EXTREME WEATHER
BY: ZACH REDMON, DARREN HOPKINS, JACK LOVE,AND AARON KAPALDO
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EXTREME2009
January
Letter from the author(s) We hope you enjoy this months issue of Extreme weather. This magazine contains many examples of extreme weather like; Hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, thunderstorms, monsoons, and flooding. We hope you enjoy! [2]
Indiana weather ! Unpredictable Indiana is what I like to call the state I lived in for 14 years. I call it that because of the unpredictable weather. And let me tell you, there can be some wicked weather, like severe thunderstorms, tornados, lake effect snow, and flooding. If you are going to move be prepared for the worst of the worst. From negative degree weather to 100 degree weather in a matter of days. ! When I had my first severe thunderstorm a tornado followed right behind it. That day the temperature was in the high 70s low 80s which caused the air to rise and bring down the rain. It was pounding thunder and lightning like the fourth of July. I was scared out of my mind. We had the radio busting through the floor so we could here if there was a tornado coming, and eventually there was one on its way. The cold front came out of nowhere and started to push the nice warm up in a spiraling shape and then the cold air does the opposite by spinning down causing a tornado. We hurried and ran to the basement and we forgot the dog! My dad sprinted to to go get him, I swear he ran
faster than Insane Bolt. He made it to the dog and got back down to the basement. But there was no need to worry because the storm passed without us getting hurt. ! And one winter the lake effect from Lake Michigan was so strong it brought a Blizzard! The air was already cold but when that air went over Lake Michigan it brought a whole new type of cold. We got caved in our house with no power for 2 days. And it was all from just some cold air going over a warm body of water like Lake Michigan or any other great lake. ! Flooding can also happen in Indiana and wipe out your whole house in severe cases. But where I lived in Indiana I really didn’t have to worry about flooding to much because I didn’t live by any water and there wasn’t that much rainfall unless there was a Hurricane going on somewhere in the U.S. but it can happen. ! Now do you see why I call my home town unpredictable. If you don’t you might just want to move there and experience the thunderstorms, tornados, blizzards, and flooding first hand.
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Hurricanes It was August 23 of 2005 and my family and I were going down to New Orleans to visit our family members. It was supposed to be a fun vacation but when we got there they were evacuating the whole coast because a hurricane was moving in. A hurricane is a violent tropical storm, cyclonical storm, that have wind speeds of 72 mph or more. The hurricane was coming in fast and I new we would have little time to get out. It was the perfect time for this hurricane not only was it a hurricane but in the last couple of weeks it has been very warm causing moisture from the ocean to rise. It meet up with the cooler air and the warm air broke down causing a violent storm to form. New Orleans is off the Coat of Gulf of Mexico where hurricanes
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like to go however hurricanes start in the ocean and travel to the coast. As we were driving out of the town it was already starting to rain. The hard rain drops hitting are car sounded like machine guns hitting the top and sides of the car. We had to stop to get gas so I got out of the car. It was so windy it kind of felt like a tornado was around us, but I knew they were the winds of a hurricane because the coast was only 5 miles away. ! That night we stopped at a hotel. We were still very close because it was still very windy and it was still raining really hard. We turned on the news and they were talking about it, A guy from the National Weather Service came out to talk. He said based on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane scale,
which is a scale the classifies hurricanes based on wind speed, that Hurricane Katerina is a Category 5 hurricane which is the worst type of hurricane. The wind speed was going to pick up 157 mph plus. I knew it was going to get worse so we checked out of the hotel and moved north. ! When we finally got to a safe area we checked into a new hotel and watched the news. The first thing we saw was all the damage the hurricane did. It ripped down houses, ripped trees, and threw cars upside down. The news guy said, “Its not over yet. The storm surge has yet to come and cause major flooding causing in many deaths, the storm surge cause the most deaths in the whole storm its self so if you haven't got out yet get out now! At this point I was curios about hurricanes and all I wanted to know is how they got there names and it turns out that they get there name from a alphabetical list. There are 6 lists so when they get to Z they start a new list. I found this interesting ! When Hurricane Katerina was all over the massive destruction was really high. Everyones houses gone and it was going to cost the state billions of dollars and they will be cleaning away. The news guy then came on and said, “Even though that Hurricane Katerina left so much damage and took many lives it also did some good things, It added 25% more rainfall to places that needed it, it maintained the global heat
balance and it stirred up the ocean causing the nutrients to rise up to the surface. ! Hurricanes are very dangerous and if you live near an area by the Gulf Coast, Caribbean Cost, or along the US cost I suggest you build your house on higher lands and have hurricane emergency kits because those areas are the areas hurricanes are most likely to occur. You need to evacuate immediately tho if you don't have that stuff because your house is at a high risk of getting destroyed. ! Hopefully this information is helpful and will further your knowledge on hurricanes to help you stay safe incase you encounter one in your life time. If you don’t listen, well good luck. Thanks for reading.
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Tornadoes Lighting flashing, thunder crackling, the funnel cloud turns into a tornado. One of the most terrifying situation you will ever be in. Let me tell you my experience that i discovered. The summer of 2009, my family and i took a relaxing vacation Tampa, Florida. That week was a perfect week to go but there was one day with extreme thunderstorms that has a good chance of having a tornado. Tornadoes are exceedingly violent and dangerous funnel clouds that have rotation and high wind speeds that come in contact with the earth. Tornadoes typically have speeds between 65 and 250 mph. Tornadoes are most common in the central part of the United States, known as the Great Plains. More than 500 tornadoes typically occur in this area every year and is why it is commonly known as "Tornado Alley." They occur in spring/ summer. ! We did all kinds of stuff that week but it all came up to that last day.The last day was the big thunderstorm. The thunderstorm wasn’t going to be here till the evening so we went to the beach. When we got there it was so relaxing and nice but the wind started to spin up faster and faster. Umbrellas where wiping across the steaming sand. The waves getting bigger and bigger. Everything was going crazy. The wind is a tornado's primary weapon, but tornadoes can
also do damage with lightning, hail and flash floods. Depending on the strength of a tornado, it can cause very little damage to widespread destruction. When these two air masses meet, the warmer, wetter winds are pushed upwards by the faster-moving, cold winds; the warmer air spirals upward. The warm wind, in turn, forces the cooler, lighter air downward in a revere spinning cycle. Eventually the warmer winds become faster and faster, resulting in a combining of these two spinning air masses to form a tornado. If a tornado is about to form the sky will be a dark grey and a little green. Then a funnel cloud will form. A funnel cloud is a rotating cone-shaped column of air extending downward from the base of a thunderstorm, but not touching the ground. The temperature will be very cool. Between 65-80 degrease Ferinheight. ! On the beach everyone was running for cover but there were no buildings. If there are no buildings you should lie in a ditch or low-lying area. Be aware of the potential for flooding. Use arms to protect head and neck. I look up i see the funnel cloud bursting out of the sky. Tears coming down my face. I’m holding on to my family has hard as i can. I close my eyes and before i know it, it is all over.
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`The tornado did lots of damage. housing and
House torn apart, debris everywhere. Families are crying that there homes are gone. My family and I were so devastated glazing over all the damage. Luckily the tornado didn’t damage our hotel. It took us hours to get back. When we got back i went on the internet and i looked up the biggest tornado in the world to see how it compared to this one. It was unreal! It was in DaulatpurSaturia, Bangladesh in April 26, 1989. It was an EF 5 . An estimated 1,300 people died from this tornado, which was a mile wide and cut a swath of destruction 50 miles long. The injuries were estimated to be around 12,000. Due to poor
construction standards, the tornado completely destroyed virtually every structure it touched. The death toll from this twister is nearly twice as high as the second-deadliest on this list. This lasted 3 hours and 29 minutes. I past by the biggest outbreak in the U.S. history. The tornado outbreak led to a total of 289 tornado ports in 13 states over the three-day period.From Thursday, April 14, 2011 to Saturday, April, 16, 2011. Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina,
Virginia, Texas. 700 people injured and 300 died. That night we went home. This experience will be in my head forever. I realized tornadoes are very serious. So take them seriously. Tornadoes are very dangerous and can kill you.
EF 0
EF 1
EF 2
EF 3
EF 4
EF 5
65-80 mph winds and may tear branches off trees and shingles from homes. It my uproot shallow trees.
81-110 mph winds and may turn over mobile homes, tear up roofs from homes and break windows.
111-135 mph winds and will destroy mobile homes exterior. It will rip out trees and move cars
136-165 mph winds and will destroy stories on homes. It will toss heavy cars o=and over turn freight trains. It will move homes.
166-200 mph winds and level entire homes. It will destroy and entire neighbor -hood.
Above 200 mph winds. It will hurl cars like missals. Leveling homes, and large buildings . Larges and fastest tornado.
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Blizzards On December 22nd me and my friends were playing outside in the snow and we were making forts. We were about to have a snowball fight and my parents were watching the news in the house. But all of sudden my mom came outside to tell us to come in and have lunch before we start the snowball fight. But when we got done eating we got our clothes back on to go have a fun snowball fight. But after and hour of having it it just got really cold outside and we kept on playing until
one of the teams quite cause they got so cold. It was about 4:25pm and we were still having the snowball fight and it was tiring us for every 40 mph. But when blizzards do come the throw that we threw. winds have to be at My mom came outside least 35 mph for it to to come in cause there happened in winter. The was supposed to be a news said that this blizzard tonight and we blizzard could be very did go in. But my dad dangerous tonight but went to the window and we don’t know how bad all of sudden really dark it could be outside. But clouds came from the for the blizzard to be sky. The wind’s were violent it has to have a going 25 mph right now lot of moisture outside. and the news predicted that they will reach up to
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But mostly when blizzards do form they usually form in cold,damp, and fairly breezy climates like where I live. But we are probably lucky enough to see it pass us but if not we have to go downstairs. But the clouds are getting really dark outside but then they got a mixture of clouds. But now its getting really cold because our power went out but the only reason why it went out is the blizzard. The news doesn’t know why the blizzard coming when there isn’t a lot of moisture in the atmosphere. But we are going to know when is comes to night fall.
said that its going to hit us from where we live and it mostly a little town. But when we heard the news we looked outside and it was just kept on getting darker and darker of the clouds. But there was and ice storm coming in to and we were not prepared for the ice storm and blizzards for tonight. But an ice storm and a blizzard are really two different things. But they still form the same way like ice storms form in cold and warm weather.
But luckily my mom went shopping before the blizzard was coming at us. But during the summer my dad had made a cellar in the When the power went basement. We ha back on for like 5min. refrigerator downstairs we turned on the news. and a table and lights. But the very first So we gather some food blizzard had past us from our upstairs surprisingly but when refrigerator. We gather a we turned on the news lot of drinks and food so there were talking about we can eat. We had another one. The news been stuck downstairs
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for three days straight. But when we went upstairs half of our house was snowed inside the house. Part of our roof was gone. Then we looked out the window we couldn’t see anything outside. Then the power when back on and they said we got 20 inches of snow outside so we have to stay inside mostly 3 days until they get the snow out. But we survived it and we had to wait a week to get our house and get the snow which took a 2 days.
Monsoons On May 21st on a sunday morning my parents woke me up and they said we are going on a vacation. My parents said we are going to Arizona to visit family for a wedding. But when we were about to leave my grandmother called and said there supposed to be a big storm in arizona. But we bought the plane tickets and had to wait until our plane was leaving.
witch is really scary cause they said its a monsoon.
Luckily My grandmother had a cellar in her basement. But we got a taxi and we got there in time before it came to the south. But now we seen it cause they usually have dark clouds they said. They also said there is a mixture of dark clouds and white mixed together. But right when we got there They mostly occur in Arizona and New we had to run inside cause the rain Mexico we are going to Arizona and was coming down really hard. But we thats were it occurs. But They said gathered a lot of food and went in the they usually formed in the fall were cellar. most of the rain happens is in the fall. But we really didn’t care if it was going But she had a little TV that u have to crank it to make it work. We turned on to rain cause it said it up north of the news and they said it is the worse Arizona not south. But when we get monsoon ever in history. But when the there around 2 pm my grandmother storm was over Her house was half called my mom phone and said the gone. But she had to wait a month just storm is coming down to the south so it can get fixed. She said she might
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