Tag Archives: weather

What is the UV index? The science behind the number.

By Ryan | Published: September 3, 2010

These days any weather report worth its salt will include the UV index number. I think we all understand the practicality of it. The higher the number, the higher risk of sunburn. But personally, that superficial understanding doesn’t satisfy my curiosity. I also get to brag a little, as the UV Index in a Canadian [...]

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Name That Cloud

By Ryan | Published: May 20, 2010

It’s finally gotten to the point where I can lay out on the grass and stare at the sky without the risk of being covered in snow. Let’s celebrate with the game show craze that’s not exactly sweeping the nation… Name That Cloud! You’ve probably heard the cloud names before, but if you’re like me, [...]

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Groundhog Day offers 61% chance of being pointless

By Ryan | Published: February 2, 2010

It’s Groundhog Day. For those of us in cooler climates, this gets a lot of attention. Personally, I’m not a fan, but I won’t let that get between you and the facts. So, he says with a fake cheer that could rival any TV weatherman, what’s up with this crazy Groundhog Day tradition? The gist [...]

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Superman, hamburgers, and the Coriolis effect

By Ryan | Published: January 12, 2010

Yesterday I mentioned that if you were standing at the equator you’d be spinning around the earth at about 1600 km/h. You, personally, are probably moving slower than that. Perhaps much slower. The further north (or south) you go in the world, the slower the rotation speed. If you were standing exactly at the true [...]

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FACT: the so-called global warming crisis is a lot of hot air

By Ryan | Published: October 15, 2009

This post is part of “Blog Action Day“, wherein over 7000 blogs will be posting on the topic of climate change. The goal is to raise awareness of the issues and concerns of the global environment. I have a hunch that my post is not quite what they had in mind. I’ll come right out [...]

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FACT: the colours of a sunset are caused by dust

By Ryan | Published: August 17, 2009

Well here I go, taking something that’s all purdy and majestic and reducing it to plain old math and facts. The sunset, with all it’s glorious splendour, is caused by less than splendourous dust. Plain old dust hanging around the air. It’s the way that the particles cause the radiating light to scatter, as explained [...]

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FACT: as a rough estimate, an average cloud weighs 4 million kilograms

By Ryan | Published: August 12, 2009

This may well be the fluffiest fact I’ve ever published, since there is no definitive answer. Clouds can vary widely in size, shape, and density but this answer is straight from the mouth of a genuine scientist, so there you go. (note: that should be read as ‘gen-yoooo-ine scientist‘ for proper effect) However, it would [...]

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