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tornadoes |avalanches |hurricanes | rainbows |& lots sfl¢re!

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CONTENTS
Divine Intervention 2-3
Strange Forebodings 4-5
Cottonwool Clouds 6-7
Winter Wonderland 8-9
White Out 10-11
Thunderbolts & 12-13
Lightning...
Hurricane Hell 14-15
Whirling Winds 16-17
Rain... Again! 18-19
Flames & Famine 20-2]
Perfect Prism 22-23
Special FX 24-25
Wonderful Weather 26-27

Weather Whizz Kids 28-29

Spies in the Sky 30-31

ad Quiz Answers 32

i Index Inside Back Cover

Ziggy’s Pocket Fun Books

Copyright © 2000 ticktock Publishing Led.
http://www.ticktock.co.uk

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 Dangerous Drought
Forest fires result from summers of little or no rain.
A spark from atrain, a bolt of lightning or, more
commonly, a discarded cigarette can cause wildfires
that are sometimes impossible to control.
 SUN SACRIFICES
Energy from the Sun is the source of
all life on this planet. Many early
civilisations worshipped the Sun.
High on their pyramid-shaped
temples, Aztec priests made
grisly human sacrifices to their
god of sun and rain, Tlaloc.

POLE POWER §
Chief of all the spirits worshipped by the
Native Americans was the Thunderbird.
Tribes often built tall totem poles in the
bird’s honour. Lightning was said to
Which of these was shoot from its beak and thunder to
the Hindu god of roll from its beating wings. But, most
thunder and rain? importantly, the Thunderbird brought
a) Zeus refreshing rain to water the earth
b) Thor and make the plants grow.
c) Indra
Who was the Mayan
god of storms?
a) Galan
b) Huracan The Chippewa
c) Blusteran
Indians of North
Which musical America told a story
instrument is used in to help them explain
raindance ceremonies? springtime flooding.
a) xylophone According to legend, the
b) synthesiser Sun’s heat was held in a bag
c) bullroarer
during the winter. But each spring
(answers on page 32) a mouse nibbled a hole in the bag.
All the heat leaked out, melting the snow
on the mountain tops and causing floods.
 DIVINE
INTERVENTION
: Weather has such awesome power it’s no wonder some
people in the past blamed, or thanked, their gods for it.
as] Until we worked out what caused it, extreme weather
must sometimes have seemed like the end of the world.
People relied on fine sunny days and sprinklings
of rain to ripen and water their crops.

BUSY mouth
Ancient Egyptians thought
a dung beetle, known as a scarab,
pushed their sun god Re across the
fod
pargsapuny
I,
w9}10] sky every day.

SONG & DANCE

In times of drought, special rituals are sometimes
performed to bring on the rain. African rain magic
included dancing, chanting, sprinkling small amounts
of precious water - and even spitting!
 STRANGE |
FOREBODING
Some people rely on the feelof their boots to decide
whether to carry an umbrella or not. Others base their
forecasts on the behaviour of plants or animals. Do natural
signs give us clues to the weather? You decide.

ee. WEATHER FIR-LY ACCURATE

QUIZ Pine cones are surprisingly sensitive
to weather. When it is dry,
=~

When do grass- their scales shrivel and

hoppers get noisier? open out. When rain is
a) when they are arguing on the way, their scales
b) when snow is forecast absorb moisture from the
c) as the temperature rises
air and close up. Flowers 2% Co,
Why do people hang also react to the weather. "6 dry Weather
seaweed on their Dandelions snap shut if the temperature drops
garden walls? below 10°C, while the delicate scarlet
a) to forecast the weather pimpernel’s petals close just before it rains.
b) they think it looks pretty
c) the smell puts off
burglars MOO-VE IT!
When do shepherds
People say cows lie down when it is going
and sailors like to
see a red sky? to rain so that they will have somewhere
a) at night
dry to sit out the storm. Problem is, 3
b) in the morning cows are not the brightest of .
c) on 4 July creatures. They are just as
(answers on page 32) likely to lie down when
there are only clear skies
4 on the horizon!
 WEATHER
CALENDAR If the groundhog sees its
Whatever the weather on St Swithin’s own shadow when it
Day (15 July), it is said that 40 wakes up from its winter
sleep, people must
more days of the same will follow.
expect six more weeks
This is because Swithin, bishop of of wintry weather.
Winchester, unleashed a torrential,
40-day rainstorm on 15 July 971.
He was dead at the time but he had
got uppity when his remains were
moved against his wishes.

WAKE-UP, WOODCHUCK!
Groundhog Day is celebrated in the United States on
2 February when revellers watch what the groundhog
does as it wakes. Also known as woodchucks, some of
these small furry creatures are celebrities — Philadelphia's
most famous,
Punxsutawney
Phil, even
featured
ina
film.
 COTTONWOOD
CLOUDS
Clouds are one of the most beautiful features of the sky.
From space, you can see huge white wisps constantly swirling
above the Earth. These massive collections Earth from space
of cold water or ice may look like
fluffy cottonwool, but they're far _
from soft to the touch.

WET BLANKET
Every cloud is made up of
billions of tiny water droplets
or ice crystals. Warm air
cools as it rises, which causes
the moisture in it to condense
into microscopic droplets of
water. Clouds that form very
high in the sky — where the air is
so cold it's freezing — form snow
clouds packed with ice crystals.

HEAD IN THE CLOUDS

Maybe no two clouds look alike to you, but scientists say clouds come in
ten basic kinds and three shapes. In 1803, Luke Howard was the first
person to sort the clouds into different types. This budding English
scientist must have paid attention in school, because all the cloud
names he came up with were in Latin.
 Cumulonimbus
CLOUD CALL
When you look up at the sky, §
you will see different types of
cloud. High, wispy clouds are
called cirrus, after the Latin for
‘curl of hair’. Cumulus clouds
are the classic, intensely white
cottonwool clouds. Their name
means ‘heap’. Stratus clouds are flat, layered
clouds. But the ones to watch out for are WEATHER
nimbus clouds - they bring rain! QUIZ
What do you call the
cloud left by a plane
in the sky?
a) aeropuff
b) contrail
c) snakecloud
Which cloud appears
as a series of small
bumps, and what
does its name mean?
a) mammatus (breast)
b) lumpus (hillock)
c) uncinus (hook)
What type of
altocumulus cloud
formation looks like
Weather watchers today can go even further fish scales?
to describe clouds. The idea is to combine a) sharkskin sky
different words and come up with a perfect b) whiting sky
description for every cloud. So a cumulonimbus c) mackerel sky
cloud is a large, fluffy cloud that brings rain. (answers on page 32)
Putting ‘cirro-’ or ‘alto-’ in front of the cloud
describes whether it is a high-level or mid-level
cloud. Try mixing and matching your own!
 Magnified ice crysts
FANTASTIC FLAKES
yx >
Next time you catch a snowflake on
your mitt, have a close look at it.
_ Every snowflake is six-sided and
made up of microscopic ice crystals,
but that’s where the similarities end. In fact,
every snowflake is as unique as each of your fingerprints.
No one has ever seen two flakes that look the same.

HAI
& HEA
LVY

The biggest
Which night-time ever hailstones
visitor is said to hit Gopalganj
:
bring frost? a Batclagcett
a) Jack Frost in April 1996.
b) Jane Frost ae Each one
c) Frosty the Snowman F weighed more
than 1 kg -
How much of fresh ouch!
snow is made up
of air?
a) over 90 per cent
b) 50 per cent
c) there is no air; it is
only made of water THE BIG FREEZE
Which ship sank Believe it or not, we live in a warm period in
when it hit an Earth’s history. Climate boffins say we are in the
iceberg? Holocene Epoch. They reckon this period began
a) the Gigantic about 10,000 years ago when we were still
b) the Titanic living in caves. Before that was the Pleistocene
c) the Unsinkable ;
Epoch that included about seven ice ages —
(answers on page 32) times when at least a third of the Earth hi
was covered in moving sheets of ice. “i 4
 WINTER
WONDERLAND
Frost's pretty cool, but you can’t beat waking up to a thick
blanket of fresh snow. It’s like waking up in a new world
where there is a ready supply of missiles to throw and snowy
Snowman
sculptures to create. Now THAT’s cool!

CHILL OUT
Of course, the snowiest, coldest places on
Earth are the North and South Poles. Ice there
never really melts, except for around the
Y coast. New snow just falls on top of the old,
pressing it down into superthick sheets of
og ice. In parts of Antarctica the
ice has never once melted in
over two million years!

MONSTER
MELTDOWN?
Even today there are tens of
thousands of glaciers, mostly around
Antarctica and Greenland. If all the
frozen water locked up in these glaciers
melted at once, the sea would rise by
about 60 metres. Every major coastal
city — including New York and
Sydney - would disappear!
 WHITE OUT
Serious winter weather can bring serious danger.
Biting blizzards trap people in their own homes.
Power cables collapse under the weight of the
snowfall, leaving many people without heating
or electricity. And in remote
mountain areas the sheer weight of
1B, WEATHER
QUIZ snow can send terrifying avalanches
tumbling down.
Where on Earth was
the coldest ever
temperature recorded? AVALANCHE!
a) Amundsen, Antarctica
Avalanches happen after sudden, heavy snow,
b) Bostok, Antarctica
c) Vostok, Antarctica or in spring when the winter snows begin to
melt. A sudden movement or noise, such as a car
Which of these engine backfiring, dislodges the snow or ice
freezes when it’s
and sets it moving. The avalanche rapidly
seriously cold?
gathers speed and can thunder down the
a) your eyeballs
mountainside at over 320 km/h.
b) car petrol tank
c) the sea
Approximately how WALL OF DEATH
many people die in
avalanches in the If you find yourself in the path of a
Alps each year? thundering wall of ice and snow,
a) 15 don’t expect to survive. If the
b) 150 sheer weight of impact doesn’t
c) 1,500 get you, the freezing conditions
(answers on page 32) soon will. After 20 minutes,
70 per cent of avalanche
victims have usually died.
IO
 BANG! BANG!
During the Second
World War, about
60,000 men
died in the
Tyrolean Alps -
not from enemy
gunfire, but from avalanches set off by
the sound of gunshots.

LICK OF LIFE
The most heroic dog of all time was a St Bernard called Barry.
He saved more than 40 people in the Swiss Alps. He once
&
} rescued a boy who lay under an
avalanche next to his mother’s dead
body. Barry gently licked the
boy’s face until he woke up,
then carried him to safety.

MOUNTAIN
MUTTS
Dogs speed up the
rescue work. Their
noses can sniff out
people — even if
they're buried
beneath metres of
snow. In a couple
of hours, a pair of
dogs can cover the
same area as 80
human rescuers!
 FAR OUT
Check out your chances of being stuck in an
electrical storm. Light travels faster than sound,
so count the seconds between a lightning flash
and its thunder clap. Every three seconds
equals about. 1 km between you and the storm.
If you see lightning
and hear thunder
Lightning
a ¥ ¢
. at the same
strikes | time, you're
the Earth ” in trouble!
100 times |
every second.
$ Ce
:

gqonkensteins monster

ol hm, MONSTER
FORCE
4 In the eighteenth century,
\ some people believed
electricity was the
life force that made
human bodies work. a fey
In Mary Shelley's Lightning over Arizona, USA
famous horror story,
Dr Frankenstein sparks his freaky monster
to life by harnessing electricity from a
storm. We might take electricity
for granted but scientists who
experimented with it in the
early days would have
been shocked to see the
amazing machines
and gadgets it
powers for us.
 gee: DERBOLTS
& LIGHTNING...
oe
Very, very frightening! What's more,
there are about 40,000 thunderstorms
on Earth every day!
Why is it a bad
idea to shelter
CHARGING under a tree in a
ABOUT thunderstorm?
a) you might frighten
As so much heat rises in away small animals
the air on a hot day it b) leaves direct rain
provides perfect conditions down the back of
for dark storm clouds to your neck
¢) lightning usually
brew. Drops of water
strikes tall objects
jiggle around inside the
cumulonimbus cloud How often does
and it is soon crackling lightning strike the
with electricity. Empire State Building
in New York City?
Lightning flashes are
charges of static electricity that are attracted a) 5 times a year
b) 20 times a year
either down to the ground or across the sky c) 500 times a year
to another cloud.
Which US President
ELECTRI-FRIED! flew a kite in a
thunderstorm?
Roy Sullivan,a park ranger in Virginia, United a) Benjamin Franklin
lates, was struck by lightning seven times between b) Abraham Lincoln
942 and 1977. Over the years, he lost a toenail c) Bill Clinton
ind suffered burns to his legs, stomach, chest and (answers on page 32)
eft shoulder. His eyebrows burnt off in 1969 and
his hair went up in flames — twice! B
 The aftermath of Mitch

What name is given

to the still centre of
a hurricane?
a) eye
b) pie
c) sky
How fast must a
wind be before it’s
called a hurricane?
a) more than 89 km/h
b) more than 119 km/h
c) more than 229 km/h MONSTER MITCH
What is a storm At the peak of its power, the winds of Hurricane
surge? Mitch raged at 305 km/h. On the rampage in
a) a swell of seawater October 1998, it was the fourth-fiercest hurricane
just before a hurricane to strike the Caribbean in 100 years. Worst of all,
b) an extra-powerful gust two of the world’s poorest countries, Nicaragua
of wind and Honduras, took the brunt of the storm. In the
c) a doctor who treats
hurricane victims
Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, thousands died
and tens of thousands lost their homes.
(answers on page 32)

THE NAME GAME Hurricanes

An Australian weather expert south of the
called Clement Wragge had the equator spin
clockwise.
idea of naming tropical storms in In the north,
the nineteenth century. He chose they whirl
boys’ names from the Bible, such as in the
Rakem and Talmon. Since 1978, opposite
hurricanes have alternately been direction -
anti-clockwise!
given a boy or a girl’s name.
14
 HURRICANE
HELL
The world’s most terrifying storms are hurricanes.
Whirling winds race along at up to 360 km/h,
carrying swirling thunderclouds and torrential rain.
Every second, a hurricane generates ten times more
energy than the atom bomb that was dropped on
Hiroshima, Japan, in the Second World War.

TROPICAL TROUBLE
Terrifying tropical storms sink ships, batter coastlines and flatten houses.
They are known variously as hurricanes over the Atlantic, as cyclones
over the Indian Ocean, and as typhoons over the Pacific. Whatever you
like to call them, they bring big trouble!

BIRTH OF A KILLER
Hurricanes are born out at sea
where the air is warmer than the
surface of the ocean. Once storm
clouds have massed, they start to
spin. A hurricane can be almost
1,000 km across and contain
hundreds of thunderstorms!
These spiralling clouds are
monitored by space satellites,
but even with advance warnings,
hurricanes still do tremendous damage.
 WHIRLING WINDS
Terrifying tornadoes and suffocating sandstorms - winds can cause
as much trouble inland as hurricanes do along the coast. Although
most tornadoes tear along at just 50 km/h, the winds inside them
have been estimated at 800 km/h! Problem is, tornadoes are so
fierce that they break all the measuring equipment!
Texan Tornado
abi
‘| WEATHER
a QUIZ
How many people
died in the tornado
that hit Bangladesh
in April 1989?
a) 500
b) 900
c) 1,300
What is the
nickname for mid- a
west America? ae a = obs! ) =
a) Windy Way
b) Tornado Alley
c) Twister Street SCHOOL’S OUT!
What are a pair of
tornadoes called? One of the luckiest escapes from tornado terror
al sisters came in 1986 when 13 schoolchildren in China
b) brothers were safely set back down on the ground after
¢) twins being carried nearly 20 km through the air.
(answers on page 32) As if that wasn’t amazing enough, the wicked
wind also managed to destroy the children’s
" school! Now, who said 13 was unlucky?
 VIOLENT VORTEX
So, where do tornadoes come from?
Like hurricanes, they start life in a
thundercloud which has built up over a
hot day. Then a stubby funnel of cloud
begins to spiral downwards. Once this
twisting tube of air reaches the ground,
it has become a full-blown and
unstoppable tornado.

WHAT A
CARRY-ON
allio? tect alot ° in
When a tornado starts central Asia, a}
sa
throwing its weight __in the Gobi Deser
around, there's no telling . pes wie ae :
what else it will throw! , eaThSher and kee
In the 1930s, a tornado in my
huge dinosaur eggs |
Minnesota actually tossed pertestiy Rone oi
a train carriage about * . 4
f

8 metres through the air.

DESERT
STORM
Wild winds and desert sands make a deadly
combination, aptly named the dust devil.
Sand blows around in the air with enough
force to strip paint off a car! For centuries,
the ancient Egyptian pyramids and ax
sphinx at Giza were completely
buried under metres of sand
dumped there by sandstorms.
 FREAK FLOODS
Flash floods even happen ac
in deserts. In fact, more aaa
people drown in deserts
in the United States than
die of thirst. Weird!

What is the
nickname of the WATER
Huang Ho River?
a) Stream of Sighs TORTURE
b) Death River In 1998, China’s longest river, the Yangtze
c) China's Sorrow became hell on Earth. Heavy rains flooded the
Which place on Earth river and 3,000 people died. Experts reckon the
has most rainfall flooding was especially bad because people had
each year? chopped down the trees that had supported the
a) Mawsynram, India river bank. Poor China also suffered the worst-ever
b) Bognor Regis, England flood. When the Huang Ho overflowed in 1887,
c) Mount Rainier, United nearly a million people lost their lives.
States
How do trees — * °

prevent floods? ° :s
a) their roots suck it Mey A Could Noah's%genda
up rainwater aN dace cae efioag hapaeen Suits
b) their roots bind the w ” Ae as _ Expert: say th
there afl
earth together We . ee ~al pal was |
c) the leaves act as an . - _ enormous
Sagaabout
an umbrella ie _7,000)years ago. a
ay “Ithadthe force
(answers on page 32)
~ about 200 Nia oe
SEG Fal pbrsigeacinss
18
 _RAIN... ASAIN!
Believe it or not, floods kill more people each
year than all the other natural disasters in the
world put together. Most floods happen when
rivers burst their banks after filling up with
water from torrential rains or melting snow.

WHAT A WASH-OUT
In the tropics, people depend on the annual rains. In places such
as India and Bangladesh farmers need the precious water for their
crops of rice and tea. But sometimes the monsoon winds bring too
much rain. When the monsoons hit Thailand in 1983, 10,000
people lost their lives. As a result of drinking contaminated
water, 100,000 people caught dangerous diseases.

FLOOD <x i
OF FROGS? “ws
It’s not only rain that falls
from the sky. Sometimes
fierce winds, such as tornadoes,
pick up animals, hurl them
through the air, and drop them
kilometres away. That might
explain why there have been
showers of fishes, frogs,
rats and even pigs!
 DEATH IN THE DESERT
A scary skull is often all that remains of an
animal after a drought. Once all the grass has
Where is the driest died and the water supply dried up, many
place in the world? wild creatures become weak and die.
a) Bahrain But the vultures have a feast.
b) Sahara Desert, Africa
c) Atacama Desert, Chile
Which plant seeds
need to be scorched Seo,
“ers Skul]
by fire before they
will start to grow?
a) phoenix fir
FANNING
b) banksia shrub
c) tinder tree
THE FLAMES
As the plants wither and become tinder dry,
Eucalyptus trees
burn well in a the scene is set for wild fires. These are
bushfire. Why? common in California, parts of Australia
and in southern France. Sometimes a
a) they contain
flammable oil lightning bolt sets off the fire but more often
b) their bark is very dry it’s human carelessness. Hot, dry winds fan
c) their leaves contain the flames. A drought across the United
no water States in 1988 left the whole of
(answers on page 32) Yellowstone Park ablaze. Yikes, Yogi!

pre

Yellowstone fire, 1988

ine AEE RR, SR ee
FLAMES & FAMINE
You may think torrential rain causes problems -
and it does - but things can also get pretty desperate
when the rain fails to fall.

HIGH
& DRY
Most wicked
weather is over
quite quickly, but
droughts go on and on.
In places like the Sahel
in Africa, there has been
a long-term drought for
over 30 years. And the
Atacama Desert in Chile
once went without any rain
for 400 years!

SMOKE & COUGHS

During 1997 and 1998, Southeast Asia suffered its deadliest drought
in 50 years. It was so dry, whole forests caught fire. To make matters
worse, the annual monsoon rains never came to put out the flames.
For months, the fires raged out of control, choking the
whole region with poisonous fumes.
2I
 PERFECT PRISM
One of the most glorious sights in the sky is the rainbow.
All sorts of myths surround this magnificent arch.

MYTH & MAGIC Rainbow over France

For the ancient Greeks, a rainbow was the

path of the goddess Iris across the sky.
It was said to be God's promise to
Noah after the flood. And many
tribes — from the Masai of East
Africa to the Yuki of North /
America — considered the /
rainbow to be the robe of god.

COLOUR
THEORY
The rainbow’s colours are
always the same. From the
outside in they are red, orange,
yellow, green, blue, indigo and
violet. Remember them by taking
the first letters of this saying: |
Richard of York gave battle in vain.

SEEING DOUBLE
Sometimes, two (or three) rainbows appear in
the sky. The outer one is usually the least bright and, unlike the main
rainbow, it is red on the inside and violet on the outside edge.
22
 Scene froze
OVER THE m lee ofOz

RAINBOW
Most of the classic film
The Wizard of Oz was set
somewhere beyond the rainbow.
The weather played a starring
role as it was a raging tornado
that carried Dorothy and her
dog, Toto, into the land of Oz.
Since rainbows are only visible
when you are between the Sun
and a rain shower, it’s not really possible to
go to the other side of a rainbow.

FLYING HIGH What is a rainbow

at night called?
If you're lucky enough to ever see a a) a starbow
rainbow from the window of an aeroplane, b) a moonbow
you'll see something even more amazing c) a nightbow
than the Munchkins of Oz. Instead of How long did the
appearing as a semicircular arch of longest-lasting
colour, the rainbow makes a full circle! rainbow last?
a) about an hour
b) over six hours
c) five days
ia Me. What type of
Seesat ‘rainbow’ is
colourless?
~ Hy “ gS
of gold.
a) a fogbow
Easy
money? ds sy
fe
b) a whitebow
" rai ows never c) a palebow
mse n to touch —- if?
(answers on page 32)
mat
th andl,
. rs bs
23
 Solar eclipse
HELLO, HALO
If you thought only angels wore haloes, think again!
Sometimes, a thin, white ring like a halo appears
around the Sun or the Moon. It happens when light
bounces off ice crystals that are falling through the air.
A similar effect is a corona. This is a fuzzy circle of
rainbow-coloured light seen encircling the Sun or Moon.
But a corona is caused when
light bounces off drops of
Ae WEATHER rain, not crystals of ice.
WIZ
TOTALLY
What is it called
(apart from eclipse) AWESOME
when the Sun, Moon Eclipses are one of the weirdest
and Earth are
phenomena to experience.
positioned in a line?
A solar eclipse happens when
a) hat trick
the Moon’s path places it in
b) syzygy front of the Sun, blocking its
c) lunasolterre
light from the Earth for several
What are the most
minutes. A spooky wind often
eclipses ever to
have happened in blows as the temperature drops
a single year? very sharply. The sky darkens and
a) three
flowers shut their petals as if it is
b) five night. A solar eclipse can last up
c) seven to about seven-and-a-half minutes.
Who was Aurora?
a) goddess of the dawn SEEING TRIPLE
b) an Inuit princess
c) first scientist to Mock suns, or sun dogs, are two bright points
explain the of light that appear either side of the real Sun.
northern lights Sometimes, but only very rarely, the same effect
(answers on page 32) happens at night and moon dogs are produced.
Like haloes, sun and moon dogs are produced by
light passing through ice crystals.
24
 ®PECTAL FX
Rainbows aren't the only stunning effects that the weather
lays on for us. There are all sorts of tricks of the light that
create some of the most wonderful sights on Earth.

QUANTUM PHYSICS
Auroras are extraordinary
splashes of trembling colour that
light up the night sky around
the North and South Poles.
Aurora borealis, also known
as the northern lights,
appears in the far north and
aurora australis in the south.
Auroras happen when
particles called electrons from
the Sun crash into particles of
gas in the Earth's atmosphere.
This spectacular display of
coloured light is called a quantum.

REAL-LIFE GIANTS A special effect called

the Brocken Spectre
creates scary giants
in the sky!
It happens when
the Sun projects
the shadows of
people on a hilltop
onto a nearby cloud.

25
 WEATHER PUMP POWER
QUIZ Windmills have been used for hundreds of
years to grind grain or pump up water from
How far does below the ground. Today, there are about
sunlight have to ‘ 250,000 of them around the world. Some
travel to reach us? still pump water but there are also high-tech
,Sat k turbines used to convert wind
ae bala ep. power into electricity.

Where were
windmills invented?
a) in Persia (now Iran)
b) in Gaul (now France)
c) in the bath
What is the science SOLAR
boffin’s name for a
solar cell?
SPEEDSTER
a) there isn’t one Energy from the Sun (solar power) can
b) solarus cellus be converted into electricity and used to run
c) a photovoltaic cell everything from pocket calculators to racing cars.
(answers on page 32) The fastest car ever to have relied on Sun
power alone is called Sunraycer. In June 1988
it achieved a speed of 78.39 km/h — a record
that is still to be beaten.

GUSTS A GO-GO
Wind lends a helping hand when you're going places. The first
sails on boats were probably made from animal skins but by
the time of those crafty ancient Egyptians, people were using
billowing sails of cloth. Today, some huge ocean liners have
sails as well as engines. When the weather's windy, the
captain cuts off the power and saves precious fuel.
And of course, lots of people have fun using wind
to power surfboards and yachts.
 WONDERFUL
WEATHER
4a Come wind, rain, or shine, weather can be put
— to all sorts of good uses- including
simply making us happy.
Best of all, it’s free!

DREAM
| ON
Many solar-
powered
vehicles
: carry back-up
energy. Honda's Dream a car uses otal power t for the first 90 km
then switches over to a zinc battery that carries it another 100 km.
The car holds the World Solar Challenge title, with an average
speed of 85 km/h. 4

heal It’s ee ae
proven -- sunshine is
'Y good foryou and a lack of itis bad.
Si In winter, some people feel less happy:
— than:usual. loa reckon that
ae Bove they are not getting enough ~ rs
: _ light they may be suffering from — .
<2 "Seasonal AffectiveDisorder(SAD).
27
 THE ESSENTIALS
At a weather station, there is usually a
wind vane that works out the direction
of the prevailing (strongest) wind.
Air temperature is measured by a
thermometer. Scientists also measure
how humid the air is (how much moisture
it contains) and how much rain has
fallen. But, most importantly of all,
meteorologists must watch the sky to see
what type of
clouds are
forming.

When was the first

weather bulletin
broadcast on radio?
a) 1922
b) 1933
c) 1944
Who made the
first barometer?

serenely WEATHER WATCHERS

c) Isaac Newton
Forecasters gather all sorts of information to
What metallic understand what the weather is going to do.
element is used in They rely on weather stations dotted all over the
thermometers? planet, and weather balloons take readings
a) quicksilver (mercury) from high in the atmosphere. Higher still, in
b) a heating element space, satellites send back more
) glass information. All this data is fed into
(answers on page 32) number-crunching supercomputers
with enough processing power to
28 make sense of it all.
 WEATHER
WHI22 KIDS
what would we do without them? Meteorologists
help ships and planes avoid serious storms
and their forecasts allow farmers to plan
when to plant and harvest their crops.

ANY WAY THE WIND BLOWS

Francis Beaufort knew the importance of observation.
He was an admiral in the British Navy in the nineteenth
century. He worked out a scale that would help sailors
at sea to guess wind speed just by looking at its effects
on the ocean. The scale goes from Force 1, when the
air is still, to Force 12, which is a full-blown hurricane.

= THE PRESSURE'S ON
‘\ Early weather scientists spent a lot of time finding out
\. about air. Before they did anything else, it had to be
eN proved that air even existed. After all, no one
. could see it! By the 1600s, scientists had
discovered that air pressure affected the
weather. High pressure meant that dry,
stable weather was likely, whereas
== a sharp drop in pressure meant
wind, rain and storms were
on the way.

29
 SPIES IN
What was the name
of the first weather
satellite?
THE SKY
a) Telstar Since the 1960s, satellites pf
b) Tiros 1
in space have been ‘ 4
¢) Rosti 1

When were the first

constantly taking
automated weather photographs of the
balloons launched? Earth. Weather
a) 1798
b) 1898 satellites provide
c) 1918 meteorologists with
What does WWW an overview of the
stand for?
clouds they simply
a) Wild Wombat
Wrestling cannot see from down
b) Web of Weather
here on Earth.
Watchers
c) World Weather Watch
(answers on page 32)
BUSY
BALLOONS
Hundreds of huge, silvery weather balloons are released
into the sky twice a day. Filled with helium, they rise
slowly into the upper atmosphere. On board, robotic 1
instruments take vital readings of the air’s humidity
and temperature, and air pressure. The results are
transmitted back to special radio dishes on
the ground. This wasn't always the case. In the
early days, brave scientists went ballooning
up to dizzying heights to study the skies.
sstd0j0
472
YIM
wooy
30
 SAT
STILL?
Weather satellites
come in two types.
Some always stay
above the same spot
and are called
geostationary
satellites.
Others circle
the globe
from Pole
to Pole.
These are
called polar-
orbiting satellites.

Meteosat satellite

SAVING LIVES
Satellite views of storms have made
it possible to predict the likely path When you see
of a hurricane. Armed with such pictures of satellites
information, governments can Tee
forewarn people in dangerous in facts ee ae
hurricane zones and try to no bigger than y
evacuate them. In 1992, millions an adult!
of people in the Bahamas and the
USA were evacuated before the
arrival of the extremely powerful a
Hurricane Andrew. Although 54 1 /
people still died, without the
warnings it could have been
thousands more. 31
 QUIZ ANSHWERSS
Page 2 ¢, Indra; b, Huracan; ¢, bullroarer.
Page 4 ¢, as the temperature rises; a, to forecast the weather — it swells and feels damp when rain is on the way;
a, at night.
Page 7 b, contrail: a, mammatus (breast); c, mackerel sky.
Page 8 a, Jack Frost; a, over 90 per cent; b, the Titanic.
Page 10 , Vostok, Antarctica; a,b,c, trick question — eyeballs, petrol, and the sea
will all freeze; b, 150.
Page 13 ¢, lightning usually strikes tall objects; c, 500 times a year;
a, Benjamin Franklin.
Page 14 a, eye; b, more than 119 km/h; a, swell of seawater.
Page 16 ¢, 1,300; b, Tornado Alley; a, sisters.
Page 18 ¢, China's Sorrow; a, Mawsynram, India; a, b, trick question — roots suck up
rainwater and bind the earth together.
Page 20 ¢, Atacama Desert, Chile; b, banksia shrub; a, they contain flammable oil.
Page 23 b, moonbow,; b, over six hours; a, fogbow.
Page 24 b, syzygy; c, seven; a, goddess of the dawn.
Page 26 b, 150 million km; a, in Persia (now Iran); ¢, a photovoltaic cell.
Page 28 a, 1922; a, Evangelista Torricelli: a, quicksilver (mercury). oe
Page 30 b, Tiros I; b, 1898: c, World Weather Watch.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Phil Clucas, Helen Wire and Elizabeth Wiggans for their assistance.
Cartoons by John Alston.
Copyright © 2000 ticktoek Publishing Ltd.
First published in Great Britain by ticktock Publishing Ltd.,
The Offices in the Square, Hadlow, Tonbridge, Kent TN11 ODD, Great Britain.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the copyright owner.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 1 86007 1759

Picture Credits: t = top, b = bottom, ¢ = centre, |= left, r= right, OFC = outside front cover,
OBC = outside back cover, IFC = inside front cover
Corbis; 2tl Gamma; IFC 10/111, 14/151, 20bl. Oxford Scientific Films; 4/5c, 5b, 10/11b. Ronald Grant Archive;
12h|, 23tr. Science Photo Library; 811, 15br, 25cr, 26/274, 28, 30/31be, 31tr Tony Stone Images; OFC (main pic-
ture), 2/3¢, 6/7¢, 7tr, 8/9, 12/13, 16/17¢, 7b, 18/191, 19br, 20/21c, 22, 24/251 26bI.

Picture research by Image Select. Printed in Hong Kong.

32
 INDEX
A cyclones 15 | R T
auroras 25 D ice 8, 9, 10, 24 rain 2, 3,7, 15, thunder 2, 12,13
avalanches 10, 11 drought 1,3, 20,21 18,19 tornadoes 16, 17, 23
B E lightning 2, 12, 13 rainbows 22, 23 typhoons 15
blizzards 10 eclipses 24 M $ Ww
Brocken Spectre 25 H monsoon 19, 21 snow 8, 9, 10,11, 19 weather forecasting 4,
¢ haloes 24 Q storms 12, 13,15, 28-31
clouds 6, 7, 13, 15, 30 hurricanes 14, 15, quantum 25 16, 17 wind 14, 16-17, 24,
Faronei)d 17,29 sun 2, 3, 26, 27 26, 28-29

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