Weather 101, part 3

By Alan Sealls Chief Meteorologist

Weather 101 for Kids shows a variety of weather sights from pretty rainbows to dangerous tornadoes. This 5 minute video displays the range of weather formed from simple ingredients. Weather 101, part 3

Published: Thu, January 31, 2008 - 11:42 pm Last Updated: Mon, April 21, 2008 - 8:20 pm

Alan Sealls

Beauty in the sky is splashes of colors and arcs of light as rainbows, halos, and sundogs. Raindrops and ice crystals can separate light into 7 colors.

Even regular clouds become more beautiful when sunlight hits them just the right way. Especially at sunrise and sunset we see orange and reddish colors on the clouds. The sun and moon might peak through the clouds every once in a while to produce gorgeous rays.

On TV we can show you most clouds using a satellite. A satellite is like a giant camera in space that takes pictures of the Earth every few minutes. It lets us see where clouds and storms are. When we play the satellite pictures back in a movie it makes it easier to understand which way the weather is moving. You might notice that many times the clouds spin. That’s an easy way for storms to mix up the air to even out the temperature and moisture.

There’s a small spinning storm that can have winds over 200 mph. It’s called a tornado

A tornado is a dangerous and violent spinning wind that comes from very powerful thunderstorms, called severe thunderstorms. More tornadoes happen in the United States than anywhere else on Earth. Most tornadoes are not that big. They are smaller than a gymnasium and usually they only last a few minutes. Most tornadoes also don’t hurt people because they happen in places where not many people live.

Most people don’t have to worry about tornadoes and usually floods are not a problem either but both of these come from thunderstorms and all thunderstorms make lightning.