Weather Facts
AMAZING WEATHER FACTS
- Tree crickets are called the poor man's thermometer because temperature directly affects their rate of activity. Listen for a cricket and count the number of chirps it makes in fifteen seconds. Add 37. The sum will be the Fahrenheit temperature (almost exactly!).
- Poplar trees and red and silver maples flip up their leaves when air pressure is low and rain is imminent.
- Smell the rain coming--many people can. Some scientists believe moisture (impending rain) makes your nose more sensitive.
- How far away is lightning? During a storm, count the number of seconds between the strike of lightning and the sound of thunder, then divide by two. The answer reveals how many miles away the lightning is. (The thunder and lightning strike at the same time, but it takes the sound longer to travel; if you see lightning and hear thunder simultaneously, you are right in the middle of the storm.)
- See any dark clouds? Those are storm clouds. Because they have a high ice crystal content, light has trouble passing through them, making the clouds appear dark. Eventually, the crystals become so heavy that they fall to earth as either snow (when the air is cold) or rain (when the air is warm).
Temperatures
- Highest world temperature: 136� F / 58� C, Al Aziziyah, Libya, 13
September, 1922.
- Highest USA temperature: 134� F / 56.7� C, Death Valley, California,
10 July, 1913.
- Lowest world temperature: -128.6�F / -89.6�C, Vostok Station,
Antarctica, 21 July 1983--without windchill.
Lowest world temperature in inhabited area: -90.4� F / -68� C,
Oymyakon, Siberia (pop. 4,000), 6 February, 1933 and also at
Verkhoyansk, Siberia, 3 January, 1885.
- Lowest USA temperature: -79.8� F / -62.1� C, Prospect Creek, Alaska,
23 January, 1971.
- Lowest USA (48 contiguous states) temperature: -69.7� F / -56.5� C,
Rogers Pass, Montana, 20 January, 1954.
- Heat bursts are an odd atmospheric event that occurs in thunderstorms.
Although most thunderstorms produce cooling gusts, an occasional
parcel of air is pushed down from 20,000 feet to the surface, warming
by compression all the way down. In Glasgow, MT, on September 9, 1994, the temperature at 5:02 AM was 67�F. A heat burst from a nearby storm shot the temp up to 93�F by 5:17 AM, tying the date's record high. By 5:40 AM, it was back to 68�F.
- The summer of 1995 was so hot that at the end of August, methane
emitted within big bales of freshly-cut hay in Missouri began
spontaneously combusting.
Winds
-
Fastest surface wind speed: 231 miles per hour (Mount Washington,
New Hampshire; April 12, 1934) .
- Fastest tornado winds: 286 miles per hour (Wichita Falls, Texas;
April 2, 1958).
Rain/Snow
- Greatest rainfall in a day: 73.62 inches (R�union, Indian Ocean; March
15, 1952).
- Greatest rainfall in a day: 73.62 inches (R�union, Indian Ocean; March
15, 1952).
- Greatest rainfall in a year: 1,041 inches (Assam, India; August
1880-1881).
- World's one minute rainfall record: July 4, 1956, 1.23 inches of rain
fell in Unionville, MD.
- 12 inches of rain in Holt, MO, on June 22, 1947 in 42 minutes.
- It takes about one million cloud droplets to provide enough water for
one raindrop.
- Greatest snowfall in a day: 75.8 inches (Silver Lake, Colorado; April
14-15, 1921).
- Greatest snowfall in a single storm: 189 inches (Mt. Shasta,
California; February 13-19, 1959).
- Largest hailstone: 17.5 inches (Coffeyville, Kansas; September 3, 1979)
2, wieght 1.67 pounds.
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