1. Weather on the Loose What You Need to Know to Survive a Midwest Summer By Zach, Isabel, Madi & Morgan

2. Thunderstorms by Zahala San Simone www.authorsden.com Onset of gray skies Looks like rain today My child just sighs Pulls toys out for play A whistle of wind Then a bright flash of light It’s starting, I think Hope it’s done by tonight My windows I close But I leave cracked the door I love the air’s scent Before a downpour Soon rain begins Unrelenting and thick Along with hail's chatter Like a clock’s slow tick. A huge clap of thunder Rolls past my house With companions of lightning And wind all about The storm raged for hours As clouds changed to white And again back to dark One more show of might And then it was over Limbs strewn, all was wet I opened my windows And took in the scent Of a clear, green land Robust and well fed Washed back to a virgin Ready to be had.

3. A Thunderstorm Needs 3 Basic Ingredients to Form:  Moisture  Rising unstable air  A rising mechanism to provide a nudge

4. Thunderstorm Safety  If a thunderstorm turns severe, go to the basement or lowest level of your home  Listen to the weather on the radio, television or NOAA weather radio  Watch what is happening outside  Stay away from windows if strong winds occur

5. THUNDER & LIGHTNING  Lightning strikes 75 – 100 people in the US each year  The earth gets about 100 lightning strikes per second  Before Ben Franklin came along, people thought lightning was a terrifying type of fire

6. THUNDER & LIGHTNING  Lightning is the second biggest killer after floods  The kind of lightning we see most often is cloud-to-ground lightning  Lightning can flash within a cloud or between several clouds

7. CAUSES OF LIGHNTING  Lightning happens during thunderstorms  Lightning happens when positive charges meet negative charges  The clouds bounce around together like balloons and the charge that builds up is attracted to an opposite charge on the ground. The lightning strikes, following a path between the cloud & the object on the ground.

8. THUNDER  Lightning super-heats the air to 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit.  The air expands, and that causes the noise we know as thunder.  The hot air from the lightning expands very fast and it makes sound waves along the streak of lightning – and that makes thunder.  The sound waves reach you at different times.  When the first one reaches your ears, there may be a loud crash.

9. HOW FAR AWAY?  When you see lightning, start counting “1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi... “  Stop when you hear the thunder.  Divide your number by 5. That’s how many miles away the lightning strike was.

10. HEAT LIGHTNING  Heat lightning is lightning that is so far away that you cannot hear the thunder.  Heat lightning is mostly seen at night.

11. HAIL  Nearly 5000 hailstorms happen in the US every year.  Most hailstorms occur during the summer.  The biggest hailstone was 1.7 pounds! It fell in Coffeyville, Kansas in 1970.

12. Causes of Hail  Hail forms inside storm clouds.  Hailstones are chunks of ice that are tossed up and down in whirly winds of thunderstorms.  Every time a hailstone goes back up into the cold cloud, another layer of ice is added to it.  Hailstones can be the size of a marble to bigger than a baseball.

13. Hailstones  If you break open a hailstone, it would look like a cut onion with lots of layers.

14. Hail safety  Hail can be very damaging to homes, cars and even people.  You can protect your car from hail by putting it in a garage or shelter.  You can protect yourself from hail by going inside a house or building.