damaged many valuable engines. Some
schools closed, and snowplows were forced to push snow in school parking lots,
closing more schools.]
III.A3. An ice storm is another type of snowstorm. Ice storms occur when rain
Ice storms occur when rain freezes as soon as it touches the ground.]
III.B1. [On January 1998 in many parts of Ontario Quebec, and New Brunswick,
three storms hit and let out up to 4.3 inches of ice. It started on January 5, just as
many people were returning from the holidays. It lasted for 80 hours, when
normally, and ice storm only lasts for a few hours.] [This ice storm was the most
expensive natural disaster in Canada’s history. 3.5 billion United States dollars
was the estimated cost of the storms’ damage.]
III.B2. [The weight of so much ice on the tree branches caused many branches to
break off.] [The ice storm also broke many power lines, cutting power off of
homes. More than 4 million people lost their electricity. It brought down
telephone lines, forcing 600,000 people to build shelters in hotels.]
III.B3. It killed thousands of cows (get info about the businesses shutting down
permanently, could even quote).
Have you been in a storm? Storms are amazing, powerful, and can be destructive.
Storms are made by cold air currents moving down and got air currents moving up,
which creates winds. When the sun’s heat warms water from oceans, it evaporates
and rises in the air. As it rises, it condenses and turns into tiny droplets of water
which form a cloud. With wind and clouds combined, different kinds of storms are
produced. Three major storms are hurricanes, thunderstorms, and snowstorms.
Hurricanes are called cyclones in Australia, typhoons in Southeast Asia, and
baquios in the Philippines. Hurricanes are made of bands of thunderclouds
spinning around a still, calm center called an eye. The storm may be from 60 to
1,200 miles in diameter, and the eye is usually 12 to 62 miles across. A hurricane
spins because of the earth’s rotation and winds from the poles. Hurricanes can last
for many weeks and travel thousands of miles.
While hurricanes may be dangerous to ships when they’re over the ocean, (quote
from book) they’re an even greater threat on land. They can flatten trees and
buildings and whip up massive waves. Along with massive waves, they bring
winds that are up to 186 miles per hour. Hurricanes also cause storm surges, or
raise the ocean level and drive the sea far inland. Tw2o examples of hurricanes are
Hurricane Mitch and Hurricane Katherine. Hurricane Mitch struck Central
America. It was the most deadly hurricane in the Western Hemisphere in more
than one hundred years. Mitch brought winds of up to 180 miles per hour and a
huge amount of rain, causing huge floods and mud slides in the Honduras and
Nicaragua. The floodwaters reached the third floor in some buildings in the
Honduras. Eleven thousand people were killed by Mitch and 18,000 were missing.
The estimated damage was five billion dollars. Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana
first and flooded New Orleans, breaking through the levees that protected it, and
killing many people. Hurricanes in the western Pacific are more deadly and much
stronger than the ones in the Atlantic Ocean, because the Pacific is larger and the
hurricanes get bigger.
Thunderstorms are extremely common in places all over the world. They occur
when an updraft of warm air carries water vapor up into colder air. The warm air
cools and the water vapor condenses, causing rain to fall. As the rain falls, it pulls
a downdraft of wind with it. Thunderstorms expend enormous amounts of energy.
One inch of rain over ten square miles is more that 230 million cubic feet of water.
For a machine to evaporate and condense that much water as fast as a
thunderstorm, it would take more than 36 million horsepower! Because of this,
people cannot make rainstorms whenever they want. We cannot generate enough
power to produce one.