Embedded Files
My Observations of the weather in the Swiss Alps
So about a week ago me and my family made a trip to the Swiss Alps, and the climate there along with the weather there was pretty fascinating. We were in a very high alpine climate when we were there, and while I didn't get to experience any of the big extremes of an alpine climate while up there, (which I am thankful for), I was still able to observe some cool alpine weather.
So about a week ago me and my family made a trip to the Swiss Alps, and the climate there along with the weather there was pretty fascinating. We were in a very high alpine climate when we were there, and while I didn't get to experience any of the big extremes of an alpine climate while up there, (which I am thankful for), I was still able to observe some cool alpine weather.
Observation 1- A change in barometric pressure as our altitude increased. I don't have the exact numbers for the altitude we were at but we started our hike in a town called Murren which was 5,374 ft above sea level and ended it at a place called Rotstockhutte which was 6,689 ft above sea level and even that made a big difference in the Barometric pressure which went from 998 mb to 1023 mb. This I found very weird because as altitude increases air pressure is supposed to drop but in this case, it increases.
Observation 2- Insane fog in the mountains. When we were up super high in the mountains I was able to experience some insane mountain fog. The fog had some crazy movement too. It would move in and out of the valley that we were hiking in and thankfully didn't hamper our ability to navigate or cause any other treacherous conditions on the trail. According to this article that I read written by the website for an app called Windy. app they said that the reason this happens is because the air created by the winds that pass through the Mountains and valleys of these mountains can be cooled due to the contact with the colder air at higher altitudes. They state that this cooling leads to condensation that will depend on how humid the air is for the water droplets to form causing the fog.
Source: “Why Is There Fog in the Mountains.” WINDY.APP, windy.app/textbook/why-is-there-fog-in-the-mountains.html. Accessed 10 July 2023.
Photos from the storm, July 3rd, 2023
This carousel of photos is from a huge lightning storm I was able to watch from a thunderstorm happening almost a hundred miles away from where I was. I found the storm very incredible not only because of how majestic and constant the lighting was that I was observing but also the fact that I could hear no thunder and not hear the lightning at all. This type of lightning a lot of people like to call heat lightning, this is a very common misconception with weather that people tend to have. According to an article written by the National Weather Service, it was used to teach people about the common misconception of heat lightning. The article states that this happens when lightning is visible from a thunderstorm going on too far away but you can see it when your vision isn't obstructed by any landforms such as mountains, hills, or trees. This makes this event pretty rare because it isn't very often that you can see a storm like that without your vision being obstructed.
Source: US Department of Commerce, NOAA. “Heat Lightning.” National Weather Service, 20 Apr. 2018, www.weather.gov/safety/lightning-heat.
Some major current weather events happening in my area
Images of flooding from the storms during the weekend of July 8th and 9th
The images above depict some of the awful flooding that was caused by some high-intensity thunderstorms that ripped through the Northeast this weekend. The storms brought insanely heavy rain to parts of the Northeast with the heaviest rain falling in a town called Stormville which is 15 miles Northeast of West Point and was measured at a whopping 8.61 inches. According to an article written by the Weather Channel, these rainfall rates are estimated to have a 0.001 percent chance of happening in any year, there. In areas of Pennsylvania rainfall rates of 3 to 6 inches were reported which led to some water rescues. According to a video done by Ari Sarsalari of the Weather Channel the flooding from the storms was caused by a weather phenomenon called the Greenland block. This is an area of high pressure that sits over Southern Greenland and causes any storms trying to move through the Northeast to move very slowly. Another cause for the flooding was the amount of precipitable water that was absorbed by this system. This is another term to describe the amount of moisture in the air in a certain location and this usually doesn't get squeezed out of a storm system in the form of rain but in this situation it did.
Sources: Sarsalari, Ari. “This Is What Triggered the Northeast Flooding - Videos from The Weather Channel.” The Weather Channel, 10 July 2023, weather.com/news/weather/video/this-is-what-triggered-the-northeast-flooding.
“Vermont, New York Hit with Destructive Flooding.” The Weather Channel, 11 July 2023, weather.com/safety/floods/news/2023-07-10-flooding-northeast-vermont-new-york.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse