Page 63 - (DK) Danger! Open with Extreme Caution!
P. 63
Colored rain
In the summer of 2001,
a downpour of green, red, and
yellow rain fell on southern India,
staining the clothes of people
unable to take cover. At first,
people thought that dust from
an exploding meteor had caused
the colorful shower, but no
evidence was found. In the end,
scientists tracked down
Red sprite the culprit—algae, growing on local
trees, that had released colored
This sudden flash of spores into the atmosphere.
light can sometimes
be seen at night above
a thunderstorm, about
40 miles (65 km) up in
the sky. As well as these
ruby-colored lightning
streaks, beams of blue
can flash across the top of
a cloud, known as blue jets
and adding to the strange
disco-light effect.
Hailstones
Small pieces of ice can fall Lightning
during a heavy shower of rain,
A thunderbolt streaks across the sky
but hefty hailstones can pose a very at speeds of more than 220,000 mph
serious risk to anyone standing in (360,000 km/h), and more than 100 of
their path. In 1986, hailstones them strike somewhere on Earth every
weighing a whopping 2 lb (1 kg) second. These giant sparks heat up
killed 92 people in Bangladesh.
the air around them to a sizzling
A bizarre incident also occurred 48,000 F (27,000 C)—three times
o
o
in 1930, when four German glider the temperature of the Sun’s surface.
pilots became human hailstones Although lightning strikes can
after flying into a storm. They be deadly, American park ranger
were frozen solid by the time
Roy Sullivan survived an incredible
they reached the ground!
seven strikes during his 36-year career
in Virginia.
Wiggly worms
In 2007, Eleanor Beal was
crossing the street in Louisiana
when a clump of wiggling
worms suddenly dropped from
the sky. Animals such as fish,
turtles, and frogs have also
been known to fall, possibly after
being sucked up by waterspouts
and then dumped onto land.
Amazingly, some animals survive
their aerobatic ordeal.
WEIRD WEATHER 63
(c) 2011 Dorling Kindersley. All Rights Reserved.
