Severe weather

SEVERE WEATHER

By: Jacqueline Dumbsky Skyelyn Evenhouse Katie Hult and Natalie Sutter

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Dear readers, In this magazine you will learn about different types of severe weather. We learned how to make a magazine look real, and how to be safe during a severe weather occurrence. I hope you enjoy this. We also

fronts. It’s important to learn about Indiana weather because it’s where we live.

It’s also important to learn about the other weather occurences because it might happen to you.

From, The editor

learned about air masses and 2]

TORNADOES

It was a warm moist day in Kansas. I was outside playing a game of softball with my family. We noticed the clouds were darkening.

The wind began to grow faster and faster until it was slamming into the windows of our house, making the glass crumble like cake. We ran for the shelter underground as we watched a funnel slowly touch down. The warm air and cool air must’ve combined creating the tornado. “GET IN THE UNDERGROUND SHELTER!” My dad yells. We all bursted towards the small door. I took a glimpse at my mother and it made me cry. She was in tears and carrying my baby sister. She loved the house. We all said a prayer together and hoped the house would still be standing when we returned. We had to stay down there for an hour or so. When we returned, our house was in one piece but the neighbor’s house wasn’t.

The roof looked like it was going to collapse, and his windows were gone. We learned later that the tornado was classified as being an F5, the most dangerous tornado you could ever have.

The tornado ruined buildings and houses and killed thousands of people. It was almost as bad as the super outbreak! The deadliest tornado that ever happened. My dad says whenever there’s a tornado, you have to go to a room without windows, or if your no where near a house, go to a ditch. It was a scary time for all of us, but we survived and now we can tell our children about it.

Indiana Weather

Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve been so fascinated with weather. I’ve always wanted to be a meteorologist. As soon as I turned 18, I attended Arizona State University and went through college for 3 years. Now I live in Indiana. The weather comes from the west.

Things that occur here are tornadoes,thunderstorms, snow blizzards, lake effect snow, and flooding. I’m going to tell you everything about Indiana weather.

The most common occurrence for Indiana is a thunderstorm. They usually happen in the seasons of spring and summer.Lightning travels faster than thunder. Thunder is caused when air surrounds the path of a lightning bolt.Lightning is a group of electrons. They are 54,000 degrees. In a thunderstorm, each second between the thunder and lightning is about 300 meters. A storm happens from uplifting of warm air.

Cold air masses move warm air masses away.

When humid air is lifted, it will cool and produce a cloud to form. Sometimes the thunderstorms are mild, but other times they can be the kind of thunderstorm where lightning strikes at every corner and you get drenched from rain if you walk out of your house for even a second. Indiana has 4 seasons. The season occur here because of the jet stream. The jet stream divides polar and topical air masses. In topical air ! !

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masses it’s warm

effects it. The normal vacation. I also like

and has moisture. In

snowfall is less than

summer because it’s

polar air masses the

22 inches. The thing

growing season. In

temperature is cold

that I thought was

the fall it gets cold

and there is little

most interesting

and the leaves

moisture. That’s

about Indiana is the

flourish with color

where snow blizzards climate. Rainfall is

and fall off the trees.

come in. The biggest distributed evenly

They turn red,

snow blizzard in

throughout the year.

orange, brown, and

Indiana was on

The yearly

yellow. Fall is also the

January 26,1967. Out precipitation is 40

season for

of all of the Great

inches. Spring is the

harvesting. Those are

lakes I’ve only been

season where it rains all of the things that I

to Lake Michigan. We the most.This rain

had to learn about

get lake effect snow

can cause flooding.

when I moved here.

from the north

That’s why people

!

because of the Great say April showers Lakes. Lake effect

bring May flowers!

snow occurs when

Spring is also the

cold air moves over

season for planting.

warm water. Heat

My favorite season

and moisture from

is summer because

the Great Lakes rise

it’s fun to go

and wind direction

swimming and go on

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Temperature Chart: JAN: 35/19

JULY:86/65

Feb: 40/23

August:84/63

March:51/32

Sep. 77/55

April: 63/41

Oct:66/44

May: 74/52

Nov: 52/34

June:82/61

Dec: 39/24

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Whoosh! Crash! Boom! These are just the beginning of the noises I heard on that devastating day. I was sixteen years old when she hit the city of New Orleans, Louisiana in 2005. I was terrified at the sight of the garbage cans being pulled down the street by the current and the screen door being ripped off of the front of the house. I could hear the screams of the neighbors as the tree in their front yard falls, only to miss their house by a few feet. There was chaos everywhere in the city. The sound of the weather warning on the T.V distracted me until the power went out for good. Waiting for the rescure boats and helicopters felt like forever. I can remember my mother telling me to stay calm and think happy because she knew we were going to be okay. Eventually they came and we were safe, but we were the lucky ones. Hurricane Katrina killed over 1,800 people and left over 700,000 americans homeless. It also caused about 80 billion dollars in property damage.

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A hurricane can be defined as a storm with violent wind or a tropical cyclone which usually occur in the Caribbean or other tropical zones. These storms cause so much damage, including floods.

Most people would think that the leading cause of death in a hurricane are the floods but suprisingly, it’s the high speed winds. Since the winds are one of the main parts of a hurricane, there is a scale of rating hurricanes called the Saffir-Simpson Scale which is based on the maximum sustained wind speed. The scale is from 1 to 5, 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest, as shown below.

CATEGORY

MPH

CATEGORY !

74-95

CATEGORY 2

96-110

CATEGORY 3

111-130

CATEGORY 4

131-155

CATEGORY 4

156 +

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Hurricanes begin as tropical storms over water. The water has to be warm and moist for them to form. As the moisture evaporates, it rises until amounts of heated moist air are twisted high in the atmosphere. The winds being to circle counterclockwise north of the equator of clockwise south of the equator. The center of the hurricane is called the eye. Around this center point winds move at speeds between 70 and 200 miles per hour. As long as the hurricane remains over waters of 79 degrees or warmer, it keeps pulling moisture from the surface of the water and then it grows in size and power.When a hurricane crosses land or cooler waters,it looses its power, and winds slow until they aren’t on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.

We encourage our readers to look into finding instructions on what to do in a hurricane so they can be prepared in any situation. Remember, nobody can plan these things. For more questions, you can email [9] our editor. (Page 1)

As the clouds cast a sinister shadow over are town, I look out my window and I can hear the wind whispering through the trees getting faster and faster and soon sounds like a cry for help. I never saw weather like this before. The snow was coming down like bricks. I ran downstairs to find my mom loading everything from the fridge into a cooler. As I was about to ask what she was doing, the power went out and the room went pitch black. I could hear my mom say something but I couldn’t make it out.

My dad was still at work so she was a nervous wreck, hoping he would walk through the door at any moment. At that minute it hit me! I knew what was happening! It was a blizzard. I have been learning about them all week in school and they are very dangerous with the heavy snow whiteouts, and lots of snow and high winds that can knock out electricity. I also know you need lots of things to survive a blizzard like blankets,candles,and a battery operated radio because there is no electricity.

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