Superoceras: weather

Greetings!

Welcome to Superoceras, a blog about science and natural history, slightly biased towards paleontology and zoology, but inclusive of all sciences. Started in October of 2009, my goal is to communicate scientific knowledge (and the occasional piece of nonsense) in an informative and entertaining manner. Feel free to contact me with questions, comments, concerns, or criticism at superoceras(at)gmail(dot)com, and follow me on Twitter @Superoceras for all that and more in 140 characters or less!

Showing posts with label weather. Show all posts

Friday, July 06, 2012

Bringing the Thunder

The last two weekends in Maryland have started out with very powerful Friday evening storms. The derecho that took place last week was crazy. Strong winds and powerful thunderstorms surged as they moved from the midwest to the Mid-Atlantic coast. But I was inland for it. I can only imagine what it was like here at the beach. During a bad, long lasting storm, consistently strong winds would cause swells which, upon reaching the shore, could generate extremely high surf. The energy generated by the wind is expended along the shoreline as the wave reaches it, so the higher the winds, the greater the damage that could occur. But winds and weather aren't the only thing that have an impact on the coastline. I was reminded of that the other night as I observed a beautiful full "Thunder Moon" over the Atlantic Ocean, and thought of the powerful effect it has on the Earth's tides.

The Road from SVP (Wonders of Fall Part 1.5)

Following an afternoon at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (which I'll have plenty of more posts on and photos from in the future), we began the journey back to Maryland from Pittsburgh. I can't say that the weather was as nice on the way back as it was on the way up, but there were some highlights. Rather than talk about the same things as I did in my first "fall journey" post, I'll just run you through it, in picture form.

Friday the 13th (August 2010)

I'm not really one for superstitions, but I figured since Friday the 13th only comes around every so often, I thought I'd try and think of something science related that I could tie into what is traditionally known as the unluckiest day of the year. Black cats? The number 13? How mirrors work? All decent topics with a scientific twist that are associated with 13th, but I think I'll save them for future Fridays. This time around I want to focus on something that could be considered very unlucky and is genuinely related to science: intense storms continuously raging through your country.

I caught wind of this YouTube video on Wednesday. This is a storm that hit the Helsinki and Pori regions of Finland at around 16:00 on 08 August, 2010. I'll let the video speak for itself.