| Q&A PAGE 2! HOPE YOU ENJOY! UPDATED 8/14/01 |
| Q. Is it correct to say that the "dew fell?" A. While that may be a popular expression, dew does not fall like precipitation (rain, snow) but, rather, results from moisture in the air condensing right on the surface of the object. COOL! |
| Q. The freezing point of water is 32*F, correct? F. NO, it isn't. While ice always melts at 32*F, it turns out that not all water freezes at that reading. While bulk water (puddles, wet roadways, ect.) will freeze at 32*F, very small droplets, such as those found in clouds, can stay liquid to temperatures as cold as -40*F, COOL! Such supercooled water droplets are one reason planes ice up when flying through winter storm clouds! |
| Q. What caused the worst weather-related aviation accident? Is it: Thunderstorms?, Lightning,? Tornadoes.? A. No to all of these! It was FOG! NOT FROG BUT FOG! In the year 1977, two fully loaded Boeing 747s collided in dense fog on the runway in the Canary Islands, killing 582 people! |
| Q. Where is the sunniest place on earth? A. The South Pole. Really. It is the South Pole. On a cloud-free summer day, which lasts 24 hours, more energy strikes the southern pole than any other place on the planet. BUT, the brilliant white snow and ice reflect up to 90% of the energy right back in to outer space. As a result, temperatures above freezing are very rare. |
| THIS IS FOR YOU TV FANS OUT THERE! LETS SEE IF YOU KNOW YOUR THEME SONGS! It is a little bit part of weather. Q. THE FIRST VERSE TO WHAT TV SHOW THEME SONG IS: "Through early morning fog I see/Visions of the things to be/The pains that are withheld for me/I realize an I can see ...." IS IT: A. "Providence" B. "M*A*S*H*" C. "Mission Impossible" D. "Love Boat" The answer to the question is: B. "M*A*S*H*" |
| Special Thanks To Mr. Bill Sones and Rich Sones, Ph. D. At Strange But True Questions! You can chekc out all of what they have at Richmond.com (NEW!) Here is the question I got from Strange But True! (NEW!) Q. When lightning strikes a body of water, is it instant fish-fry down below? How big is the kill zone? A. In a storm, it's no different for fish than for human swimmers who foolishly hang around. Water is a reasonably good conductor of electricity (no radios near the baththub, please). Lightning is high in voltage (100 million to a billion volts) and in current, but the kill-charge dissipates fast beneath the surface away from the strike point. "So fish do get killed, but probably not more than 30 yards away in fresh water, 10 yards in salt water, though good information is scarce," says Universtiy of Florida engineer Martin Uman, author of "All About Lightning." Another thing helping the fish is that they tend to hang out well below the surface, especially at night. "In my own experience, I have only heard of one case -- goldfish in a pond being struck dead by lightning, back in the '70s," says Paul Skelton, director of the JLB Smith Institute of Ichthyology, South Africa. Scuba-diving Roger. Bills--another researcher there--tells of being shocked several times in Late Tanganyika. "On one dive, at around 20 meters (65.6167979 feet) I didn't feel a thing, though I saw flashes going off all the time. During decompression was when I got shocked, wores as I neared the surface--like cattle electric fence, not incapacitating but very unpleasant. I have no ieda how far off the lightning was, but I never saw any dead fish." |
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