LIVE Penguin Cam from German Antarctic Receiving Station at the Chilean Base "General Bernardo O'Higgins", Antarctica Click images to enlarge |
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Temperature Facts• The highest temperature ever recorded was 57.8°C (136°F) at Al 'Aziziyah, Libya on 13 Sep 1932.
• The coldest temperature ever recorded was −89.2°C (−128.6°F) at Vostok Station, Antarctica on 21 Jul 1983.• The worlds greatest temperature range at a single location is 105°C, from minus 68°C to 37°C recorded at Verkhoyansk, Siberia.
• The greatest temperature range in Australia is 57.2°C, measured in White Cliffs (NSW) where the maximum has risen to over 50°C and the minimum has fallen to minus 7°C.
• On January 22 1943, the temperature at Spearfish, South Dakota (USA) rose from minus 20°C (minus 4°F) at 7.30am to 7°C (45°F) at 7.32 am. A 27°C rise in just 2 minutes.
• In Australia, Marble Bar (WA) recorded maximum temperatures equaling or exceeding 37.8°C (100°F) on 161 consecutive days (between 30 October 1923 and 7 April 1924)
• In New York in 1988 the temperature stayed above 32°C for 32 days and the murder rate soared by 75%.
• During a total solar eclipse the temperature can drop by 6°C (about 20°F).
• The wettest place in the world (based on the average number of wet days each year) is Mt Wai-'ale-'ale in Hawaii. The summit is 1,569m (5,148ft) above sea level and receives over 350 days of rain each year. The most consistently wet place in Australia is Waratah, Tasmania, with an average of 314 'rainy days' per year.
• The wettest place in the world (based on the average average annual rainfall) is Cherrapunji. Situated on the southern slopes of the Eastern Himalaya in Shillong, India, Cherrapunji is one of the wettest places on Earth, with an average annual rainfall of 11,430 mm (450 in). The highest recorded rainfall in a single year was 22,987 mm (905.0 in) in 1861.
• In Australia, Bellenden Ker (NE QLD) received 11,251mm in 1979. With a massive 960mm of this total falling in just 24 hours on January 3/4.
• Atacama Desert (Chile) is commonly known as the driest place in the world, especially around the abandoned Yungay town. The average rainfall is just 1 millimetre (0.04 in) per year. Some weather stations in the Atacama have never received any rain. Evidence suggests that the Atacama may not have had any significant rainfall from 1570 to 1971.
• The Driest place in Australia is Mulka Bore, west of Lake Eyre (SA), with an average annual rainfall of 100mm (4 inches).
• The Place with the least rainy days is Arica in Chile as they only have 1 rainy day every 6 years.
• Raindrops do not really look like the traditional tear-shaped pictures. They actually flatten out as they fall, forming more of a pancake shape instead.
• The fastest speed a falling raindrop can hit you is 29 kph (18mph).
• A molecule of water will stay in Earth's atmosphere for an average duration of 10-12 days.
• At any given time, on average there are about 1800 thunderstorms occurring on earth with 100 lightning strikes per second.
• Rain contains vitamin B12.
• Keraunophobia is the fear of lightning. Brontophobia is the fear of thunder.
• Lightning seems to prefer to strike men over women. Approximately 85 percent of those struck by lightning are men. Interestingly, the fatality rate of women struck by lightening is higher than men struck by lightning.
• The chances of being struck by lightning is about one in three million. 9 out of 10 lightning strike victims survive.
• Lightning travels from the ground upwards not from the sky downwards.
• Roy Sullivan of Virginia, USA has been struck by lightning 7 times.
• Lightning bolts can travel 96 km (60 miles).
• The air located around a lightning bolt is heated to around 30,000 degrees Celsius. This is 5 times hotter than the surface of the sun.
• A typical flash lightning lasts for only about 0.2 seconds.
• Every year in the US, 625 people are struck by lightning.
• Lightning does not always create thunder. In April 1885, five lightning bolts struck the Washington Monument during a thunderstorm, yet no thunder was heard.
• You can guess the distance of an approaching storm by counting the seconds between the lightning flash and the sound of thunder. Three seconds corresponds to one kilometer.
• A woman was struck by lightning in 1995. Three weeks prior her nephew was struck and suffered temporary blindness. In 1970 her cousin was zapped when lightning hit her umbrella, but this wasn't the first time, she was also struck once before in 1965. Her grandfather was killed by lightining in 1921 and his brother was struck and killed in the 1920's.
• A lightning strike in the Democratic Republic of Congo killed all 11 members of one soccer team while leaving the opposing team in the match untouched, leading to accusations of witchcraft by the survivors.
• Yuma in Arizona (USA) is the sunniest place in the world. It experiences an average of 4,055 hours of sunshine each year (out of a possible 4,456 hours). In Australia, Darwin (NT) is the sunniest capital with an average of 8.5 hours a day. On the other end of the scale, Melbourne (VIC) has the dubious honour of being Australia's least sunny capital with an average of 5.7 hours of sunshine each day.
• The Sun is about 150 million km from the earth and it takes 8 minutes for light to travel from the sun to the earth.
• Our bodies convert sunlight into vitamin D.
• Sunlight can reach a depth of around 80 metres (262 feet) in the ocean.
• Only a small portion of sunlight is visible to the human eye. Visible wavelengths are seen as colors of the rainbow.
• Some animals and insects can see ultraviolet light.
• 'Heliotrophism' is the tendency for plant life to grow toward sunlight and to follow it on its course across the sky.
• The amount of sunlight reaching the earth's surface is 6,000 times the amount of energy used by all human beings worldwide.
• The red or orange color of the rising or setting sun is caused by the increased distance through our atmosphere its rays must pass before reaching our eyes. Our thick impurity-laden lower atmosphere only allows the red tones to pass through it. As the sun rises higher in the sky, its light passes through a shorter distance of thick atmosphere. It loses its redder tone and takes on its characteristic yellow color.
• The 'green flash' is a rare optical phenomenon usually seen over the ocean on clear days. Due to refraction of the sun's rays, a flash of green light may appear at the instant the sun sets below the horizon.
• The highest wind speed ever recorded in the world was a 408 kilometres per hour (253 miles per hour) wind gust that hit Barrow Island, Australia during Tropical Cyclone Olivia on April 10, 1996. That record-setting wind was accompanied by four other extreme gusts, ranging from 298 to 374 kilometres per hour (185 to 232 miles per hour).
• The fastest winds on earth are inside a tornado funnel. Winds here have been recorded at 480 km/h (300 mph).
• The windiest place in the world is Port Martin, Antarctica, which has an average wind speed over a year of 64 km/h (40 mph). It experiences gale force 8 winds for over a hundred days a year!
• Wind is a form of solar power, created by the uneven heating of the Earth's surface.
• Winds that blow toward the equator curve west
• The biggest clouds are cumulonimbus, climbing up to 9.7 kilometers (6 miles) high and holding up to half a million tons of water.
• Ben Nevis in Scotland is the Cloudiest Place in the World as the percentage of Maximum possible sunshine is 16% and the average annual hours of sunshine a year is 736 hours.
• The typical lifetime of a small cumulus cloud is between 10 to 15 minutes.
• Cloud droplets are extremely small. They are about ten thousandth of an inch across, a thousand times smaller than a raindrop.
• One cubic km of ordinary fog contains less than a 4.5 litres of water.
• The tiny droplets of water that make up fog are so small that it would take seven thousand million of them to make a single tablespoonful of water.
• The foggiest land areas in the world are Point Reyes, California and Argentia, Newfoundland, both with over 200 foggy days a year. In Australia, Canberra wins the title of the 'foggiest' capital city with an average of 47 fogs each year.
• Dense fog contributed to a 118 vehicle accident on I-94, just south of Milwaukee WI. It was the seventh day of an eight day stretch of dense fog. At the time of the accident the visibility was reportedly close to zero.
• A 'Morning Glory' is a rolling cloud that can be up to 1000 kilometres long, 1 - 2 kilometres high, and can move at speeds up to 60 kilometres per hour. Its commonly seen in the Gulf of Carpentaria in northern Australia.
• Very small clouds that look like they have broken off of bigger clouds are called scuds
• The largest piece of ice to fall to earth was an ice block 6 meters (20 ft) across that fell in Scotland on 13 August 1849.
• The largest hailstone recorded fell on 14 April 1986 in Bangladesh weighing 1kg (2.25lbs). The hailstorm reportedly killed 92 people.
• Greatest Snowfall - 31.1metres during 1972 on Mt Rainier, Washington State, USA.
• The United States uses an estimated 10 million tons of salt each year to melt ice on the roads.
• 80% of the world's fresh water is locked up as ice or snow.
• The biggest snowflake ever found measured 36cm (15in) across and 19cm (8in) thick. It fell on January 28, 1887, at Fort Keough, Montana.
• In January 2000, Spain came under attack from an unknown assailant. Giant chunks of ice dropped from cloudless skies and crushed car hoods, punched through rooftops and windshields, and slammed into the shoulder of an elderly woman. In a 10-day period, 15 basketball-sized ice balls weighing up to 8 pounds pelted southern Spain.
• Dirty snow melts faster than clean.
• Snow is actually colorless ice flakes. When light reflects off the icy crystals, the reflection makes it look white.
• Every winter around one septillion snowflakes fall from the sky. (That's a one with 24 zeros following it).
• There is NOT a law of nature that prohibits 2 snowflakes from being identical, however, scientists have photographed over 400,000 snowflakes and have not found two identical flakes.
• The lowest atmospheric pressure ever measured on Earth was 850 hPa (25.10 inches), which is the lowest pressure ever recorded at the Earth's surface when adjusted to sea level, set on 24 June 2003, during an F4 tornado in Manchester, South Dakota.
• The highest barometric pressure ever recorded on Earth was 1,085.7 hectopascals (32.06 inHg) measured in Tonsontsengel, Mongolia on 19 December 2001.
• Air pressure decreases with height at about 1 inch of mercury per 1000 feet or about 1 millibar for every 8.2 metre change in elevation.
• Advancing areas of low barometric pressure are indicators of a storm approaching. The lower the barometric pressure, the more intense the storm. On the other end of the spectrum is a high barometric pressure. High pressure moving into a region indicates lots of sunshine, calm winds and little rain
• When driving in a mountainous regions, popping eardrums is one effect that most people encounter as the barometric pressure changes.
• You may get a "sinus headache" - a pain in the spaces in the bones above and behind your nose - when air pressure changes.
• The boiling point of water is lower at higher altitudes.
• The atmospheric pressure at the summit of Mt. Everest is about a third that at sea level.
• The first daily weather forecasts were published in The Times (England) newspaper in 1860.
• In 2003, there were 86 days of below-freezing weather in Hell, Michigan.
• Don't tell Superman, but the earth's atmosphere is made up of 0.00005% Krypton.
• Frogs fell on Sutton Coldfield in 1954 and on Trowbridge, Wilts, in 1938. Tadpoles dropped on Chippenham town centre in 1983, and small flounder and Dover sole fell in east London in May 1984.
• A rainbow was visible for 6 hours (from 9am to 6pm) at Wetherby, Yorkshire (UK) on 14 March 1994. This is rare as most rainbows last for only a few minutes.
• The hurricane, typhoon, and cyclone spin counterclockwise if they are north of the equator and spin the opposite way when south of the equator.
• The world's first weather satellite, Tiros 1, was launched on April 1, 1960 and sent back thousands of images during its short life span of only 79 days.
• Australia is the only continent that has no permanent snow fields.
• -40°C is equal to -40°F.
Rain Facts
Lightning and Thunder Facts
Sunshine Facts
Wind Facts
Cloud and Fog Facts
Ice and Snow Facts
Barrometric Pressure Facts
Other Facts
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