EXTREME WEATHER!
All About the Different Types of Weather!
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A Letter from the Editors: Letter From The Editors. Dear Readers, This months article is about weather. We are trying to inform our readers about the dangers of certain storms. In our articles we tell you about how to look for signs of the storm before it forms. We tell you the stages of the storms and how they are dangerous. You will just have to read to find out about the magical terrors that come from these storms. Thanks for reading, - Haley, Jeni, & Ally [2]
The Cyclone
It’s a hot sticky day, the bugs out buzzing around so loud it seems like they want the whole world to know
The year is 1925, it is March 18th. In the small town of Ellington Missouri a cyclone is starting to form. This specific tornado would make human history. The name of this monster is the Tri-State Tornado. It would travel for 3 and half hours and across 219 miles through Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana. Killing 695 people and injuring about 13,000. Back in the 1920’s people weren’t allowed to use the name tornado, they were told to call it a cyclone. But after the Tri-State tornado everyone started calling them tornadoes again.
they’re alive. There’s a nice cool breeze coming down from the north. It is truly a beautiful day, suns out, and not a cloud in the sky. Within a second, the wind picks up; drowning out the sound of the buzzing bugs. Although theres the strong cool wind screaming outside, it’s still very hot. It had all happened in a second, instead of blue sky’s and butterflies its green sky’s and tornado sirens. One of the worst storms ever is about to destroy anything in its path. It will destroy homes, schools, and even the lives of innocent people. The thing to cause this mass destruction is a tornado. Tornadoes are one of the worst storms out there, they destroy lives and it could all happen within the blink of an eye. Tornadoes have signs of when their coming, so it gives people time to take shelter and get in a safe place. Tornadoes form when ever cold air masses mix with warm air masses. Then a funnel starts to form and its created.
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There are many signs in the weather that could tell you if a tornado has a chance of forming. They sky gets a sick greenish yellowish and then sometimes it gets a really dark gray color. If you look at the clouds and see them rotating or moving in a circle that is a big sign. Witnesses of tornadoes have commented that when a tornado is coming it sounds a lot like the sound of a train moving on the tracks. Another sign is when it is hailing instead of raining. And right before a tornado touches down, everything seems to stop, no more wind or anything. It appears as a huge twisting cloud that is ripping things to shred off the ground then throwing them in every direction. In 1979, a man by the name of Theodore Fujita created a chart that would explain the wind speeds and the damage by different tornadoes categorized from one to five, this chart is called the Fujita Tornado Damage Scale. It has come to help the National Weather Organization help identify types of tornadoes and the safety precautions that need to take place. Thanks to the Fujita scale, the news and radios station can post warnings to people that there has been a tornado spotted or is forming.
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The Willy Willys We ignored all the warnings they gave us days before. Now what stands before us is going to change my life forever. I was outside playing with my sisters when the wind started to pick up. My mom ran out and told us to get inside. The wind was so fast it was holding us back from the door. My littlest sister Lilly was having the most trouble out of all of us. She couldn’t keep her feet to the ground. I jumped on top of her to where she was laying on the ground. I then took her by both arms and picked her up and walked inside. When I closed the door to the house I quickly locked it. I knew it wouldn’t solve anything I was just scared. I could tell my mom was too because she was pacing. The lights flickered on and off as the category three hurricane made its way through the town destroying everything in its path. I could tell that the hurricane was a category three because the wind meter got up to 125 miles per hour. We were just lucky to be in a small hurricane, hurricanes can reach a speed of 155 miles per hour. I could feel the ground shake from the mobile home park down about a mile or two away. The rain struck the windows as if it was trying to get in. My heart was racing, I could hear my mom panting from the other room. I walked over to the window and watched the furious winds blow down the palm trees like they were tiny sticks. The trees were moving so fast it looked like they were waving to me. I put my arm up to wave back, but my mom grabbed me and took us to the “safe room”. Ever since I was little I was never aloud in here unless we were in a situation like we are now.
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The room has no windows and nothing breakable.There was also three huge coolers with enough food in it to last each one of us days. Next to the three coolers was a big cardboard box the had flashlight, medicine, a battery powered radio, and batteries. We sat there with the lights flickering trying to brighten the mood. I was annoyed with the lights so I stood up and turned them off. My mom grabbed the flashlights and turned them all on. She put one in each corner of the small room and then handed my older sister and me one and kept one for herself.We sat there and waited. I started to remember the things we learned in science class about hurricanes. Floods, I remembered. A hurricane can flood your house it could get as tall as 3 meters sometimes higher. I started to get nervous. I asked my mom if it was a possibility we will be flooded in and she said not to worry about it. I heard something hit the window. It was really windy outside because the wind can be really fast at the eye wall. Inside the eye its a lot slower. We just sat and waited for days and when the radio came on and said it was safe to leave I jump up. I ran outside to feel the fresh air, but what was before me was a disaster all over again. -Haley Raub
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Awareness of Blizzards Blizzards are no laughing matter. They are severe thunderstorms with high winds and low visibility. For a blizzard to form, there needs to be a lot of moisture in the atmosphere and there has to be a fair amount of lift or breeze to cause the warm air to rise above the cold air. With enough moisture and high winds, a typical snow storm can escalate into blizzard conditions. Blizzards usually happen after an unusually warm winter weather, or a warm front. When a cold air mass from the Arctic moves to the Midwest United States, it creates a cold front. The cold front pushes the warm air up, creating the perfect conditions for the blizzard. During a blizzard, Nimbostratus and cumulus clouds are usually present. A maritime polar air mass, or a cold, moist air mass. Since blizzards cause extremely low visibility, it can cause people to get lost. They can also cause slippery roads. The different types of winter precipitation are snow, freezing rain and sleet. Staying safe during a winter storm is very important. If ever caught outside during a blizzard you want to find shelter right away. If you’re outside too long during a blizzard, you can get hypothermia or frostbite. Many people die in blizzards from hypothermia due to the cold. It’s not actually the snow itself but the cold that kills people. When you are trapped in your home with no electricity, you should light some candles and don’t panic-stay calm. To be prepared earlier, you should stock food or clothes. Or you can just go somewhere else. Lake effect snow usually happens where Lakeeffect snow is produced in the winter when cold winds move across long expanses of warmer lake water.
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Indiana’s  Weather
Here  in  Indiana,  the  temperatures  range  from  19-86  degrees  Fahrenheit.  We  have  the  humid  continental  climate.  Our  weather  comes  from  the  northeast.  During  the  winter,  the  weather  is  usually  colder,  but  we  don’t  get  a  lot  of  snow.  The  spring  is  also  colder  too,  but  a  little  warmer.  Summers  are  really  hot  and  dry.  We  don’t  get  a  lot  of  rain  during  summer.  Fall  weather  is  windy,  but  a  little  warm.  The  jet  stream  is  a  narrow,  variable  band  of  very  strong,  predominantly  westerly  air  currents  encircling  the  globe  several  miles  above  the  earth.  We  get  thunderstorms.  They  form  by  the  action  of  warm  air  rising  and  cold  air  sinking  (convection)  plays  a  key  role  in  the  formation  of  severe  thunderstorms.  Lake  effect  snow  in  Indiana  happens  in  Lake  Michigan. [8]