Wednesday, March 15, 2017
Greetings Infomaniacs,
We have been having some bizarre weather here in the greater Chicagoland area lately. In recent weeks the weather has gotten as warm as the 60s, and then over the last two days we were hit with between 3 and 9 inches of snow, depending on where it was measured. But as weird as this late winter weather seems, it is certainly not unique.
The 1967 blizzard was one of Chicago's most bizarre weather events. On Jan. 24, the high temperature was 65, and there was a tornado watch. Two days later, a storm dropped 23.1 inches of snow in 29 hours. Chicagoans could feel picked on: Milwaukee got 2 inches, and Champaign got only rain. But the Windy City is not easily intimidated. Seven hours after the storm began, with snow falling at a rate of about an inch an hour, 193 people showed up at WGN-TV's studios for the "Bozo Show."
Enjoy!
Questions? Comments?
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P.S. Thanks to everyone who let me know the
Mind Scrambler Submission page was down yesterday. It has been fixed and you can now resubmit your answers by clicking the link at the bottom of the page!
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WHO SAID IT?
QUOTE: "The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?"
HINT: (1894 - 1984), was an English novelist, playwright, scriptwriter, social commentator, and broadcaster, perhaps best known for the 1945 play An Inspector Calls.
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RANDOM TIDBITS
A blizzard occurs when you can't see for 1/4 mile. The winds are always 35 miles an hour or more. The storm must last at least 3 hours to be classed as a blizzard. If any of these conditions are less, it is only a snowstorm.
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Snow is Not White. Snow is actually clear and colorless. Like ice. The complex structure of snow crystals results in countless tiny surfaces from which visible light is efficiently reflected. What little sunlight is absorbed by snow is absorbed uniformly over the wavelengths of visible light thus giving snow its white appearance.
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Snow comes in many colors beyond the familiar white. Glacier snow can appear blue. Algae growing on fallen snow can create hues of green or red, such as what hikers call "watermelon snow." When orange snow fell in Siberia in 2007, pollution was suspected, but officials said the likely cause was a heavy sandstorm in neighboring Kazakhstan.
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Mt. Baker ski area in Washington State has the world record for snowfall at 1,140 inches (95 feet!) of snow in the 1998/1999 winter season. Mt. Baker ski area is located near but not on the real 10,781-foot Mount Baker. You can just imagine what the snow totals were on the real Mount Baker that year.
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All snowflakes have 6 sides. The oxygen atom has a particularly strong attraction to the electron clouds of the two hydrogen atoms and pulls them closer. This leaves the two hydrogen ends more positively charged, and the center of the 'V' more negatively charged. When other water molecules 'brush up' against this growing snowflake, strong forces between the negatively charged and positively charged parts of different particles cause them to join together in a very specific three-dimensional pattern with a six-sided symmetry.
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During World War I, when Italians and Austrians fought each other in the mountainous Southern Tyrol region, one of their chief weapons was snow. They purposely set off avalanches, leaving an estimated 60,000 soldiers on both sides dead, including thousands on a single day.
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*** Weekly Mind-Scrambler ***
I'm called a man,
But I'll never have a wife.
I was given a body,
But not given life.
They made me a mouth,
But I wasn't given breath.
Water gives body,
And sun gives me death.
What am I?
Submit your answer by clicking:
TheDailyTease
Answer will be posted in Friday's Trivia Today. Good Luck! If your name appears in Friday's newsletter,
EMAIL MICHELE your complete name and address to be shipped your prize.
Be sure to put "Winner" in the subject line.
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WHO SAID IT?
QUOTE: "The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?"
ANSWER: J. B. Priestley