ðª July 10 - Space Exploration: Let’s find the International Space Station
Find out when you can wave hi to the astronauts onboard the International Space Station (ISS) as this football field-sized space station can be seen anywhere around the world – depending on where the space station is and if there are any clouds in the sky:
As AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Krissy Pydynowski said, check outNASA’s Spot The Station websitewhich lists every time the ISS will be visible for a given location over the next two weeks. Also, keep an eye on the AccuWeather Astronomy Facebook page as our team will let you know the best times to see the ISS.
“Each time the station passes overhead is different,” AccuWeather Digital Journalist and Meteorologist Brian Lada said. “On some passes, it is very dim and is not visible for long, while other times it is incredibly bright and visible for over five minutes.”
Anytime you see the ISS, be sure to give a wave to the astronauts!
The International Space Station orbiting the Earth at 17,500 mph. (Video/NASA)
ð July 10 - Story Time: Dust storms are even worse in outer space
You may have heard about dust storms on Earth, but how about in outer space? One dust storm in 2018 covered the entire planet of Mars! Think about that – Mars is about half of the size of Earth, so that means that dust storm would have either covered all of the Northern Hemisphere of Earth or both North and South America!
“All the dust prevented the rover from charging its batteries,” AccuWeather Digital Journalist and Meteorologist Brian Lada said. “NASA is planning to send another rover to the Red Planet later this summer, but it’s powered by radioactive plutonium, so a big dust storm won’t ‘kill’ it.”
That’s good news since Brian said that dust storms are common on Mars. What else is good to hear – dust storms across Earth aren’t as extreme, but let’s gather around the campfire and hear of the stories of the historic Dust Bowl in the United States and what is a haboob in the AccuWeather Podcast:
ðºï¸ July 10 - Map Station: How thunderstorms stir up massive dust storms
Let’s find out more, and see how far you can send dust flying (just make sure no one is standing in front of you!) like a thunderstorm wind gust:
The little gust of wind from Krissy is nothing compared to what a thunderstorm will do, and that creates massive dust storms. Check out the video below – some dust storms look like a wall of dust closing in on towns and cities. It’s not just a scary sight, but these dust storms are very dangerous for anyone driving a car – it can go from perfect weather to no visibility at all in a short time.
ð¥ July 9 - Gardening Time! These veggies grow best in hot weather
ð¨ July 9 - Art Station: Make your own beaver dam
It is pretty cool how beavers can alone dam up a creek or stream and make a pond when they want – they are very smart engineers!
Let’s put on our imagination hats, pretend that we are beavers and build a dam. Look around your yard or grassy area near where you live and think about what you would use to build your beaver dam – are you thinking twigs, grass and mud? That’s perfect! Here’s one idea for how you can put all of that together to make your beaver dam:
There’s one tricky part to this activity – remember that you don’t want to totally stop the flow of water. Dams built by beavers and humans still let water to run out of the bottom, while allowing a pond or lake to form. A pond created by a beaver dam is where the beaver will live and stay hidden from predators; a lake formed by a human-made dam is where we can spend the summer swimming and riding boats!
ð¦ July 9 - Petting Zoo: Why do beavers make dams?
The beaver dam you saw in the video is definitely a small one, and likely not used by a beaver at this time with the water level fairly low. The ponds that form behind beaver dams can be fairly large – check out this much bigger beaver dam below:
A beaver dam created this pond in the background. (Pixabay/Graham Hobster)
The pond is where a beaver can build its home to stay safe and raise a family. The National Park Service calls beavers a “keystone species,” meaning the ponds that the beaver dams create will help other animals and plants.
On the other hand, just like when human-made dams are completed, some land that people don’t want to flood will go underwater after beavers build their dams.
ð¥ July 8 - Campfire Tales: Build a fire without any matches!
Do you want to enjoy an evening campfire, but can’t find matches or a lighter around your house? If you have a 9-volt battery and steel wool, here’s a way to get that campfire started!
Before we watch the video below, let’s go over a few rules – don’t attempt the activity shown unless an adult is helping you. Also, be sure to wear safety glasses and only try to ignite your fire on a fire-safe surface, such as concrete, a baking pan or in a fire pit. The last spot is perfect since this will help you start a campfire!
That electrical current will heat up the steel wool to 700 degrees Fahrenheit (371 degrees Celsius). Not only is that blazing hot, but it causes the iron to react with the oxygen around it and – zap – you get the spark and that keeps going throughout the steel wool. Now, who’s ready for s’mores!
ð³ July 8 - Cooking Activity: Hail as large as grapefruit?!?
Speaking of thunderstorms and measurements – do you know how you can tell how far away lightning is? Count the number of seconds in between a flash of lightning and the rumble of thunder that follows. For every five seconds, the bolt of lightning is a mile away from you. Just make sure you are counting those seconds from inside your house (not right next to a window) or a vehicle.
ð¦ July 7 - Bird Watching: Bird builds this nest one beak full of mud at a time
When you think of a typical bird’s nest, what comes to mind? Would you say a nest that is put together with twigs? There is actually one bird that makes its nest mostly out of mud – in fact, this bird builds its nest one beak full of mud at a time and this nest isn’t wedged into tree branches for extra support:
The nest that you saw in the video above is made by a Barn Swallow, which spends the summer and builds a nest in nearly every state across America (including in southern Alaska), according to The Cornell Lab. These birds spend the colder months in southern Mexico, central America and into far northern South America.
An up-close view of a Barn Swallow’s nest (Pixabay/Psubraty)
If you want to try and get a Barn Swallow to build its nest around you, they really like staying in the rafters of barns, sheds or other buildings. Plus, they would really like it if you had some mud ready for them to use – it makes their job of putting the nest together easier!
ð July 7 - Story Time: Pigeons went flying away from this tornado near New York City!
So, can you imagine the sight when two tornadoes tore through northern New Jersey and tracked very close to the Statue of Liberty on this date in 1976? It wouldn’t have been just us humans fleeing to safety but also pigeons and other birds!
ð¦ July 7 - Bird Watching: This bird wants you to share your grape jelly!
Not all birds eat seeds that you leave out in your bird feeder – some of you may have a red colored feeder filled with sugar water for hummingbirds. If you live east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States, you may notice that Baltimore Orioles sneak a drink from hummingbird feeders. What they really want is a part of your peanut butter and jelly sandwich – let’s find out more!
There is a chance that the Baltimore Orioles that AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Danny Pydynowski is feeding this summer traveled more than 2,500 miles (4,023 km) from South America.
Baltimore Orioles are one of the many migratory birds that head south to warmer weather in the winter and head north to more comfortable conditions in the summer – they are not fans of snow!
In addition to enjoying eating jelly, Baltimore Orioles will also eat slices of oranges. (Pixabay/Michael McGough)
Baltimore Orioles have been seen as far south as Colombia and western Venezuela in South America and northward to southern Canada, according to The Cornell Lab. Think about their trip the next time you are in the car and ask your parents, “Are we there yet?”
ð July 6 - Weather Detectives! A dam that holds back cold air?
You may not know it, but many of you may have seen something that acts like a dam for cold air before. It’s not the type of dam that we saw during last week’s AccuWeather Summer Camp – it’s something that has been around since the Ice Age. What are we talking about?
Mountains!
There are times when cold air gets stuck up against the side of a mountain range, such as the east side of the Appalachian and Rocky mountains in the United States.
Time to pull out your dictionary of meteorology terms – this is called cold air damming, and the key to this dam is that cold air is denser than warm air. What does that mean? Let’s find out with this activity you can do at home (just get help from an adult as hot water is involved):
In the wintertime, cold air damming can lead to a snow day for some lucky kids – unless warm air flows over the cold air like in the activity above. If that happens, there can be ice instead of snow, and that’s not fun when you want to make a snowman!
𥤠July 6 - Water break! Check out this gravity-defying water experiment
If you were to fill a bottle full with water, flip it over and poke holes in the bottom, what do you think will happen? If you think that the water should come out (which makes sense), you’ll be surprised how water seems to defy gravity in the experiment below by AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Jason Nicholls:
The reason the water didn’t rush out is surface tension – water is attracted to water and, while we can’t see it, molecules that make up water hold tight together and win out over the force of gravity. Small bugs are light enough to use surface tension to walk on water – definitely not something you or I can do!
ð¥ July 6 - Campfire Tales: How much heat is coming from your body?
It may feel like it only when you have a fever, but your body is constantly giving off heat – that’s right, even as you are reading this, you are radiating heat. How much heat? We had fun with an infrared thermometer to find out:
Another fun way to see how much heat is coming from your body is to visit NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center outside of Washington, D.C., and see yourself in infrared light. Check out AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Krissy Pydynowski’s infrared selfie.
AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Krissy Pydynowski took this infrared selfie at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Visitor Center outside of Washington, D.C., in late April 2019.
Remember that your car has to have the metal frame all around it – an open cab of a tractor, golf cart or any construction equipment will not protect you from lightning. A convertible car, even with the top up, is also not safe to be in!
Lightning dwarfs city lights as a distant thunder storm passes by Dodge City, Kansas, on Friday, June 29, 2018. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
ðï¸ July 13 - Excursion Day: Is any place in a park safe during a thunderstorm?
How many of you love to play at a park in the summer? Whether you like to swing or climb the monkey bars or have a picnic with friends and family, you need to know where you will run to if you hear thunder. You may know that underneath a tree is not safe, but what about a pavilion or tent – none of those are safe places to be during a thunderstorm!
It doesn’t have to be raining for lightning to hit a tree, pavilion or playground equipment. Lightning may strike as much as 10 miles (16 km) from any rain, and then you have to worry about a “bolt from the blue” after the rain has ended!
ðª July 10 - Space Exploration: Let’s find the International Space Station
Find out when you can wave hi to the astronauts onboard the International Space Station (ISS) as this football field-sized space station can be seen anywhere around the world – depending on where the space station is and if there are any clouds in the sky:
As AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Krissy Pydynowski said, check outNASA’s Spot The Station websitewhich lists every time the ISS will be visible for a given location over the next two weeks. Also, keep an eye on the AccuWeather Astronomy Facebook page as our team will let you know the best times to see the ISS.
“Each time the station passes overhead is different,” AccuWeather Digital Journalist and Meteorologist Brian Lada said. “On some passes, it is very dim and is not visible for long, while other times it is incredibly bright and visible for over five minutes.”
Anytime you see the ISS, be sure to give a wave to the astronauts!
The International Space Station orbiting the Earth at 17,500 mph. (Video/NASA)
ð July 10 - Story Time: Dust storms are even worse in outer space
You may have heard about dust storms on Earth, but how about in outer space? One dust storm in 2018 covered the entire planet of Mars! Think about that – Mars is about half of the size of Earth, so that means that dust storm would have either covered all of the Northern Hemisphere of Earth or both North and South America!
“All the dust prevented the rover from charging its batteries,” AccuWeather Digital Journalist and Meteorologist Brian Lada said. “NASA is planning to send another rover to the Red Planet later this summer, but it’s powered by radioactive plutonium, so a big dust storm won’t ‘kill’ it.”
That’s good news since Brian said that dust storms are common on Mars. What else is good to hear – dust storms across Earth aren’t as extreme, but let’s gather around the campfire and hear of the stories of the historic Dust Bowl in the United States and what is a haboob in the AccuWeather Podcast:
ðºï¸ July 10 - Map Station: How thunderstorms stir up massive dust storms
Let’s find out more, and see how far you can send dust flying (just make sure no one is standing in front of you!) like a thunderstorm wind gust:
The little gust of wind from Krissy is nothing compared to what a thunderstorm will do, and that creates massive dust storms. Check out the video below – some dust storms look like a wall of dust closing in on towns and cities. It’s not just a scary sight, but these dust storms are very dangerous for anyone driving a car – it can go from perfect weather to no visibility at all in a short time.
ð¥ July 9 - Gardening Time! These veggies grow best in hot weather
ð¨ July 9 - Art Station: Make your own beaver dam
It is pretty cool how beavers can alone dam up a creek or stream and make a pond when they want – they are very smart engineers!
Let’s put on our imagination hats, pretend that we are beavers and build a dam. Look around your yard or grassy area near where you live and think about what you would use to build your beaver dam – are you thinking twigs, grass and mud? That’s perfect! Here’s one idea for how you can put all of that together to make your beaver dam:
There’s one tricky part to this activity – remember that you don’t want to totally stop the flow of water. Dams built by beavers and humans still let water to run out of the bottom, while allowing a pond or lake to form. A pond created by a beaver dam is where the beaver will live and stay hidden from predators; a lake formed by a human-made dam is where we can spend the summer swimming and riding boats!
ð¦ July 9 - Petting Zoo: Why do beavers make dams?
The beaver dam you saw in the video is definitely a small one, and likely not used by a beaver at this time with the water level fairly low. The ponds that form behind beaver dams can be fairly large – check out this much bigger beaver dam below:
A beaver dam created this pond in the background. (Pixabay/Graham Hobster)
The pond is where a beaver can build its home to stay safe and raise a family. The National Park Service calls beavers a “keystone species,” meaning the ponds that the beaver dams create will help other animals and plants.
On the other hand, just like when human-made dams are completed, some land that people don’t want to flood will go underwater after beavers build their dams.
ð¥ July 8 - Campfire Tales: Build a fire without any matches!
Do you want to enjoy an evening campfire, but can’t find matches or a lighter around your house? If you have a 9-volt battery and steel wool, here’s a way to get that campfire started!
Before we watch the video below, let’s go over a few rules – don’t attempt the activity shown unless an adult is helping you. Also, be sure to wear safety glasses and only try to ignite your fire on a fire-safe surface, such as concrete, a baking pan or in a fire pit. The last spot is perfect since this will help you start a campfire!
That electrical current will heat up the steel wool to 700 degrees Fahrenheit (371 degrees Celsius). Not only is that blazing hot, but it causes the iron to react with the oxygen around it and – zap – you get the spark and that keeps going throughout the steel wool. Now, who’s ready for s’mores!
ð³ July 8 - Cooking Activity: Hail as large as grapefruit?!?
Speaking of thunderstorms and measurements – do you know how you can tell how far away lightning is? Count the number of seconds in between a flash of lightning and the rumble of thunder that follows. For every five seconds, the bolt of lightning is a mile away from you. Just make sure you are counting those seconds from inside your house (not right next to a window) or a vehicle.
ð¦ July 7 - Bird Watching: Bird builds this nest one beak full of mud at a time
When you think of a typical bird’s nest, what comes to mind? Would you say a nest that is put together with twigs? There is actually one bird that makes its nest mostly out of mud – in fact, this bird builds its nest one beak full of mud at a time and this nest isn’t wedged into tree branches for extra support:
The nest that you saw in the video above is made by a Barn Swallow, which spends the summer and builds a nest in nearly every state across America (including in southern Alaska), according to The Cornell Lab. These birds spend the colder months in southern Mexico, central America and into far northern South America.
An up-close view of a Barn Swallow’s nest (Pixabay/Psubraty)
If you want to try and get a Barn Swallow to build its nest around you, they really like staying in the rafters of barns, sheds or other buildings. Plus, they would really like it if you had some mud ready for them to use – it makes their job of putting the nest together easier!
ð July 7 - Story Time: Pigeons went flying away from this tornado near New York City!
So, can you imagine the sight when two tornadoes tore through northern New Jersey and tracked very close to the Statue of Liberty on this date in 1976? It wouldn’t have been just us humans fleeing to safety but also pigeons and other birds!
ð¦ July 7 - Bird Watching: This bird wants you to share your grape jelly!
Not all birds eat seeds that you leave out in your bird feeder – some of you may have a red colored feeder filled with sugar water for hummingbirds. If you live east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States, you may notice that Baltimore Orioles sneak a drink from hummingbird feeders. What they really want is a part of your peanut butter and jelly sandwich – let’s find out more!
There is a chance that the Baltimore Orioles that AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Danny Pydynowski is feeding this summer traveled more than 2,500 miles (4,023 km) from South America.
Baltimore Orioles are one of the many migratory birds that head south to warmer weather in the winter and head north to more comfortable conditions in the summer – they are not fans of snow!
In addition to enjoying eating jelly, Baltimore Orioles will also eat slices of oranges. (Pixabay/Michael McGough)
Baltimore Orioles have been seen as far south as Colombia and western Venezuela in South America and northward to southern Canada, according to The Cornell Lab. Think about their trip the next time you are in the car and ask your parents, “Are we there yet?”
ð July 6 - Weather Detectives! A dam that holds back cold air?
You may not know it, but many of you may have seen something that acts like a dam for cold air before. It’s not the type of dam that we saw during last week’s AccuWeather Summer Camp – it’s something that has been around since the Ice Age. What are we talking about?
Mountains!
There are times when cold air gets stuck up against the side of a mountain range, such as the east side of the Appalachian and Rocky mountains in the United States.
Time to pull out your dictionary of meteorology terms – this is called cold air damming, and the key to this dam is that cold air is denser than warm air. What does that mean? Let’s find out with this activity you can do at home (just get help from an adult as hot water is involved):
In the wintertime, cold air damming can lead to a snow day for some lucky kids – unless warm air flows over the cold air like in the activity above. If that happens, there can be ice instead of snow, and that’s not fun when you want to make a snowman!
𥤠July 6 - Water break! Check out this gravity-defying water experiment
If you were to fill a bottle full with water, flip it over and poke holes in the bottom, what do you think will happen? If you think that the water should come out (which makes sense), you’ll be surprised how water seems to defy gravity in the experiment below by AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Jason Nicholls:
The reason the water didn’t rush out is surface tension – water is attracted to water and, while we can’t see it, molecules that make up water hold tight together and win out over the force of gravity. Small bugs are light enough to use surface tension to walk on water – definitely not something you or I can do!
ð¥ July 6 - Campfire Tales: How much heat is coming from your body?
It may feel like it only when you have a fever, but your body is constantly giving off heat – that’s right, even as you are reading this, you are radiating heat. How much heat? We had fun with an infrared thermometer to find out:
Another fun way to see how much heat is coming from your body is to visit NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center outside of Washington, D.C., and see yourself in infrared light. Check out AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Krissy Pydynowski’s infrared selfie.
AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Krissy Pydynowski took this infrared selfie at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Visitor Center outside of Washington, D.C., in late April 2019.
Remember that your car has to have the metal frame all around it – an open cab of a tractor, golf cart or any construction equipment will not protect you from lightning. A convertible car, even with the top up, is also not safe to be in!
Lightning dwarfs city lights as a distant thunder storm passes by Dodge City, Kansas, on Friday, June 29, 2018. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
ðï¸ July 13 - Excursion Day: Is any place in a park safe during a thunderstorm?
How many of you love to play at a park in the summer? Whether you like to swing or climb the monkey bars or have a picnic with friends and family, you need to know where you will run to if you hear thunder. You may know that underneath a tree is not safe, but what about a pavilion or tent – none of those are safe places to be during a thunderstorm!
It doesn’t have to be raining for lightning to hit a tree, pavilion or playground equipment. Lightning may strike as much as 10 miles (16 km) from any rain, and then you have to worry about a “bolt from the blue” after the rain has ended!
ðª July 10 - Space Exploration: Let’s find the International Space Station
Find out when you can wave hi to the astronauts onboard the International Space Station (ISS) as this football field-sized space station can be seen anywhere around the world – depending on where the space station is and if there are any clouds in the sky:
As AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Krissy Pydynowski said, check outNASA’s Spot The Station websitewhich lists every time the ISS will be visible for a given location over the next two weeks. Also, keep an eye on the AccuWeather Astronomy Facebook page as our team will let you know the best times to see the ISS.
“Each time the station passes overhead is different,” AccuWeather Digital Journalist and Meteorologist Brian Lada said. “On some passes, it is very dim and is not visible for long, while other times it is incredibly bright and visible for over five minutes.”
Anytime you see the ISS, be sure to give a wave to the astronauts!
The International Space Station orbiting the Earth at 17,500 mph. (Video/NASA)
ð July 10 - Story Time: Dust storms are even worse in outer space
You may have heard about dust storms on Earth, but how about in outer space? One dust storm in 2018 covered the entire planet of Mars! Think about that – Mars is about half of the size of Earth, so that means that dust storm would have either covered all of the Northern Hemisphere of Earth or both North and South America!
“All the dust prevented the rover from charging its batteries,” AccuWeather Digital Journalist and Meteorologist Brian Lada said. “NASA is planning to send another rover to the Red Planet later this summer, but it’s powered by radioactive plutonium, so a big dust storm won’t ‘kill’ it.”
That’s good news since Brian said that dust storms are common on Mars. What else is good to hear – dust storms across Earth aren’t as extreme, but let’s gather around the campfire and hear of the stories of the historic Dust Bowl in the United States and what is a haboob in the AccuWeather Podcast:
ðºï¸ July 10 - Map Station: How thunderstorms stir up massive dust storms
Let’s find out more, and see how far you can send dust flying (just make sure no one is standing in front of you!) like a thunderstorm wind gust:
The little gust of wind from Krissy is nothing compared to what a thunderstorm will do, and that creates massive dust storms. Check out the video below – some dust storms look like a wall of dust closing in on towns and cities. It’s not just a scary sight, but these dust storms are very dangerous for anyone driving a car – it can go from perfect weather to no visibility at all in a short time.
ð¥ July 9 - Gardening Time! These veggies grow best in hot weather
ð¨ July 9 - Art Station: Make your own beaver dam
It is pretty cool how beavers can alone dam up a creek or stream and make a pond when they want – they are very smart engineers!
Let’s put on our imagination hats, pretend that we are beavers and build a dam. Look around your yard or grassy area near where you live and think about what you would use to build your beaver dam – are you thinking twigs, grass and mud? That’s perfect! Here’s one idea for how you can put all of that together to make your beaver dam:
There’s one tricky part to this activity – remember that you don’t want to totally stop the flow of water. Dams built by beavers and humans still let water to run out of the bottom, while allowing a pond or lake to form. A pond created by a beaver dam is where the beaver will live and stay hidden from predators; a lake formed by a human-made dam is where we can spend the summer swimming and riding boats!
ð¦ July 9 - Petting Zoo: Why do beavers make dams?
The beaver dam you saw in the video is definitely a small one, and likely not used by a beaver at this time with the water level fairly low. The ponds that form behind beaver dams can be fairly large – check out this much bigger beaver dam below:
A beaver dam created this pond in the background. (Pixabay/Graham Hobster)
The pond is where a beaver can build its home to stay safe and raise a family. The National Park Service calls beavers a “keystone species,” meaning the ponds that the beaver dams create will help other animals and plants.
On the other hand, just like when human-made dams are completed, some land that people don’t want to flood will go underwater after beavers build their dams.
ð¥ July 8 - Campfire Tales: Build a fire without any matches!
Do you want to enjoy an evening campfire, but can’t find matches or a lighter around your house? If you have a 9-volt battery and steel wool, here’s a way to get that campfire started!
Before we watch the video below, let’s go over a few rules – don’t attempt the activity shown unless an adult is helping you. Also, be sure to wear safety glasses and only try to ignite your fire on a fire-safe surface, such as concrete, a baking pan or in a fire pit. The last spot is perfect since this will help you start a campfire!
That electrical current will heat up the steel wool to 700 degrees Fahrenheit (371 degrees Celsius). Not only is that blazing hot, but it causes the iron to react with the oxygen around it and – zap – you get the spark and that keeps going throughout the steel wool. Now, who’s ready for s’mores!
ð³ July 8 - Cooking Activity: Hail as large as grapefruit?!?
Speaking of thunderstorms and measurements – do you know how you can tell how far away lightning is? Count the number of seconds in between a flash of lightning and the rumble of thunder that follows. For every five seconds, the bolt of lightning is a mile away from you. Just make sure you are counting those seconds from inside your house (not right next to a window) or a vehicle.
ð¦ July 7 - Bird Watching: Bird builds this nest one beak full of mud at a time
When you think of a typical bird’s nest, what comes to mind? Would you say a nest that is put together with twigs? There is actually one bird that makes its nest mostly out of mud – in fact, this bird builds its nest one beak full of mud at a time and this nest isn’t wedged into tree branches for extra support:
The nest that you saw in the video above is made by a Barn Swallow, which spends the summer and builds a nest in nearly every state across America (including in southern Alaska), according to The Cornell Lab. These birds spend the colder months in southern Mexico, central America and into far northern South America.
An up-close view of a Barn Swallow’s nest (Pixabay/Psubraty)
If you want to try and get a Barn Swallow to build its nest around you, they really like staying in the rafters of barns, sheds or other buildings. Plus, they would really like it if you had some mud ready for them to use – it makes their job of putting the nest together easier!
ð July 7 - Story Time: Pigeons went flying away from this tornado near New York City!
So, can you imagine the sight when two tornadoes tore through northern New Jersey and tracked very close to the Statue of Liberty on this date in 1976? It wouldn’t have been just us humans fleeing to safety but also pigeons and other birds!
ð¦ July 7 - Bird Watching: This bird wants you to share your grape jelly!
Not all birds eat seeds that you leave out in your bird feeder – some of you may have a red colored feeder filled with sugar water for hummingbirds. If you live east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States, you may notice that Baltimore Orioles sneak a drink from hummingbird feeders. What they really want is a part of your peanut butter and jelly sandwich – let’s find out more!
There is a chance that the Baltimore Orioles that AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Danny Pydynowski is feeding this summer traveled more than 2,500 miles (4,023 km) from South America.
Baltimore Orioles are one of the many migratory birds that head south to warmer weather in the winter and head north to more comfortable conditions in the summer – they are not fans of snow!
In addition to enjoying eating jelly, Baltimore Orioles will also eat slices of oranges. (Pixabay/Michael McGough)
Baltimore Orioles have been seen as far south as Colombia and western Venezuela in South America and northward to southern Canada, according to The Cornell Lab. Think about their trip the next time you are in the car and ask your parents, “Are we there yet?”
ð July 6 - Weather Detectives! A dam that holds back cold air?
You may not know it, but many of you may have seen something that acts like a dam for cold air before. It’s not the type of dam that we saw during last week’s AccuWeather Summer Camp – it’s something that has been around since the Ice Age. What are we talking about?
Mountains!
There are times when cold air gets stuck up against the side of a mountain range, such as the east side of the Appalachian and Rocky mountains in the United States.
Time to pull out your dictionary of meteorology terms – this is called cold air damming, and the key to this dam is that cold air is denser than warm air. What does that mean? Let’s find out with this activity you can do at home (just get help from an adult as hot water is involved):
In the wintertime, cold air damming can lead to a snow day for some lucky kids – unless warm air flows over the cold air like in the activity above. If that happens, there can be ice instead of snow, and that’s not fun when you want to make a snowman!
𥤠July 6 - Water break! Check out this gravity-defying water experiment
If you were to fill a bottle full with water, flip it over and poke holes in the bottom, what do you think will happen? If you think that the water should come out (which makes sense), you’ll be surprised how water seems to defy gravity in the experiment below by AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Jason Nicholls:
The reason the water didn’t rush out is surface tension – water is attracted to water and, while we can’t see it, molecules that make up water hold tight together and win out over the force of gravity. Small bugs are light enough to use surface tension to walk on water – definitely not something you or I can do!
ð¥ July 6 - Campfire Tales: How much heat is coming from your body?
It may feel like it only when you have a fever, but your body is constantly giving off heat – that’s right, even as you are reading this, you are radiating heat. How much heat? We had fun with an infrared thermometer to find out:
Another fun way to see how much heat is coming from your body is to visit NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center outside of Washington, D.C., and see yourself in infrared light. Check out AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Krissy Pydynowski’s infrared selfie.
AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Krissy Pydynowski took this infrared selfie at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Visitor Center outside of Washington, D.C., in late April 2019.
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News / AccuWeather Ready
AccuWeather Summer Camp: Week 5
By Kristina Pydynowski, AccuWeather senior meteorologist
Published Aug 18, 2020 2:05 PM EDT
ðª July 10 - Space Exploration: Let’s find the International Space Station
Find out when you can wave hi to the astronauts onboard the International Space Station (ISS) as this football field-sized space station can be seen anywhere around the world – depending on where the space station is and if there are any clouds in the sky:
As AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Krissy Pydynowski said, check out NASA’s Spot The Station website which lists every time the ISS will be visible for a given location over the next two weeks. Also, keep an eye on the AccuWeather Astronomy Facebook page as our team will let you know the best times to see the ISS.
“Each time the station passes overhead is different,” AccuWeather Digital Journalist and Meteorologist Brian Lada said. “On some passes, it is very dim and is not visible for long, while other times it is incredibly bright and visible for over five minutes.”
Anytime you see the ISS, be sure to give a wave to the astronauts!
The International Space Station orbiting the Earth at 17,500 mph. (Video/NASA)
ð July 10 - Story Time: Dust storms are even worse in outer space
You may have heard about dust storms on Earth, but how about in outer space? One dust storm in 2018 covered the entire planet of Mars! Think about that – Mars is about half of the size of Earth, so that means that dust storm would have either covered all of the Northern Hemisphere of Earth or both North and South America!
Did you know that NASA has solar-powered robotic rovers that roam over Mars to take pictures and tell us important information about the Red Planet? One of these rovers, known as Opportunity, spent nearly 15 years on Mars until that massive dust storm shut it down.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
“All the dust prevented the rover from charging its batteries,” AccuWeather Digital Journalist and Meteorologist Brian Lada said. “NASA is planning to send another rover to the Red Planet later this summer, but it’s powered by radioactive plutonium, so a big dust storm won’t ‘kill’ it.”
That’s good news since Brian said that dust storms are common on Mars. What else is good to hear – dust storms across Earth aren’t as extreme, but let’s gather around the campfire and hear of the stories of the historic Dust Bowl in the United States and what is a haboob in the AccuWeather Podcast:
ðºï¸ July 10 - Map Station: How thunderstorms stir up massive dust storms
Thunderstorms and dust storms – that doesn’t seem to be a normal combination, right? Thunderstorms drop rain, and rain would make any dust or dirt turn to mud. That makes more sense. However, thunderstorms frequently stir up massive dust storms, especially in desert areas.
Let’s find out more, and see how far you can send dust flying (just make sure no one is standing in front of you!) like a thunderstorm wind gust:
The little gust of wind from Krissy is nothing compared to what a thunderstorm will do, and that creates massive dust storms. Check out the video below – some dust storms look like a wall of dust closing in on towns and cities. It’s not just a scary sight, but these dust storms are very dangerous for anyone driving a car – it can go from perfect weather to no visibility at all in a short time.
ð¥ July 9 - Gardening Time! These veggies grow best in hot weather
It’s time to check in with AccuWeather Meteorologist Chris Nallan to see how the veggies are growing in his garden. It has been hot and mostly dry in central Pennsylvania over the past week – let’s see which vegetables like that weather the best:
Did you know that working in your yard, including digging in the garden, can burn just as many calories as a moderate gym workout – helping your heart and lungs stay healthy (and your taste buds happy!).
ð¨ July 9 - Art Station: Make your own beaver dam
It is pretty cool how beavers can alone dam up a creek or stream and make a pond when they want – they are very smart engineers!
Let’s put on our imagination hats, pretend that we are beavers and build a dam. Look around your yard or grassy area near where you live and think about what you would use to build your beaver dam – are you thinking twigs, grass and mud? That’s perfect! Here’s one idea for how you can put all of that together to make your beaver dam:
There’s one tricky part to this activity – remember that you don’t want to totally stop the flow of water. Dams built by beavers and humans still let water to run out of the bottom, while allowing a pond or lake to form. A pond created by a beaver dam is where the beaver will live and stay hidden from predators; a lake formed by a human-made dam is where we can spend the summer swimming and riding boats!
ð¦ July 9 - Petting Zoo: Why do beavers make dams?
We visited a real dam that provided a place to swim and protection from flooding and talked about a dam that holds back cold air recently at AccuWeather Summer Camp, so now let’s explore another type of a dam – one made by beavers:
The beaver dam you saw in the video is definitely a small one, and likely not used by a beaver at this time with the water level fairly low. The ponds that form behind beaver dams can be fairly large – check out this much bigger beaver dam below:
A beaver dam created this pond in the background. (Pixabay/Graham Hobster)
The pond is where a beaver can build its home to stay safe and raise a family. The National Park Service calls beavers a “keystone species,” meaning the ponds that the beaver dams create will help other animals and plants.
On the other hand, just like when human-made dams are completed, some land that people don’t want to flood will go underwater after beavers build their dams.
ð¥ July 8 - Campfire Tales: Build a fire without any matches!
Do you want to enjoy an evening campfire, but can’t find matches or a lighter around your house? If you have a 9-volt battery and steel wool, here’s a way to get that campfire started!
Before we watch the video below, let’s go over a few rules – don’t attempt the activity shown unless an adult is helping you. Also, be sure to wear safety glasses and only try to ignite your fire on a fire-safe surface, such as concrete, a baking pan or in a fire pit. The last spot is perfect since this will help you start a campfire!
How did AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Jason Nicholls get the fire to start? The key is that steel wool is mostly made of iron with pockets of oxygen surrounding the iron threads. When the battery terminals touch the steel wool, the electrons from the battery move rapidly through the steel wool and make a complete circuit.
That electrical current will heat up the steel wool to 700 degrees Fahrenheit (371 degrees Celsius). Not only is that blazing hot, but it causes the iron to react with the oxygen around it and – zap – you get the spark and that keeps going throughout the steel wool. Now, who’s ready for s’mores!
ð³ July 8 - Cooking Activity: Hail as large as grapefruit?!?
We used coins and sports balls to measure hail earlier, but you will have to reach into a fruit basket to measure some of the largest hailstones to hit Earth. Can you imagine hail the size of a grapefruit?? The most powerful thunderstorms have been known to unload these massive hailstones – let’s listen to one of those times in the AccuWeather This Date in Weather History podcast:
If you think grapefruit-sized hail is big, how about hail that was as big as a volleyball?!? The largest hailstone on record in the United States had a diameter of a whopping 8 inches in Vivian, South Dakota, on July 23, 2010.
ð July 8 - Weather Detectives! Measure hail with these common items at home
Pennies, quarters, ping pong balls, and softballs – what do they all have in common? You can use them to measure hail the next time it pounds your community. Just make sure you wait until the hail stops falling – hail hurts when it hits you!
Check out the photos below to see how some hailstones aren’t entirely round and smooth. The pea-sized hail is pretty round, but the larger hail is definitely spiky. That happens as the hail spins and tumbles during its ferris wheel ride in a thunderstorm – that’s also how it gets rings like a tree trunk!
Speaking of thunderstorms and measurements – do you know how you can tell how far away lightning is? Count the number of seconds in between a flash of lightning and the rumble of thunder that follows. For every five seconds, the bolt of lightning is a mile away from you. Just make sure you are counting those seconds from inside your house (not right next to a window) or a vehicle.
ð¦ July 7 - Bird Watching: Bird builds this nest one beak full of mud at a time
When you think of a typical bird’s nest, what comes to mind? Would you say a nest that is put together with twigs? There is actually one bird that makes its nest mostly out of mud – in fact, this bird builds its nest one beak full of mud at a time and this nest isn’t wedged into tree branches for extra support:
The nest that you saw in the video above is made by a Barn Swallow, which spends the summer and builds a nest in nearly every state across America (including in southern Alaska), according to The Cornell Lab. These birds spend the colder months in southern Mexico, central America and into far northern South America.
An up-close view of a Barn Swallow’s nest (Pixabay/Psubraty)
If you want to try and get a Barn Swallow to build its nest around you, they really like staying in the rafters of barns, sheds or other buildings. Plus, they would really like it if you had some mud ready for them to use – it makes their job of putting the nest together easier!
ð July 7 - Story Time: Pigeons went flying away from this tornado near New York City!
What bird do you think of when you picture New York City? Maybe a pigeon? That’s not a bad guess since pigeons are a common sight in New York City and other cities around the world.
So, can you imagine the sight when two tornadoes tore through northern New Jersey and tracked very close to the Statue of Liberty on this date in 1976? It wouldn’t have been just us humans fleeing to safety but also pigeons and other birds!
Let’s gather around the campfire and hear more about these tornadoes that skirted the Statue of Liberty from AccuWeather’s This Date in Weather History podcast. New York City isn’t in Tornado Alley but can be threatened when all of the ingredients on the tornado recipe card are stirred together.
ð¦ July 7 - Bird Watching: This bird wants you to share your grape jelly!
Not all birds eat seeds that you leave out in your bird feeder – some of you may have a red colored feeder filled with sugar water for hummingbirds. If you live east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States, you may notice that Baltimore Orioles sneak a drink from hummingbird feeders. What they really want is a part of your peanut butter and jelly sandwich – let’s find out more!
There is a chance that the Baltimore Orioles that AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Danny Pydynowski is feeding this summer traveled more than 2,500 miles (4,023 km) from South America.
Baltimore Orioles are one of the many migratory birds that head south to warmer weather in the winter and head north to more comfortable conditions in the summer – they are not fans of snow!
In addition to enjoying eating jelly, Baltimore Orioles will also eat slices of oranges. (Pixabay/Michael McGough)
Baltimore Orioles have been seen as far south as Colombia and western Venezuela in South America and northward to southern Canada, according to The Cornell Lab. Think about their trip the next time you are in the car and ask your parents, “Are we there yet?”
ð July 6 - Weather Detectives! A dam that holds back cold air?
You may not know it, but many of you may have seen something that acts like a dam for cold air before. It’s not the type of dam that we saw during last week’s AccuWeather Summer Camp – it’s something that has been around since the Ice Age. What are we talking about?
Mountains!
There are times when cold air gets stuck up against the side of a mountain range, such as the east side of the Appalachian and Rocky mountains in the United States.
Time to pull out your dictionary of meteorology terms – this is called cold air damming, and the key to this dam is that cold air is denser than warm air. What does that mean? Let’s find out with this activity you can do at home (just get help from an adult as hot water is involved):
In the wintertime, cold air damming can lead to a snow day for some lucky kids – unless warm air flows over the cold air like in the activity above. If that happens, there can be ice instead of snow, and that’s not fun when you want to make a snowman!
𥤠July 6 - Water break! Check out this gravity-defying water experiment
If you were to fill a bottle full with water, flip it over and poke holes in the bottom, what do you think will happen? If you think that the water should come out (which makes sense), you’ll be surprised how water seems to defy gravity in the experiment below by AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Jason Nicholls:
The reason the water didn’t rush out is surface tension – water is attracted to water and, while we can’t see it, molecules that make up water hold tight together and win out over the force of gravity. Small bugs are light enough to use surface tension to walk on water – definitely not something you or I can do!
ð¥ July 6 - Campfire Tales: How much heat is coming from your body?
It may feel like it only when you have a fever, but your body is constantly giving off heat – that’s right, even as you are reading this, you are radiating heat. How much heat? We had fun with an infrared thermometer to find out:
Another fun way to see how much heat is coming from your body is to visit NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center outside of Washington, D.C., and see yourself in infrared light. Check out AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Krissy Pydynowski’s infrared selfie.
AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Krissy Pydynowski took this infrared selfie at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Visitor Center outside of Washington, D.C., in late April 2019.
Look at how warm her forehead and neck are compared to her nose and fingers – you can see why you are more likely to get frostbite on your cooler nose and fingers!
Additional experiments and reporting by Jason Nicholls.
Previously:
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
Remember that your car has to have the metal frame all around it – an open cab of a tractor, golf cart or any construction equipment will not protect you from lightning. A convertible car, even with the top up, is also not safe to be in!
Lightning dwarfs city lights as a distant thunder storm passes by Dodge City, Kansas, on Friday, June 29, 2018. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
ðï¸ July 13 - Excursion Day: Is any place in a park safe during a thunderstorm?
How many of you love to play at a park in the summer? Whether you like to swing or climb the monkey bars or have a picnic with friends and family, you need to know where you will run to if you hear thunder. You may know that underneath a tree is not safe, but what about a pavilion or tent – none of those are safe places to be during a thunderstorm!
It doesn’t have to be raining for lightning to hit a tree, pavilion or playground equipment. Lightning may strike as much as 10 miles (16 km) from any rain, and then you have to worry about a “bolt from the blue” after the rain has ended!
As soon as you hear thunder, storm is close enough for you to be struck by lightning – so that is the time to leave the park and head to your car or any nearby sturdy building, such as a grocery or convenience store.
ðª July 10 - Space Exploration: Let’s find the International Space Station
Find out when you can wave hi to the astronauts onboard the International Space Station (ISS) as this football field-sized space station can be seen anywhere around the world – depending on where the space station is and if there are any clouds in the sky:
As AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Krissy Pydynowski said, check out NASA’s Spot The Station website which lists every time the ISS will be visible for a given location over the next two weeks. Also, keep an eye on the AccuWeather Astronomy Facebook page as our team will let you know the best times to see the ISS.
“Each time the station passes overhead is different,” AccuWeather Digital Journalist and Meteorologist Brian Lada said. “On some passes, it is very dim and is not visible for long, while other times it is incredibly bright and visible for over five minutes.”
Anytime you see the ISS, be sure to give a wave to the astronauts!
The International Space Station orbiting the Earth at 17,500 mph. (Video/NASA)
ð July 10 - Story Time: Dust storms are even worse in outer space
You may have heard about dust storms on Earth, but how about in outer space? One dust storm in 2018 covered the entire planet of Mars! Think about that – Mars is about half of the size of Earth, so that means that dust storm would have either covered all of the Northern Hemisphere of Earth or both North and South America!
Did you know that NASA has solar-powered robotic rovers that roam over Mars to take pictures and tell us important information about the Red Planet? One of these rovers, known as Opportunity, spent nearly 15 years on Mars until that massive dust storm shut it down.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
“All the dust prevented the rover from charging its batteries,” AccuWeather Digital Journalist and Meteorologist Brian Lada said. “NASA is planning to send another rover to the Red Planet later this summer, but it’s powered by radioactive plutonium, so a big dust storm won’t ‘kill’ it.”
That’s good news since Brian said that dust storms are common on Mars. What else is good to hear – dust storms across Earth aren’t as extreme, but let’s gather around the campfire and hear of the stories of the historic Dust Bowl in the United States and what is a haboob in the AccuWeather Podcast:
ðºï¸ July 10 - Map Station: How thunderstorms stir up massive dust storms
Thunderstorms and dust storms – that doesn’t seem to be a normal combination, right? Thunderstorms drop rain, and rain would make any dust or dirt turn to mud. That makes more sense. However, thunderstorms frequently stir up massive dust storms, especially in desert areas.
Let’s find out more, and see how far you can send dust flying (just make sure no one is standing in front of you!) like a thunderstorm wind gust:
The little gust of wind from Krissy is nothing compared to what a thunderstorm will do, and that creates massive dust storms. Check out the video below – some dust storms look like a wall of dust closing in on towns and cities. It’s not just a scary sight, but these dust storms are very dangerous for anyone driving a car – it can go from perfect weather to no visibility at all in a short time.
ð¥ July 9 - Gardening Time! These veggies grow best in hot weather
It’s time to check in with AccuWeather Meteorologist Chris Nallan to see how the veggies are growing in his garden. It has been hot and mostly dry in central Pennsylvania over the past week – let’s see which vegetables like that weather the best:
Did you know that working in your yard, including digging in the garden, can burn just as many calories as a moderate gym workout – helping your heart and lungs stay healthy (and your taste buds happy!).
ð¨ July 9 - Art Station: Make your own beaver dam
It is pretty cool how beavers can alone dam up a creek or stream and make a pond when they want – they are very smart engineers!
Let’s put on our imagination hats, pretend that we are beavers and build a dam. Look around your yard or grassy area near where you live and think about what you would use to build your beaver dam – are you thinking twigs, grass and mud? That’s perfect! Here’s one idea for how you can put all of that together to make your beaver dam:
There’s one tricky part to this activity – remember that you don’t want to totally stop the flow of water. Dams built by beavers and humans still let water to run out of the bottom, while allowing a pond or lake to form. A pond created by a beaver dam is where the beaver will live and stay hidden from predators; a lake formed by a human-made dam is where we can spend the summer swimming and riding boats!
ð¦ July 9 - Petting Zoo: Why do beavers make dams?
We visited a real dam that provided a place to swim and protection from flooding and talked about a dam that holds back cold air recently at AccuWeather Summer Camp, so now let’s explore another type of a dam – one made by beavers:
The beaver dam you saw in the video is definitely a small one, and likely not used by a beaver at this time with the water level fairly low. The ponds that form behind beaver dams can be fairly large – check out this much bigger beaver dam below:
A beaver dam created this pond in the background. (Pixabay/Graham Hobster)
The pond is where a beaver can build its home to stay safe and raise a family. The National Park Service calls beavers a “keystone species,” meaning the ponds that the beaver dams create will help other animals and plants.
On the other hand, just like when human-made dams are completed, some land that people don’t want to flood will go underwater after beavers build their dams.
ð¥ July 8 - Campfire Tales: Build a fire without any matches!
Do you want to enjoy an evening campfire, but can’t find matches or a lighter around your house? If you have a 9-volt battery and steel wool, here’s a way to get that campfire started!
Before we watch the video below, let’s go over a few rules – don’t attempt the activity shown unless an adult is helping you. Also, be sure to wear safety glasses and only try to ignite your fire on a fire-safe surface, such as concrete, a baking pan or in a fire pit. The last spot is perfect since this will help you start a campfire!
How did AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Jason Nicholls get the fire to start? The key is that steel wool is mostly made of iron with pockets of oxygen surrounding the iron threads. When the battery terminals touch the steel wool, the electrons from the battery move rapidly through the steel wool and make a complete circuit.
That electrical current will heat up the steel wool to 700 degrees Fahrenheit (371 degrees Celsius). Not only is that blazing hot, but it causes the iron to react with the oxygen around it and – zap – you get the spark and that keeps going throughout the steel wool. Now, who’s ready for s’mores!
ð³ July 8 - Cooking Activity: Hail as large as grapefruit?!?
We used coins and sports balls to measure hail earlier, but you will have to reach into a fruit basket to measure some of the largest hailstones to hit Earth. Can you imagine hail the size of a grapefruit?? The most powerful thunderstorms have been known to unload these massive hailstones – let’s listen to one of those times in the AccuWeather This Date in Weather History podcast:
If you think grapefruit-sized hail is big, how about hail that was as big as a volleyball?!? The largest hailstone on record in the United States had a diameter of a whopping 8 inches in Vivian, South Dakota, on July 23, 2010.
ð July 8 - Weather Detectives! Measure hail with these common items at home
Pennies, quarters, ping pong balls, and softballs – what do they all have in common? You can use them to measure hail the next time it pounds your community. Just make sure you wait until the hail stops falling – hail hurts when it hits you!
Check out the photos below to see how some hailstones aren’t entirely round and smooth. The pea-sized hail is pretty round, but the larger hail is definitely spiky. That happens as the hail spins and tumbles during its ferris wheel ride in a thunderstorm – that’s also how it gets rings like a tree trunk!
Speaking of thunderstorms and measurements – do you know how you can tell how far away lightning is? Count the number of seconds in between a flash of lightning and the rumble of thunder that follows. For every five seconds, the bolt of lightning is a mile away from you. Just make sure you are counting those seconds from inside your house (not right next to a window) or a vehicle.
ð¦ July 7 - Bird Watching: Bird builds this nest one beak full of mud at a time
When you think of a typical bird’s nest, what comes to mind? Would you say a nest that is put together with twigs? There is actually one bird that makes its nest mostly out of mud – in fact, this bird builds its nest one beak full of mud at a time and this nest isn’t wedged into tree branches for extra support:
The nest that you saw in the video above is made by a Barn Swallow, which spends the summer and builds a nest in nearly every state across America (including in southern Alaska), according to The Cornell Lab. These birds spend the colder months in southern Mexico, central America and into far northern South America.
An up-close view of a Barn Swallow’s nest (Pixabay/Psubraty)
If you want to try and get a Barn Swallow to build its nest around you, they really like staying in the rafters of barns, sheds or other buildings. Plus, they would really like it if you had some mud ready for them to use – it makes their job of putting the nest together easier!
ð July 7 - Story Time: Pigeons went flying away from this tornado near New York City!
What bird do you think of when you picture New York City? Maybe a pigeon? That’s not a bad guess since pigeons are a common sight in New York City and other cities around the world.
So, can you imagine the sight when two tornadoes tore through northern New Jersey and tracked very close to the Statue of Liberty on this date in 1976? It wouldn’t have been just us humans fleeing to safety but also pigeons and other birds!
Let’s gather around the campfire and hear more about these tornadoes that skirted the Statue of Liberty from AccuWeather’s This Date in Weather History podcast. New York City isn’t in Tornado Alley but can be threatened when all of the ingredients on the tornado recipe card are stirred together.
ð¦ July 7 - Bird Watching: This bird wants you to share your grape jelly!
Not all birds eat seeds that you leave out in your bird feeder – some of you may have a red colored feeder filled with sugar water for hummingbirds. If you live east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States, you may notice that Baltimore Orioles sneak a drink from hummingbird feeders. What they really want is a part of your peanut butter and jelly sandwich – let’s find out more!
There is a chance that the Baltimore Orioles that AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Danny Pydynowski is feeding this summer traveled more than 2,500 miles (4,023 km) from South America.
Baltimore Orioles are one of the many migratory birds that head south to warmer weather in the winter and head north to more comfortable conditions in the summer – they are not fans of snow!
In addition to enjoying eating jelly, Baltimore Orioles will also eat slices of oranges. (Pixabay/Michael McGough)
Baltimore Orioles have been seen as far south as Colombia and western Venezuela in South America and northward to southern Canada, according to The Cornell Lab. Think about their trip the next time you are in the car and ask your parents, “Are we there yet?”
ð July 6 - Weather Detectives! A dam that holds back cold air?
You may not know it, but many of you may have seen something that acts like a dam for cold air before. It’s not the type of dam that we saw during last week’s AccuWeather Summer Camp – it’s something that has been around since the Ice Age. What are we talking about?
Mountains!
There are times when cold air gets stuck up against the side of a mountain range, such as the east side of the Appalachian and Rocky mountains in the United States.
Time to pull out your dictionary of meteorology terms – this is called cold air damming, and the key to this dam is that cold air is denser than warm air. What does that mean? Let’s find out with this activity you can do at home (just get help from an adult as hot water is involved):
In the wintertime, cold air damming can lead to a snow day for some lucky kids – unless warm air flows over the cold air like in the activity above. If that happens, there can be ice instead of snow, and that’s not fun when you want to make a snowman!
𥤠July 6 - Water break! Check out this gravity-defying water experiment
If you were to fill a bottle full with water, flip it over and poke holes in the bottom, what do you think will happen? If you think that the water should come out (which makes sense), you’ll be surprised how water seems to defy gravity in the experiment below by AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Jason Nicholls:
The reason the water didn’t rush out is surface tension – water is attracted to water and, while we can’t see it, molecules that make up water hold tight together and win out over the force of gravity. Small bugs are light enough to use surface tension to walk on water – definitely not something you or I can do!
ð¥ July 6 - Campfire Tales: How much heat is coming from your body?
It may feel like it only when you have a fever, but your body is constantly giving off heat – that’s right, even as you are reading this, you are radiating heat. How much heat? We had fun with an infrared thermometer to find out:
Another fun way to see how much heat is coming from your body is to visit NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center outside of Washington, D.C., and see yourself in infrared light. Check out AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Krissy Pydynowski’s infrared selfie.
AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Krissy Pydynowski took this infrared selfie at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Visitor Center outside of Washington, D.C., in late April 2019.
Look at how warm her forehead and neck are compared to her nose and fingers – you can see why you are more likely to get frostbite on your cooler nose and fingers!
Additional experiments and reporting by Jason Nicholls.
Previously:
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
Remember that your car has to have the metal frame all around it – an open cab of a tractor, golf cart or any construction equipment will not protect you from lightning. A convertible car, even with the top up, is also not safe to be in!
Lightning dwarfs city lights as a distant thunder storm passes by Dodge City, Kansas, on Friday, June 29, 2018. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
ðï¸ July 13 - Excursion Day: Is any place in a park safe during a thunderstorm?
How many of you love to play at a park in the summer? Whether you like to swing or climb the monkey bars or have a picnic with friends and family, you need to know where you will run to if you hear thunder. You may know that underneath a tree is not safe, but what about a pavilion or tent – none of those are safe places to be during a thunderstorm!
It doesn’t have to be raining for lightning to hit a tree, pavilion or playground equipment. Lightning may strike as much as 10 miles (16 km) from any rain, and then you have to worry about a “bolt from the blue” after the rain has ended!
As soon as you hear thunder, storm is close enough for you to be struck by lightning – so that is the time to leave the park and head to your car or any nearby sturdy building, such as a grocery or convenience store.
ðª July 10 - Space Exploration: Let’s find the International Space Station
Find out when you can wave hi to the astronauts onboard the International Space Station (ISS) as this football field-sized space station can be seen anywhere around the world – depending on where the space station is and if there are any clouds in the sky:
As AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Krissy Pydynowski said, check out NASA’s Spot The Station website which lists every time the ISS will be visible for a given location over the next two weeks. Also, keep an eye on the AccuWeather Astronomy Facebook page as our team will let you know the best times to see the ISS.
“Each time the station passes overhead is different,” AccuWeather Digital Journalist and Meteorologist Brian Lada said. “On some passes, it is very dim and is not visible for long, while other times it is incredibly bright and visible for over five minutes.”
Anytime you see the ISS, be sure to give a wave to the astronauts!
The International Space Station orbiting the Earth at 17,500 mph. (Video/NASA)
ð July 10 - Story Time: Dust storms are even worse in outer space
You may have heard about dust storms on Earth, but how about in outer space? One dust storm in 2018 covered the entire planet of Mars! Think about that – Mars is about half of the size of Earth, so that means that dust storm would have either covered all of the Northern Hemisphere of Earth or both North and South America!
Did you know that NASA has solar-powered robotic rovers that roam over Mars to take pictures and tell us important information about the Red Planet? One of these rovers, known as Opportunity, spent nearly 15 years on Mars until that massive dust storm shut it down.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
“All the dust prevented the rover from charging its batteries,” AccuWeather Digital Journalist and Meteorologist Brian Lada said. “NASA is planning to send another rover to the Red Planet later this summer, but it’s powered by radioactive plutonium, so a big dust storm won’t ‘kill’ it.”
That’s good news since Brian said that dust storms are common on Mars. What else is good to hear – dust storms across Earth aren’t as extreme, but let’s gather around the campfire and hear of the stories of the historic Dust Bowl in the United States and what is a haboob in the AccuWeather Podcast:
ðºï¸ July 10 - Map Station: How thunderstorms stir up massive dust storms
Thunderstorms and dust storms – that doesn’t seem to be a normal combination, right? Thunderstorms drop rain, and rain would make any dust or dirt turn to mud. That makes more sense. However, thunderstorms frequently stir up massive dust storms, especially in desert areas.
Let’s find out more, and see how far you can send dust flying (just make sure no one is standing in front of you!) like a thunderstorm wind gust:
The little gust of wind from Krissy is nothing compared to what a thunderstorm will do, and that creates massive dust storms. Check out the video below – some dust storms look like a wall of dust closing in on towns and cities. It’s not just a scary sight, but these dust storms are very dangerous for anyone driving a car – it can go from perfect weather to no visibility at all in a short time.
ð¥ July 9 - Gardening Time! These veggies grow best in hot weather
It’s time to check in with AccuWeather Meteorologist Chris Nallan to see how the veggies are growing in his garden. It has been hot and mostly dry in central Pennsylvania over the past week – let’s see which vegetables like that weather the best:
Did you know that working in your yard, including digging in the garden, can burn just as many calories as a moderate gym workout – helping your heart and lungs stay healthy (and your taste buds happy!).
ð¨ July 9 - Art Station: Make your own beaver dam
It is pretty cool how beavers can alone dam up a creek or stream and make a pond when they want – they are very smart engineers!
Let’s put on our imagination hats, pretend that we are beavers and build a dam. Look around your yard or grassy area near where you live and think about what you would use to build your beaver dam – are you thinking twigs, grass and mud? That’s perfect! Here’s one idea for how you can put all of that together to make your beaver dam:
There’s one tricky part to this activity – remember that you don’t want to totally stop the flow of water. Dams built by beavers and humans still let water to run out of the bottom, while allowing a pond or lake to form. A pond created by a beaver dam is where the beaver will live and stay hidden from predators; a lake formed by a human-made dam is where we can spend the summer swimming and riding boats!
ð¦ July 9 - Petting Zoo: Why do beavers make dams?
We visited a real dam that provided a place to swim and protection from flooding and talked about a dam that holds back cold air recently at AccuWeather Summer Camp, so now let’s explore another type of a dam – one made by beavers:
The beaver dam you saw in the video is definitely a small one, and likely not used by a beaver at this time with the water level fairly low. The ponds that form behind beaver dams can be fairly large – check out this much bigger beaver dam below:
A beaver dam created this pond in the background. (Pixabay/Graham Hobster)
The pond is where a beaver can build its home to stay safe and raise a family. The National Park Service calls beavers a “keystone species,” meaning the ponds that the beaver dams create will help other animals and plants.
On the other hand, just like when human-made dams are completed, some land that people don’t want to flood will go underwater after beavers build their dams.
ð¥ July 8 - Campfire Tales: Build a fire without any matches!
Do you want to enjoy an evening campfire, but can’t find matches or a lighter around your house? If you have a 9-volt battery and steel wool, here’s a way to get that campfire started!
Before we watch the video below, let’s go over a few rules – don’t attempt the activity shown unless an adult is helping you. Also, be sure to wear safety glasses and only try to ignite your fire on a fire-safe surface, such as concrete, a baking pan or in a fire pit. The last spot is perfect since this will help you start a campfire!
How did AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Jason Nicholls get the fire to start? The key is that steel wool is mostly made of iron with pockets of oxygen surrounding the iron threads. When the battery terminals touch the steel wool, the electrons from the battery move rapidly through the steel wool and make a complete circuit.
That electrical current will heat up the steel wool to 700 degrees Fahrenheit (371 degrees Celsius). Not only is that blazing hot, but it causes the iron to react with the oxygen around it and – zap – you get the spark and that keeps going throughout the steel wool. Now, who’s ready for s’mores!
ð³ July 8 - Cooking Activity: Hail as large as grapefruit?!?
We used coins and sports balls to measure hail earlier, but you will have to reach into a fruit basket to measure some of the largest hailstones to hit Earth. Can you imagine hail the size of a grapefruit?? The most powerful thunderstorms have been known to unload these massive hailstones – let’s listen to one of those times in the AccuWeather This Date in Weather History podcast:
If you think grapefruit-sized hail is big, how about hail that was as big as a volleyball?!? The largest hailstone on record in the United States had a diameter of a whopping 8 inches in Vivian, South Dakota, on July 23, 2010.
ð July 8 - Weather Detectives! Measure hail with these common items at home
Pennies, quarters, ping pong balls, and softballs – what do they all have in common? You can use them to measure hail the next time it pounds your community. Just make sure you wait until the hail stops falling – hail hurts when it hits you!
Check out the photos below to see how some hailstones aren’t entirely round and smooth. The pea-sized hail is pretty round, but the larger hail is definitely spiky. That happens as the hail spins and tumbles during its ferris wheel ride in a thunderstorm – that’s also how it gets rings like a tree trunk!
Speaking of thunderstorms and measurements – do you know how you can tell how far away lightning is? Count the number of seconds in between a flash of lightning and the rumble of thunder that follows. For every five seconds, the bolt of lightning is a mile away from you. Just make sure you are counting those seconds from inside your house (not right next to a window) or a vehicle.
ð¦ July 7 - Bird Watching: Bird builds this nest one beak full of mud at a time
When you think of a typical bird’s nest, what comes to mind? Would you say a nest that is put together with twigs? There is actually one bird that makes its nest mostly out of mud – in fact, this bird builds its nest one beak full of mud at a time and this nest isn’t wedged into tree branches for extra support:
The nest that you saw in the video above is made by a Barn Swallow, which spends the summer and builds a nest in nearly every state across America (including in southern Alaska), according to The Cornell Lab. These birds spend the colder months in southern Mexico, central America and into far northern South America.
An up-close view of a Barn Swallow’s nest (Pixabay/Psubraty)
If you want to try and get a Barn Swallow to build its nest around you, they really like staying in the rafters of barns, sheds or other buildings. Plus, they would really like it if you had some mud ready for them to use – it makes their job of putting the nest together easier!
ð July 7 - Story Time: Pigeons went flying away from this tornado near New York City!
What bird do you think of when you picture New York City? Maybe a pigeon? That’s not a bad guess since pigeons are a common sight in New York City and other cities around the world.
So, can you imagine the sight when two tornadoes tore through northern New Jersey and tracked very close to the Statue of Liberty on this date in 1976? It wouldn’t have been just us humans fleeing to safety but also pigeons and other birds!
Let’s gather around the campfire and hear more about these tornadoes that skirted the Statue of Liberty from AccuWeather’s This Date in Weather History podcast. New York City isn’t in Tornado Alley but can be threatened when all of the ingredients on the tornado recipe card are stirred together.
ð¦ July 7 - Bird Watching: This bird wants you to share your grape jelly!
Not all birds eat seeds that you leave out in your bird feeder – some of you may have a red colored feeder filled with sugar water for hummingbirds. If you live east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States, you may notice that Baltimore Orioles sneak a drink from hummingbird feeders. What they really want is a part of your peanut butter and jelly sandwich – let’s find out more!
There is a chance that the Baltimore Orioles that AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Danny Pydynowski is feeding this summer traveled more than 2,500 miles (4,023 km) from South America.
Baltimore Orioles are one of the many migratory birds that head south to warmer weather in the winter and head north to more comfortable conditions in the summer – they are not fans of snow!
In addition to enjoying eating jelly, Baltimore Orioles will also eat slices of oranges. (Pixabay/Michael McGough)
Baltimore Orioles have been seen as far south as Colombia and western Venezuela in South America and northward to southern Canada, according to The Cornell Lab. Think about their trip the next time you are in the car and ask your parents, “Are we there yet?”
ð July 6 - Weather Detectives! A dam that holds back cold air?
You may not know it, but many of you may have seen something that acts like a dam for cold air before. It’s not the type of dam that we saw during last week’s AccuWeather Summer Camp – it’s something that has been around since the Ice Age. What are we talking about?
Mountains!
There are times when cold air gets stuck up against the side of a mountain range, such as the east side of the Appalachian and Rocky mountains in the United States.
Time to pull out your dictionary of meteorology terms – this is called cold air damming, and the key to this dam is that cold air is denser than warm air. What does that mean? Let’s find out with this activity you can do at home (just get help from an adult as hot water is involved):
In the wintertime, cold air damming can lead to a snow day for some lucky kids – unless warm air flows over the cold air like in the activity above. If that happens, there can be ice instead of snow, and that’s not fun when you want to make a snowman!
𥤠July 6 - Water break! Check out this gravity-defying water experiment
If you were to fill a bottle full with water, flip it over and poke holes in the bottom, what do you think will happen? If you think that the water should come out (which makes sense), you’ll be surprised how water seems to defy gravity in the experiment below by AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Jason Nicholls:
The reason the water didn’t rush out is surface tension – water is attracted to water and, while we can’t see it, molecules that make up water hold tight together and win out over the force of gravity. Small bugs are light enough to use surface tension to walk on water – definitely not something you or I can do!
ð¥ July 6 - Campfire Tales: How much heat is coming from your body?
It may feel like it only when you have a fever, but your body is constantly giving off heat – that’s right, even as you are reading this, you are radiating heat. How much heat? We had fun with an infrared thermometer to find out:
Another fun way to see how much heat is coming from your body is to visit NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center outside of Washington, D.C., and see yourself in infrared light. Check out AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Krissy Pydynowski’s infrared selfie.
AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Krissy Pydynowski took this infrared selfie at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Visitor Center outside of Washington, D.C., in late April 2019.
Look at how warm her forehead and neck are compared to her nose and fingers – you can see why you are more likely to get frostbite on your cooler nose and fingers!
Additional experiments and reporting by Jason Nicholls.
Previously:
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