WEATHER REPORT

What is the Coriolis Effect and how does it affect you?

Image: Nikolas Noonan

While talking about the weather might have bad press, no one can resist the awe-inspiring allure of a powerful storm or a display of lightning against a pitch-black sky. And even if this raw demonstration of the power of nature frightens you - or you just find it boring, the myriad of subtle intricacies of atmospheric phenomena are bound to catch your eye.

Here are 10 curious facts about storms and weather phenomena to quench your sense of wonder, and - hopefully - leave you a bit more appreciative of nature's grandeur.

Image: Johannes Plenio

Each year, Earth experiences about 1.4 billion lightning strikes. These bolts of electricity can reach temperatures of up to 30,000 Kelvin (53,540 degrees Fahrenheit), hotter than the surface of the sun. This violent phenomenon occurs when electrical imbalances build up within clouds or between clouds and the ground. The thunder that follows a lightning bolt is caused by the rapid expansion of air around it, and it can travel from 15 to 30 miles from the point where the strike occurred. In fact, if you count the number of seconds between the flash of lightning and its sound, and divide it by 5, you can approximate the distance in miles to the source of the lightning. Just make sure you are in a safe place while counting!

Image: NOAA

Tornado Alley, a loosely defined region in the central United States, sees more tornadoes than any other place on Earth. This area, stretching from Texas to South Dakota, experiences frequent tornado activity due to the collision of warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and cold, dry air from Canada. The combination of these air masses, along with the presence of the Rocky Mountains to the west, creates an environment ripe for the formation of these formidable wind vortexes. If you happen to live in an area prone to tornadoes, just don’t try to emulate Dorothy, or you might end up much farther away than the Land of Oz.

Image: NASA

Did you know that hurricanes are given names to help with communication and awareness? The use of names for hurricanes dates back to the 1950s and helps to avoid confusion when multiple storms are active simultaneously, as names are much easier to remember than numbers or technical terms. The World Meteorological Organization generates lists of names that are rotated every six years, except for particularly destructive storms, whose names are retired forever.

Image: Matthieu Joannon

Haboobs are massive dust storms that occur in arid regions, such as the Sahara Desert and the southwestern United States. These towering walls of dust can reach heights of 4,921 feet and travel at speeds of up to 60 mph, engulfing everything in their path. Haboobs typically form when cold downdrafts from thunderstorms hit the ground and kick up loose, dry soil and sand. These intense dust storms can reduce visibility to near-zero levels, posing serious dangers to motorists and even disrupting air travel.

Image: John Middelkoop

The Fujita Scale, developed by Dr. Ted Fujita in 1971, measures the intensity of tornadoes based on the damage they cause to human-built structures and vegetation. The scale ranges from F0 (light damage) to F5 (incredible damage), with wind speeds exceeding 300 mph for the most severe tornadoes. In recent years, the original scale has been replaced by the Enhanced Fujita Scale (EF-Scale), which incorporates modern engineering and construction standards to assess tornado damage more accurately.

Image: Noah Silliman

Throughout history, people have relied on old sayings and common knowledge to predict the weather. From "red sky at night, sailor's delight" to "ring around the moon means rain real soon," these sayings often contain kernels of truth based on observable atmospheric patterns. Even when most are - more likely than not - not scientifically accurate, they prove that humanity has always been intrinsically connected to weather patterns.

Image: Ryan Arnst

Atmospheric rivers are narrow corridors of concentrated moisture in the atmosphere that can transport vast amounts of water vapor across long distances. This phenomenon plays a crucial role in global weather patterns and can lead to heavy rainfall and flooding whenever they make landfall. Scientists believe that changes in global temperatures and atmospheric humidity will increase the intensity and frequency of weather phenomena caused by atmospheric rivers in the next few years.

Image: JOSHUA COLEMAN

The Coriolis Effect is a phenomenon caused by Earth's rotation, which deflects moving objects, including air and water, to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere. This effect influences the direction of winds and ocean currents, shaping global weather patterns. For this reason, large currents of air and powerful weather events like cyclones display either a clockwise or counterclockwise direction of motion depending on their position in the globe.

Image: Chris Gallagher

El Niño and La Niña are opposite phases of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle, which refers to fluctuations in sea surface temperatures and atmospheric pressure in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. These large weather patterns can directly influence the climate around the globe, affecting precipitation, temperatures, and storm activity. While El Niño events are marked by an anomalous warming of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific, in contrast, La Niña events are characterized by cooler-than-average temperatures.

Image: Wolfgang Hasselmann

Hailstorms occur when strong updrafts in thunderstorms carry raindrops into colder regions of the atmosphere, where they freeze and accumulate layers of ice before falling to the ground. The size of hailstones can vary widely, ranging from pea-sized pellets to golf ball-sized or larger projectiles capable of causing significant damage to property, crops, and vehicles. The largest hailstone ever recorded fell on the town of Vivian, South Dakota, during an extraordinary hailstorm, and it was larger than a bowling ball, measuring 7.87 inches in diameter and weighing almost 2 pounds!

SPACE ODDITIES

10 Bizarre Objects Humans Sent Into Space

Image: NASA

Space exploration has propelled humanity into the cosmos, but along the way, we've also flung a bunch of bizarre objects at high velocity into the cold void of space.

From cultural artifacts to scientific experiments gone wrong, here are 10 weird things we've launched beyond Earth's atmosphere.

Image: Alan Hardman

In 2001, Pizza Hut made history by becoming the first company to deliver pizza to space. They sent a vacuum-sealed pizza to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a resupply mission, allowing astronauts to enjoy a taste of home among the stars.

As NASA has a restrictive policy regarding advertising and product endorsement, Pizza Hut had to turn to Roscosmos, paying the Russian agency $1 million to display their logo on the side of their rocket and deliver a shrink-wrapped salami pizza to cosmonaut Yuri Usachov.

Image: Schokraie E, Warnken U, Hotz-Wagenblatt A, Grohme MA, Hengherr S, et al. (2012), CC BY 2.5

These microscopic creatures, also known as water bears, are incredibly resilient and can survive extreme conditions, including the unforgiving vacuum of space. Since 2007, tardigrades have been sent into space onboard various scientific missions, and in November 2011, an Israeli lunar lander accidentally crashed on the Moon’s surface, potentially spilling around thousands of tardigrades in a cryptobiotic state that were part of the mission’s payload.

Whether these tough little beings have survived the impact is anyone’s guess, but if there’s a terrestrial species capable of withstanding the harshest environments, it’s them.

Image: Brian McGowan

In 2008, Disney and NASA collaborated to send a toy replica of Buzz Lightyear, the fictional space ranger from the movie "Toy Story," to the ISS. The toy spent 15 months aboard the station as part of an educational outreach program before returning to Earth.

And after returning to Earth, Buzz Lightyear got to meet its legendary namesake, Buzz Aldrin, who "coached" it for future space missions. The spacefaring toy was eventually donated to the Smithsonian Institution, where it now resides.

Image: Daniel K Cheung

People seem to love sending LEGO figurines on the craziest adventures, whether it’s strapping them to weather balloons, miniature submarines, or even on a mission to Jupiter! A partnership between NASA and LEGO in 2011 resulted in the creation of a very special set specifically designed for space travel. Three figurines representing statues of Galileo Galilei and the Roman gods Jupiter and Juno were sent onboard NASA’s Juno Mission towards the gas giant.

Image: Vlad Tchompalov

In 2018, SpaceX made headlines when they launched Elon Musk's personal Tesla Roadster into space aboard the company’s Falcon Heavy rocket. The car was piloted by a mannequin dubbed "Starman," and it served as a dummy payload to test the rocket's capabilities without endangering a real (and potentially more costly) payload.

Named after a David Bowie song, the mannequin and its shiny convertible will remain in a heliocentric orbit for millions of years, an enduring testimony to humanity’s ingenuity and sense of humor.

Image: Jesper Aggergaard

Surprisingly, not even dinosaurs are safe from being sent into space! In 1985, fossil bits from Maiasaura peeblesorum, a duck-billed dinosaur, visited the Mir space station onboard the shuttle Endeavor. And in 2014, a Tyrannosaurus fossil was launched into space as part of NASA’s Orion spacecraft test flights. More recently, Jeff Bezos' spaceflight company Blue Origin sent hundreds of 70 million years old Dromaeosaurus fossil fragments on a suborbital trajectory, as part of its "Club for the Future'' initiative.

Image: Alexander Maasch

It seems like SpaceX might send just about anything to space, as in 2010 it launched a wheel of cheese as part of a secret payload onboard the company’s Dragon space capsule. The only reason it was kept secret is because SpaceX’s CEO Elon Musk didn’t want to overshadow the success of the test flight.

The wheel of cheese is a - although debatable - reference to a classic skit from the British comedy show Monty Python's Flying Circus where John Cleese tries to order cheese from a "cheeseless cheese shop." While the joke might not have landed as well as in Elon’s head, the wheel of cheese certainly did, safely returning to Earth along with the company’s space capsule.

Image: superneox lightsaber

Of course, a real lightsaber should be rigorously space-tested, or at least that’s what anyone who has seen Star Wars would expect. As part of an educational program, in 2007, NASA carried one of the actual Luke Skywalker lightsaber props used in the movies aboard the Discovery space shuttle. The "elegant weapon for a more civilized age" spent a total of 14 days in orbit before successfully returning to Earth - and to George Lucas’s hands.

Image: Vinicius amnx Amano

Who'd have thought there was room for whisky research in space? In 2011, a Scotch distillery named Ardbeg sent samples of its whisky to learn how microgravity would affect the maturation process of their spirit, with the goal of improving whisky production back on Earth. Interestingly, after spending nearly three years in space, Ardbeg’s director of distilling claimed that the samples tasted noticeably different from their terrestrial counterparts, likely due to how microgravity affects the process of oak flavoring that is essential for making scotch.

Image: Mick Haupt

Yes, you read that right. According to some sources, the first object sent into space - even before Sputnik - was in all likelihood a manhole cover that was accidentally launched at turbocharged speed during Operation Plumbbob, one of the earliest nuclear tests conducted by the U.S. government in the 1950s.

Robert Brownlee, one of the scientists who worked on Operation Plumbbob, maintains that the accidental spacecraft was propelled at five times the escape velocity of the Earth (around 125,000 miles per hour) during the nuclear blast, seriously dwarfing the speed of any intentional spacecraft made by humanity so far. In fact, it was going so fast that it wouldn't have time to burn up in the atmosphere, and some argue that it carried enough momentum to actually leave the Solar system entirely.