10.07.2010

The Green Girl's Cloudy Run

The Green Girl went on a short run on the Shoreline Pedestrian Bikepath last night.

With the recent erratic Southern California weather, the sky has been filled with visually interesting cloud formations.

As I ran along the ocean, I stared up at the sky. I recalled a recent NPR segment with NPR's science correspondent, Robert Krulwich, 'How much does a hurricane weigh?'.

The subject matter expert was Andy Heymsfield from the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

In order to illustrate how much a hurricane weighs, Heymsfield suggested using units of elephants for the measurement. Four ton elephants, to be exact.

Heymsfield explained a small cloud would be the size of a hundred elephants. He said clouds look deceivingly small in comparison to their true size.

Heymsfield went on to say that a cumula-nimbus storm cloud absorbs the moisture equivalent of 500 elephants per second.

I learned clouds are dynamic and constantly absorbing and dissipating.

Ever since I heard that NPR clip, I look at clouds with a whole new respect.

6 comments:

  1. And then sometimes all those elephants come down!

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  2. I love clouds! When I was little, I'd lay in the grass for hours just watching them pass. :)

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  3. I wonder if this kind of reasoning can explain why I run slower when it's cloudy?

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  4. And now that I've read this blog post, I'll look at clouds differently, too. :-)

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  5. can i just say... i always love looking at your pictures?!!! beautiful! :D

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  6. When I run, I need to focus. If I start staring at clouds, I'll fall down!

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