Midwest Weather

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ISSUE N0. 1

MIDWEST WEATHER

LOWELL MIDDLE SCHOOL/SPRING 2013/VOLUME 01

Authors: Hunter Boyer and Kevin Milanowski

Illustrations: Hunter Boyer and Kevin Milanowski

Table of Contents:

Introduction to WeatherA Day in the Life of a TornadoThe Malevolent Thunderstorm-

p.2 p.3 p.5

Letter from the EditorsBibliography-

p.8 p.8

Introduction to Weather

WEATHER FACTORS

by Hunter Boyer and Kevin Milanowski

So, you might be asking yourself: “What is weather?”

Well, maybe not, everybody probably has their own idea.

Rain, snow, wind, clouds, that kind of stuff. But what else is under the broad title of weather?

Weather is the current state of the atmosphere at any given moment and location. There are three primary factors that create weather patterns: the Sun, the atmosphere, and large bodies of water. We’ll delve into each of these in this short introductory article to our magazine.

First we have the Sun, the giant ball of burning hydrogen that keeps us all alive. Its heat changes Earth’s temperature and stirs convection into the atmosphere. But shouldn’t it all be the same, as everywhere gets the warmth?

Earth’s tilt alters this. The planet is tilted 23.5º, and as you move away from the Equator and closer to the poles, the Sun’s rays become less direct. This delivers less warmth, and so different places have different temperatures. At the poles, the light is very indirect and very little heat comes from it.

At the Equator, which is in nearly the same location relative to the sun, it is much more direct and therefore is warm and tropical yearround.

Halfway between the Equator and the poles, we have temperate zones.

These have mild temperatures that vary throughout the year, with a diversity of weather and multiple seasons. These seasons come from that tilt, and their different temperatures affect the w e a t h e r. M o s t o f t h e contiguous United States lies in this zone.

Next, we have the atmosphere. The air is stirred by convection by heat from the Sun. Warm, less dense air rises above the cold, more dense air. This creates wind.

The atmosphere also has wind from the Coriolis Effect, in which the air moves about above the Earth because of its rotational energy. The biggest wind flow that affects the United States is the jet stream, which brings in clouds from southwestern

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Canada. It separates the northern and southern areas in terms of weather, with the north being colder and the south being warmer.

Last, we have bodies of w a t e r. T h e s e h e l p t o moderate the temperature of the surrounding air. Water takes longer to heat and cool than land, and so it gives the area milder temperature changes. On the coasts, the oceans serve this purpose, and for the northern Midwest, the Great Lakes moderate the temperature. The oceans also help fuel major storms, such as monsoons and hurricanes.

In this magazine, we will help to prepare you for extreme weather. In this specific issue, we will go into two specific types more common to the American Midwest, tornadoes and severe thunderstorms.

A Day in the Life of a Tornado

by Kevin Milanowski •••

Here I am, floating above the expansive Midwest. I was just born, a warm and a cold air mass collided and the air started dancing around. Mix in a dash of wind shear and stir in an updraft, and bam! Cloud rotation, funnel cloud, and in the end, tornado.

So here I am, preparing to torment society. Right now, I’m still in the making, I guess, but I’m coming. The cloud is already rotating. There’s no rain anymore, but the hail is falling pretty hard. The people below me are saying they’re as big as baseballs. By their astonishment, I’m guessing that’s quite an accomplishment.

Right now it’s about eight in the evening. The sunset was blocked by my storm and the sky has been a pretty shade of green for a while. The storm is a nice big supercell, an enormous rotating storm that specializes in the creation of tornadoes, like me. The wind stopped a bit ago, too. Well, I had better go and continue it. My funnel cloud is now tapering out and reaching down to the ground. Off I go, northeast at about 30 mph.

I came pretty quick, but I’m damaging a lot. Wow, 200 meter damage path. Generally about 100 meters. I don’t know how far I’ll go or how long I’ll last, though.

Tornadoes often last only a few

minutes, I hope that’s not the case with me. The debris is flying. Windows breaking, cars flying, trees cracking, it’s a bit anarchic, but pretty nice. Well, if you’re the tornado, anyway. Not very good to have to go through one.

A smarter bunch is down in their basement, good for them.

Waiting out the storm. Waiting for me to leave. I guess maybe I should, I don’t have much of a chance of reaching them, I’m wasting my time here.

Underground is the safest place to be. If you don’t have a basement or storm shelter, you should hole up in a room in the middle of your house.

I’m currently headed into a big neighborhood, full of people. Let’s see how many I can pilfer! Wow. Somebody’s out on the grill. Burgers aren’t as important as your life! Stupidity in a box. Yoink, away he goes.

Hmmmm. . . do you mind. . . I’ll just take those burgers there. . .

‘Tis tasty. Moving right along, there’s somebody up in their living room, and it seems I’ve already taken their windows. And out she comes. Ouch, cut all over by the broken glass in the window frame, sorry about that. I swear the cuts were an accident, I was only planning on. . . I guess you could say “relocating” you.

Stay away from the windows, people! Seriously! Oops, sorry

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about the trailer. The trailers are just rolling everywhere, and all those people inside are going to be tenderized by the time it lands. This is really easy, most of these people have absolutely no idea what they’re doing.

Oh! There goes a nice minivan, hurtling like a meteor.

Well, not quite so fast as a meteor, but they still had better have insurance on that. Wait, if I can throw cars, I might be an F3, but. . . is that. . . a train? It is!

Okay, here’s the test of my strength. Come here. . . come here. . . I’ve got it, and it’s rolling.

It’s rolling! I’m an F3! This is great! Only five percent of tornadoes are ever F3.

There’s F0, the wimpy ones that can barely break a McDonald’s sign. Winds only 40 to 70 mph. F1, sure, they can take some shingles off your roof, maybe push your car. (They’re probably jealous I can throw them!) About 70 to 110 mph winds. Each of those account for about thirty-five percent of all tornadoes. F2, those are pretty strong, too. They can overturn a train car, and uproot trees. They can throw small stuff, like maybe a refrigerator. Wind speeds from about 110 to 160 mph. About twenty percent of tornadoes are F2. Then there’s me, an F3. We can tear walls out of wellconstructed houses, flip trains, mow down forests, throw cars.

About 160 to 200 mph winds. There’s even stronger ones, though, like the wedge t o r n a d o e s , F 4 ’s a n d F 5 ’s .

Leveling houses, even carrying them along as they disintegrate in the air. F4 tornadoes are one percent of all tornadoes and F5’s are only a tenth of a percent.

Also, 200 to 260 mph and 260 to 320 mph wind speeds, respectively.

Cars flying everywhere, houses being knocked over, trees uprooted, roofs dismantled, this is all great, but I’m running out of time. I’m beginning to thin out.

And away I go, my rampage ending. Now I wait and watch what happens in my wake.

There’s lots of people injured by flying debris and buried under the rubble. They should have just stayed inside. Although some people were sleeping, can’t really

blame them. I came so quick and in a house full of gas leakage. late, they didn’t really have any Probably best to use a flashlight. chance. Seriously? Now they’re Some people are using their generators, but they have them stepping on nails. People need to indoors. Not a good idea. Fumes. wear more sturdy boots, and Carbon monoxide. Why don’t watch where they’re going. Lots they have them in their garages? of people also cutting themselves Well, it’s their poison, their reaching into piles of debris. It problem. would probably help to have long People are getting out their sleeves and gloves on. Plenty of weather radios, monitoring them. down power lines, too. Speak of Keeping an eye out for other storms. Relief workers are now the devil, somebody just got on their way. Good for them, electrocuted! Shouldn’t it be good for them. People are out obvious to stay away from those? searching for the lost, going into Some broken pipelines t h e d a m a g e d b u i l d i n g s , are helping out a bit, continuing courageously but cautiously. my destruction. People didn’t get Well, I hope the locals get the back home in time to shut off town back together soon, though power and gas, and now their it might take a few months. They houses are on fire. Well, what’s need the safety of their homes, left of their houses, at least. because here in Tornado Alley, Oooo! That was bright. A house we storms are always around the just burst into flames, I’m bend, just waiting to strike. guessing somebody lit a candle

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The Malevolent Thunderstorm

by Hunter Boyer •••

The twentieth of July, 2010 dawned a clear, spectacular morning. It was late summer, and I was riding my jet ski over the pristine waters of Cedar lake.

The early morning was my favorite time to ride, with the first blazing rays of the red-orange sun being thrown across the water. Before most of the town was awake, I loved to be out in the middle of the lake, tearing over the glasslike surface at over thirty miles an hour. I would race to one end, turn around, and speed back to the other engulfed in a spray of mist.

After two or three complete trips, I slowed to a stop to take a minute and admire the sunrise. Thats when I noticed it.

High up in the sky, like a thin patterned blanket. I knew instantly what it was and what it meant. It was cirrocumulus, which normally precedes large thunderstorms. This meant that in twelve to twenty four hours, large thunderheads would roll ominously over the horizon to blot out the sun and pepper the ground with sheets of rain and hail and rattle the sky with booming thunder, caused by dazzling bolts of lightning shooting across the sky.

Indeed, even as I first recognized the wispy membrane

of clouds floating high above me, far beyond the horizon, that very storm was taking shape. Its rainfilled clouds had not yet begun to drop its payload on the unsuspecting ground below.

Instead, it readied itself for the coming downpour. The clouds grew toward the stars until the howling winds of the jet stream cut off their ascent, and it was a rumbling mass of cumulonimbus clouds. Then, after a moments pause, it allowed itself to be pushed across the sky by the wind as it finally unzipped its bottom to let the rain start to fall.

Although I should have been anxious about the coming deluge, I knew better. That behemoth was still hundreds of miles away, and it would take most of the day to get to where I drifted at that moment. So, instead of racing home, I stayed out to enjoy the crisp, warm morning. Once I finally did come in, I turned on the weather channel just to be sure of my prediction. Sure enough, as the Local on the Eights came on, you could see a huge line of rain sweeping over Iowa and Illinois.

Already, they had placed a severe weather advisory on the area until the early morning hours. I figured that I would withhold this information from my family until later in the day so we

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could enjoy the beautiful day that always precedes a thunderstorm.

On and on the front came, hurtling across the sky as it unloading buckets of water on the unfortunate people and houses below. Thunderclouds know no mercy, and as it entered a slightly cooler air mass, it added hail to its arsenal. The hail started out as dime-sized, but steadily grew until some of them were golfball-sized. It was then when the storm, with its heavy rain, strong winds, and now large hail, became a dangerous storm that could damage buildings and possibly hurt people.

As the morning progressed to m i d d a y, t h e c l o u d s k e p t streaming sluggishly past, towards the far horizon. I would occasionally look up from my yard work to check on the clouds.

I began to notice subtle changes in the clouds. They seemed to be migrating toward the ground and getting slightly more puffy. This meant that they were transforming in altocumulus, which normally means a turn in weather can be expected within eight hours. But as the clear morning turned to afternoon, the clouds dipped lower still, transforming once again into stratocumulus. The storm was fast approaching were I stood, hunched over a mash of weeds.

Although traveling through

of clouds that stretched almost all the way from Minnesota to Oklahoma. Although most of the clouds to the north only dumped sheets of rain and sometimes hail, the southern clouds were becoming a nursery for powerful tornadoes that were tearing through Kansas and Nebraska.

The storm was being blown across the midwest at breakneck speeds with no signs of slowing down. It had already covered hundreds of miles of territory and seemed intent on growing that territory until it completely died out somewhere over the east.

Back over northwest Indiana, the air was starting to cool off as the winds from the west brought with it some of the air from the cold front. This was a sign of the ferocious squall that lay in store.

The clouds now started to grow vertically as the clouds became cumulus. In time, these clouds would slow down and join the broiling mass of air and clouds, but for now they raced ahead of it screaming a warning to the land of the peril it was in.

When I saw the cumulus drifting past, I knew the storm was close at hand. From the direction the clouds were coming, the sky looked darker and flashes could be seen through the gloom.

Strangely though, at first I couldn’t see the actual clouds.

Then, like a horse coming out of a fog, the big menacing body of the cumulonimbus clouds emerged from the mist, its anvil

pointed directly at me. From that moment the cloud speed toward me, and for the first time I came to realize truly how fast this cloud was traveling. It seemed a matter of minutes before the huge, seemingly impenetrable wall of clouds was towering over me.

As soon as the cloud passed over me, I expected to be overwhelmed with buckets of rain. However, the first few minutes were nothing but tense anticipation. You could see the long tendrils of rain dropping down from the clouds, but it didn't seem to be making any progress toward my position, which was in a chair by the window. Then, seemingly very slowly, as if time itself had frozen, the rain visibly made its way across the lake.

When the rain hit, there was no buildup. It did not gradually get worse, but was suddenly and immediately a very hard downpour. The hail, however, did not start immediately. It started a while after the deluge began, but also quickly got worse and worse until it was soon at its biggest point. The lightning had started just a little while before the rain did-which was cool to see-and continued with its original intensity.

At this time the wind was also guide fast as well. It had steadily gotten worse throughout the day, and by the time the storm finally arrived, it was whipping pretty good from off the lake. All of these factors were

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really causing a turmoil outside.

Sheets of rain, falling branches, falling hail, and the occasional flash and boom lightning all mixed together to create chaos to the world outside the window were I sat and watched in awe.

The wind was creating large waves that rolled across the lake, one after another crashing onto shore with a giant splash. I thought a storm this intense would be quickly over, but no. It lasted several hours and into the night. My entire family just lay in their beds, listening to the fury the storm was unleashing behind our walls. Sleep would be impossible with the inconsistent bangs and rattles of the unceasing thunder.

The dawn of the twenty first marked a completely different day, one of new hope.

The storm had finally relented in the early morning hours, and the last, straggling clouds were still visible on the horizon as the sun pushed its way up through them.

It was the most spectacular sunrise I could ever imagine.

However, although the sun was a magnificent sight, the ground was not. Tree branches and lawn chairs were strewn randomly across our yard. Water stood in puddles and the trees still dripped water from their sodden leaves. Lots of cleanup would be necessary to get the neighborhood looking normal again.

The storm might have

been over for us, but the storm still raged across the east. It seemed as the storm was immortal, but as it approached the cool, North Atlantic, it was finally sucked without so much as a trace. For the people of the Midwest, the storm's end also signified the end of the almost two day nightmare and the start of the cleanup process. People all across the Great Plains could be found in their yards, collecting debris left behind by the monstrosity. Though the storm seemed like it could have injured many people, miraculously, no one was hurt.

So this was the end. The end of a super storm that ravaged the Midwest over a two day

period. Nobody could look at storms the same way as they had before. People now respected these wonders of nature and the powers they possessed. People also realized that, while thunderstorms may seem harmless, they can become dangerous in a heartbeat, and while thunderstorm might not be as imposing a name as typhoon or tornado, these natural occurrences are nothing to laugh at.

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Letter from the Editors By: Hunter Boyer and Kevin Milanowski •••

We all have extreme w e a t h e r, d a n g e r o u s weather, be it in the form of tornadoes or hurricanes or

even severe thunderstorms.

This magazine primarily focused on the weather of the midwestern United States and regions with similar climates. It is important to know about your particular region’s climate and weather to stay safe. Extreme weather can be extremely dangerous if you do not learn to respect its power.

During the creation of this magazine, we learned a lot about the dangers of extreme weather. Nearly every aspect of them is

damaging; lightning, flooding, hail, wind. Storms can be destructive in nearly any way. It’s also dangerous after the storm, during cleanup. Many hazards lurk in the debris after destructive storms, waiting for an unsuspecting passerby to trigger it.

We hoped you enjoyed reading the magazine as much as we did creating it.

Weather is a fascinating topic to explore, as long as you are careful around the real thing.

Bibliography: journals.ametsoc.org

www.weather.gov

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www.ready.gov