Facts

Hurricanes:

• The word hurricane comes from the Spanish word hurucan, which probably came from the name of the Mayan storm god, “Hunraken”.

• Hurricane Katrina in 2005 is thought to be the most expensive hurricane ever, costing even more than the 25 billion dollars worth damage caused by Huricane Andrew in 1992.

• In 1998, when Hurricane Georges hit islands in the Carribean and the United States, 28 tornadoes ran along with it.

• Hurricane Andrew struck the Miami Metrozoo in the U.S.A. in August 1992, releasing monkeys and other wild animals from their pens.

Floods:

• Since 1900, floods have taken more than 10,000 lives in the United States alone.

• Flash floods often bring walls of water 10 to 20 feet high.

• 95% of those killed in a flash flood try to outrun the waters along their path rather than climbing rocks or going uphill to higher grounds.

• 66 % of flood deaths occur in vehicles, and most happen when drivers make a single, fatal mistake trying to navigate through flood waters.

• Just 6 inches of rapidly moving flood water can knock a person down.

• A mere 2 feet of water can float a large vehicle even a bus.

• 1/3 of flooded roads and bridges are so damaged by water that any vehicle trying to cross stands only a 50% chance of making it to the other side.

• The great Mississippi River Flood of 1993 covered an area 500 miles long and 200 miles wide. More than 50,000 homes were damaged, and 12,000 miles of farmland were washed out.

• Hurricanes, winter storms and snowmelt are common (but often overlooked) causes of flooding.

• New land development can increase flood risk, especially if the construction changes natural runoff paths.

• Communities particularly at risk are those located in low-lying areas, near water, or downstream from a dam, but everyone lives in a flood zone — it’s just a question of whether you live in a low, moderate, or high risk area.

Lightning:

• A lightning flash is no more than one inch wide.

• The temperature of a lightning flash is 15,000 to 60,000 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s hotter than the surface of the sun (9,000 degrees Fahrenheit).

• A stroke of lightning moves about 62,000 miles per second–one-third the speed of light.

• A single lightning flash carries an electric current as high as 300,000 amperes. For comparison, electrical wiring in a house carries 20 or 30 amperes.

• What we see as a flash of lightning may actually be three or four different strokes in exactly the same place, one right after another. That’s why lightning seems to flicker.

• Power failures caused by lightning strikes cost utility companies as much as $1 billion annually.

• The Guinness Book of World Records lists Roy Sullivan of Virginia as the human being struck by lightning the most times: seven. This is one record you don’t want to beat!

TSUNAMIS:

• A tsunami is a series of sea waves caused by an underwater earthquake, landslide, or volcanic eruption. More rarely, a tsunami can be generated by a giant meteor impact with the ocean.

• A tsunami is not just one wave but a series of waves or a “wave train.”

• Many witnesses say a tsunami sounds like a freight train.

• When the ocean is deep, tsunamis may be less than a foot high on the ocean’s surface, can travel at speeds up to 500 mph without being noticed and cross the entire ocean in less than a day.

• Once a tsunami reaches the shallow water near the coast, it slows down. The top of the wave moves faster than the bottom, causing the sea to rise dramatically, as much as 100 feet at times.

• Tsunami waves can be as long as 60 miles and be as far as an hour apart. These waves can cross entire oceans without losing much energy.

• Flooding can reach land 1000 feet (300 meters) from the coastline and the dangerous waves have enough force to lift giant boulders, flip vehicles, and demolish houses.

• Scientists can accurately estimate the time when a tsunami will arrive almost anywhere around the world based on calculations using the depth of the water, distances from one place to another, and the time that the earthquake or other event occurred.

• Hawaii is the U.S. state at greatest risk for a tsunami – they get about one per year and a damaging one every 7 years. California, Oregon and Washington experience a damaging tsunami every 18 years.

• In 2004, the Indian Ocean tsunami was caused by an earthquake that is thought to have had the energy of 23,000 atomic bombs.

• Within hours of the earthquake in 2004, killer waves radiating from the epicenter slammed into the coastline of 11 countries, damaging countries from east Africa to Thailand. By the end of the day, the tsunami had already killed 150,000 people. The final death toll was 283,000.

Tornadoes:

• The most powerful tornnadoes occur in the United States.

• A typical tornado only lasts for a few minutes.

• Every tornado has its own color, sound and shape.

• You need to step on the pedal of a car pass 70 miles per hour to outrun the fastest tornadoes.

• The chances that a tornado is a F5, the highest classification for a tornado on the F-scale, is less than 0.1%

• Tornadoes have been reported in every state in the US and also in every season.

• A Tornado can occur at any time, but most often between 3pm and 9pm.

• Small tornadoes sometimes form on the edge of bigger tornadoes.

• In Oklahoma, a small herd of cattle were sucked up by a tornado and carried across the countryside, before being set down unharmed.

• In 1981, a tornado that swept through the Italian City of Ancona lifted a sleeping baby from its baby carriage and set it down unharmed on the ground.

• The UK gets about 60 tornadoes a year, even with its moderate climate.

• The deadliest Tornado happened in 1925. It swept through three states and killed 689 people and injured 2,000.

• Tornadoes is from the Spanish word, tronada, meaning thunderstorm.

• Dust Devils are strong tornadoes that pass over desert areas.

• Some people in ancient times thought dust devils were ghosts.

• The safest place to be during a Tornado is underground, which makes basements and cellars the ideal shelters to get away from Tornadoes.

• Most of the world’s destructive tornadoes occur during the the summer in mid-western states of the US.

• Sometimes multiple tornadoes form and travel together in swarms.

• Rescue workers have compared the destruction left behind by a tornado to a bomb blast.

• Cities have also been hit by tornadoes like Nashville and St. Louis.

• Tornadoes have hit places even in big cities like in Brooklyn.

• The myth of opening the windows in a house will help prevent a tornado from it being destroyed is false. In fact, opening the wrong windows could allow air to rush in and blow the house apart from the inside.

• Each year, about a thousand tornadoes touch down in the United States, far more than any other country.

• Waterspouts are tornadoes that form over a body of water.

• A strong tornado can pick up a house and move it down the block.

• Nebraska, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas make up Tornado alley, where tornadoes strike regularly in the spring and early summer.

• Many houses in tornado alley have strong basement shelters.

• Some people have seen inside a tornado with their own eyes lived to tell about it.

• Knives and forks have been found embedded in tree trunks flung from a tornado.

• Usually a tornado starts off as a white or gray cloud but if it stays around for a while, the dirt and debris it sucks up eventually turns it into black one.

• 3 out of every 4 tornadoes in the world happen in the United States.

• Thunderstorms most likely to give birth to Tornadoes are called supercells.

• Tornado winds are the fastest winds on Earth.

• A Tornado in Oklahoma once destroyed a whole motel. People later found the motel’s sign in Arkansas.

• A Tornado can sometimes hop along its path. It can destroy one house and leave the house next door untouched.

• In 1928, a tornado in Kansas plucked the feathers right off some chickens.

• In 1931 a tornado in Mississippi lifted an 83 ton train and tossed it 80 feet from the track.

• The United States have an average of 800 tornadoes every year.

• Each year, dozens of Americans die from tornadoes.

• Usually, a tornado’s color matches the color of the ground.

• Some tornadoes make a considerable amount of noise while others make very little. It depends on the objects a tornado might hit or carry. A tornado moving along an open plain may make very little noise.

• Some people think the crop circles in the UK are the result of weak whirlwinds. About 60 of these small tornadoes are formed every year in Britain.

• The sky sometimes turns a greenish color before a tornado hits.