The Top Snowfall Events in Recorded History:

• 1,224.5″ in a year – Mount Rainier National Park, WA:
• 1,140″ in a season – Mt.
• 728″ in a season – Squaw Valley, CA:
• 78″ in 24-hours – Thompson Pass, AK.
• 76″ in 24-hours / 95″ in 32-hours – Silver Lake, Colorado.
• 67″ in 24-hours – Donner Summit, CA.
• 1,200 to 1,500″ average annual snowfall – Japanese Alps of Honshu Island.

100.8 inches

And finally, in regards to noting that snowstorms tend to happen at night, it’s a pretty simple explanation: since the sun is down, the temperature will tend to be lower, so a storm which might otherwise be rain could end up as a major snowstorm at night.

white

Snow is an insulator. Its R-value varies, depending on moisture content and density of the snow granules; but on average snow has an R-value of 1 per inch — about the same as wood. Twelve inches of snow have roughly the same insulating value as a 2×4 wall filled with fiberglass insulation.

It is generally safe to eat snow or use it for drinking or for making ice cream, but there are some important exceptions. If the snow is lily-white, you can safely ingest it. But if the snow is colored in any way, you’ll need to stop, examine its color, and understand what it means.

The thing about snow is that it really doesn’t have a taste you can describe. It’s essentially flavorless, though it reminds people of the crisp smell of winter air with a slight metallic quality.

Snow is still great, just refrain from eating it! The study revealed that from just one hour of exposure, the levels of pollutants within the snow increased dramatically, with toxic particles becoming trapped within the small ice particles or dissolved within the pockets of melted snow.

If you are going to eat any snow, fresh snow may be less contaminated because it has less opportunity to collect any of those but could still contain pollutants from the air. Smoke, fumes and exhaust could be lingering in the snow. “Any snow has the risk of containing pollution, dirt and microbes.

No, it’s not just your imagination; the air really does smell different right before it snows. As temperatures drop to freezing, the molecules in the air slow down, making certain smells less pungent. In other words, what you think you smell as snow is actually just a lack of the usual outdoor odors.

Day or night – Loud, continuous roar or rumble, which doesn’t fade in a few seconds like thunder. Night – Small, bright, blue-green to white flashes at ground level near a thunderstorm (as opposed to silvery lightning up in the clouds). These mean power lines are being snapped by very strong wind, maybe a tornado.

When two tornadoes meet, they merge into a single tornado. It is a rare event. When it does occur, it usually involves a satellite tornado being absorbed by a parent tornado, or a merger of two successive members of a tornado family.

Bathrooms MAY be a good shelter, provided they are not along an outside wall and have no windows. However, with tornadoes there are no absolutes, and you should look closely at your home when determining your shelter area. Closets. A small interior closet might be a shelter.

If the most centrally located room in your home is a ground floor bathroom, designate it as your storm shelter. And since the idea is to get as many walls between you and the approaching tornado, by all means take shelter inside the bathtub, where the fiberglass sides of the tub add another layer of protection.

Researchers reveal the ‘death zone’ inside a tornado: Study finds plummeting temperatures and a lack of oxygen. Researchers have solved the mystery of what happens inside the eye of a tornado. They also found it difficult to breathe as the air pressure dropped, causing a reduction in the amount of oxygen in the air.

updraft

The most “extreme” tornado in recorded history was the Tri-State Tornado, which spread through parts of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana on March 18, 1925. It is considered an F5 on the Fujita Scale, even though tornadoes were not ranked on any scale at the time.

The eye is so calm because the now strong surface winds that converge towards the center never reach it. The coriolis force deflects the wind slightly away from the center, causing the wind to rotate around the center of the hurricane (the eye wall), leaving the exact center (the eye) calm.

Most brick houses could withstand a tornado as strong as EF2 and remain mostly intact. If a tornado rips off the roof then brick walls can collapse. If you want to build a safe house then build the walls and floor and roof out of concrete and have steel shutters than will cover all openings.

Tornadoes can lift up a building, and, occasionally pick a home off its foundation and set it down a few feet away. But — unlike in “The Wizard of Oz” — structures that are swept high in the air by a storm are generally destroyed by strong winds, the scientists said.

Despite the risk that comes with living in Tornado Alley, many Oklahomans are reluctant to build tornado shelters. “With an F5 tornado you get the ‘house swept away – only foundation is left’ situation – and the only *safe* place from an F5 is underground or out of it’s path.