Collection of Insane and Fun Facts
In WWII, weather reports were censored to prevent enemy submarines from learning about conditions. A football game in Chicago was so covered in fog that the radio announcer couldn’t see the field, but afterwards he was officially thanked for never using the word “fog” or mentioning the weather.
Finnish people were believed to be able to control weather. This resulted in reluctance to accept Finnish Sailors aboard ships from the Vikings all the way until the 1900s.
The storm that caused the Dust Bowl of the 1930s carried twice as much dirt as was dug out of the earth to create the Panama Canal. The canal took seven years to dig; the storm lasted a single afternoon.
1816 was the “Year Without Summer”. Snow fell all Summer from New England to as far south as Virginia. This may have been due to the Tambora volcano, which erupted for a Week.
Some people are able to “sense” changes in the weather through a special condition known as weather pains.
In 1959 a pilot ejected from his plane directly into a violent thunder cloud. The storm winds kept him aloft for 40 minutes, pelting him with hailstones and so much rain that at times he had to hold his breath to keep from drowning in mid-air.
A 1936 heat wave killed 5,000 nationally; 364 in Detroit; 570 in Michigan. Within a week. “Newborn infants died in the delivery room” while doctors and nurses collapsed around them.
Hurricanes in Australia were originally named after local politicians a weather man didn’t like.
There is a persistent storm in Venezuela that produces lightning 140 to 160 nights a year, 10 hours per day and up to 280 times per hour…and it’s been going since at least the 16th century.
On Wednesday, March 14 2012, 577 warm weather records were broken in the United States.