Anyone who has been living in the North East this winter has heard the term "Snowmageddon" as uttered by President Obama. This winter Washington DC has set a winter record for total snowfall as it broke its previous record from 1898-1899 of 54.4 inches, by receiving a total of 54.9 inches and winter is not even over yet! Here in the metro NY area we received a bunch of snow on Wednesday which shut down much of the businesses here including schools. Why am I posting this you may ask yourself?
Well, weather is caused by science. If you where watching the news you may have heard the term "nor'easter" or "blizzard" uttered, but what exactly are they? Well a Nor'easter are named by their winds that blow from the northeast and drive the storm up along the Gulf stream. They occur any time between October and April when there is moisture and cold air a plenty. They are known for causing heavy amounts of rain and snow, producing hurricane-force winds, and creating high surf. As your reading this you are probably saying to yourself "what?" and "I don't get it?". Well they are caused by two components.
Component #1
A gulf stream low-pressure system which you can think of a big mass of air with winds moving counter-clockwise that causes it to move up the east cost.
Component #2
An Arctic high-pressure system which is another big mass of air with winds rotating clockwise. The northeasterly winds pull the storm up the east cost and then bang! it meets with the air blowing down from Canada. When these two collide they produce a mix of precipitation.
Here is a cool animation showing what nor'easter's are:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7052182/ns/weather
and now...
drum roll please....
Blizzards! Blizzards are a blinding snow storm with cold, high winds. Although I don't enjoy blizzards or nor'easter's they are great displays of science at work!
Here are some links you can visit to find out more about blizzards and nor'easter:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/question595.htm
http://science.howstuffworks.com/blizzard-info.htm
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About Me
I am currently attending Queens College for a masters in earth science education. This blog contains my quest to write about my encounters with science in my everyday life, and to prove that science is all around!