Research Rack: Did You Know?

• Thunderclouds in a hurricane can drop more than 2.4 trillion gallons of rain a day.

• Hurricanes were first given names in the 19th century by Clement Wragge, an Australian weatherman. He named very violent storms after people he quarreled with. Today an alphabetical list is drawn up each year.

• Greeks used "peg calendars" as a means to post weather facts and forecasts.

• The National Weather Service Center has computers capable of completing over 2 million calculations a second.

• Christopher Columbus was the first European in modern times to write about the hurricane. The Indians of Guatemala called the god of stormy weather "Hunkran."

• If one percent of the energy in one hurricane could be captured, all the power, fuel, and heating requirements of the United States could be met for an entire year.

• In other parts of the world, hurricanes are known by different names. In the western Pacific and China Sea area they are known as typhoons. In Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, and Australia they are known as cyclones. The Cantonese refer to the great wind as tai-fung, and in the Philippines they are known as baguios.

• Only 1 liter of water, as condensed from water vapor, supplies enough energy to run a 6-watt lightbulb for about 11 hours.

• During its life cycle, a hurricane can burn up as much energy as 10,000 nuclear bombs!

• An average hurricane will condense 20 trillion (20,000,000,000,000) liters of water every day! This amount of energy can be compared to the energy produced in 200 days by all of the world's electrical generating plants.

• For each mile of coastline that is warned of a hurricane, over a million dollars is spent preparing for the hurricane.

• The worst hurricane in history pounded Galveston Island in Texas, on September 8, 1900 and killed 8 thousand residents.

• In 1992, Hurricane Andrew hit the southeast coast, destroying 20 thousand homes and damaging another 90 thousand!

• Weather Lore
  • As pressure drops, sheep's wool uncurls, frogs croak, and ants move to high ground.
  • Pine cones close when it is about to rain.
  • Sea kelp is dry to the touch in fine weather but swells and feels damp if rain threatens.
  • When rain is on its way, sheep's wool will feel damp and straighten out.