We Need To Talk About The Weather

hey 42 here everyone knows the phrase red sky at night shepherds delight red sky in the morning Shepherds warning the idea is as a red sky in the evening heralds fine weather the next day but a red sky in the morning is a portent of overcast misery rainfall and all around bad weather the phrase may be old but it's surprisingly accurate also known as sailor's delight or pink sky at night it first appears in the Bible specifically in the New Testaments book of Matthew so the proverb is at least 2,000 years old Jesus is recorded as saying when it is evening you say it will be fair weather for the sky is red and in the morning it will be stormy today for the sky is red unthreatening and whilst big Jay was using this as an analogy to explain to his followers their inability to interpret the signs of the times there is actually significant merit in using the color of the morning and evening sky to forecast whether a red sky occurs when high pressure traps small particles and dust in the atmosphere this interferes with blue light scattering it and leaving only the red light shining through hence the red sky as this high-pressure is happening during the evening towards sunset it typically means that the next day will be warm and pleasant I will explain why high pressure creates warm weather soon but for now just remember that high pressure equals red sky equals fine weather the reverse scenario where the sky is red in the morning means that the high pressure weather has already passed for the day and the Sun is reflecting off rain clouds which means you're probably in for some low pressure rain and we this adage is remarkably accurate and it isn't the only rhyming whoever saying we have there's clear moon frost soon when do is on the grass rain will never come to pass mackerel skies and mares tails make tall ships carry low sales rain before 7 fine before 11 and many more in short humans are obsessed with inventing silly sayings to predict and attempting rationalize to weather and it's really no surprise the weather is one of the most decisive forces in our lives we eagerly anticipate summer is one of the first things we check in the morning it can affect mood and rates of depression if you're a kid at school snow can be a lifesaver cyclones and hurricanes can end our lives and if you live in England anything other than soul-destroying gray is something akin to an act of God and the Scottish still think the Sun is an urban legend in fact in the past people attributed the weather to exactly that the acts of God or rather God's appearing incessantly through polytheistic and monotheistic religions alike humans have sought to influence the weather by praying to for Marduk Horus Yahweh Zeus vais Indra Rajan Uschi talak and of us often accompanied by complex and sometimes brutal rituals and you probably pray to the weather gods each day without even realizing it many of us proclaim God I hope it doesn't rain today or god I hope we have a nice summer whilst this has stepped down from cutting someone's heart out and slapping it on an altar to please tell och it's in the same ballpark but hey if you really need a sunny day tomorrow you could always try giving that old school option ago the age-old perception of weather as a physical manifestation of divine power makes sense as intelligence as human beings are though ever in many ways represents a god-like force and influence over our lives of all the natural world's phenomena the weather is perhaps the most obvious example of Mother Nature's or some unbridled uncontrollable power but before I delve into that world ending catastrophes we all know and love I need to explain how we actually arrived there in the first place how exactly does a light sprinkle become a tornado and to do that I need to commit the worst social sin of all time I need to talk about the weather firstly what is the weather well the term weather describes the temporary conditions of the atmosphere which is the layer of air that surrounds the earth composed of nitrogen oxygen water vapor carbon dioxide farts and argon and it makes up the air you're breathing now the atmosphere serves as a gaseous barrier between our planet and the endless universe beyond our planets has a gravitational pull is bombarded with sunlight and intergalactic ultraviolet radiation and has topography ranging from oceans to enormous mountain ranges each being an element which influences our atmosphere it cycles of air and how the weather behaves one of the most crucial concepts to grasp about the weather is that it's all interconnected it's a single contiguous global system what's normal for your part of the world such as the frigid winds of Alaska is intrinsically linked with and can affect other weather systems all around the globe there's an old adage that goes something like this if it was a fly flaps its wings on one side of the world it can cause it tornado on the other side it's not actually true but the butterfly effect as it's known is a nice introduction to chaos theory and how tiny variations in a large complex and ostensibly chaotic system can sometimes cause enormous changes elsewhere in the system and the global weather system is a chaotic system and that means that seemingly insignificant factors like temperature in Delhi reaching a degree higher than X did for an hour can cause it to rain in LA the following day or it might do absolutely nothing thus weather has a huge amount of inherent randomness and this is why despite supercomputers and decades of research we are still unable to predict it with a high degree of accuracy by her gunshot thud echoes far beyond this point of origin the weather in your region has a reach of hundreds to thousands of miles this is why storms that start their life hurting nobody in the Atlantic eventually end up tearing through the Caribbean towards Florida likewise the region of earth you call home has its own localized weather patterns for example Egypt is dry and extremely hot where are cities like Medellin Colombia exists in a state of near perfect weather all year round hence the name Lac Courte at Bella Eterna Primavera which literally means the city of eternal spring I guess that makes Australia el pase della Turner cancer De Pere or the country of eternal skin cancer each region of earth has its own unique climate contrary to weather which can turn on a dime an area's climate stays the same climate being the typical weather conditions over a long period an area's climate can change but it takes hundreds to thousands of years for example Egypt Sahara Desert is known for being arid endless sand but thousands of years ago it used to be quite green rainy and home to some impressive lakes the five main climate types on earth are tropical dry temperate continental polar but there are several sub climate types within each of these such as subarctic and rainforest the tilt of the planet itself is what creates the seasons planetary tilt increases the amount of solar radiation countries get during certain periods of the year because the sun's rays are spread unevenly over the surface depending on where they hits the earth resulting in seasons that range from hot summers to cold winters or if your base near the equator hot all year round with bounce of intense rain followed by heat during the spring and autumn equinoxes equinoxes being if you don't know a period when it's light and dark in equal measure throughout the day there are six main components that constitute what we laymen call the whether these are temperature atmospheric pressure wind humidity precipitation and cloudiness temperature is quite simply the measure of how hot the atmosphere is measured in Celsius or Fahrenheit depending on how you pronounce tomato atmospheric pressure however is a little bit more complicated the atmosphere is believed to have originally escaped from the planet itself formed in the heat of radioactive decay and spewed out by volcanoes which is about as awesome as it sounds all originally filled with poisonous on breathable air over roughly a million years it was slowly infused with oxygen and transmuted into the refreshing tonic that we now enjoy although it's worth mentioning that global warming aside this is probably not the final form of our planet's atmosphere the atmosphere is held in place by gravity even though it fins out into nothingness 60 miles above sea level although most of the weather you experience such as clouds and wind are contained within the first twenty miles it weighs 4.99 quadrillion metric tons which sounds like a lot and it is but the earth itself weighs about 1 million times that but the weight or more accurately mass of the atmosphere is what causes air even though a handful of air is virtually weightless it has overwhelming mass when you take a huge chunk of it and if you were to hold out your palm you would in essence be supporting a 60 mile high column of air that stretched out into space weighing several tons this weight means that the majority of the oxygen-rich air is below a free mile altitude because air pressure pushes down on the air below it making it denser and thus more full of oxygen per breath this is why when you go up a mountain it's more difficult to breathe less weight less pressure less oxygen there are four layers to the planet's atmosphere the troposphere which is where the entire planet resides the stratosphere which contains the ozone layer the icy cold mesosphere and meso pause not to be confused with the menopause which is something quite different the low density but searing hot thermosphere the temperature here reaches 2500 degrees Celsius but if you were to hang out there you would actually feel very very cold because there aren't enough air particles to transfer that heat to your body and finally the exosphere which extends into space these varying layers of atmosphere are governed by the weakening gravity and varying pressures that affects the molecules within as temperature increases the molecules move around more causing torrents of vertical air currents as the air becomes less dense it moves into cooler regions becoming denser and sinks back down again into hotter regions it's an endless cycle this is why the air feels thicker in tropical countries and thinner near the cooler poles convection is a fancy way to describe all of this an area where this happens is called a convex cell where the movement of gas in this case a is present these convection cells are littered all over the planet causing movement severe from areas of high pressure to low pressure influenced by the Coriolis force the Coriolis effect is when a ball spins ie planet Earth and all three moving Witten's in the northern hemisphere are deflected to the right or counterclockwise and in the south to the left or clockwise the cause of the Coriolis effect is because the Earth spins faster at the equator than at the poles so there's a natural distortion of air currents on the vertical axis as they Bend around the Earth's moving surface this is a slightly confusing concept to wrap your head around but just remember north of the Equator storms spin counterclockwise and clockwise south of it humans even have an impact on winds when Chicago was purposely rebuilt by city planners in a structured grid the frigid wind coming in from Lake Michigan was forced into narrow channels causing it's a gain in speed and strength hence the Windy City humidity is something everyone who traveled to a country near the equator has experienced humid environments are hot muggy there are mosquitoes everywhere it feels about 10 degrees hotter than it is and he leaves a shower sweaty er than when you entered no I don't like it and I don't see why anyone would the reason humidity is so unbearable thick and muggy is that it describes the amount of water vapor in the air and the more water vapor present the less effective your body sweat becomes so you're unable to cool down no matter how hard you try when the air in a cloud has a relative humidity of a hundred percent it can no longer hold any water and it begins to fall to the ground as rainfall this is part of the hydrologic cycle where water continually cycles from sea to the air to the land back again cloudiness is a huge part of this precipitation phenomenon you might wonder why you can see clouds but not the water vapor itself why aren't humid countries one giant cloud how is that possible if they're made out of the same substance well the air is actually full of tiny dust particles called condensation nuclei which come from everywhere from volcanoes to pollution when water condenses onto trillions of these microscopic nuclei brought together by cold temperatures clouds are formed so basically clouds a dusty water delicious but what about storm tornadoes and hurricanes well to explain these phenomena we first need to have a quick chat about weather systems and look give me a break you clicked on this video not me it's the weather not a breakdown of the greatest gladiator fights in history actually that would make a good video watch this space anyway weather systems simply describe the movements of hot and cold air around the planet these movements are splitends at high pressure and low pressure systems high pressure systems keep cool dry air rotating and stop moisture from rising into the atmosphere the result is that they usually keep the sky nice and clear a low pressure system on the other hand keeps warm moist air rotating and brings storms with it these systems pass through the mid mid points of the planet known as mid latitudes halfway from the equator and one of the poles the result is that weather in these regions is constantly changing and can switch from calm to psychopathically violent in minutes so if you're ever wondering why the weather in your part of the world seemed to have schizophrenia consider consulting a map storms are caused by enormous air masses racing around the world and smashing into one another though weather equivalent of a barroom some of these storms become thunderstorms there are 2,000 thunderstorms happening at any one time across the world and this was obviously 44 lightning strikes every single second thunderstorms are caused when a cloud gets too jacked up for its own good they start the same as other clouds but turn into tall cumulus clouds when this cloud reaches about 40,000 feet up into the choppers fear it gets pumped up on raindrops and ice crystals then gets too big and comes crashing back down dragging all the water mass with it this creates an incredibly strong downdraft sending torrents of wind in all conceivable directions as for the thunderous crack that follows that's the result of a flash of light and heating the air to thirty thousand degrees Celsius making the air expands so rapidly it forms a shock wave that breaks the sound barrier lightning is formed by ice crystals high up in the cloud colliding with each other millions of times per second and thus creating a static charge which eventually releases as electricity you will always experience the flash before the boom because light is faster than sound so it reaches you sooner but they actually happen at the very same time in short imagine a fat guy leaping into a pool screaming cannonball and you've got a thunderstorm in less than 1% of thunderstorms something even more destructive than thunder and lightning happens a tornado forms a swirling vortex of air or multiple suction vortices that promise to destroy everything in scientists aren't exactly certain on how tornadoes come to be but it is for that powerful updrafts are one of the causes what is known however is how destructive they can be the deadliest tornado in history was that the latter posit a tornado which caused a death of approximately 1,300 people on its own in fact Bangladeshi tornados are some of the most destructive on earth 19 of them have killed more than a hundred people totaling almost half of the entire world's tornado deaths but there is one type of storm that dwarves the power of any tornado and that's the hurricane the bad boy of the storm world also known as cyclones or typhoons hurricanes are low pressure zones that's been wildly out of control gaining rapidly in speed uncie's they form a huge column of swirling death that ascends into the sky spawned out us waves of surface winds sucked in by the low-pressure zone on the inside of the column of fury is a relative patch of piece called the eye of the hurricane or the eye of the storm this warmer downdraft is actually quite pleasant but the outside of it is anything but reaching wind speeds of over 74 miles per hour and sizes in excess of 600 kilometers these enormous storms are the most destructive forces on earth sending wind it use so powerful it's like you've just walked in front of an 18-wheeler on the motorway these storms leave entire towns cities and countries ravaged by destruction kill thousands of people and cost billions of dollars in property damage Hurricane Katrina for instance cost around 125 billion US dollars in nominal damage and caused a death of up to 1,800 people so whilst you may enjoy the thrills of thunder and lightning or watch tornadoes from a safe distance if a hurricane is on the way get the hell out of there unless you're in the center of course then you can prop up a nice little of reclining chair puts an umbrella in your Mohito and enjoy this show but don't get too comfortable because hurricanes move fast but aside from death and misery the weather also has some interesting and bizarre optical effects for example the sky is blue because light which contains all wavelengths of color is scattered by the dust and water molecules in the atmosphere blue light traveling as a shorter smaller wave gets scattered far more hence blue sky later in the evening however these beams of blue light reduce in intensity resulting in yellow orange and red lights across the evening sky when the sunlight passes through raindrops the light is bent and a rainbow is formed which you already know well but did you know they can even appear at night and are quite literally called moon bows your struggle to see them with the naked eye but use a camera with a long enough exposure time and its majesty will be revealed buts there's also halos Coronas pas helium's crepuscular rays sir comes anaphylaxis Northern Lights and even their lesser-known siblings the Southern Lights aurora australis all illusions of Lights created by the Sun the atmosphere and the weather well there you go with your shining new knowledge of complex weather systems you can blow away your friends as you rain down facts upon them and you'll no doubt be met with thunderous applause thanks for watching if you enjoyed this video then please consider supporting me on patreon because it really helped me to continue to make them you can find the link in the description also you can get your hands on a first edition signed copy of my new book stick a flag in it by heading on over to unbound publishing and pre-ordering your copy today thank you

Channel: Thoughty2

Views: 829,621

Rating: 4.907752 out of 5

Keywords: weather, sun, moon, storm, rain, rainfall, precipitation, weather forecast, weather explained, thunderstorm, rainstorm, severe weather, the weather channel, weather news, direct weather

Id: OeEVoam05g0

Length: 22min 2sec (1322 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 26 2020