The Jet Stream!
Aug. 6th, 2005 02:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tabular_rasaI just watched a very interesting show today. It coupled so many things I am interested in: WWII AND weather--specifically the jet stream-- and there were shots of tornadoes, a whole section on it!!!
I think the thing was like the history of the jet stream or something. When B-29 bombers were invented, in the late part of the war, they were designed for high-altitude precision bombing. However, the first crew to go up in them for a mission completely missed their targets; they were going way too fast and flew right over them. They were carried by some bizarre 140-mph winds. They were really, really confused-- and in trouble. The officials in charge refused to believe them and chewed them out. They started asking the meteorologists to predict the air speeds and temperatures at such high altitudes, and the meteorologists came up with bizarre hurricane-like winds at such high altitudes. No one could believe them, either. Then, more and more missions started coming back with the same queer, weird findings about the mysterious wind at the high altitudes.
Heehee, some random drafted air force dude discovered the jet stream.
Actually, no, that's wrong. It was a Japanese man (how ironic) named Oishi (mmm . . . yummy! Lol . . . ) who had studied it 20 years previous. However, he published his findings in Japanese (which no one in the scientific community read at that time) and-- of all things-- Esperanto. Hence, no one read it. Heehee . . .
The jet stream is at its strongest (or one of its strongest points-- it also runs into Mt. Everest, which just cracks me up . . . that's why its got that crazy plume of snow coming off of it . . . ) between Japan and the US, so, hence, it became useful in WWII warfare. The US had issues, since it went against them (one guy went up to take pictures of a mission's damage and found he was going 3 mph BACKWARDS), but the Japanese were ready-- and, after all, they had access to Oishi's Japanese studies (or maybe they were just down with Esperanto, lol . . . ).
So they invented a freaky weapon: The weather balloon bomb. It drifts, silent and deadly, across the Pacific in a matter of days. They kept tabs on it and had remote-control ballast drops to ensure the balloon kept its place in the jet stream. Most were shot down, a few captured, a few exploded into the ocean, but a few actually made it to the mainland. One, in fact, caused the only continental American civilian deaths: 6 Sunday School picnickers in Oregon. The bomb dropped, and they found it in the woods. The kids were curious and poked it, and it exploded. The lady they interviewed, their friend who was begged to go along but had to work, said she couldn't go to the spot in the woods for 40 years (shoot, I wouldn't be able to . . . ), and showed the cameraman the bit they sawed out of the tree, which had once contained shrapnel and fragments of bone. Wow . . .
Can you imagine how eerie that would be? Floating balloon of death? No wonder Neil was afraid of balloons (he was, lol-- we used to tie them to the babygate to keep him from climbing up the stairs, and away from the babygate, which he might end up opening, since it was this crazy door one with a latch, lol . . . ).
So the jet stream began to be researched. They figured out it played a heavy role in weather (and they show you the jet stream patterns on the Weather Channel to today, lol . . . ), and, especially, in tornados. The warm air and the cold air meets, a giant cloud forms, and the jet stream starts sucking it off the top. Hence, the cloud starts spinning, forming a mezocyclone, a whirling supercell. Then the warm, hot air wants to rise off the flat, cornfield-happy land, and it gets sucked upward, too, since hot air rises. A hole gets punctured in the bottom of the cloud, and, like a bathtub drain, starts sucking and a funnel cloud comes down to the ground. Sometimes, they come up from the bottom-- and some don't even connect. That's crazy!
Wow, I just wrote a whole report on the jet stream. WTF. Lol . . .
I guess I really AM ready to go back to school . . .
( . . . and my room is like Hemsley! I share a bathroom with three other girls!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE HOW HAPPY THIS MAKES ME??? *Sighs and gloats* My room is huge, carpeted, with a semi-private bathroom . . . OMG I'm actually getting kind of excited about this . . . ^_^)
On another note, I went out and swam off the boat today with Dad and Neil. It's become a tradition-- since it's too hot to just swim off the pier, since the water's too warm, there, lol . . . not really refreshing, and, plus, it's shallow and mushy, kind of, really . . .
We heard the last few movements of the New World Symphony in the boat today, too ^_^ Dad actually turned on the radio, lol . . . Yeah for Jessica's college's station!
I think the thing was like the history of the jet stream or something. When B-29 bombers were invented, in the late part of the war, they were designed for high-altitude precision bombing. However, the first crew to go up in them for a mission completely missed their targets; they were going way too fast and flew right over them. They were carried by some bizarre 140-mph winds. They were really, really confused-- and in trouble. The officials in charge refused to believe them and chewed them out. They started asking the meteorologists to predict the air speeds and temperatures at such high altitudes, and the meteorologists came up with bizarre hurricane-like winds at such high altitudes. No one could believe them, either. Then, more and more missions started coming back with the same queer, weird findings about the mysterious wind at the high altitudes.
Heehee, some random drafted air force dude discovered the jet stream.
Actually, no, that's wrong. It was a Japanese man (how ironic) named Oishi (mmm . . . yummy! Lol . . . ) who had studied it 20 years previous. However, he published his findings in Japanese (which no one in the scientific community read at that time) and-- of all things-- Esperanto. Hence, no one read it. Heehee . . .
The jet stream is at its strongest (or one of its strongest points-- it also runs into Mt. Everest, which just cracks me up . . . that's why its got that crazy plume of snow coming off of it . . . ) between Japan and the US, so, hence, it became useful in WWII warfare. The US had issues, since it went against them (one guy went up to take pictures of a mission's damage and found he was going 3 mph BACKWARDS), but the Japanese were ready-- and, after all, they had access to Oishi's Japanese studies (or maybe they were just down with Esperanto, lol . . . ).
So they invented a freaky weapon: The weather balloon bomb. It drifts, silent and deadly, across the Pacific in a matter of days. They kept tabs on it and had remote-control ballast drops to ensure the balloon kept its place in the jet stream. Most were shot down, a few captured, a few exploded into the ocean, but a few actually made it to the mainland. One, in fact, caused the only continental American civilian deaths: 6 Sunday School picnickers in Oregon. The bomb dropped, and they found it in the woods. The kids were curious and poked it, and it exploded. The lady they interviewed, their friend who was begged to go along but had to work, said she couldn't go to the spot in the woods for 40 years (shoot, I wouldn't be able to . . . ), and showed the cameraman the bit they sawed out of the tree, which had once contained shrapnel and fragments of bone. Wow . . .
Can you imagine how eerie that would be? Floating balloon of death? No wonder Neil was afraid of balloons (he was, lol-- we used to tie them to the babygate to keep him from climbing up the stairs, and away from the babygate, which he might end up opening, since it was this crazy door one with a latch, lol . . . ).
So the jet stream began to be researched. They figured out it played a heavy role in weather (and they show you the jet stream patterns on the Weather Channel to today, lol . . . ), and, especially, in tornados. The warm air and the cold air meets, a giant cloud forms, and the jet stream starts sucking it off the top. Hence, the cloud starts spinning, forming a mezocyclone, a whirling supercell. Then the warm, hot air wants to rise off the flat, cornfield-happy land, and it gets sucked upward, too, since hot air rises. A hole gets punctured in the bottom of the cloud, and, like a bathtub drain, starts sucking and a funnel cloud comes down to the ground. Sometimes, they come up from the bottom-- and some don't even connect. That's crazy!
Wow, I just wrote a whole report on the jet stream. WTF. Lol . . .
I guess I really AM ready to go back to school . . .
( . . . and my room is like Hemsley! I share a bathroom with three other girls!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE HOW HAPPY THIS MAKES ME??? *Sighs and gloats* My room is huge, carpeted, with a semi-private bathroom . . . OMG I'm actually getting kind of excited about this . . . ^_^)
On another note, I went out and swam off the boat today with Dad and Neil. It's become a tradition-- since it's too hot to just swim off the pier, since the water's too warm, there, lol . . . not really refreshing, and, plus, it's shallow and mushy, kind of, really . . .
We heard the last few movements of the New World Symphony in the boat today, too ^_^ Dad actually turned on the radio, lol . . . Yeah for Jessica's college's station!
