Predicting Weather By The Moon - Xavier University Libraries

Weather Maps
lination points.
On the other hand, when the Moon crosses the
Earth’s ecliptic during its monthly cycle, if it is generating
storms on a fast moving front, there are more cloud-toground
discharges.
WHAT IS A TORNADO?
Most tornadoes are the product of warm, moist air
rising through cooler air and creating highly energized
storms called supercells which give off energy called ‘latent
heat,’ creating an updraft. Then the whole is hit by wind
shear—two layers of wind, one moving fast on top, the other
slower below it—which spins the updraft wildly, forming a
meso-cyclone, a whirling column of air six miles wide.
And then a downdraft at the edge of the meso whips out a
tightly wound whirlwind, coiled in the shape of a funnel,
blowing at a minimum of 60 mph. The tornado that swept
across Missouri, Illinois and Indiana on March 18, 1925
(same day of the perigee), ranks first in distance (219
miles), dimension (a mile-wide funnel), 689 dead.
WHAT IS A HURRICANE?
Isobar lines close together = strong winds. Hurricanes
describe windspeed, on something called the ‘Beaufort’
Scale, adopted in 1802 by Sir Francis Beaufort. It ranges
from 0(calm) to 12(hurricane wind).
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