"The Great White Hurricane"

My presentation was about the Blizzard of 1888, which left the East Coast and other parts of the United States paralyzed for weeks. It came to be known as the "Great White Hurricane" , and was labeled as one of the most severe blizzards in the United States recorded history. Out of all the cities impacted, New York suffered the most. The storm took place from March 11-14. It was one of America's coldest winters, with temperatures reaching up to the negative 50's. It began as rainfall, then gradually turning into sleet and ultimately snow from March 11-12. The snow fell, along with high speed winds from March 12-14 which caused snow drifts over 50 feet. The storm stayed longer than anitcipated because the storm's route was on an unusual course. This unusual course caused the storm to make a counter-clockwise loop while still mantianing its peak in strength. The blizzard of 1888, had a total of 400 deaths, 200 alone in New York. The storm isolated cities from Boston to Washington for weeks because all emergency cruises were immobilized, it destroyed the telegraph interest structure in New York; it also crippled and destroyed railroads. The storm, though harsh, lead to the realization in people, that destruction could arrive at any time and preparation is crucial. The blizzard caused New York to build its telephone lines underground and was partially the reason for the creation of the first, underground railroad, built in Boston 9 years later.

Luke Howard (The Cloud Expert)

            Last Friday I had the privilege to give a presentation to my class about Luke Howard who was born on November 28th, 1772 in London, England.  During the presentation I mainly focused on how Luke Howard followed in his father's footsteps by becoming a businessman and opening a firm for manufacturing pharmaceutical  chemicals, but ended up becoming a meteorologist. Even though he had no intentions on becoming a meteorologist  at first, he still showed a great interest in meteorology and clouds. Howard's obsession with clouds led to him writing and essay on the modification of clouds. In the essay Howard presents the first practical classification clouds which means he gave the clouds three name types that included the cirrus cloud, the cumulus cloud, and the stratus cloud. Without Luke Howard's  interest and hard work in studying clouds, we would not know how to identify them or what makes them different from one another. I'm glad that I had the opportunity to learn and teach about Luke Howard and his contribution to science and especially meteorology.  Before giving this presentation I had no clue how clouds got their names and how they were different.  Presenting this project allowed me to learn how different parts of the atmosphere are formed.

Superstorm of 1993

My project for class was about Superstorm of 1993. On March 12, 1993 many tornadoes in Texas tornadoes formed and moved over to the Gulf of Mexico which ended up starting becoming a superstorm. This storm has hurricane like qualities and it was very destructive. This storm caused a tidal surge in Florida that resulted in abysmal destruction of many counties in Florida. 51 one people in florida died due to this storm. In the Northeast a blizzard sprung up and came down heavy. The amount of snow that fell was incredible and record-breaking. The damage that this storm was about six million dollars worth in damage. This storm sadly took the lives of about 300 people. After doing this project I learned allot, i learned that you always have to be prepared for the unexpected because the unexpected to take your life away in a second.  I also believe that the world would be ready for another storm like this because people would not want the storm to do the same damage that it did before.

Nicholaus Copernicus Presentation

In class last week i had a presentation on Nicholaus Copernicus. I learned a lot of neat things about him. Especially how he contributed to the advancement of our understanding of life. It was hard presenting in front of the whole class because I'm not used to public speaking. It is even harder when you have a lot of friends in the class and they are trying to make you laugh at every chance.All in all though i thought i did very well in my presentation and i am exited to learn more about famous people and disasters by other students in the up coming week.

SuperStorm Sandy

Hurricane Sandy was the deadliest and most destructive hurricane of 2012, as well as the second costliest hurricane in United States history. It was first formed as a Category 1 hurricane that made its first landfall in Kingston, Jamaica. Then had hit Cuba and Haiti as a Category 2 hurricane. It had traveled the east coast of the United States and made it's first landfall in Atlantic City, NJ. Right before it hit New Jersey the hurricane weakened and became a post-tropical storm. It had hit New York And New Jersey very strong, shutting down every single form of transportation.The estimated cost of destruction was estimated at more then 50 billion dollars, second only to Hurricane Katrina. In New York and Jersey alone, the storm had damaged or destroyed more than 375,000 housing units. There was over 100 deaths 43 in New York and 37 in New Jersey. There was also a 5 billion dollar damage to the New York subway system. 8 million businesses and homes were powerless due to Sandy. Also economic loses to businesses was up to about 30 billion dollars. To this day there is still areas that are recovering from Superstorm Sandy such as coastlines.

Johannes Kepler

Many of you may know or are familiar with the name Johannes Kepler, but for those who aren't familiar here is some background information. Kepler was born December 27, 1571 and was German Nationality. He was born very sickly and came from a very poor family. Despite the fact that he was very poor he was able to obtain a scholarship to the University of Tubingen to study for the Lutheran ministry. That is where he was introduced to the ideas of Nicolaus Copernicus who believed the geocentric theory. Which was that the Earth at the center of the universe with the Sun, Moon, stars, and planets circling it. But Kepler was able to prove him wrong that it was the Sun is stationary and everything else revolved around it. He worked with Tycho Brahe who was a Danish astronomer who had a observatory in Prague. When Brahe passed away in 1601 Kepler used the information he had collected and discovered that Mars was an ellipse. Than he published a book "Astronomia Nova" where he discussed his discoveries which are now Kepler's first 2 laws of planetary motion. Than in 1621 he published his most important book where he discussed the heliocentric astronomy. The three Laws of Planetary Motion are 1.The orbits of planets are ellipses with the sun at one focus. 2. A planet must move rapidly when it is close to the sun and more slowly when it is far from the sun. 3. Planets in large orbits take much longer to orbit the sun than do planets in small orbits. These are the 3 Laws of Planetary Motion that Johannes Kepler discovered.