Weather Journal
The Weather Doctor's Amazing Weather Facts
The Weather Doctor has been gathering amazing weather facts for many years. Here are some of them that you can use to impress your friends with your weather knowledge.
| WINTER FACTS |
 Based on National Weather Service records Syracuse, New York averages 115 inches (292 cm) of snow annually and is the snowiest large city (population over 100,000) in the United States. The snowiest inhabited location in the western United States is Blue Canyon, California, northeast of Sacramento. The town lies at an elevation of 1,730 feet (567 m) in the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada and averages 240 inches (610 cm) of snow per year. |
Canada's snowiest city (100 largest cities based on population) is Gander, Newfoundland with an average of 443 cm (174 inches) of snow annually (1971-2000 averages). The snowiest location is Glacier Natonal Park (Mt Fidelity) British Columbia with its 1471 cm (579 inches) of average annual snowfall. |
The world's greatest temperature extreme -- the range between record high and low temperature -- is found in Verkhoyansk, Siberia: 36.7° C (98° F) to minus 67.8° C (minus 90° F). That is a 104.5 C degree (188 F degree) difference! |
| A 25 cm (10 inch) snowfall can cover a 1 metre by 30 metre (3.3 ft by 100 ft) sidewalk with about 750 kg (1650 pounds) of snow. |
| Snowflakes are actually aggregates of smaller snow crystals, often containing hundreds of individual crystals. |
| Oymyakon, Sibera, Russia (population 4,000) is the coldest permanently inhabited community on Earth. Winter temperatures may fall to -67° C (- 89° F). |
| During the cold wave of February 1899, the Mississippi was frozen from its source to its mouth. Ice was two inches (5 cm) thick at New Orleans. Two chucks of ice were observed to flow into the Gulf of Mexico. Only one previous time was this ever observed: 1784. |
| The force of the wind blowing at 50 km/hr (30 mph) is 9 times greater than the force of the wind blowing at 17 km/hr (10 mph). No wonder strong March winds feel like lions compared to lambish light winds. |
| The largest snowflake ever observed was 38 cm (15 inches) across at Ft. Keough, Montana on January 28, 1887. Snowflakes 9.52 cm (3.75 inches) across and 0.64 cm (0.25 inch) thick fell in 1888 at Shirenewton, England. |
| SPRING FACTS |
| The lifetime of a typical small cumulus cloud is 10 to 15 minutes. |
| The most favourable period for the D-Day invasion of Normandy by Allied forces during World War II was, in part, selected by climatologists. They determined that conditions during early to mid June 1944 were most likely to meet the needs of air, naval and land forces for a successful landing. |
| The power of moving water in flash floods should not be underestimated. Fifteen centimetres (six inches) can sweep a person off their feet and most automobiles will float and may be swept away by only 60 centimetres (2 feet) of moving water. |
| In mountainous areas, the growing season starts earlier and is significantly longer on the south-facing slopes than the north faces. |
| May is the month with the most tornado occurances in the United States. Over 6,000 were observed between 1950 and 1989. |
| A nearby thunderclap may reach a sound level of around 120 decibels, equivalent to being within 60 metres (200 feet) of a jet aircraft during take-off or about 1 metre (3.3 feet) of an auto horn. A chain saw is rated around 100 decibels. A sound of 140 decibels is painfully loud. [Note each 10 decibel increase in noise level seems twice as loud.] |
| SUMMER FACTS |
| All other factors being equal, baseballs fly farther in Denver than at lower elevations such as New York City. The lower air pressure at the "Mile-High" city of Denver compared to the air pressure at sea-level New York means more balls to make it over the fence at Coors Field than Yankee Stadium. |
| Warnings that a hurricane would hit the Houston-Galveston area in late-July 1943 were suppressed because of censorship of weather news and information during World War II. |
| The largest hailstone by dimensions ever recovered in the United States fell in Aurora, Nebraska on June 22, 2003 with a record 7-inch (17.8 cm) diameter and a circumference of 18.75 inches (37.6 cm). The previous largest documented hailstone, and still the heaviest, fell on Coffeyville, Kansas, September 3, 1970. It weighed 0.76 kg (1.67 lb) and was 44.4 cm (17.5 inches) in diameter. The largest believeable stone to be reported but not documented weighed 2.04 kg (4.5 lb); it fell in Germany in 1925. |
| About 77 million lightning bolts annually strike the United States. |
| A hurricane can drop up to 20 billion tons of rain water per day. |
| Nearly half of all major Atlantic hurricanes (Safir-Simpson Class 3 or higher) occur during September. |
| A large hurricane can churn up over 4 million cubic kilometres (over 1 million cubic miles) of atmosphere every second. |
| AUTUMN FACTS |
| Eight Atlantic hurricanes with names beginning with the letter B have been retired, the most for any other letter. A is second with six retired names. Carol in 1954 was the first hurricane to have its name retired. |
| On September. 4, 1876, the first storm warning prepared in Canada was sent from the Toronto Observatory and headquarters of Canada's new weather service. In October that year, the first general weather forecast was issued. |
| The first same-day weather maps were printed and sold for a penny a copy at London's Great Exposition of 1851 from August 8 throught October 11. |
| GENERAL FACTS |
| If the Earth was the size of an apple, the atmosphere would be no thicker than the skin of the apple. |
| Although ice melts at 0° C (32° F), pure water droplets may not freeze until their temperature reaches -40° (C or F). |
If daily temperature fluctuations bother you, then move to the island of Fernando de Noronh, off the Brazilian coast. Temperatures there have an annual range between 18 and 32 oC (65-90 oF) |
| The Greenland ice cap contains three million cubic kilometres of ice, which would raise sea level 7.5m (24 feet) if all melted into the sea. |
| The Mars Global Surveyor has photographed dust devils and their tracks on the Martian surface. |
| No two people see the same rainbow. Although many people may see a rainbow at the same time, the rainbow each individual sees is formed by the reflection of specific raindrops that fall upon the observer's eyes. A person next to you will see a rainbow formed from different droplets than the one you see, and thus it is a different rainbow. |
| Greek philosopher Aristotle's books Meteorologica were completed in 350 BC and remained the standard textbook on weather for nearly 2,000 years. |
| The Jet Stream has been measure over the eastern Pacific during the winter at speeds in excess of 460 km/hr (286 mph). |
| In the tropics where storms travel from the east to the west, rainbows are often seen before a storms arrive. |
| A large raindrop measuring 5 millimetres across — the size of a small housefly — falls at around 32 km/h. Falling from 4000 metres, that raindrop takes approximately seven minutes to reach ground. Small drizzle drops — the size of a grain of salt — half a millimetre across, fall at 7.2 km/h. For comparison, a towering pop-up hits the infielder's glove at a terminal speed of 150 km/h (95 mph). |
| During El Niño years, strong winds may slow the Earth's rotation ever so slightly, increasing the length of a day by a fraction of a millisecond. |
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©2000, Keith C. Heidorn, PhD. All Rights Reserved.
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