Earth's Most Extreme Weather | SciShow Kids Compilation

[Music] what have you got there squeaks oh we got mail in our mailbox and a card let's read it I wonder who it's from dear Jesse and squeaks we just got home from a big flying trip and we had so much fun we wanted to give you both something to fly as well signed Bill and web oh that's awesome let's check it out that's so ni nice of them oh I would love to go fly our kite right now but I'm sorry squeaks we can't I was just outside and there's not enough [Music] wind oh well we could go on a trip to find somewhere that's a lot windier do you have any ideas that's okay squeaks let's start by thinking about what wind is and how it's made what do you know about wind oh you're right wind is just moving air and there's air all around us all the time but what makes it move it has to do with temperature when air gets warmer it rises and when it cools down it sinks if you're in a place where some air is warmer and some air is cooler you'll have air rising up and air sinking down at the same time and as all that air moves around other air can rush in to fill its place creating wind o good question squeeze why isn't all of the air the same temperature can you think of something that might be heating up our air you got it just like the sun can warm you when you stand outside on a sunny day the sun can heat the air up too but the sun doesn't heat everything evenly for example example places that are covered in bright white snow are good at bouncing heat away while places covered in dark rocks are good at absorbing and trapping Heat and the shape of the land can affect things too land that's really flat can get the same amount of sunlight on every part which means all the air will stay roughly the same temperature and won't move around much but land full of big bumps can have very different temperatures which means the air can too that's because all those bumps can create a bunch of places where the sunlight can't reach just like you can cool yourself down on a hot sunny day by standing in the shade of a tree standing in the Shady parts of Rocky places will feel cooler too so if we could put these types of places together we'd have a perfect recipe for making a really big wind can you think of any places like this a place that's made of rock but partly covered in snow and its shape can make really big Shadows that's right a mountain and there's a mountain in the northeastern United States called Mount Washington that holds the record for the fastest gust of wind ever measured or at least one that wasn't part of a tornado or hurricane how fast oh it was a lot faster than we get around the fort would you like to guess how fast the gust was 100 m an hour that would be about 160 kilometers an hour that's a good guess that's pretty fast and every once in a while we can see gusts of wind like that in the mountains around here but it's not fast enough for the record 231 milph or over 371 k per hour that's about three times faster than cars on the highway that blow me away too Mount Washington is located in the perfect place to make it super windy it sits right where several huge Blobs of moving air meet some are coming from other places above land and some are moving toward the land from the ocean and when all those different winds meet up they push against each each other and get stronger but the shape of the mountain is important too Mount Washington is very tall compared to other mountains in the area it's also pretty steep so when all that wind tries to move over it the air gets squeezed which forces it to travel even faster and because the wind is so extreme up there scientists wanted to study it so they keep detailed records of how the wind speed changes over the course of not just a single day but weeks months and years and by keeping track of how windy it gets they can find patterns in their measurements that will help them predict how windy it will be in the future take a look at this graph squeaks it shows us the average wind speed for each month in the year based on measurements taken over the past 30 years or so what do you notice about the wind speeds oh yeah that's right the average wind speed is faster in the winter and slower in the summer so if you wanted to take a trip to the mountain you could use a graph like this to help you plan ahead oh that is an excellent question squeaks he wants to know how people know how fast the wind is going well scientists can measure how fast the wind is going with a special tool called an anomet there are many designs for anomers some common ones are called vein cup and hot wire vein anomers use a rotating blade to show what direction the wind is going and by timing how fast the blade spins you can tell you the wind speed cup anomers work in a similar way the wind is caught in the little cups and pushes them the more times they spin around every minute the faster the wind is but I think the hot wire design is really clever electricity is used to heat up a wire when the wind blows past it cools the wire down to know how fast the wind is going scientists time how long it takes to cool the wire the faster it cools the faster the wind and that's how Mount Washington's record wind was recorded it is pretty cool and what's even cooler is now there's an observatory up there the mount Washington Observatory where meteorologists can stay safe while they learn how the winds up there can get so fast oh yeah I can see why that name would be a little confusing but meteorologists don't study meteors they study the weather they use scientific instruments like anomers at Mount Washington Observatory to record things like the wind speed and temperature it can be be dangerous to stay up there but the wind isn't always that fast its average wind speed is closer to 35 mph or 56 kmet per hour which is still fast enough to break small branches on trees or make it unpleasant to walk around but not so strong that you couldn't go outside at all but there's another place on Earth where the average wind speed is even higher Commonwealth Bay Antarctica no it's not a mountain it's a big area along the coast of Antarctica and the reason it's so windy there is different than Mount Washington Commonwealth Bay is super windy because of the catabatic Winds no not cats and bats catabatic remember that cold air sinks well the inner parts of Antarctica are super cold so the air is too but the ground is also higher up than it is near the coast so all that cold heavy air will naturally sink down toward the coast like water flowing downhill and unlike most other windy places on Earth Antarctica doesn't have buildings or plants to slow the wind down so it gets faster and faster until it reaches Commonwealth Bay on average it's about 50 miles per hour or 80 kilometers per hour almost as fast as a cheetah running at full speed so maybe instead of thinking about the fastest wins we can find we should figure out the best weather to go kite flying huh so you want there to be some wind yeah but not too much like on Mount Washington or Commonwealth B something in between 5 and 10 m an hour or 8 to 16 km an hour you also want it to be nice outside with no rain or snow falling and especially no lightning or thunder but how will we know when the weather will be just right that's right we can check the local weather forecast to see what meteorologists predict the weather will be like around the fort for the next few days sure squeaks we can go check that out now a what's wrong squeaks oh is the rain making you sad I know you hoping to fly your kite today well don't worry buddy I'm sure it'll go away soon you know squeaks there are a lot of places that are way way Rainier than the fort it's true right now all over the world people are experiencing different weather in some places it's sunny and dry in others it's cold and windy and in some places it's even wetter than it is here at the Fort and there's a good reason why we all experience different weather because the places we live have different land and water features that make them unique we're up high in the mountains which makes it colder where we are than it is in some other places yes and snowier in the winter time too scientists measure the different weather patterns in all of these places to learn more about what makes them happen and how to predict future weather changes and because of certain conditions there are some places where it rains a lot o great question squeaks scientists can measure how much rain a place gets by collecting some of the falling water they can't catch it all at once so they use an object called a rain gauge to gather the rain in a small area then they figure out how much water fell usually by measuring how many millimet high that water is in their gauge then researchers can look at how much rain those places see over long periods of time and they can use that information to identify the rainiest places on Earth do you want to learn about a couple of them awesome let's take a look there's a place in Hawaii called Mount y Al Al which has the record for the most rainfall overse 60 years the average amount of rain they got in that time was 9,500 mm per year that's twice as tall as a giraffe yeah and it has been even higher at times too the rainiest year they've ever seen was 1982 when they got more than 17,300 millimeters of rain so if we ever go and visit Mount W la we'll need to bring our rain boots for sure great question squeaks there are a few things about Mount W Al Al that help make it so rainy for starters it's on an island that's farther north than the rest of the Hawaiian islands and because of that it tends to be the first one to get hit by moving storms the mountain is also surrounded by valleys on three sides and these valleys help push storm clouds right up to the mountain itself kind of like when you carve a path in your mashed potatoes and the gravy all flows down that path I love mashed potatoes too squeaks and I love that scientists can learn things about weather patterns by studying rainy places like Mount W but it isn't the only super rainy place on Earth the area with the most rain in one year is cherapunji India which got more than 25,400 mm of rainfall from the summer of 1860 to the summer of 1861 that's as high as an8 story building and that same town has the record for the most rainfall in 48 hours too in 1995 it got splashed with 2,493 mm of rain in 2 days that's almost as high as the tallest person on Earth in just a couple of days yeah another nearby town called mossen ROM is really rainy too mossen ROM holds the record for the highest average rainfall over 30 years with 11,872 mm of rain per year both of these places are in an area that has a wet season and a dry season in the wet season they get massive storms called monsoons and these storms bring in lots of rain right so that means these places usually get most of their rain in one part of the year instead of more consistently like the fort the monsoon season happens for the same reason we have summer and winter here as the Earth tilts it changes how much sunlight hits the planet when the sunlight is stronger on the ocean it makes more water evaporate that means that there are more clouds and those clouds get pushed over to the land by air currents good question squeaks the monsoons are especially strong in this part of Asia because of the Himalaya Mountains these giant Peaks block any of the dry air from reaching the places that are the rainiest so the storm clouds don't get pushed away anywhere else all right I'm sure the kids living in those really rainy places have lots of games that they can play even when it's raining and I have a craft in mind for us to do today let's make our own rain gauge so we can figure out how much rain we get for the rest of today for this craft you'll need a tall clear container with straight sides an empty spaghetti sauce jar works great you'll also need a ruler a permanent marker and some clear tape put a piece of tape up the side of the jar then use your ruler to make lines on the tape for every 5 or 10 mm seal in your markings by putting another piece of tape over the top then set your rain gauge outside in a place with nothing else above it and wait once the rain stops you can check how many millimet of rain your area got W I'm excited too squeaks let's go set up our rain gauge outside and start measuring what's wrong squeaks oh I see I'm sorry buddy they do look pretty dry oh hi everybody squeaks is upset because he forgot to water his plants and they've dried out it hasn't rained in a little while here at the Fort so they didn't get any water on their own squeak says our friend Juniper told him his plants would need more water because it's so dry out on the bright side it won't be this dry forever the weather will change sooner or later of course it will the weather doesn't stay the same every single day remember a few weeks ago when we have all that rain the area around the fort always gets a bit of rain and snow we don't have a super dry climate no not climate squeaks it doesn't have anything to do with climbing climate describes the weather in a particular place over a long period of time like whether it's windy or rainy sunny or snowy exactly we've had dry weather for a while now but over time the weather here will change unlike climate weather is temporary it isn't always dry and sunny here like it is now right oh maybe it feels like it now but it will change eventually the climate here at the Fort includes some sun but not all the time it also includes rain and snow those are weather patterns and those weather patterns make up the climate in fact weather patterns let us guess what a place might look and feel like during certain times of the year right we can guess that it will probably snow in the winter but not the summer I have an idea let's look at some places where the climate includes very little snow or rain let's take a trip way down to AA a city in Chile the climate in AA is very dry meaning it hardly ever rains there one time it didn't rain at all for 14 years it is a long time even longer than you've been around based on what I've told you can you guess how much is going to rain in a this month right probably not very much but AR is still near the ocean we can find an even drier place if we travel away from the ocean and visit the nearby atakama desert a desert is a place where the climate includes very little rain and the atakama might be the driest desert of them all it gets only around 5 m of rain every year that's about the size of a pencil eraser the Atacama is also one of the oldest deserts in the world parts of it might be 150 million years old that's so old dinosaurs were still around and would be for a long time squeaks wants to know why the atakama is so dry well there are a few reasons one is that it's near some very tall mountains sometimes mountains can be so tall that rain clouds can't cross them so those clouds can't bring any rain into the desert another reason is that the ocean near the atakama desert is very cold the cold ocean means the air stays pretty cold too and cold air doesn't have very much water in it unlike warm air so there isn't enough water to form clouds and rain that means both the ocean and the mountains stop any rain from coming to the atakama oh yeah squeaks thinks that the plants probably want rain pretty badly just like he does right now but sometimes in places with very dry climates when they do get rain there isn't anywhere for it to go once when the atakama experienced a lot of rain they actually had very bad woods right the people animals and even the land in dry climates get used to the dryness hey squeaks I've got a question for you deserts are often hot and Sandy but do you remember one very unusual desert that we learned about you got it good job Antarctica is a place at the very bottom of the earth and even though it's very cold and covered in snow Antarctica is a desert being a desert is all about how much water falls to the ground and water can either fall as rain which is liquid water or snow which is solid ice some scientists think that Antarctica is just as dry as the Utama in parts of Antarctica only 3 mm of water might reach the ground even less than the okama oh squeaks thinks maybe it's not so bad here at the fort at least it isn't as cold as Antarctica CL whether they're dry or wet can tell us a lot about a place we know that Antarctica and the AMA desert will usually be pretty dry a bit like the fort is right now right squeaks let's go get some water for your plants maybe we can still perk them [Music] up e

Channel: SciShow Kids

Views: 40,963

Keywords: scishow, scishowkids, Jessi Knudsen, Jessi Knudsen Castaneda, Squeaks, science, kids, children, learning, education, school, sci, show, hank, green, home, curriculum, kindergarten, activities

Id: XnQy_aKpMcw

Length: 22min 37sec (1357 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 21 2024