Wednesday, March 29, 2017

A Weather Review

Sabrina - Editor       Shay - Reporter
Tabatha - Human Interest
Bowen - Historian


Weather: Weather is the condition or state of the atmosphere at a particular place and time. Some factors that affect the weather are temperature, dew point, relative humidity, barometric pressure, wind/direction, and your latitude. Relative humidity is the amount of moisture in the air compared to how much the air can hold at a given temperature. When the relative humidity is at 100% that means the air is saturated it is holding all of the water vapor it can at that temperature. Dew point temperature is the point at which the air is saturated and water drops begin to condense. Barometric pressure is the weight of the atmosphere on the earth. Where there is high pressure the weather is generally very nice but where there is low pressure the weather is more gloomy with a lot of clouds and storms. These pictures each represent some kind of weather sunny, cloudy, rain, storms, snow, hail, and windy. Weather, Signs, Symbols ...

Fronts:
A Front is a boundary separating two air masses. There are many different fronts, including a Cold Front, a Warm Front, a Stationary Front, and an Occluded Front. A Cold Front occurs when a cold air mass replaces a warm air mass. Cold fronts move quickly and often have violent weather such as thunderstorms, high winds, hail, tornadoes, and heavy rain. A Warm Front occurs when a warm air mass meets and replaces a cold air mass. Warm fronts move slowly, compared to a cold front that moves quickly. A Stationary Front occurs when a warm or cold front stops moving. When a Stationary Front occurs, temperature doesn’t change as much and they could be a light rain or drizzle. An Occluded Front occurs when a cold front catches and lifts a warm front. The weather that occurs is similar to the weather of a Cold Front. There is also something called a Polar Front. A Polar Front is the boundary between cold northern air and temperate air.  



Weather Folktales: In ancient times, people had no idea what was causing rain, thunder, or any type of weather. The result was they would create stories that would explain what they had no understanding of. In Kenya, Mkunga Mburu is the god of thunder and he was believed to travel across the sky on a huge black bull. Mkunga Mburu holds a spear in each hand and he throws them at clouds to create loud noises, creating thunder. The Yoruba people believed that lightning was magic made by the storm spirit who shot bolts of light from his mouth. The damage these bolts did was considered a punishment for wrong things people did in their everyday life. Raijin is the Japanese god of fire and lightning. He is normally shawn as a red demon surrounded by golden drums that represents thunder.
Information and picture comes from here.

Weather History:
Recording weather by hand or by machine has been around for centuries. Our founding fathers were some of the first people to track the weather. This means the earliest we know of weather being recorded is the 1700’s. Weather stations and news reports didn’t come around till august 1st, 1861. The news prediction was actually pretty accurate for the time in history, and the development of the telegraph got news and weather around faster.
Info. comes from here, and here

Friday, March 24, 2017

Some Thoughts on Monsoons

The GeoGOAT's report that
What is a monsoon? A monsoon is a seasonal shift in the prevailing wind direction. These winds usually bring a different kind of weather. Monsoons are winds that blow onshore during the summer and blow offshore during the winter. They are mostly referred to as the Asian monsoon. It is a large region extending from India to southeast Asia which is where monsoon conditions are powerful.
Monsoons have the ability to bring millions of dollars of damage to the coastal cities they affect, a cost only outweighed by their detriment to human life. These Asian storms occur primarily during the Summer months and originate from the Southwest. As we are nearing the end of March, concerns are beginning to surface in southwestern Asia. “it does appear that the probability of a below-normal monsoon year in 2017 is higher than the probability of an above-normal year” said Chief Economist Sonal Varma from Nomura India. Despite Varma’s prediction, meteorologists are still unsure how this year’s El Nino conditions will affect the upcoming monsoon season.

Image result for monsoons
The Guinness World Records states that the worst monsoon happened in Thailand from September through December. It happened in 1983. It caused 10,000 deaths. 15,000 people evacuated to other places. Up to 100,000 people got water-born diseases. This monsoon caused over more than 400 million dollars worth of damage.


Thursday, March 23, 2017

New Blog Teams

The TOE returns again with new teams to bring the news of the day on the big planet to you!!
Updating Today on Earth will be Jennifer, Zach, Toulie and Breeana
Letting you know more about Rocks and Minerals than you would likely care to know will be Greg, Abby G, JB and Nery
Updating the shaky zones of Earth will be Chase, Riley, Caroline and Abby H
Tracking activity on the Ring O Fire will be Abby S., Harrison, Kami and Kari
Keeping you informed about the goings on in our Solar System this week will be Rachel, Jacob, Emily and Mikayla
With news from farther out in our galaxy will be Forrest, Price, Jayde and Aliya
Weather updates will be handled this week by Sabrina, Bowen, Tabatha and Shay.

If all goes well, all blogs will be updated tomorrow!!

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

A Quick and Brief Return Of The TOE

TodayOnEarth returns for a quick update, a fickle spring kicks off, the earth is still shaky and the Ring O Fire is still belching sulfurous fumes from South America around to Indonesia. Change but consistency. Venus is hiding above the sun and will return to dominate the morning sky in April, Mars lingers pale in the west at sunset while Jupiter takes over the evening sky in the east after dark.
Today's rock (mineral) is Sulfur. Mercury has come and gone from the evening sky and Saturn currently rules the early morning sky - with the bright stars of winter still high in the southwest at dark. But, tomorrow will be chilly, Thursday morning downright cold before a weekend warm up.
A quick TOE update. Hopefully, students will provide lots more soon.