ð Feb. 5 - AP class: Wet bulb temperature? Nothing to do with flowers or light bulbs!
Meteorologists give you a high and low temperature, as well as the dew point temperature for the day. Here’s a way to surprise your local meteorologist with how smart you are – next time one of them comes to visit your school, ask what the wet bulb temperature is.
As the air moistens up, the temperature will lower – that’s how you can get snow to fall soon after you looked at a thermometer and it was several degrees above freezing (and your dew point was really low – meaning the air was dry).
Meteorologists have a fun tool – called a sling psychrometer – that you swing above your head to measure the wet bulb temperature. Check it out below from AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Jason Nicholls:
Why did Jason swing the sling psychrometer around to get it to measure the wet bulb temperature? You need the water to evaporate from the damp cloth on the one thermometer to tell us the wet bulb temperature.
ð¨ Feb. 5. - Art Class: Capture pretty snowy photos with cardinals
Winter in cold communities is known for cloudy and snowy days with trees bereft of leaves and no flowers to add color to your yard. Most of the colorful birds have also migrated south (if you live in the Northern Hemisphere) – but the Northern Cardinal hangs around through the winter and adds a touch of red to your snowy photos!
Here are some other fun facts about Northern Cardinals from our friends at Cornell Lab:
Not many female birds in North America sing, but the female cardinals do – usually when they are hungry and want Mr. Cardinal to bring food to the nest.
Cardinals defend their homes so much against other cardinals that they will attack their reflection! If you see a cardinal pecking at a shiny car or window, that is why!
A male cardinal enjoys a meal from a feeder during the winter. (Ida Lively)
Thumbnail photo courtesy of Halie Kines.
ð¨ Feb. 2. - Art Class: Paint snow (and it’s OK to see yellow snow!)
If you love to play with sidewalk chalk, don’t be bummed when it snows and you can’t decorate your sidewalk or driveway. Grab some spray bottles, fill them with water and food coloring, and let’s paint the snow!
ð Feb. 2 - Pop quiz! Should you find a snow drift to measure snow?
After a snowstorm hits your community, everyone always wants to know how much snow fell. Should you try and find the biggest snow drift in your yard to measure the snow? As tempting as that is to say you had the most snow of your friends, that’s not the right way to do it.
One big important tip to getting the best snowfall report is that you should measure the snow as soon after it stops snowing. If you wait, the snow may settle (squish down some), start to melt or even be blown away by the wind.
Speaking of wind – we heard that you should find a measuring spot sheltered from the wind, but what if a blizzard is raging and the snow keeps blowing off of your measuring table? Go into your yard, take several different measurements and average them together.
The final step to any good snowfall report is to send it to AccuWeather through Facebook or Twitter – and pictures are always welcome!
ð¬ Jan. 29 - Weather Lab: Crush a can with ocean-like strength!
For most of you reading this, there is 14.7 pounds per square inch of pressure from the air pushing on you. Don’t feel it? That’s because your body is pushing back with the same force. However, if you took a very deep dive into the ocean (not recommended), the water pressure would be strong enough to break your bones.
Since we don’t want to see anyone break their bones, here’s one experiment in which we can see air pressure crush a can. You must have an adult help you with this demonstration, but it is easy to do with an empty soda can, water, ice, tongs, potholder, and a stove.
When AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Jason Nicholls puts the hot can in the ice water, the steam inside the can quickly cools and condenses into water. That lowers the pressure inside the can so much that the air pressure outside crushes it.
ð Jan. 29: Pop quiz! Can it ever be too cold to snow?
Unless the temperature is absolute zero (minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit or minus 273 degrees Celsius, when the air can’t cool any further and condense into snow), this is a trick question!
Dangerously low temperatures typically occur when high pressure is overhead. As we learned before thanks to the help of an egg, you need a storm or low pressure to cause the air to rise, cool and condense into snow. Underneath high pressure, sinking air from way above our heads keeps snow from forming.
Also on the recipe card for snow is moisture – and when the air is so cold, there is usually not a lot of moisture around.
Snow may not fall often when it is really frigid outside, but it can come down if a storm is moving in with an extra push of moisture. That snow will definitely be powdery and not the best for making a snowman!
ð¬ Jan. 26 - Weather Lab: Rainfall that never reaches the ground
Before we find out what rainfall that never reaches the ground is called, let’s first build a cloud at home and make a colorful “rain” streak out of it.
All you need is shaving cream, a jar filled with water and separate bowls with water dyed with your favorite colors. As AccuWeather Meteorologist Renee Duff shows us, you can give your cloud any shape and see the rain streak down to the ground.
Notice how the rain doesn’t reach the ground right away. If the air near where we are standing is too dry, the rain falling from the clouds will evaporate before reaching us – big word time – that’s called virga.
If you have seen a sight like this in the sky before, that was virga!
AccuWeather Meteorologist Brett Rossio witnessed virga in the sky over central Pennsylvania in January 2020.
One tip meteorologists look for is to see if there is virga in the sky, they see if there are any doughnut holes on radar!
ð¶ Jan. 26 - Music class: What’s the noisiest winter weather?
As long as it’s not during a raging blizzard, watching snow fall outside can be very smoothing – and exciting as we wait until the best time to start building a snowman or go sledding! However, when you start to hear a ting-ting sound, that is a sure sign that sleet is falling.
What is sleet and why is it so noisy? Let’s find out below as we watch the sleet fall in slow-motion – that’s a really cool sight!
ð¬ Jan. 22 - Weather Lab: Hair-raising truth of static electricity
Why does your hair stand up when you take off a hat or when someone rubs a balloon on your head? Or why do you get a shock sometimes when you touch metal? Blame static electricity!
You don’t see it, but look down at your fingers, toes and your entire body – you are made up of billions and billions and billions of atoms. Think of atoms as the building blocks of anything you see, and they are like mini batteries in that they have positive charges (called protons) and negative charges (called electrons).
Shuffle your feet across a carpet, and you will build up more electrons. You are setting yourself to get zapped when you touch a doorknob or another person as your body wants to get rid of that extra negative charge – similar to why we see a bolt of lightning in a thunderstorm.
How about that fancy hairdo after you rub a balloon on your head? Electrons from you take a trip to the balloon as you rub it on your head – leaving you with a more positive charge and the balloon with extra negative charges. Opposites attract, and your hair will stand up high up like it wants to give the balloon a hug!
ð Jan. 22 - Homework: Create a mini lightning bolt at home
Here’s a lightning strike you don’t have to run and seek shelter from – and one you can make at home! All you need is a balloon, compact fluorescent lightbulb (CFL) and someone willing to let you rub the balloon on their head.
As AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Jason Nicholls demonstrates below, rub the balloon on your head or someone else’s head to build up a static charge. Then, hold the balloon to the metal tip at the end of the lightbulb. Don’t blink as you should see the lightbulb briefly flash like a mini lightning bolt. This experiment works best when the air is drier so you can build up that static electricity.
Here’s another one of his latest experiments (one that you should not try at home) – Jason showed us what happened when aluminum foil came into contact with sulfuric acid. The experiment did not end well for the foil!
ð Jan. 19 - Weather Detectives! Icicle seemingly forms out of nowhere!
Calling all weather detectives! Check out the video below and see the icicle that appeared to form out of thin air. The icicle had to come from somewhere, so it is time to think like a forensic meteorologist and solve this mystery!
Watch this clip from a national TV show when one man was found guilty of murder after AccuWeather’s Dr. Joe Sobel used dew to prove that a suspect on trial for murder was lying about what he said happened the night of the crime – think about that, something as simple as the dew that gets your feet wet when you walk through your yard put a bad person away in prison!
ð Jan. 19 - Snack Time! Why do icicles look like carrots?
If you look closely at an icicle, would you agree that it looks like a carrot? Icicles have a big top and a thin bottom – just like carrots. The main difference is that icicles are typically clear. If you see an orange icicle, that means it was formed by yucky, dirty water!
How do icicles form and why do they look like carrots? Let’s find out the answer below:
Additional experiments and reporting by Jason Nicholls.
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News / Weather News
AccuWeather School Spring Semester: Weeks 1-3
By Kristina Pydynowski, AccuWeather senior meteorologist
Updated Mar 21, 2021 12:37 PM EDT
ð Feb. 5 - AP class: Wet bulb temperature? Nothing to do with flowers or light bulbs!
Meteorologists give you a high and low temperature, as well as the dew point temperature for the day. Here’s a way to surprise your local meteorologist with how smart you are – next time one of them comes to visit your school, ask what the wet bulb temperature is.
Let’s start this lesson with a quick experiment – put some hand sanitizer on your hands and wave them around. Your hands feel cooler, right? That is because evaporation causes the air to cool.
“The wet bulb temperature is the lowest temperature that can be reached by evaporating water into the air,” AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Brett Anderson said.
As the air moistens up, the temperature will lower – that’s how you can get snow to fall soon after you looked at a thermometer and it was several degrees above freezing (and your dew point was really low – meaning the air was dry).
Meteorologists have a fun tool – called a sling psychrometer – that you swing above your head to measure the wet bulb temperature. Check it out below from AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Jason Nicholls:
Why did Jason swing the sling psychrometer around to get it to measure the wet bulb temperature? You need the water to evaporate from the damp cloth on the one thermometer to tell us the wet bulb temperature.
ð¨ Feb. 5. - Art Class: Capture pretty snowy photos with cardinals
Winter in cold communities is known for cloudy and snowy days with trees bereft of leaves and no flowers to add color to your yard. Most of the colorful birds have also migrated south (if you live in the Northern Hemisphere) – but the Northern Cardinal hangs around through the winter and adds a touch of red to your snowy photos!
Here are some other fun facts about Northern Cardinals from our friends at Cornell Lab:
Not many female birds in North America sing, but the female cardinals do – usually when they are hungry and want Mr. Cardinal to bring food to the nest.
Cardinals defend their homes so much against other cardinals that they will attack their reflection! If you see a cardinal pecking at a shiny car or window, that is why!
A male cardinal enjoys a meal from a feeder during the winter. (Ida Lively)
Thumbnail photo courtesy of Halie Kines.
ð¨ Feb. 2. - Art Class: Paint snow (and it’s OK to see yellow snow!)
If you love to play with sidewalk chalk, don’t be bummed when it snows and you can’t decorate your sidewalk or driveway. Grab some spray bottles, fill them with water and food coloring, and let’s paint the snow!
The fact that snow is white makes it a perfect canvas to paint on. Did you know that snow other than a color of white has fallen before? That’s right when winds pulled dust into a snowstorm, snow that was yellow, orange and brown created quite a sight! Black snow even fell once in Russia after coal dust mixed with the snow.
While seeing colorful snow that you didn’t paint doesn’t happen often, we all know what yellow snow means!
Thanks to One Little Project for this art class idea!
ð Feb. 2 - Pop quiz! Should you find a snow drift to measure snow?
After a snowstorm hits your community, everyone always wants to know how much snow fell. Should you try and find the biggest snow drift in your yard to measure the snow? As tempting as that is to say you had the most snow of your friends, that’s not the right way to do it.
Let’s learn the best way to get a gold star from meteorologists for your snowfall report:
One big important tip to getting the best snowfall report is that you should measure the snow as soon after it stops snowing. If you wait, the snow may settle (squish down some), start to melt or even be blown away by the wind.
Speaking of wind – we heard that you should find a measuring spot sheltered from the wind, but what if a blizzard is raging and the snow keeps blowing off of your measuring table? Go into your yard, take several different measurements and average them together.
The final step to any good snowfall report is to send it to AccuWeather through Facebook or Twitter – and pictures are always welcome!
ð¬ Jan. 29 - Weather Lab: Crush a can with ocean-like strength!
For most of you reading this, there is 14.7 pounds per square inch of pressure from the air pushing on you. Don’t feel it? That’s because your body is pushing back with the same force. However, if you took a very deep dive into the ocean (not recommended), the water pressure would be strong enough to break your bones.
Since we don’t want to see anyone break their bones, here’s one experiment in which we can see air pressure crush a can. You must have an adult help you with this demonstration, but it is easy to do with an empty soda can, water, ice, tongs, potholder, and a stove.
When AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Jason Nicholls puts the hot can in the ice water, the steam inside the can quickly cools and condenses into water. That lowers the pressure inside the can so much that the air pressure outside crushes it.
ð Jan. 29: Pop quiz! Can it ever be too cold to snow?
Unless the temperature is absolute zero (minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit or minus 273 degrees Celsius, when the air can’t cool any further and condense into snow), this is a trick question!
Snow can fall at very low temperatures – it is just that when it is really frigid outside, not all of the ingredients needed for snow are present.
Dangerously low temperatures typically occur when high pressure is overhead. As we learned before thanks to the help of an egg, you need a storm or low pressure to cause the air to rise, cool and condense into snow. Underneath high pressure, sinking air from way above our heads keeps snow from forming.
Also on the recipe card for snow is moisture – and when the air is so cold, there is usually not a lot of moisture around.
Snow may not fall often when it is really frigid outside, but it can come down if a storm is moving in with an extra push of moisture. That snow will definitely be powdery and not the best for making a snowman!
ð¬ Jan. 26 - Weather Lab: Rainfall that never reaches the ground
Before we find out what rainfall that never reaches the ground is called, let’s first build a cloud at home and make a colorful “rain” streak out of it.
All you need is shaving cream, a jar filled with water and separate bowls with water dyed with your favorite colors. As AccuWeather Meteorologist Renee Duff shows us, you can give your cloud any shape and see the rain streak down to the ground.
Notice how the rain doesn’t reach the ground right away. If the air near where we are standing is too dry, the rain falling from the clouds will evaporate before reaching us – big word time – that’s called virga.
If you have seen a sight like this in the sky before, that was virga!
AccuWeather Meteorologist Brett Rossio witnessed virga in the sky over central Pennsylvania in January 2020.
One tip meteorologists look for is to see if there is virga in the sky, they see if there are any doughnut holes on radar!
ð¶ Jan. 26 - Music class: What’s the noisiest winter weather?
As long as it’s not during a raging blizzard, watching snow fall outside can be very smoothing – and exciting as we wait until the best time to start building a snowman or go sledding! However, when you start to hear a ting-ting sound, that is a sure sign that sleet is falling.
What is sleet and why is it so noisy? Let’s find out below as we watch the sleet fall in slow-motion – that’s a really cool sight!
If you thought sleet was noisy, how about thundersnow? That’s right, thunder and lightning can happen during the winter! It doesn’t happen often since all of the ingredients on the recipe card for a thunderstorm aren’t usually found in Mother Nature’s kitchen in the winter as they are in the warmer months.
However, during burying lake-effect snow squalls or a powerful winter storm, such as a bomb cyclone, keep your eyes and ears out for rare lightning and thunder!
ð¬ Jan. 22 - Weather Lab: Hair-raising truth of static electricity
Why does your hair stand up when you take off a hat or when someone rubs a balloon on your head? Or why do you get a shock sometimes when you touch metal? Blame static electricity!
You don’t see it, but look down at your fingers, toes and your entire body – you are made up of billions and billions and billions of atoms. Think of atoms as the building blocks of anything you see, and they are like mini batteries in that they have positive charges (called protons) and negative charges (called electrons).
When these positive and negative charges are the same, you go about life and not notice the atoms around you. But, your hair will stick up straight or you will get that annoying zap of static electricity when things are out of whack.
(Photo/McCall)
Shuffle your feet across a carpet, and you will build up more electrons. You are setting yourself to get zapped when you touch a doorknob or another person as your body wants to get rid of that extra negative charge – similar to why we see a bolt of lightning in a thunderstorm.
How about that fancy hairdo after you rub a balloon on your head? Electrons from you take a trip to the balloon as you rub it on your head – leaving you with a more positive charge and the balloon with extra negative charges. Opposites attract, and your hair will stand up high up like it wants to give the balloon a hug!
ð Jan. 22 - Homework: Create a mini lightning bolt at home
Here’s a lightning strike you don’t have to run and seek shelter from – and one you can make at home! All you need is a balloon, compact fluorescent lightbulb (CFL) and someone willing to let you rub the balloon on their head.
As AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Jason Nicholls demonstrates below, rub the balloon on your head or someone else’s head to build up a static charge. Then, hold the balloon to the metal tip at the end of the lightbulb. Don’t blink as you should see the lightbulb briefly flash like a mini lightning bolt. This experiment works best when the air is drier so you can build up that static electricity.
Jason has done a lot of fun experiments since AccuWeather School started – remember how he created an erupting volcano and crushed a can to help us understand air pressure.
Here’s another one of his latest experiments (one that you should not try at home) – Jason showed us what happened when aluminum foil came into contact with sulfuric acid. The experiment did not end well for the foil!
ð Jan. 19 - Weather Detectives! Icicle seemingly forms out of nowhere!
Calling all weather detectives! Check out the video below and see the icicle that appeared to form out of thin air. The icicle had to come from somewhere, so it is time to think like a forensic meteorologist and solve this mystery!
This may be the type of case that AccuWeather forensic meteorologists are asked to solve. Why? Imagine if the icicle fell and injured someone. If that person sues the owners of the building outside of where the icicle fell, the owners may need a forensic meteorologist to investigate how a person could have been hit by an icicle so far away from a building.
What other cases can meteorologists help solve? Anything that involves the weather! People slipping on ice and suing businesses are common cases, but forensic meteorologists have even helped solve murder cases!
Watch this clip from a national TV show when one man was found guilty of murder after AccuWeather’s Dr. Joe Sobel used dew to prove that a suspect on trial for murder was lying about what he said happened the night of the crime – think about that, something as simple as the dew that gets your feet wet when you walk through your yard put a bad person away in prison!
ð Jan. 19 - Snack Time! Why do icicles look like carrots?
If you look closely at an icicle, would you agree that it looks like a carrot? Icicles have a big top and a thin bottom – just like carrots. The main difference is that icicles are typically clear. If you see an orange icicle, that means it was formed by yucky, dirty water!
How do icicles form and why do they look like carrots? Let’s find out the answer below:
Additional experiments and reporting by Jason Nicholls.
Previously:
AccuWeather School Winter Break
AccuWeather School Fall Semester: Weeks 14-15
AccuWeather School Fall Semester: Weeks 12-13
AccuWeather School Fall Semester: Weeks 10-11
AccuWeather School Fall Semester: Weeks 8-9
AccuWeather School Fall Semester: Weeks 6-7
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