Label: Lightning
September 18, 2012
Magnificent Volcano
Today’s Cool Photo of the Week is an image that I came across of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano erupting. When natural events of this magnitude happen, we are reminded how little control we have of many of the forces at work on our planet. Although these events can be destructive, they are often very beautiful, as well.
The black cloud that you see against the night sky is ash being spewed into the air by the force of the eruption. Because this glacial volcano is located underneath an icecap, the hot magma cools fairly quickly, turning to ash and grit. That cooling created the giant cloud of ash that shut down air travel on six continents for over a week back in 2010.
The white smoke at the bottom left is steam from the melting ice. And isn’t the lightning magnificent? We often see low energy lightning leaping between particles of lava and ash as they are hurled from the volcanic vent at very high speeds.
Posted by: Seymour Simon
June 5, 2012
Cool Photo of the Week
Today’s "Cool Photo of the Week" is something that you do not see very often - a rainbow in the sky as lighting strikes after a storm in Haikou, China.
Photo: China Daily via Reuters
Read all about LIGHTNING in Seymour Simon’s Smithsonian-Collins book of the same name.
Posted by: Seymour Simon
July 25, 2010
Talking about Extreme Weather
Depending on where you live in North America, you’ve been experiencing some variation of unstable summer weather - extreme heat, heavy rains and flooding, violent summer thunderstorms or tornadoes, tropical storms and potential hurricanes. Children are fascinated by weather, and full of questions about why these things happen.
Just in time to help you explain all these various phenomena we’ve published three new Teacher Guides for Seymour’s WEATHER, LIGHTNING, and HURRICANES books. These are free downloads from SeymourSimon.com. Try them out today with a kid that you love!
Posted by: Liz Nealon
