|The Passage of Sandy
||by NASA Goddard Photo and Video on Flickr||
- Hurricanes are areas of low air pressure that form over oceans in tropical climate regions.
- Hurricanes are large storms with rotating winds.
- In the beginning, the ocean storm is called a “tropical disturbance”, which is like a bunch of thunderstorms with very little wind circulation.
||by jenny downing on Flickr||
- 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.
- Since 1900, floods have taken more than 10,000 lives in the United States alone.
||by kevin dooley on Flickr||
- Each year, about a thousand tornadoes touch down in the United States, far more than any other country.
- A 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.
|May 9, 2012
||by GlacierNPS on Flickr||
- About 250,000 avalanches occur each year in the Alps, a mountain chain in Europe.
- Each year, avalanches claim more than 150 lives worldwide, a number that has been increasing due to the boom in mountainside industries and recreation.
- 89% of avalanche victims are men and most are between the ages of 20 and 30.
|Aerial view of damage to Wakuya, Japan following earthquake.
||by Official U.S. Navy Imagery on Flickr||
- 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.
- 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.
- Many witnesses say a tsunami sounds like a freight train