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fact[0]="The lowest temperature ever recorded in the U.S. was -79.8 degrees in Prospect Creek, Alaska on Jan. 23, 1971."
fact[1]="The annual cost of snow removal for streets and highways in the U.S. is estimated to be at least $2 billion."
fact[2]="At 38 degrees below zero, mercury in thermometers freezes, so when it gets colder than this, alcohol thermometers are used."
fact[3]="Although the earth's atmosphere extends some 1,500 miles above the surface, 90% of it is contained within the lowest 10 miles."
fact[4]="Assuming that the temperature and pressure remain the same, dry air is heavier than an equal volume of humid air."
fact[5]="The jet stream--the river of fast moving winds several miles above the earth's surface that marks the boundary between global air masses--was discovered by American B-29 bomber pilots flying over Japan during World War II. Westward flying pilots reported headwinds as strong as 250 mph that prevented them from moving forward."
fact[6]="Lightning is hot! The air inside the core of a lightning bolt has a temperature of about 54,000 degrees Fahrenheit, about 5 times that of the surface of the sun, which has a temperature of about 11,000 degrees F."
fact[7]="Tornadoes in the United States have an average path length of about 5 miles and an average width of 160-170 yards."
fact[8]="The earth's atmosphere is 20.95% oxygen. If it were just 1% higher, the probability of a lightning strike causing a forest fire would increase by 70%."
fact[9]="It is estimated that about 35 million Americans suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD, which results from decreased exposure to sunlight during winter months. Treatment for these cases of the 'winter blues' include light therapy and trips to sunny places."
fact[10]="Tornadoes in January? The average year sees 47 tornadoes in its first month in the U.S. January 1999 saw a record 169."
fact[11]="The first upper atmosphere temperature measurements were made in 1784 in France, using the newly-invented hot air balloon."
fact[12]="The supercomputers used by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction for computer forecast models are capable of processing over 64 million instructions each second."
fact[13]="An old weather proverb from France: 'When March has April weather, April will have March weather.'"
fact[14]="Just like warm air ascending mountain slopes can create clouds as it is cooled, the pyramids of Egypt have been known to generate clouds from hot air rising up along their sides."
fact[15]="Baghdad, California has gone 767 days in a row without rain, from October 3, 1912 to November 8, 1914."
fact[16]="German physicist Gabriel D. Fahrenheit developed the temperature scale that bears his name in 1714. The 'zero point' on his scale was the lowest temperature he could attain with a mixture of ice, water and salt."
fact[17]="The warmer the air is, the more moisture it can 'hold;' the amount of water vapor air can 'hold' doubles for each 20 degree F increase in temperature."
fact[18]="The dew point is the temperature to which air would need to be cooled in order for it to become saturated with water vapor. It is, therefore, one way of measuring how humid the air is: the closer the dew point is to the actual air temperature, the closer the relative humidity will be to 100%."
fact[19]="The 'green flash' is a rare optical phenomenon usually seen over the ocean on clear days. Due to refraction of the sun's rays, a flash of green light may appear at the instant the sun sets below the horizon."
fact[20]="'Equinox' is Latin for 'equal night' and refers to the time of the year when the sun is directly above the equator. However, because the earth's atmosphere bends the sun's rays, most areas will have equal day and night several days before the equinox."
fact[21]="The Atacama desert in Chile is considered the driest area in the world, receiving an average of 0.03 inches of rain per year. By comparison, the driest city in the U.S., Yuma, AZ, receives an average of 3.17 inches of rain per year--about 100 times as much!"
fact[22]="Believe it or not, humid air is lighter than the same volume of dry air because water vapor molecules are less dense than the nitrogen and oxygen they displace."
fact[23]="Above 18,000 ft. in elevation, air pressure is half of what it is at sea level. This means that twice as many breaths are required to supply the same amount of oxygen to the blood and we tire more easily when exerting ourselves at higher elevations."
fact[24]="Although we rely on oxygen to survive, only about 21% of the air we breathe is oxygen. The majority of our atmosphere (78%) is made up of nitrogen. The remaining 1% is a mixture of other gases, such as argon, neon, and helium."
fact[25]="The percentage of energy from the sun that is reflected by a surface is known as its albedo. The total albedo of the earth averages to about 30%, but can vary from about 10% for dry soil to as much as 85% for fresh snow."
fact[26]="Uranus is the 7th planet from the sun and the third largest planet in our solar system. One day on Uranus lasts just under 18 hours, but it takes it 84 earth years for it to complete one revolution around the sun."
fact[27]="A blue moon, the second full moon in the same month, is nothing rare--it happens about once every 2 1/2 years. But a second blue moon in one year, which last occurred on March 31, 1999, only happens about 3 or 4 times per century."
fact[28]="Which place gets more rain than any other in an average each year? Lloro, Colombia averages 523.6 inches of rain per year, more than possibly anywhere else on earth. Mawsynram, India comes in as a close second with 467.4 inches."
fact[29]="The 'super-outbreak' of tornadoes that ravaged the U.S. from Alabama to Michigan on April 3-4, 1974. Severe thunderstorms spawned 148 tornadoes, killing 315 people, injuring 5,300 others and causing $600 million worth of damage."
fact[30]="The record for the most snowfall from a single storm in the U.S. belongs to Mt. Shasta, California, where 189 inches fell from Feb. 13-19, 1959."
fact[31]="The reason why we have seasons is that the earth's axis of rotation is tilted 23.5 degrees off its orbital plane. This means that when the Northern Hemisphere is tilted more toward the sun, its summer here, while in the Southern Hemisphere its winter and vice versa."
fact[32]="The U.S. averages about 1,200 tornadoes each year, but only about 20 of those are 'killer' tornadoes, claiming a total of about 60 lives each year."
fact[33]="Each year tornadoes kill about 60 people in the U.S., but they injure about 20 times as many people."
fact[34]="The highest wind speed ever recorded anywhere on earth was observed on the summit of Mt. Washington, NH on April 12, 1934. A peak gust of 231 mph was reported--that's more than 50 mph higher than the highest wind speeds observed with Hurricane Mitch in 1998."
fact[35]="The windiest place on earth is considered to be Commonwealth Bay on the coast of Antarctica. Wind speeds here reach hurricane force (74 mph) on average every three days and often exceed 200 mph."
fact[36]="The world's first weather satellite, Tiros 1, was launched on April 1, 1960 and sent back thousands of images during its short life span of only 79 days."
fact[37]="About 90% of the world's ice is found in Antarctica."
fact[38]="The National Weather Service issues a wind advisory when sustained wind speeds of 30 mph or higher or gusts of 40 mph or higher are expected or occurring."
fact[39]="According to the Worldwatch Institute, severe weather in 1998 caused more than 30,000 deaths and close to $90 billion in damage across the globe."
fact[40]="The National Weather Service reports that the La Niņa event of 1998-99 resulted in the third warmest November-January period for the U.S. in the previous 104 years."
fact[41]="Although the wind may be a nuisance to some, it can serve as an important source of power. In California, some 16,000 windmills provide 1% of the state's electric power--enough to service 300,000 homes."
fact[42]="'Weather' indicates the state of the atmosphere at a given time and place, while 'climate' refers to a location's long-term weather trends and often takes into account several decades of weather data."
fact[43]="Don't tell Superman, but the earth's atmosphere is made up of 0.00005% krypton."
fact[44]="Only a small percentage of tornadoes that occur each year are classified as F5 on the Fujita scale, with winds ranging from 261-318 mph. No tornado is believed to have ever exceeded the F5 category."
fact[45]="Texas leads the U.S. in the number of tornadoes reported each year. From 1950-1996, Texas saw 5,860 tornadoes--more than Kansas and Oklahoma combined."
fact[46]="Large hailstones can fall at rates as high as 90 mph and weigh over a pound. The largest known hailstone, which fell from the sky on April 14, 1986 in Bangladesh, weighed a record 2 1/4 pounds."
fact[47]="Tornadoes have been known to occur on every continent except Antarctica."
fact[48]="Although Texas sees more tornadoes each year than any other state, the state with the most tornadoes per 10,000 square miles is Florida."
fact[49]="The Fujita scale, which ranks tornadoes based on the amount of damage produced by their winds, was developed by Dr. Ted Fujita and Allen Pearson of the University of Chicago in 1971."
fact[50]="The heaviest snowfalls usually occur when the air temperature is just below freezing, but it is possible to see snowflakes falling with temperatures in the upper 30s, since it is much colder aloft where the snowflakes form."
fact[51]="Although snow usually falls when the temperature near the ground is below freezing, there was once a report of snow showers at New York's LaGuardia Airport with a surface temperature of 47 degrees F."
fact[52]="One unusual tornado story from 1894 tells of a twister that struck a farm, hurling a chicken coop into the air and wedging it between two trees. When people arrived to clean up the mess, they found all of the chickens alive and well and not a single egg broken."
fact[53]="Most tornadoes rotate counterclockwise. However, about 1 in 100 will rotate clockwise."
fact[54]="The earth's atmosphere is estimated to weigh about 5 million billion tons. This weight exerts an average of about 14.7 pounds per square inch of pressure on the surface of our planet, which is equal to about 29.92 inches of mercury in a standard barometer."
fact[55]="How much does a cloud weigh? That depends on the size and type of cloud, but a 1 km x 1km x 1km (0.6 miles x 0.6 miles x0.6 miles) cumulus cloud weighs about 1.4 billion lbs."
fact[56]="Mars is known not only for its extremes in elevation, but also its extreme temperatures. The surface temperature on Mars ranges anywhere from -28 degrees Fahrenheit to over 100 degrees below zero."
fact[57]="What part of the world sees more thunderstorms than any other? The Island of Java, in Indonesia, has thunderstorms occurring an average of 322 days a year."
fact[58]="A cyclical increase in solar activity occurs as the sun's magnetic field reverses every 10 or 11 years. Besides causing blackouts and blocking radio communications, solar flares occurring during peaks of solar activity can also contribute to the formation of the Northern Lights."
fact[59]="The term 'hurricane' is derived from Huracan, a Carib god of evil."
fact[60]="While the Atlantic hurricane season officially begins on June 1, the season for hurricanes in the eastern North Pacific officially begins on May 15. Both hurricane seasons last through November 30."
fact[61]="Believe it or not, it has been hotter in North Dakota than it ever has been in Florida. North Dakota's all-time record high temperature is 121 degrees F, while the highest temperature ever recorded in Florida is 109 F."
fact[62]="On June 10, 1752, Benjamin Franklin is believed to have narrowly missed electrocution while flying a kite with a key attached to it in a thunderstorm. His experiment demonstrated that lightning is a form of electricity and paved the way for Franklin's invention of the lightning rod."
fact[63]="Hail causes nearly $1 billion in damage to crops and property each year in the U.S."
fact[64]="The Richter scale used to measure earthquake magnitude is not a linear scale, but a logarithmic one. This means that each whole number increase on the scale represents a 31 times increase in the amount of energy released by the earthquake."
fact[65]="Hurricanes never form within 5 degrees latitude of the equator. Although the ocean waters near the equator do get warm enough to fuel hurricanes, the effect that the earth's rotation has on winds and ocean currents, known as the Coriolis effect, is too weak near the equator for hurricanes to form."
fact[66]="About 1,000 gallons of water escapes the earth's atmosphere each day through the polar wind, a flow of charged gas and plasma that travels from the earth's upper atmosphere into outer space near the poles."
fact[67]="Light from the sun takes about 8 minutes to reach the earth."
fact[68]="Over the past 30 years, more people have been killed by floods and flash floods than any other weather-related disaster."
fact[69]="Waterspouts, often described as simply 'tornadoes over water,' usually form out of a towering cumulus cloud that hasn't developed into a thunderstorm. They also tend to be much weaker than their tornadic cousins."
fact[70]="Keraunophobia, also known as brontophobia, is the irrational fear of thunder and lightning."
fact[71]="Nearly 100 people are killed every year by lightning strikes in the U.S., while another 300 are treated for lightning related injuries."
fact[72]="Cherrapunji, India holds the world record for the most rainfall in one month (366 inches) as well as the most rainfall in one year (1,042 inches)."
fact[73]="July is the peak month for lightning casualties in the U.S."
fact[74]="The United States sees more than 20 million lightning strikes each year."
fact[75]="Although it poses the most danger to people, cloud-to-ground lightning represents only about 20 percent of all lightning strikes."
fact[76]="Although it seems much wider, the current channel of a typical lightning bolt is only about the size of a pencil."
fact[77]="Most tornadoes hit between 5pm and 6pm."
fact[78]="Cars can be carried away in only two feet of water."
fact[79]="The coldest temperature recorded on the continental United States is -70 degrees Fahrenheit, recorded at Rogers Pass, Montana on January 20, 1954."
fact[80]="A Tsunami can move as fast as 670 mph in 30,000 ft. deep waters."
fact[81]="The wettest city in the United States is Hilo, Hawaii, averaging 128 inches of rain annually."
fact[82]="On January 22, 1943 the temperature at Spearfish, SD went from 4 degrees Fahrenheit to 45 degrees Fahrenheit in just two minutes."
fact[83]="The Empire State Building in New York City is struck by lightning more than 20 times in an average year."
fact[84]="Water weighs 62.4 lbs. per cubic foot."
fact[85]="Tsunamis hit Japan more often than anywhere else in the world."
fact[86]="You would need to melt 20 to 40 inches of dry snow in order to equal one inch of rain."
fact[87]="The sunniest city in the United States is Yuma, AZ, which receives 90% of possible sunshine each year."
fact[88]="The deadliest Atlantic hurricane to occur in the 20th century struck Galveston, TX on September 8, 1900, claiming 6,000 lives."
fact[89]="Strong Tornadoes can lift cars and trains off of the ground."
fact[90]="Lightning has been known to kill people talking on the telephone."
fact[91]="Lightning causes almost twice as many deaths as a tornado, but a tornado causes much more property damage."

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