|
Title: Under the Silver Lining Reading Passage Although sportsmen may have better luck on cloudy or windy days, being out in a boat in bad weather can be very risky. High winds, rough water and thunderstorms can suddenly turn a pleasant outing into a frightening experience. When someone goes out on a boat, they should know the weather forecast, and have a way to receive warnings and weather advisories while underway. Even with today’s high-tech weather forecasts and radios, there is no substitute for the time-honored practice of scanning the horizon for changes in the wind, waves, water, and sky that signal developing weather patterns. Thunderstorms are created when warm, moist air rises, cools and condenses. It swells into mounds of thick, cumulous clouds that quickly darken into the towering ominous-looking cumulonimbus clouds characteristic of thunderstorms. Consider the formation of this thick, dark cloud an unmistakable thunderstorm warning, and head immediately for a safe anchorage. The transition from a small cloud into a turbulent, electrified storm front can occur in as little as 30 minutes. Strong, gusty winds and heavy rains with thunder and lightning will soon follow. The sharper, darker and lower the front edge of the cloud, the more severe the storm. The anvil-shaped top of the storm cloud points in the direction that the storm is traveling. When warm ground air rises and meets colder air, it condenses and forms water droplets. Condensation releases energy, which charges the atmosphere, and when the dissimilar charge between the negatively charged surface air and the positively charged highest parts of the cloud gets large enough, an explosion of lightning is created, with up to 30,000,000 volts of electricity. |
|
