I am such a huge fan of weird science that I could be a character on The Big Bang Theory. Weird weather is always interesting, the odder it is the more fascinating I find it. In this book you will learn about snow donuts which occur when a small snowball starts rolling downhill picking up more and more snow as it gains momentum until it becomes this giant snowball, but, because the original bits that are now in the center of the snow orb are the soft powdery snow picked up at the beginning - if a strong wind gusts it can actually blow the soft center out of the now massive snowball creating what appears to be a donut made of snow speeding down the mountain and hurling toward the ground. It reminds me of kids rolling down hills in a tire or a barrel. The book brought up something I had never considered before saying that due to rain being in effect recycled because when it rains the rain falls down from the cloud on the ground once it stops raining and the sun comes out, the rain or water that is on the ground eventually evaporates and rises back up into the atmosphere becoming a cloud that will rain again and so on and so on throughout time. Interesting point made in the book, the rain that falls on us today might be the same rain that fell on the dinosaurs when they walked the earth. Cool, huh? I had just heard something about people sighting spaceships that turned out to be enormous clouds that were shaped weird and looked like spaceships. I was picturing looking at clouds as a kid (and as an adult) and seeing shapes that my mind honed in on and could see how they looked like turtles or angels or ponies, etc. I haven’t seen a spaceship shaped one, yet, but, I’m going to keep looking. There is a picture in this book of just such an occurrence and it really does look like a spaceship. Kind of mushroom cloud looking with saucer shaped definition – I can see where people would think the mother ship was here. It is actually a phenomenon called a lenticular cloud. Stong winds blowing over a mountain makes the cloud twist and swirl and the result is a lenticular cloud that looks like it is straight out of the film, Independence Day and will have you wishing Will Smith would fly by on patrol. Another anomaly is a Sundog. Sounds like something the Justice League would be going up against and they look truly of science fiction origin but they are actual atmospheric events that occur when ice crystals sink through the air and align in such a way that the sun’s light refracts off of them along the horizon causing the ice to appear as a bright spot to the left or right of the sun. Makes it look like multiple suns! Again I say, cool, huh? Then there are dust devils which I have experienced before. They are like mini baby tornadoes that just whoosh up from the ground when warm air rises from the ground and meets cool air above and begins to turn picking up whatever is on the ground under it. It’s really interesting looking. I saw one in the playground as a child and a few years ago I saw one in a cemetery at night. I said aloud, “how appropriate!” Cool looking and duly scary like a sign! The book also explains mirages, those ripples in the air that make it look like an oasis is just beyond the next sand dune or in this country more like there is water ahead of you on the highway but it is actually dry. Speaking of sand, another really cool thing happens when lightning strikes sand. The heat is so intense from the lightning strike that it actually melts the sand! When the sand cools around where the lightning struck it forms into hard tubes called fulgurites. Some say they are the shape of the lightning bolt itself, but, from the picture it looks like driftwood to me. I may have seen a fulgurite at some time in my travels and didn’t realize it thinking it was driftwood. It also looks like a long version of sea coral only sand color. I would like to see a piece of fulgurite someday and see what it feels like. Is it crusty like sand or smooth cause it has been burned? Science rocks.
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