â ï¸ Oct. 16 - Cloud scavenger hunt: Clouds that make you think of asparagus
Clouds can have odd sounding names – shelf, mammatus and lenticular. Have you ever heard of an asperitas cloud? That cloud name starts like asparagus, but actually rhymes with margarita (which can only be sipped responsibly by adults!).
It’s time for a cloud scavenger hunt as we learn more about this cloud:
That’s right – much like there are different dog and cat breeds, there is a whole list of cloud types that make for pretty (and scary) sights in the sky!
ð³ Oct. 16 - Cooking Activity: Using eggs to understand weather maps
How can something as simple as an egg help meteorologists understand the weather? Let’s cook up some hard-boiled eggs and find out:
The exploding egg shows us how air will move from Hs (high pressure) toward the Ls (low pressure) that you see on a weather map.
For anyone hoping for a snow day in the winter, you want to see an L headed toward your community. As the air rushes toward low pressure, it has nowhere to go but up – and that leads to rain or snow (if the air is cold enough).
If you have an outdoor party planned, you want to see an H on the weather map. Sinking air around high pressure helps to keep the sky clear of clouds and wet weather.
Speaking of snow, it doesn’t have to be winter for snow to fall. It’s story time with the AccuWeather This Date in Weather History podcast as we hear when kids in the northeastern United States were able to make snowmen in mid-October 2009:
â¡ Oct. 13 - Shocking Truth: Sunrise is often the coolest time of the day
We all know that temperatures rise during the day and fall at night, but have you ever paid attention closely to your thermometer at sunrise? If so, you will notice that temperatures will keep dropping at and right after sunrise. How can that be since the sun is already up?
Pop-quiz time! When you turn on the oven, does it instantly turn warm? It takes a minute to start warming up, correct? The same thing happens with the sun and Earth.
Photo by AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Krissy Pydynowski.
Think of sunrise as you turn on your oven. It’s not until a little after sunrise when the sun will start heating the ground. Remember, it’s not the sun that warms the air. After soaking up warmth from the sun, the ground is what heats the air and causes temperatures to start climbing.
Speaking of thermometers, let’s learn how to make your own at home. You get extra credit if your thermometer turns into a volcano!
Cold air is also more dense than warm air and will settle in the low spots of your yard – leading to frost in some spots and not others, much like in this photo:
Photo by AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Krissy Pydynowski
To understand how a burn scar forms, let’s first learn more about trees and plants – they take a drink of water through their roots, not their leaves – which are coated in a way that causes water to roll right off of them. Our friends at NASA say that this coating is similar to wax.
The problem is that when plants and trees burn in a really bad wildfire this wax-like coating will eventually end up on the ground – that’s not good news when it rains.
Why not? Let’s head outside and put some Play-Doh in a flat circle on a pan. Now pour some water onto the Play-Doh and watch what happens:
Did you see how the water ran right off of the Play-Doh? That’s very similar to what happens over a burn scar when it rains. Soil charred by wildfires will soak up water about as well as pavement, and that’s not a lot of water!
One of the best parts of fall is raking up leaves and jumping into the piles, wouldn’t you agree! However, fallen leaves aren’t as fun when they land on roads and sidewalks and get wet when it rains. Wet leaves can cause you to slip and fall and some cars to have accidents.
The main problem with wet leaves is that they don’t soak up water. The next time it rains around your house, head outside and look closely at the leaves. Just like in the video below, you will see little beads of water on the leaves.
Also, feel how smooth the leaves are when rain is falling. You can just feel how easy it is for your shoes or tires to slip on wet leaves!
Speaking of fallen leaves – after you’ve had fun jumping into the piles of leaves, many people bag up the leaves and throw them out. However, here’s a tip to make your yard greener next summer – let the leaves stay on the ground; they will turn into free fertilizer for the yard!
ð Oct. 6 - Weather Detectives! Why frost may not form under trees at times?
When you’ve woken up on a frosty morning, have you ever seen something similar to the photo below – where your yard and roof were covered with frost, but not the grass underneath a tree?
Frost covers a yard in central Pennsylvania (AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Heather Zehr)
Why is that? What keeps the ground underneath a tree warmer than the rest of the yard?
The first and last ingredients are the keys to why frost didn’t form underneath the tree – time to investigate further:
Before you put your sensitive plants underneath a tree so they won’t get killed by the frost, one thing to remember is that frost can form under trees if a night is chilly enough. It’s only on nights when temperatures are just low enough for frost when trees can keep the ground slightly warmer.
ð Oct. 6 - Pop quiz! Is it good or bad to see frost on your roof?
The next time you wake up on a frosty morning, check out your roof – do you see frost on it? If you answered yes and that it’s a good thing to see frost on your roof, you get a gold star for the day! Why is that the right answer? Let’s find out below:
Time for another pop-quiz! Look at the photo below. From what you just learned, why do you think that the roof on the left side of the home doesn’t have frost?
Photo by AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Krissy Pydynowski
There is likely no insulation over the garage, so heat can escape and prevent frost from forming. The house has a good blanket over it, allowing frost to whiten the rest of the roof.
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News / AccuWeather Ready
AccuWeather School Fall Semester: Weeks 6-7
By Kristina Pydynowski, AccuWeather senior meteorologist
Updated Jan 10, 2021 4:27 PM EDT
â ï¸ Oct. 16 - Cloud scavenger hunt: Clouds that make you think of asparagus
Clouds can have odd sounding names – shelf, mammatus and lenticular. Have you ever heard of an asperitas cloud? That cloud name starts like asparagus, but actually rhymes with margarita (which can only be sipped responsibly by adults!).
It’s time for a cloud scavenger hunt as we learn more about this cloud:
Some people may say that the cloud you saw above was an undulatus asperatus cloud (talk about a big word!). That name isn’t wrong, but that’s not the official name this cloud was given back in 2017 by the World Meteorologist Organization when it entered the International Cloud Atlas.
That’s right – much like there are different dog and cat breeds, there is a whole list of cloud types that make for pretty (and scary) sights in the sky!
ð³ Oct. 16 - Cooking Activity: Using eggs to understand weather maps
How can something as simple as an egg help meteorologists understand the weather? Let’s cook up some hard-boiled eggs and find out:
The exploding egg shows us how air will move from Hs (high pressure) toward the Ls (low pressure) that you see on a weather map.
For anyone hoping for a snow day in the winter, you want to see an L headed toward your community. As the air rushes toward low pressure, it has nowhere to go but up – and that leads to rain or snow (if the air is cold enough).
If you have an outdoor party planned, you want to see an H on the weather map. Sinking air around high pressure helps to keep the sky clear of clouds and wet weather.
Speaking of snow, it doesn’t have to be winter for snow to fall. It’s story time with the AccuWeather This Date in Weather History podcast as we hear when kids in the northeastern United States were able to make snowmen in mid-October 2009:
â¡ Oct. 13 - Shocking Truth: Sunrise is often the coolest time of the day
We all know that temperatures rise during the day and fall at night, but have you ever paid attention closely to your thermometer at sunrise? If so, you will notice that temperatures will keep dropping at and right after sunrise. How can that be since the sun is already up?
Pop-quiz time! When you turn on the oven, does it instantly turn warm? It takes a minute to start warming up, correct? The same thing happens with the sun and Earth.
Photo by AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Krissy Pydynowski.
Think of sunrise as you turn on your oven. It’s not until a little after sunrise when the sun will start heating the ground. Remember, it’s not the sun that warms the air. After soaking up warmth from the sun, the ground is what heats the air and causes temperatures to start climbing.
Speaking of thermometers, let’s learn how to make your own at home. You get extra credit if your thermometer turns into a volcano!
ð Oct. 13 - Weather Detectives! Frost with temperatures above freezing?
We learned a couple of weeks ago that frost forms when temperatures are at or below freezing (but frost is not frozen dew). What about the times when you’ve seen a forecast on your AccuWeather app that said “low of 36 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) with patchy frost.” How can that happen? We have the answer below:
Cold air is also more dense than warm air and will settle in the low spots of your yard – leading to frost in some spots and not others, much like in this photo:
Photo by AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Krissy Pydynowski
Cold air and water are more dense than warm air and water – what does that really mean? Cold air is essentially the boss over warm air – warm air can’t bump cold air out of the way. Here’s a fun experiment from AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Jason Nicholls that you can do at home to see that in action:
ð¬ Oct. 9 - Weather Lab: Wildfires can cause flooding?
Water puts out fires, so how can wildfires cause flash flooding? The answer lies in what the wildfire leaves behind:
To understand how a burn scar forms, let’s first learn more about trees and plants – they take a drink of water through their roots, not their leaves – which are coated in a way that causes water to roll right off of them. Our friends at NASA say that this coating is similar to wax.
The problem is that when plants and trees burn in a really bad wildfire this wax-like coating will eventually end up on the ground – that’s not good news when it rains.
Why not? Let’s head outside and put some Play-Doh in a flat circle on a pan. Now pour some water onto the Play-Doh and watch what happens:
Did you see how the water ran right off of the Play-Doh? That’s very similar to what happens over a burn scar when it rains. Soil charred by wildfires will soak up water about as well as pavement, and that’s not a lot of water!
â¹ï¸âï¸ Oct. 9 - Gym class: Don’t slip on wet leaves!
One of the best parts of fall is raking up leaves and jumping into the piles, wouldn’t you agree! However, fallen leaves aren’t as fun when they land on roads and sidewalks and get wet when it rains. Wet leaves can cause you to slip and fall and some cars to have accidents.
The main problem with wet leaves is that they don’t soak up water. The next time it rains around your house, head outside and look closely at the leaves. Just like in the video below, you will see little beads of water on the leaves.
Also, feel how smooth the leaves are when rain is falling. You can just feel how easy it is for your shoes or tires to slip on wet leaves!
Speaking of fallen leaves – after you’ve had fun jumping into the piles of leaves, many people bag up the leaves and throw them out. However, here’s a tip to make your yard greener next summer – let the leaves stay on the ground; they will turn into free fertilizer for the yard!
ð Oct. 6 - Weather Detectives! Why frost may not form under trees at times?
When you’ve woken up on a frosty morning, have you ever seen something similar to the photo below – where your yard and roof were covered with frost, but not the grass underneath a tree?
Frost covers a yard in central Pennsylvania (AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Heather Zehr)
Why is that? What keeps the ground underneath a tree warmer than the rest of the yard?
To answer this question, let’s look at the recipe card for frost to form:
Clear sky
Calm wind
Moisture
Temperatures at or below freezing
The first and last ingredients are the keys to why frost didn’t form underneath the tree – time to investigate further:
Before you put your sensitive plants underneath a tree so they won’t get killed by the frost, one thing to remember is that frost can form under trees if a night is chilly enough. It’s only on nights when temperatures are just low enough for frost when trees can keep the ground slightly warmer.
Did you know that there can be frost on your yard, roof and car even when your thermometer is reading above freezing? More on that to come next week!
ð Oct. 6 - Pop quiz! Is it good or bad to see frost on your roof?
The next time you wake up on a frosty morning, check out your roof – do you see frost on it? If you answered yes and that it’s a good thing to see frost on your roof, you get a gold star for the day! Why is that the right answer? Let’s find out below:
Time for another pop-quiz! Look at the photo below. From what you just learned, why do you think that the roof on the left side of the home doesn’t have frost?
Photo by AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Krissy Pydynowski
There is likely no insulation over the garage, so heat can escape and prevent frost from forming. The house has a good blanket over it, allowing frost to whiten the rest of the roof.
Do you remember from last week, that frost is not frozen dew?
Additional experiments and reporting by Jason Nicholls.
Previously:
AccuWeather School Fall Semester: Weeks 4-5
AccuWeather School Fall Semester: Weeks 2-3
AccuWeather School Fall Semester: Week 1
AccuWeather Summer Camp: Week 13
AccuWeather Summer Camp: Week 12
AccuWeather Summer Camp: Week 11
AccuWeather Summer Camp: Week 10
AccuWeather Summer Camp: Week 9
AccuWeather Summer Camp: Week 8
AccuWeather Summer Camp: Week 7
AccuWeather Summer Camp: Week 6
AccuWeather Summer Camp: Week 5
AccuWeather Summer Camp: Week 4
AccuWeather Summer Camp: Week 3
AccuWeather Summer Camp: Week 2
AccuWeather Summer Camp: Week 1
AccuWeather School: Week 1
AccuWeather School: Week 2
AccuWeather School: Week 3
AccuWeather School: Week 4
AccuWeather School: Week 5
AccuWeather School: Week 6
AccuWeather School: Week 7
AccuWeather School: Week 8
AccuWeather School: Week 9