Raining Cats and Dogs

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98.00W38.00N
NAT

EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE
	It is unlikely you will ever see the sky rain real cats and dogs, but it could happen.
	In the midwestern United States, tornadoes sometimes pick up and drop some of the strangest things.
	Tornadoes develop when a whirlpool of air forms in a thundercloud. These "twisters" are funnel-shaped and about 350 yards wide with winds up to 400 miles an hour and brilliant lightning flashes. They explode houses, lift cars, herds of cattle and train engines. They can even drive straws through fence posts. So it is not surprising that twisters have also vacuumed frogs and fish from ponds and dropped them over towns.
	Lightning storms can also be extremely damaging. One lightning bolt can discharge a trillion watts of electricity, easily destroying a building. But lightning is attracted to the highest object in an area, which gave Benjamin Franklin the idea for the lightning rod, a metal rod that sticks out above a building and leads to the ground. Because the rod is higher than the building, the lightning strikes it instead of the building, then flows harmlessly into the ground.
	Another type of violent storm is the hurricane, such as the one pictured here. Hurricanes form in tropical oceans when east and west trade winds curl around each other to form a spiral. If conditions are right, warm air rises in the spiral, making the winds go faster and faster.
	Hurricanes average 400 miles across with winds from 75 to 125 miles per hour. In the middle of a hurricane is a circular "eye" about 15 miles across that is nearly windless. When the eye passes overhead it can fool people into thinking the storm is over when they are really right in the middle of it! The winds and storm tides from hurricanes can cause major damage to seaside areas.
