Feral Weather
BY EMILY ,ALLY, AND MEGHAN
Feral weather is a magazine thats about well, weather, but we don’t write about any kind of weather we write about AMAZING WEATHER! Type to enter text
Enjoy!
Letter from the editors Dear Readers, We would like to talk to you about what we have learned while creating this magazine. Editor #1 Hello, I am Emily. I have learned about team work and how it can either be for or against you, if every one in a group works together you will have success. What I have learned about weather is that weather has a good side and a bad side. It is unpredictable and you must always be prepared for anything. I think that weather is important because we nee it to live, if it did not rain all the plants would die and if we had no wind the seeds would not spread across the land. We also wouldn't get the enjoyable parts of weather like a cool summer breeze, or an afternoon of staring at the clouds. Thanks, Emily Editor #2 Hi, this is Allison! What I learned from making this magazine is patience. You have to have patience while working on a group project because some people are slower workers than others. You just have to calm down,
be patient, and not worry because if you are patient then you will be successful! What I have learned about weather is that it can happen at any moment. Weather can be predictable, but not predictable at the same time. Since that is the case you have to prepared at a moments notice and always have a plan for different situations. Weather is an easy topic if you know what weather is. Weather is what the atmosphere is like at a specific time and place. The is always changing. Some days are sunny, some are rainy, some are stormy, etc. Weather can change at any moment with the slight change in the climate. I hope this magazine will help you get a better understanding of what weather is and how extreme it can be. Happy reading!!! :) Sincerely, Allison Editor #3 Meghan- what i learned was how crazy the indiana weather is and how lake effect snow happens.
Like a snow globe by Emily Peyton
the snow slopes were already closed before we got there. I remember feeling like I was in a snow globe. the window only showed me white coldness. For 3 days I waited with my snowboard close, waiting for the  ski resorts rescue crew. What are blizzards? blizzards are severe weather storms that have a combination of wind and snow, a blizzard does not always include falling snow. Wind can also pick up snow that is on the ground. The National Weather Service has defined a blizzard as large amounts of falling or blowing snow with winds of at least 35 mph and ability to see less than Ÿ of a mile for more than 3 hours. What makes a blizzard dangerous? Blizzards can make very dangerous conditions, such as when you are traveling in a car, the blizzard will make it hard to see, the road will be slick with snow, and strong winds will occur. Make sure that if you have to travel your care has no problems and you are prepared with emergency supplies in case you are stranded. Another dangerous aspect of blizzards is severe cold, exposure to this cold can cause frostbite and hypothermia. What is frostbite? frostbite is the destruction of tissues commonly in the finger, toes, ears, and nose caused by freezing. Frostbite is characterized by tingling, blister formation, and decomposition(breaking down). What is Hypothermia? abnormally low temperature caused by cold conditions.
monsoon by Emily Peyton
Living in arizona had been a strange experience for me. I always felt like the wind was different, like it was bipolar, always feeling, sounding, smelling different. what are monsoons? monsoons are any wind that changes direction with the seasons they occur in Arizona, new mexico, south california, utah, colorado and they happen in july through september. why do they happen? monsoons are caused by dramatic increase in rainfall over a usually dry area. why are they dangerous? when monsoons occur they can create flash floods, strong winds, lightning, thunder storms and dust storms, extreme heat and wildfires.
Hurricane at Isle of Palms!!!! – Allison Foor 1 year ago I was on vacation at the Isle of Palms, an island off the coast of South Carolina. That’s when it all happened. Hurricane Wendy had hit us. My cousin and I were at the beach house enjoying the heat on the balcony. That’s when Wendy hit us…. My older cousin and I were sitting on the balcony looking at the Atlantic Ocean when we started to see dark clouds heading our way… thunderstorm clouds. Wind came out of nowhere and it was picking up really fast. The wind felt like it was going to pick me up and throw me a thousand feet in the air. Then rain started fall hard. The rain felt like knives cutting through me. I was so scared I didn’t move or say anything. My cousin yelled, “ Hurricane!!!!” He grabbed my arm and forced me to run back inside with him. There were 3 floors in the beach house. My Dad found us and beckoned to follow him to the 2nd floor. I asked my cousin, “ What’s a hurricane?” I only knew it was an ocean storm. He said, “ A hurricane it a tropical storm with violent winds. Also known as tropical cyclones.” Then he noticed I was trying not to panic and or cry. He said, “ It’s ok, Ally. It’s common this time of year for hurricanes to come. June-November is hurricane season for the U.S.” I started to calm down knowing this was common and not unusual for this time of year. “ Hurricanes form on oceans and in tropical places, sort of like the Isle of Palms.” my cousin told me. He kept me distracted from the pouring sky and the screaming wind. “ Hurricanes form when the sun’s rays heats the tropical waters to at least 82 degrees Fahrenheit. The air grows warmer than it already is and rises. The water evaporates and heats up which causes the already warm air to rise even faster. After that continues for 12 hours the heated air gets so high it cools to clouds that begin to spin counterclockwise, since we are in the North Hemisphere. When the clouds start to spin faster it makes the wind stronger and stronger that whirl. Motionless air that is calm that’s start to move very slowly starts as a light breeze; if the air moves even faster turns into afresh breeze. When the wind moves even faster its called high wind. If the wind gets to 74 miles per hour then it is considered a hurricane.”
Did you know????? Hurricanes need the Coriolis Force to actually spin.
I asked, “ What about the fronts?” “What fronts”, he asked. “ You know. There are cold fronts and warm fronts right? If there is rain there must be something about the fronts.” He said trying to be louder than the wind that screamed like a lady in a horror movie, “ Oh! Moist, hot winds of hurricanes swirl up and around calm areas of air, which is the eye of the hurricane. Cold…” “ What’s the eye of a hurricane…. Sorry, for interrupting…” I asked regretting being rude. “ Its ok. The eye of the hurricane is the center.”, he explained. “ As I was saying cold fronts are sucked into the eye and gets heated, then twists up the eye.”, he said. “Once the warm fronts are high enough and cool down to form water droplets that move close together to form clouds and then drop boat loads of rain.” “ That’s cool!”, I said above the still chimpanzee screaming wind. My cousin grabbed the bag of Cheetos from my grandpa’s hand, whom quickly gotten from the 3rd floor. My Dad, Mom, grandpa, grandma, both aunts, and uncle were all talking about what else we could get all at once just in case we needed. My cousin said they were coming up with Safety Plan and you always need one just in case situations like this happened; since we weren’t expecting it we didn’t have one, which is bad. “ Can you tell me about the high and low pressures of the hurricane?”, I asked my cousin. “ Sure. There’s not a lot to the pressures. The low pressures are close to the eye, which makes the winds spin even faster. The high pressures are on the outer most of the hurricane. So the wind isn’t as bad where the edges of the hurricane were. Is it just me or is the wind going down?”, he explains and asks. “I think it is! Does this mean it almost over or moving away?”, I say getting a little excited. “ Yep. I still we still a long way to go but it is going down.”, he says cautioning me not to get my hopes up. “ What kind of cloud formations are there in a hurricane?”, I ask. “You know those night dark, thunderstorm clouds we saw as it was starting? Those are basically the formations. Right before I got us inside did you see them circling counterclockwise? That was another formation. The wind was still screaming but not as loud as it was before. The wind was more like nails running down a chalkboard. The rain was like bricks being thrown at the window. “ Are tornadoes and hurricanes similar?” I ask my cousin. “Yes. But they are still very different. Why don’t you tell me how they are similar? Then I’ll tell you
how they are different.”, he says. “Ok. Tornadoes and hurricanes are both violent weather events. They have strong winds. Tornadoes and hurricanes both definitely intense low pressure. They rotate counterclockwise in the north and clockwise in the south.”, I say. “Nicely, done. Now they are different in multiple ways. Hurricanes are tropical cyclones that are 600 miles wide, in diameter. They can get as big as 1,300 miles, but the average is 300 miles wide. Hurricanes last for days, even weeks! They occur over warm water ocean water. Hurricanes are independent weather events. Winds can get up 200 miles per hour, but have to be at least 74 miles per hour to be considered as a hurricane. Most damages are from flooding. When you look at a hurricane the is no present funnel.”, he says. “ Tornadoes are small in weather terms. They are less than 30 feet wide. The largest tornado was 2.5 miles. The average of a tornado is 150 feet. Tornadoes only last a few minutes or a few seconds. Tornadoes that go over an hour are rare. They usually form over land. Tornadoes are dependent on the parent thunderstorm called a super cell to form and sustain itself. Any damage is from all the wind. There is also a condensation funnel that is visible. Tornado winds exceed to 300 miles per hour.”, my cousin continued. “ How are hurricanes named?” I ask. “ Hurricanes are named from a list selected by the World Meteorological Organization. They are named in alphabetical order. They are also named by how dangerous they are. That is recorded on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane scale.” “ What’s the Saffir-Simpson scale?”, I ask. “ It is an intensity scale used to measure the strength of tropical cyclones. Ranging category 1-5. The only damage a tornado can do is uproot trees, throw cars, and level buildings.”, he says. “ Do you want to know some good things that hurricanes cause?”, my cousin asks. “ Sure.” I say licking the cheese off from my fingers from the Cheetos. “ Hurricanes bring rain to dry regions and encourages rebuilding. They also transport heat and moisture from the equator and reshape geology. They cool an area for a time. They also remove dead branches from trees. Hurricanes bring people outside to actually talk to their neighbors. Most importantly they bring families and communities together.”, he says. “ All the flooding that we are going to see after the hurricane is over are from storm surges.”, my cousin tells me. “ What’s a storm surge?”, I ask. “ Storm surges are high rises of water above sea level.”, he explains. “ Storm surges are actually what causes the most deaths from hurricanes.”, he also tells me. I look outside and see sunlight. “The hurricane stopped!”, I yell. The adults stop whatever card game they are playing and hurry outside. I get up to follow them, but my cousin says, “ Wait, Ally. Wait until they tell us its ok to go outside.” “Ok…”, I say moping. “ Hey! Do you here something cool about hurricanes?” “ Sure.”, I say still moping. “ Hurricanes were once thought to be shaped as doughnuts and circled around the eye, but satellite images showed them more like a pinwheel. For hurricanes to actually move they need the Coriolis effect. The Coriolis effect results from the Earth’s rotation causing freely moving objects to veer right in the North and veer left in the South.”, he said. “That’s pretty cool! Now lets go outside.”, I say impatiently. “Fine.”, he says. That was my first hurricane.
WHAT A MESS, INDIANA WEATHER
I moved from ILlinois to INdiana. I was 6th grade 2 years ago and the weather here is a little different than what I thought. It is more windy here. I remember when I was at my house swimming and it started to get dark out to the west, like dark brown out there and the wind got out of control. We had to come inside and go in the basement. it was the scariest wind storm ever! That is just a small part of the crazy weather here in Indiana. the Climate here is humid continental with moderate to high humidity and precipitation. So you never know when you are going to sweat your butt off or freeze to the bone because one day it could be 80 degrees and the next day 40 degrees. In the same week we have had snow and rain. I don’t live in the so called snow belt, but that area can get a lot of lake effect snow. There are a few ingredients that produce lake effect snow. First a warm body of water, and 2nd cold air. the warm lake air rises into the cold air which causes lake effect snow. This usually happens in north east Indiana. I thought about buying a home on the river but decided not to because of melting snow and lots of rain to make the river overflow and of course would cause my yard to flood. In fort wayne Indiana they have had a record 21 consecutive days without sunshine. On march 8, we had 80 degrees temperature that is the earliest high temperature ever. All in all if you don’t like the messy Indiana weather, then don’t move here. Meghan Wolgemuth