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Weather Extremes and Their Dangers

Lightning strikes, hail damage, tornadoes, hurricanes, and blizzards are all severe weather phenomena with the potential to cause significant harm and destruction. Learn about these natural disasters and how they form to stay safe and prepared.

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Weather Extremes and Their Dangers

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  1. Severe Weather

  2. During every minute of every day, roughly 1,800 thunderstorms are creating lightning somewhere on Earth. Though the chances of being struck by lightning are estimated at 1 in 700,000, these huge electrical sparks are one of the leading causes of weather-related deaths in the USA each year with an average of 73 people killed; about 300 people usually are injured by lightning.

  3. As a thunderstorm grows, electrical charges build up within the cloud. Oppositely charged particles gather at the ground below. The attraction between positive and negative charges quickly grows strong enough to overcome the air's resistance to electrical flow. Racing toward each other, they connect and complete the electrical circuit. Charge from the ground then surges upward at nearly one-third the speed of light and we see a bright flash of lightning.

  4. Hail Damage

  5. Precipitation in the form of pellets composed of ice or of ice and snow, occurring at any time of the year, usually during the passage of a cold front or during a thunderstorm. Small hailstones have a soft center and a single outer coat of ice. They are formed when the surfaces of snow clumps melt and refreeze or become coated with water droplets that subsequently freeze.

  6. Tornadoes The tornado is nature's most violent wind. An average of 1,000 of these vortices spin up beneath thunderstorms year round in the USA and can generate wind speeds faster than 250 mph, at times devastating whole communities.

  7. Tornadoes have struck every U.S. state, including Alaska and Hawaii. But most tornadoes form in a belt from Nebraska southward through central Texas known as Tornado Alley and in the Southeast. Wind speeds in tornadoes can vary from 72 to almost 300 mph. Fortunately, only 2 percent of all tornadoes have winds greater than 200 mph.

  8. Hurricanes

  9. Hurricanes are large low-pressure systems. Winds inside them can blow from 75mph to over 200 mph. As warm ocean water evaporates into the air, it rises up to the sky and cools to it’s dewpoint temperature. Once this happens, clouds begin to form. The more evaporation - the larger the hurricane.

  10. Blizzards Blizzards are snowstorms and strong cold winds. Blizzards are caused when the cold air from the Arctic meets the warmer air from the tropics. This causes high winds and snow.

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