Curious about the highs and lows of extreme weather? For kids interested in our cataclysmal climate, this issue answers all their queries with a look at everything from heat waves to hurricanes.
What happens when Mother Nature goes to extremes? You get violent and deadly weather in the form of heat waves, droughts, nor’easters, tsunamis, and other natural calamities. They’re all here in Extreme Weather – an issue kids will love for its graphic attention to the worst weather our planet can produce. First up: a look at global warming and how it’s changing the climate at alarming rates, which creates even more extreme weather. For kids who want to know more about the hot side of things, details on how heat waves develop will prove popular, and anyone awed by water’s destructive force will be glued to descriptions of floods and monsoons – and their flip side, droughts – which have killed millions throughout history.
Storm fanatics will thrill to explanations of how hurricanes form – and how they differ from cyclones and typhoons – and enjoy reading up on lightning, which zaps our planet 100 times every second. Then they can read up on tornadoes, which strike the U.S. about 1,000 times per year, and dip their toes into record cold weather, such as the frigid English summer of 1916 (caused by volcanic ash in the atmosphere), which kept a teenage Mary Shelley stuck in her house, where she wrote the classic novel Frankenstein. Extreme weather, for kids, definitely gets its due here.
7 Topics in this unit
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Climate Change
Earth is warming up. The average global temperature in 2014 was the warmest since record k ...
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Heat and Humidity
Europe experienced extreme heat through the summer of 2003. Temperatures hit record highs ...
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Monsoons, Floods, and Droughts
Asia’s monsoon rains are a mixed blessing. The heavy seasonal downpours are great fo ...
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Hurricanes
“The wind rushed into the building. In one swift, sharp move, the roof was ripped ap ...
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Tornadoes
On March 11, 2006, a tornado descended on the St. Mary, Missouri, home of Rick Boland. &ld ...
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Lightning
On a hot summer day, stormy weather in southern Colorado ruined a hike for Zach O’Ne ...
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Cold
“The Storm of the Century” wasn’t just a blizzard, a tornado, or a flood ...
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1 Videos in this unit
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Lightning
The charge zigzags downward until it meets a positive charge produced on Earth’s sur ...
