When I was a young
man I fancied myself a bit of a magician. My parents bought me this magic kit
and one day for show and tell I decided to don my mustache and top hat and turn
water into ink for the whole class. Well, let’s just say I never performed in
Vegas (note to future magic tricksters, practice your stuff before demonstrating
in front of a live audience) but it certainly gave me a better understanding of
the differences between fantasy and reality.
It’s possible to turn
water into wine, but it takes more than the swipe of a hand. There is strange
phenomenon that occurs around us in nature every day! It’s easy to see how our
ancestors thought sorcery was a true thing. But for every weird occurrence our
planet throws at us, there is a way to prove the science behind the incident.
Today at To Infinity
and…In Theory we’re going to discuss some weird weather that occurs around the
world. Ever nod off in church when your pastor drones on about frogs raining
from the sky? Maybe you just got to the next level in the latest MMO and earned
a new skill called Fire Tornado. Ever wonder about that famous sinking of the
Edmund Fitzgerald? Promise it wasn’t ghost pirates.
Let’s explore some
menacing meteorology today starting with quite possibly the coolest albeit one
of the more deadly ones we’ll be discussing today. The fire tornado; or as it’s
more commonly known, a “Fire Whirl”.
Fire Whirls
(Fig. 1) Fire Tornado in
Brazil
Japan has some terrible luck when it comes to
natural disasters. In the 1920s an Earthquake struck the small island nation
causing tidal waves, floods, and a host of other terrifying byproducts brought
on by the violent mistress Mother Nature. One of the most bizarre things
however in all of this was the Fire Whirl that spawned from the rampantly
burning fires.
44,000 Japanese civilians were killed by this
fiery swirling Hellstorm. But what causes something like this to occur? I mean,
it’s not like it happens in our bon fire pits on a regular basis.
You’re right. A series of factors have to be
in place in order to spawn a fire whirl and while they’re not incredibly rare,
they also aren’t fairly common. (Thank the Lord). They aren’t really tornados
in the traditional sense either because the eye (core) of the whirl is actually
what is on fire. As winds swirl around the intense heat in the center the
flames get caught up in them and spin around the core.
The core of a Fire Whirl is typically 1-3
feet in diameter but some have been reported as being 10-30 feet in diameter (that’s
a whole bucket of Kentucky Fried Nope). The good news is unless you live in a
wildfire prone valley the chances of you experiencing one of these foreboding
cyclones of flames for yourself are slim.
Sorry California...
Ball Lightning
As if lightning by itself wasn’t scary
enough. Capable of delivering a supercharged jolt with the output of voltage in
the millions, lightning is a veteran of frying the most sensitive electronic
devices, starting fires that cause millions of dollars in damage, and
delivering a fatal blast from the heavens to us humble humans below. But what
happens when electricity decides to throw us a proverbial (and somewhat
literal) curveball?
The picture above is ball lightning, and
scientists are baffled by its formation, behavior, and to some extent, its
composition. Now remember we are talking about the photo above. Not this photo…
So what do we know about ball lightning? Well
we know it’s been around longer than our ability to explain it. Take this
excerpt for example from John Stowe’s Annals in 1596…
“There entered in at the
west window of the church a dark unproportioned thing about the bigness of a
football, and went along the wall on the pulpit side; and suddenly it seemed to
break with no less sound than if a hundred cannons had been discharged at once;
and therewithal came a most violent storm and tempest of lightning and thunder
as if the church had been full of fire.”
Aside from the fact that the excerpt is
grammatically correct it shares quite a few similarities with some modern
accounts of ball lightning. The slow moving object meanders through the air and
eventually explodes violently as so aptly described above as “the sound of a
hundred cannons”. Afterwards the smell of sulfur is said to linger behind.
The accounts of these phenomena vary so
widely however that it’s hard for scientists to pinpoint their exact cause for
formation, but it’s said to accompany typical lightning activity, despite the
fact that many accounts seem to happen on calm days. Through various
experimental methods they’ve been able to somewhat replicate the effects of
this in a laboratory setting but without more field data it’s hard to say the
two are synonymous.
There are a whole host of theories associated
with ball lightning which you can view on Wikipedia by clicking here.
Fun
Fact of the Day:
Nikola Tesla used to manufacture his own ball lightning while he was in his
lab. This however did not seem useful to him in his quest to solve the “current”
crisis so it remained a simple hobby. He knew how it worked though as he used
to demonstrate it for live audiences. Now, like Greek Fire, we have no idea how
this genius did it.
Pyroclastic Flow
(Fig. 2) A Pyroclastic
Flow (Volcanic Avalanche)
When we think of volcanoes we typically think
of lava. What most of us don’t know is as dangerous as lava as, those aren’t
even close to the most deadly of all eruptions a volcano can throw at us. Lava
eruptions are easy to predict because of seismic activity buildup, but what
happens when the really scary ones blow, like Mt. St. Helens, or Vesuvius?
Those are called Pyroclastic Flows, and they
are by far and wide the most deadly of all volcanic activity. Fluidized gas,
hot ash and rock, and fire rain down from the sky. Carried in at speeds of
100-200 km/hr (perhaps more depending on the slopes gradient) there is no hope
of outrunning these abominations. They will level buildings to foundations and
are capable of burning at anywhere from 100-800 degrees Celsius.
This means should you be caught in one,
(which if you live in that little village at the base of that avalanche of doom
above you will), I can almost guarantee you won’t live to tell about it. It is
so hot the first breath is said to vaporize your internal organs and all that
is left behind of you is mummy made of coal.
So what causes this insane cloud of death? Several
different things. It could be an explosion from tectonic shifting under a lava
flow. A lava column could collapse. Dr. Evil could accidentally drop a warhead
into his volcano lair. (Just kidding, he doesn’t have the funding for
warheads.) But at the end of the day it’s the superheated gases meeting the
cold ice and snow on the mountain tops that causes the gas to become fluidized
and deadly.
Best course of action for avoidance, don’t
live underneath a freakin’ volcano.
Rogue Waves
(Fig. 3) Actual news
clipping from a Michigan newspaper after the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald
on Lake Superior.
Rogue Waves, also known as Freak Waves can
seemingly come out of nowhere. Like tales of giant squid, the lost city of
Atlantis, and the Loch Ness Monster these can sound like tall tales and
sometimes myths altogether. Giant walls of water spawning on calm seas to pull
sailors to the depths of Davey Jones Locker. It seems preposterous.
The only thing preposterous is the notion of
Dave Jones Locker. There is enough evidence to support the existence of the
mammoth murderer’s once and for all. After the Discovery Channel aired an
episode of its popular Deadliest Catch reality series featuring one of these
waves that almost claimed the lives of all aboard, scientists were ready to
admit it was time to hit the books.
This wasn’t the first case in which a rogue
wave could explain the disappearance of a seafaring vessel. Take the news
article above for instance. In Michigan in the mid-70s an ore ship was
traveling Lake Superior when suddenly it vanished. There were other instances on
Lake Huron and in Alaskan waters as well.
So what causes these 90 foot aquatic towers
of Poseidon’s anger? There are quite a few variables. Wind speed, ocean depths,
currents, island locations that can deflect waves. But if say a strong storm
pushes a bunch of waves head-on into a current it could cause the waves to
stack on top of each other, therefore accounting for the wall of water effect.
(HowStuffWorks.com)
Not all Rogue waves occur in areas with
strong currents however. To learn more visit the website above.
Moon Bows
Yes. That is a real picture. Moon bows are
real. They’re like rainbows, but… ya know, made by the moon. I figured after
all the gloom and doom we discussed above you guys earned this one.
Oh yea. That’s a spray induced Lunar Rainbow.
Take it all in folks.
How about a double Moonbow? By the way, these
are all real images and not artist renderings. And just so you know, Moonbows
are…
And Now! Back
To Your Regularly Scheduled Programming of Gloom and doom!
Mammatus Clouds
Much like Rogue Waves and Ball Lightning,
Mammatus Clouds are not well understood. They are usually associated with strong
storms, tornados, and volcanic activity. (Go figure…) and are fairly recent
formations. If you haven’t already guessed the name is derived from the Latin
word for “Breast” or “Udder” due to the resemblance to such in the clouds.
Unless you subscribe to the Peter Griffin
theory of cloud uprisings, Mammatocumulus clouds are nothing to be concerned
with in and of themselves. Rather you should probably run from the factors
causing them to form then the clouds. Scientists are throwing forth hypotheses
about these marvelous wonders but nothing definitive has been lain down yet.
To view all the many proposed theories of
formation visit the Wiki by clicking here.
Non-Aqueous Rain
We’ve all heard the phrase “It’s raining cats
and dogs!”. And while that has a significantly different origin than
Non-Aqueous Rain, it certainly seems to apply. When we think of rain we
typically think of water. In the case of Non-Aqueous Rain we need to think of
everything but. Spiders, fish, Jellyfish, Eels, and even snakes and frogs have
been reported to come raining down from the sky from time to time. One of the
most recent cases of this was the Spider Rain experienced in Brazil.
While the spiders in Brazil are explainable,
(read the full article at “Smithsonian”)
there are cases that like many other of these phenomena are causing scientists
to scratch their heads. The only really working theory behind this is that
strong winds pick the critters up and carry them great distances across land
before dropping them.
Sometimes the animals survive the fall.
Sometimes they’re frozen, or shredded into little pieces (presumably from
debris that gets sucked into whatever force pulled them in as well.) but it’s
all the same. From Frogs in Japan, to Fish in India, Non-Aqueous rain is real.
So Is This The End?
Of the world? No. Of this article. Yes. Most
of these strange happenings have been happening for much longer than we’ve been
here. We’ve only so recently developed the tools to explain these things. But
from Fire Whirls to Double Moonbows, one thing is certain. Nature is cool and
cruel.
-Ryan Sanders
Thanks for reading! Follow any of the links speckled in throughout the
article to learn more about the various topics discussed here. Happy learning!
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