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The Stamford

Bridge Flood

Learn how Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Floods, and more are formed some of the damage they can do and what the differences between a hurricane and a

tornado

TABLE OF CONTENTSPage 3................................................Letter from the editors

Page 4...................................Tornadoes and thunderstorms

Page 7..................................................................Hurricanes

Page 10.........................................What effects the weather

Page 12.......................................................................Floods

Page 13...................................................................Blizzards

Page 14.................................................................Monsoons

Page 16...........................................What have you learned?

Page 17................................................................ Resources

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Dear Readers,               We have put much time and hard work into this magazine and we hope you enjoy it. In this magazine, you will be learning about Hurricanes, Floods, Monsoons, Blizzards, Tornadoes, and Thunderstorms. We learned a lot about all these topics and we think you can too. Weather is a very important, and interesting topic. Different weather comes in different times of the year, but some can happen at anytime. As we worked on this project, we learned that most deaths from hurricanes happen from floods. We also learned that monsoons are defined as a rainy or dry season. The definition of a blizzard is a severe winter storm that has little to no visibility with high winds and a lot of snow. Any region anywhere, is capable of having a flood. A tornado extends from a thunderstorm. Now that you know a little bit about each, why don’t you read on and find out more interesting facts!

Enjoy!                 -The editors, Ashley Brown, Whitney Peterman, and

Kylee Lappie!

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS

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This is some of the damage that a tornado can do.Tornadoes are very destructive and they can pick up livestock, houses, flatten crops, and more.

Imagine… You’re sitting at home, watching

TV. It’s summer, and you’re carefree being

out of school.  Suddenly, the skies get dark, and little pieces of ice fall from the sky!  

Followed by a horrendous wind and a cold moist air.  You’re little, and you don’t

know what’s going on, but you know it’s bad.  Looking outside you see your patio, when

the table completely flies off!  The umbrella

with a metal pole attached to it snapped like a twig and rose off the patio to blow far into your yard!  Of

course you’re scared… “MOM! MOM WHAT’S

HAPPENING!” you scream, but you don’t hear her respond.  The cheerful cartoon you were watching starts

beeping and a woman starts speaking.

An F-1 tornado

TORNADOES AND THUNDERSTORMS

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“Sorry for this interruption, but we

have some thunderstorm, flash flood, and tornado

warnings coming in!”  She mentions the

areas…. one of them are yours.  This isn’t a dream.  You hear your

Mom run in picking you up and yelling.  “DON’T PANIC JUST GO IN THE BATHTUB!!”  She grabs a mattress and board

(the board has straps on it to hold it and the mattress down) and

gets in with you putting them both on top of the both of you, as she tells you to help her hold it down.  “WHAT ABOUT DAD?!”  You scream.  

She tries talking to you over the howling wind.  “IT’S ALL GONNA BE

OKAY!”  She tries calming you down, but

her voice isn’t very soothing, considering she has to yell to be

heard. “HE’S AT WORK THIS STORM WON’T HURT HIM.”  Terrified, you squeeze your eyes

shut.  After minutes of panic and ear piercing wind, everything is calm.  This is

a tornado experience, and a normal one at

that.

 I bet you’ve heard many things about

tornadoes, as well as thunderstorms!  They cause more harm than you may hear about,

and I’ll tell you why, but first would you like to know how they work?  You may have heard

that cold and warm air mix collide, or that

swirling storm clouds cause them.  That’s

pretty much explained, however there’s more to it.  When cold and dry air mix it contributes to creating this heinous

storm, it could also be formed by creating a funnel type cloud that would eventually reach the ground and form a

tornado.  They can’t be stopped, they have to grow and grow

by themselves.. eventually dying.

 Most tornadoes don’t only affect the area they are in, and start with a thunderstorm.  Ways you can tell if one is coming?  (other than watching the news)  Imagine swirling dark clouds in the sky.  As if the threatening darkness isn’t frightening enough, balls of ice fall from the sky.  Hail and a thunderstorm… prepare yourself for this upcoming swirling, dangerous vortex.

What a tornado looks

like from space

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There are ways you can protect yourself from this hideous storm like state.  Once you figure or realize you could be in danger,

find the room in your house with the least

amount of windows.  Open all of the windows to let wind flow through easier

and not collapse anything.  To be safe, stay away from any glass (if you can).  The

safest place in most homes are either a

basement (if you have one) or the bathroom.  Make

sure you’re near something completely stable, as well

as trying to cover yourself as much as possible.  You

always want to be safe and careful in this

situation.

 Since thunderstorms are also dangerous, being

cautious in that situation is crucial as well.  Effects can be flooding (which will be

described elsewhere in this magazine), wind damage, water damage, large hail destroying property, etc.

Please always be cautious in dangerous storms like this, notice the signs, and most importantly stay safe.

TORNADO LIGHTNING

A thunderstorm with strikes of

lightning

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What it could possibly look like out side during a hurricane

Image the winds building. Everything flying past you and you start to panic. You don’t know what to do. Next thing you know, you’re in a 400 to 500 foot hurricane. Hurricanes are quite interesting, actually, they’re more dangerous than you would think... People say that tornadoes are more dangerous than hurricanes, but in fact, tornadoes aren’t all that different. However, they do have their

differences. Hurricanes are large storms with rotating winds. They

form over warm waters when the pressure is large and the

temperature differs from the warm weather and clouds. The eye of the hurricane can go up to 20 miles across. The eye is a safe zone,

escaping the eye of the hurricane, you’ll end up in

the storm. Now, that’s pretty big compared to just a little wind.

Hurricanes are large, spiraling tropical storms that

can pack wind speeds of over 160 mph and

unleash more than 2.4 trillion gallons of

rain a day

HURRICANES

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After a hurricane hits the water, it causes huge waves and heavy rain because it hits with such force, it brings the waves up. Two other names for a hurricane is a ‘typhoon’ and a ‘tropical cyclone.’ It comes from the Taino Native American word “hurucane,” meaning, “evil spirit of the wind.” In the late 19th century, hurricanes started being named by Clement Wragge. He named some of the biggest hurricanes after people he disliked, in alphabetical order.

There’s a huge list of names of hurricanes. Hurricanes are classified in categories. Categories 3, 4, and 5, are considered the worst of the hurricanes. Just for fun, imagine you’re in the Philippines. It’s a rainy day, so you’re laying on your bed, reading a really good book that you just picked up from the library. Then, all of a sudden, the wind starts to pick up. Rain is going in every direction. You don’t notice because your book is just so good.

These are of hurricanes and they have been taken from space. The pictures of tornadoes and hurricanes look a look a lot like this is because hurricanes are tornadoes with water

This is what a

hurricane looks like from space

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SPACE HURRICANES

You hear your mom and dad yelling for you to get in the cellar. (A cellar is a room below ground level to store things, or hide when a storm hits.) It’s a really big storm! You grab your book, and your jacket. You try calling your dog… “Cocoa, Cocoa! Where are you?” But you couldn’t find him anywhere. You get to the cellar and ask your mom if she’s seen him. She said he went outside just before the storm and she couldn’t find him. You start crying, then you end up falling asleep. You wake up, and the storm is over. You come up from the cellar and see everything destroyed. You begin to cry again. Hurricanes can be very deadly, but they aren’t always dangerous. The ranking is from 1-5, 1

being the lightest and 5 being the worst. How do you measure a hurricane? You measure a hurricane by it’s wind speed and air pressure of the storm. If the wind is blowing 74 miles an hour, it’s considered a hurricane. The world’s worst hurricane happened in 1970 in Bangladesh, and the flood killed over 1 million people.

    Once the Hurricane hits the ground, it becomes a lot weaker than when it is when it’s in the sky. Hurricanes are the only weather disasters that are actually given names. Hurricane season is from June to November when the seas are at their warmest and most humid. That about wraps it up for hurricanes…

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A house that is moved by the after affects of a hurricane

How does the atmosphere affect the weather? The atmosphere has many layers to it, the Troposphere, Stratosphere, Mesosphere, Ionosphere, and Exosphere. Troposphere is the closest to the Earth. The Troposphere is where the clouds are. The gases in the

atmosphere are called greenhouse gases and they help retain heat. It absorbs the heat instead of letting it escape into space. Over the years, people have put more gases in the atmosphere, by burning oil, coal, natural gas. More heat is absorbed and retained, which causes global temperatures to rise.

THE ATMOSPHERE,

THE OCEAN, AND THE SUN

The sun over the

water

WHAT AFFECTS THE WEATHER

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The greenhouse gases have increased rapidly over the past 150 years. There were greenhouse gases long before any human activity. The gases keep the Earth’s atmosphere beneficial because they keep temperatures mild and suitable for living habits. As the amount of gases increase, so does the temperature. The atmosphere covers the Earth. It’s a thin layer of mixed gases that allow us to breathe. The

atmosphere keeps the balance between hot and

cold. The sun affects the weather/climate in many different ways.  

For example, we get all of our seasons from the sun.  When a certain side of the earth is tilted towards the sun, that’s what portion of the earth experiences summer.  After a while each side will be tilted toward the sun within a year.  The sun also is our source of heat!  The sun is the main reason we have most of our weather! 

Oceans also affect the weather. For example, tropical storms form over warm ocean waters, which supply the energy for hurricanes and typhoons to grow and move, often over land. When there are hurricanes at the borders of the U.S. and they reach the ocean it can causes storms in the inner U.S. Also the ocean can cause winter storms that bring precipitation to the western U.S. and originate over the North Pacific. local floods in many coastal regions, such as California, provide a cool contrast in air temperature over the ocean and land that is contributive to frequent summer fog.

A typhoon

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Floods can be really dangerous actually. Let’s say, you’re at home, watching the rain come down. It’s been raining for 10 days straight. It hasn’t stopped once. You look out the window, and watch all the water flow down the street. Your basement is filling up as we speak. You start to feel your feet getting wet. You call for your mom, but she doesn’t answer. You run to her room and find her sleeping on her bed. You try waking her up, but she won’t move. She finally opens her eyes after you practically punch her in the arm. She

starts to yell at you, then realizes the floors are beginning to cave in.

She jumps up, tells you to go get your brothers, so you listen to her, and go to the attic. Your mom meets you up there. You’re all panicking. You don’t know what will happen next. Now, what if that was you? In that situation? It would be pretty scary. Wanna hear more? Want to know more? Read on…

Any region, anywhere is capable of having floods. Floods don’t just happen in 1 or 2 places. They’re everywhere. The different types of floods include the following: Flash floods, Overbank floods, Ice jam

floods, Slow-onset floods, Storm surge floods, Engineering floods, and Coastal floods. Most of the flood deaths, happen in cars. But not all floods are bad. To stay safe from a flood, go to the highest point of the building you are in. Such as an attic, a fourth or third floor, or even the roof. (Depending on why it’s flooding.)

Floods can be so strong, that only 2 feet of water can take a car away. Flash floods can be from 10-20 feet high. Flash floods are the most dangerous of all the types of floods. To prepare for a flood, you will need: a first aid kit, extra clothes, rope, (just in case,) and maybe some food and drinking water.

FLOODS An over flooded

river

After effects of a

flood

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The year is 1888 and animals are freezing where they stand, birds dropping to the streets frozen from their perches on buildings, people walking through the streets are there one minute and gone the next. Where they used to stand is a blanket of white snow and ice. The winds whip through the empty spaces and the temperature drops while ice and snow make it hard to see. It is a severe combination of moisture, cold air, and warm air. The mixture forms one of the worst winter storms of all time The Great Blizzard of 1888, since the people back then did not have great technology people today have figured out what happened for the blizzard to form and more.

A blizzard may be a tasty treat you can get from Dairy Queen but it is also a deadly storm. The great blizzard of 1888 all started when hot air from the

South rose above the chilly cold air from the winter jet stream and with tons of moisture added to form snow a great blizzard was about to happen. A blizzard is really a severe winter storm with lots of wind and snow. Some people thought that it was when snow falls and wind blows, but just like a doctor or lawyer a blizzard has qualifications. The winds of a blizzard must be at least 35 mph or more and last for more than three hours and have visibility of less than 1/4 mile. Many of the people in the streets who were covered in snow died because in a blizzard you should keep all areas of skin covered and bring water so you do not get dehydrated and no one helped them out of the snow fast enough. To also be safe in a car during a blizzard take food that you can eat without heat, take warm clothes, and water

just in case you get stuck in the storm.

The blizzard of 1888 was deadly and including the people in the streets, people in cars, and more the grand total of deaths was 400 people. The amount of snow dropped in the two day long blizzard was 40-50 inches of snow. Now you may still think that blizzards are nothing to worry about but just think of the Great Blizzard of 1888 and the people who survived it.

BLIZZARDS

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MONSOONS

Imagine, you live in Arizona and it is the month of July and three consecutive days have gone by with the average dew point temperature greater than 54 degrees Fahrenheit in Tucson and 55 degrees Fahrenheit in Phoenix. These are all warning signs that a monsoon or a rainy or dry season is about to happen. For people who live there year round this is no surprise and they are ready for the fierce winds and lightning that come along with it, but you are no local and are there on a vacation so when the rain starts to pour you think that a bad thunderstorm is about to happen, but a thunder storm comes along with the terrible winds and rain and during July through September is

when 70% of rainfall in The North American monsoon region occurs. It is called the summer monsoon.

You decide to leave the restaurant you have stopped to eat lunch at, and decide to drive home, but instead of taking safety precautions before you leave like looking 360 degrees overhead to see if the storm is far enough away to drive you just leave the restaurant cluelessly. When you get to you car start it and are about to drive you see a gigantic ominous cloud looming almost directly above you. Are you ready for what is about to come next because it won’t be pretty.

A monsoon

creeping over a beautiful

beach

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The wind starts to pick up and makes a loud howling sound you hear the low rumbling of thunder and see it crack in the distance while the rain pounds on the outside of your car like an angry police officer. The cracks of lightning get closer and closer and since you chose to park your car in the farthest spot from the restaurant you car is the tallest thing. Suddenly the hairs on the back of you neck stand straight up and you know what is going to happen next. You brace yourself for the lightning and when it comes it is hot and bright.

Finally after the wind decides to die down and the rain dies to a heavy drizzle you decide to drive home it has been two hours of panic and finally you think you are safe until your car stops. Another safety precaution you should have taken was to pack a supplies kit because you don’t know how long you will be without basic supplies. Don’t get caught in the middle of a monsoon which occurs in the areas of Arizona, New Mexico, Southern California, Utah, and Colorado do some research about the weather there first.

What a monsoon

can do to a tree

LIGHTNING FROM A MONSOON

THUNDERSTORM

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1. True or False. During a tornado you should open all the windows.

True False

2. Which is NOT an effect of a thunder storm? ____________

a.Hail b.A blizzardc.Flooding d.Wind damage

3. How far can the eye of a hurricane stretch? ___________

a.10 miles b.20 milesc.100 feet c.200 feet

4. True or False. The ranking of a hurricane is 1-5, 5 being the lightest and 1 being the worst.

True False

5. Another name for a hurricane is a ____________

a.Tropical tornado b.Water tornado c.Typhoon d.Typhoon storm

6. True or False. The gases in the atmosphere are called greenhouse gases. True False

7. What is the main reason we have most of our weather? __________a.The sun b.The moonc.The stars d.Venus

8. What is the most dangerous type of flood? ______________a. Overbank floods b.Moat floodsb. Ice jam floods d.Flash floods

9. True or False. To be a blizzard the winds must be at least 35 mph or more. True False

10. True or False. As much as 70% of rainfall in the North American monsoon region occurs during the monsoon season.

True False

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED?

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Answers on page 17

• http://www.weatherwizkids.com/weather-winter-storms.htm

• http://www.weatherwizkids.com/weather-tornado.htm

• http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/what-is-a-blizzard/5674708

• http://www.siue.edu/MLTE/Thematic%20Units/The%20Weather%20Around%20Us/hurricane_facts.htm

• https://beta.dosomething.org/facts/11-facts-about-floods

• https://www.dosomething.org/facts/11-facts-about-blizzards

• http://www.livescience.com/23913-flood-facts.html

• http://www.weather.com/outlook/wxready/articles/id-81

• http://www.stopdisastersgame.org/en/pdf/Flooding_fact-sheet.pdf

• http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/wwatch/tornadoes/

• http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/outreach/Report-to-the-Nation-Monsoon_aug04.pdf

• http://theweatherprediction.com/weatherpapers/058/index.html

• http://wonderopolis.org/wonder/what-is-a-monsoon/

• http://geochange.er.usgs.gov/sw/changes/natural/monsoon/

• http://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Monsoon

• http://www.monsoonsafety.org/

RESOURCES

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Answers: 1.True, 2.b, 3.b, 4.False, 5.c, 6.True, 7.a, 8.d, 9.True, 10.True