Lightning Blog

The most powerful lightning strike ever recorded in the United States struck the Cathedral of Learning of the University of Pittsburgh on July 31, 1947. The bolt discharged approximately three hundred forty five thousand amps. This was enough current to light six hundred thousand 60W light bulbs for the duration of the flash which is only thirty five millionths of a second.

Experts Say The Arctic We Once Knew May Never Recover

The Earth's refrigerator is fast losing its cool, with disastrous consequences for the rest of the world. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released its latest report on the Arctic.

The Arctic of old is gone and it’s not coming back to as it once was. The Arctic referred to as the Earth’s Refrigerator keeps the Earth cool because of the ice. But thanks to global warming in the surrounding seas, temperatures are increasing and its impact is being felt as ice cover slowly but surely decreases.

Cloud Seeding Doesn't Produce Rain

In many areas of the world, including California's Mojave Desert, rain is a precious and rare resource. To encourage rainfall, scientists use "cloud seeding," a weather modification process designed to increase precipitation amounts by dispersing chemicals into the clouds.
But research now reveals that the common practice of cloud seeding with materials such as silver iodide and frozen carbon dioxide may not be as effective as it had been hoped. In the most comprehensive reassessment of the effects of cloud seeding over the past fifty years, new findings from Prof. Pinhas Alpert, Prof. Zev Levin and Dr. Noam Halfon of Tel Aviv University's Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences have dispelled the myth that seeding is an effective mechanism for precipitation enhancement.

Eight Phenomena You May Have Never Seen

No rain and temperatures below 0 Celsius for several days near a slow river bend. Thus, the water creates a force that is called ‘rotational shear’ and breaks a chunk of ice, twisting it around and grinding it to the surrounding ice, turning it into a perfect circle.

The Top Ten Most Extreme Weather Conditions

From April 3 to April 4, 1974, in a period of 18 hours, 148 tornadoes occurred across the 13 central US states and Ontario, Canada. The event came to be known as the “Super Outbreak” and it had devastating effects. 24 of the tornadoes were classified on the Fujita Scale as F4’s, and six were F5’s, more F5’s than have been reported in any other year. There were also more significant tornadoes during that 24 hours than any other entire week on record. It extensively damaged approximately 900 square miles (1,440 square kilometers) along a total combined path length of 2,600 miles (4,160 km). The outbreak of tornadoes was caused by an extreme low-pressure system that moved across the US, and it created $3.5 billion in damages. More than three hundred people were killed during the 18 hours, and 5,484 people were injured.

Hail Storm

Fire Tornado

Global Warming

Global warming has become perhaps the most complicated issue facing world leaders. On the one hand, warnings from the scientific community are becoming louder, as an increasing body of science points to rising dangers from the ongoing buildup of human-related greenhouse gases — produced mainly by the burning of fossil fuels and forests. On the other, the technological, economic and political issues that have to be resolved before a concerted worldwide effort to reduce emissions can begin have gotten no simpler, particularly in the face of a global economic slowdown.

Solar storm could knock out power grids and satellites

A huge solar storm is set to hit Earth on Monday with the potential to knock out power grids and interfere with communication satellites.

Clouds over Mount Shasta

You will often hear the expression, "Mount Shasta makes its own weather." How can a mountain make its own weather? The main answer is that Mount Shasta's presence causes air to be uplifted.

All precipitation comes from clouds. Clouds are formed through the process known as condensation, which is typically caused by cooling. Cooling, in turn, is often caused by the uplifting of air. There are four major processes by which air is uplifted: convective lifting, frontal lifting, convergent lifting, and orographic lifting. Convective summertime thunderstorms produce massive thunderheads on Mount Eddy and Mount Shasta. Wintertime extratropical cyclones produce most of the precipitation formed by frontal lifting in our region. It is the process of orographic lifting that results in Mount Shasta "producing its own weather."