Today we had the fun experience of hearing from a member of the NOAA. Mr. Steve is a weatherman for the National Weather association here in Columbia. NOAA is located by the Columbia Airport.

Mr. Steve showed us some neat photos of floods, tornados, hurricanes, thunderstorms and lightning.
In a flood, if you are driving remember to "Stop.. turn around... don't Drown!" Never try to drive your car through a flooded street or road.
Make sure you get to higher ground than the water level.

In a tornado, get to the lowest level in your house. If you don't have a basement, then hide in a hallway or interior room without windows.

NOAA sends up weather ballooons twice a day. The device takes readings on wind speeds and directions, the height of clouds, and the humidity in the air.

The satellite above the earth tracks storms in the sea. Hurricanes can be spotted, photographed, and measured from space.

Tornados may gather together to form a huge tornado. Tornados can be very destructible. They can uproot tress, tear down homes and throw heavy cars a mile away.

Lightning can strike you even if the storm is 10 miles away. You know you are in a strike zone when the hair on your head and body stand up!

Watch out for other cars when the weather is foggy. Turn on your lights and drive slow. Fog is low lying clouds close to the ground.

Special airplanes can fly into Hurricanes to get information and readings on the storm.

The eye of the hurricane is the calmest place to be in the storm.

We discussed the water cycle. The water evaporates into the air. It makes water vapor that is hard to see. If the water vapor is turned fast enough then a tornado can be formed. If not, then the water can turn to rain, fall to the earth, run off into the lakes, rivers or oceans. Then the process begins again.

Sleet is hard forms of ice that fall from the sky. If you find a ball of sleet. Cut it open. You can count the rings to see how many times the ball rose and fell in the cloud before it hit the ground.

Be sure to check out our daily podcasts for the weather in our area!