Exploring the Earth’s Most Breathtaking Weather Phenomena

Have you ever looked up and wondered if the sky was trying to tell you something? From clouds that ripple like waves to lightning storms that light up the night, our atmosphere puts on shows that are stranger, wilder, and more magical than any story.

https://www.rmets.org/metmatters/rare-weather-phenomena-captured-camera

https://www.weather.gov/owlie/weird-weather

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catatumbo_lightning

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Welcome to the Cashley Show. We are Kevin and Ashley. We started this podcast after recent tragedies to take a break from negativity and discover the good news happening all around us. Today we are exploring Earth's most breathtaking weather phenomena.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Breathtaking weather phenomena. Something like that. Oh, I can see it. Sorry, everybody else.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

There's links at the bottom, you can find the all these things. Alright, the sky above us is home to some of nature's most amazing displays. We might think we know the weather, rain, snow, or shine, and clouds. But there are many rare and fascinating events that most people never see. Sometimes the sky glows with rainbow colors, rivers of light move across the horizon, or storms clash high above the ground. Let's explore the secrets and science behind some of the world's most surprising and hard to find weather wonders. I want to know at the end how many of these you knew about.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

The first one is the new yeah, the newest cloud.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

That's its name?

SPEAKER_00 1:21

No, it has a different name.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Ready for it?

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Ready.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Look at this picture.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Why is this called the newest cloud? Is it because like these didn't used to exist?

SPEAKER_00 1:30

So this is called aspiritas. It's a rare and striking cloud formation that makes the sky look like an upside-down ocean.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Yeah, it looks like a watercolor painting or something from like the 1800 or 1700s or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Yeah, it's pretty crazy looking. If you stand beneath these clouds, it can seem as if the waves are rippling and moving above you. Esparitas was officially named in 2017. After 10 years of effort, it became the first new cloud type added to the International Cloud Atlas in 66 years.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

So now there's another new cloud type? Because all I know is like I don't and I if I saw them, I wouldn't know, but like Culeo Nimbus and like Culeo Stratus, or I don't know, something like that. And now there's even more clouds that I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Well, this is the only one that's been added in 66 years. You can see these clouds in the plain states of the United States during the morning or midday hours following a thunderstorm. These clouds have dramatic wave-like patterns on their undersides, sometimes forming sharp, jagged points. Aspirita clouds often appear with stratocumulus and altocumulus clouds, making the sky look unusual and memorable.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Yeah. Cumulus.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

When the sun is low, the wave-like bottoms of these clouds can glow brightly with each ripple and shadow clearly visible.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Is there a video that we you and I can watch? You guys have to go watch your own video.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Yeah, let me find one. What's happening?

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Because I want to see this. And I wish the name was a little bit different.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

What's happening?

SPEAKER_01 3:15

I wish the name was a little bit different because it says like aspiritas.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

But like that sounds plural. But then if you want to just say like an aspirita cloud, is what I want to say, but if I say aspiritas cloud.

SPEAKER_02 3:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

And it just sounds weird. Like a plural singular. Do you want me to come over there and show you how to use a laptop?

SPEAKER_00 3:36

It's freaking out being on this mirroring. Doesn't appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

I didn't buy you a fancy MacBook Air for you to not use it.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

I use it every day.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

That's crazy looking. That really does look like you're underwater and those are the waves. Like the surfing videos and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

I kind of want to go to the plains and you won't go to the plains.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

You don't like tornadoes.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

I'm terrified of tornadoes.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

Yeah, that looks cool. How they have like waves like that. Look at that.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

It's like all moving, that one's not at all.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

That's pretty nuts. What?

SPEAKER_00 4:13

That looks like mountains.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

Yeah, that is crazy looking. What are they called again? Asparatus?

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Mm-hmm. Alright. Good?

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Okay. Yeah, I'm good. Everybody else, go check it out.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Next one we have Fujiwara effect.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Fujiwara?

SPEAKER_00 4:33

This is when two hurricanes are spinning in the same direction and get close. They interact in a unique way. If one is much stronger, the smaller storm circles around it and it is eventually absorbed. If the storms are similar in strength, they spiral around each around a shared center. Sometimes they merge into a single large storm or they move into new paths. Usually this process leads to one large powerful storm. It's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Yeah, that's a good one.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

I watch a lot of hurricanes.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Right, yeah. I've never seen that or even heard of that, but I mean I guess it makes sense. Yeah. It's kind of like in space when you have like two bodies or two galaxies and like they come same type of thing, just on a different scale, I guess. Yeah, that's uh I don't know. No no videos, no like weather channel space videos.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

You want me to find one?

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Uh sure. More videos for me to watch.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

You just like having the TV now.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

I do. Finally gives me something to do.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

You don't like my my talking.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

That's okay. We can move on.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

All right. Next we have pearly skies.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Pearly? So this is that looks more like what I was thinking when you were talking about like ice crystals and stuff. Right? That's what that looks like to me. You have a bunch of just small ice crystals floating through the sky. And yeah, and you have the sun is down low or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

So this says another rare sight in the sky is the mother of pearl clouds. These clouds are rare and shine in pastel colors, like oil on water or on the inside of a seashell. They only appear when the stratosphere drops below negative 108 degrees Fahrenheit, which is so rare that seeing it in in places like the UK is almost a once-in-a-lifetime event. These clouds form high above normal weather in the cold polar stratosphere during winter. Most weather happens in the troposphere. Troposphere. Troposphere. But just above it, about 2.6 miles up the stratosphere.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

2.2. It's a good thing you have the screen up for me now, so I can correct all your reading.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

What did I say?

SPEAKER_01 6:47

2.6?

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Oh sorry. 6.2 miles up. The stratosphere is dry and rarely has clouds. When mother of pearl clouds do appear, tiny particles inside of them scatter sunlight into bright, colorful patterns, making the sky look especially vivid.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

So just because it's like so cold, is that why? And I guess there's not really any weather because it's too far up.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Yeah. But it's very pretty.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

It almost looks like northern lights, like some weird kind of next one is heat burst. Imagine it's midnight and suddenly the air becomes very hot. Temperatures can rise by 20 degrees in just a few moments. And strong winds up to 80 miles per hour can sweep through your town. This rare and under unpredictable event is called a heat burst.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

No weather, no weather. No wonder people used to believe in like like ghosts and like all of this stuff so much more. Like if if I was 400 years ago and I'm it's just at night and all of a sudden the temperature jumps 20 degrees and there's wind and stuff like blowing around, I'd be like, yeah, there are demons coming.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Heat bursts happen when a thunderstorm is ending and certain conditions are met. The storm is high in the sky. There is a layer of hot, very dry air below. As rain falls into this dry air, it evaporates quickly, cooling the air and making it heavier. This heavier air then falls rapidly toward the ground, picking up speed as it cools. Normally, falling air continues to cool as moisture evaporate evaporates. In a heat burst, however, all the moisture disappears early and the falling air is compressed and heated even more as it descends. When it reaches the ground, it brings a sudden wave of very hot, dry air that can last for hours.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

So does this happen? Would this be like more in the like southwest or in the plains again? Or is this like anywhere?

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Commonly in the plains. In the southwest.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

So the plains get all the good weather, all the fun stuff.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

I know you need to move there.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

I don't want to.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

All right. Next we have the highest cloud.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

I thought the one cloud we were looking at was the highest cloud. The mother of pearl was like 6.2 miles up.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

There's even clouds in the city.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

I don't know that those are like clouds so much as they're I don't know. Yeah. But they all are a weather phenomenon. High above the earth near the edge of space. Noct noctilucent clouds appear in summer. Made of tiny ice crystals, these very thin silvery blue clouds glow in the night sky and show up just as the brightest stars begin to appear. Their name Noctilucent means night shining, which describes them well.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Can we go back to that picture? Yeah, because like the I guess that makes sense because the sun is set, and so up in the high parts of the atmosphere, it's still getting sunlight. So then it's yeah, because the clouds almost look superimposed on the night.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

You can see these clouds only during twilight when it is dark on the ground, but sunlight still reaches the upper atmosphere.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

What'd I just say? Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

Ready for the next one? Haboob. Is that how you say it? That's how I'm gonna say it. Haboobs are large dust storms most often seen in northern Africa and southwestern US. Yeah. Well, I feel like I mean, not as big as these, but like when we drove across northern Nevada, I feel like we hit something similar to this. Big dust storm.

SPEAKER_02 10:45

Some mega dust storms.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Drought and loose soil make these storms more likely. When a thunderstorm ends, it can release a strong gust of wind, sometimes in the form of a microburst.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

We know. Didn't we just learn about that? When a thunderstorm ends, that's what that one thing was, right? Yeah, heat burst.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Nice. These winds move ahead of the storm, picking up dust and debris into a wall that can be thousands of feet high and stretch for miles. If you see the sky darkening and the wall approaching, it's safest to go indoors. Probably don't want to breathe that in.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Yeah. Is this maybe you'll have to look this up. Like, what is the phenomenon that brings the dust of the Sahara Desert like across the Atlantic Ocean? And like it drops it into the plains, and I won't maybe in Brazil or something also.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

I thought that's what started like the hurricanes.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

I guess not yeah, some of the hurricanes start from that.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Maybe. Yeah, I don't know. But there's like dust, like every year it happens. It's like a cycle cyclical thing. Like dust from Africa makes its way to um like the United States and the Caribbean and Mexico and stuff, I think. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

Each year, typically from June to August, strong winds lift immense quala quantities of dust from the Sahara. These particles composed of soil, minerals, carried westward, atmospheric currents, eventually reaching the Caribbean, Gulf Coast.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

Right. Yeah, it's okay. I thought I thought that it was gonna have the like Habub name to but it doesn't seem like it is. So that's fine.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

Night is night sprites.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

Night sprites?

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Look at that.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

That looks like an alien? Yeah, I was gonna say uh what's the An alien octopus? From the eighties, the close encounters of third kind. Is that what it is?

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Like the not an octopus, I mean a jellyfish. A sky jellyfish. Sprites are some of the rarest sights in the sky. They're large bursts of red lightning that last only milliseconds, high above thunderstorms. Powerful lightning strikes trigger these events, which can reach up to thirty miles into the mesosphere, and sometimes form clusters that look like jellyfish. Or glowing carrots.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Glowing carrots, nice.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Most people never see a sprite, but those who do see a brief and unusual display.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

I see sprite all the time. I usually drink one for lunch. Yeah, isn't there I wonder if they're the same thing, like the lightning that shoots off into space at the top of thunderclouds that like the ISS takes pictures and videos of? I wonder if this is the same thing. I mean, that doesn't look like what I think I remember reading about. I can't see exactly what you're taking.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

Sprites are sometimes inaccurately called upper atmospheric lightning. However, they are cold plasma phenomena that lack the hot channel temperatures of troososphere, as I say. Troposphere? Troposphere, tropospheric lightning. So they are more achen to fluorescent tube discharge than a lightning discharge.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Cool. Kevin's learning stuff today, guys.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

It's surprising.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

I learn stuff every day. I'd love to learn.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

You do, but you know everything. Next one is the squall line.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

We get Oh, I've seen these.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

We we get notifications of a squall. A squall. Where we live sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Yeah. I've seen these are these are pretty cool. Like when you're up high, so you have a good view of them. Or like this picture that you have where you it's like an open view. Yeah, you just see this like wall of clouds. Yeah, it's way cool.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

Yeah. Thunderstorms do not always appear as distant, isolated rumbles. Sometimes they come together in a long line that can stretch for miles. Most often, a cold front is a driving force, lifting moist, unstable air upward and creating a huge electrified display in the sky.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

So there's one of these when I was on Hillfield, right, doing stuff. Oh, there's one of these coming. And I was like, on you know, we were getting ready to do flights and stuff. It's like, you know, it's just like talking about that. Does anyone else see this? And no one really cared. They still did all the flights. All right, cool.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Yeah, I imagine.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

I wasn't in charge. I just do stuff with the with the jets. Or did, I guess. You want me to read now? I can read stuff too now that I can see. One of the most powerful types of squall lines is the derecho. When high pressure systems twist and bend the line, the storm releases strong, straight line winds that can be as powerful as a tornado. Derecho's can leave a path of destruction at least 250 miles long, with winds reaching over 58 miles per hour in a single surge.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Pretty crazy.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

Yeah. I remember when that came in, that one I was talking about on the flight line. When that came in, yeah, it was just like super strong winds. Like you would imagine, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

But next up is fire rainbows.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

Fire rainbows. I like this. I don't know what it is, but I like it already.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

Rainbows are always a treat, but sometimes you might see one that looks like it's on fire. This is called a fire rainbow. Or circumhorizontal arc.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

That's a dumb name. Fire rainbow is much better.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

When sunlight passes through ice crystals high in the sky.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

I feel like we've heard this like four or five times now. How can all these ice crystals, but how can they all be something different if it's all ice crystals high up in the sky? Right? Like if I told you when you froze water, sometimes it was ice, sometimes it was something else, sometimes it was something else, and sometimes it was something else. You'd be like, What? How? So this I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

I didn't I didn't make it up. I'm just reading.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

I feel like you did make it up. And you ran out of imagination, so you just use the same thing over and over again.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Nope. You could do the next paragraph.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

Fire rainbows only appear when several things line up perfectly. First, the sun has to be very high in the sky, at least fifty-eight degrees above the horizon. Next, there must be thin sterus. Is that how you spell? Strus. Stirus. There must be thin stirrus clouds made of flat plate-shaped ice crystals. Okay. So the ice crystals that are formed are different shapes and sizes and stuff. Also, this is like the sun is up in the up above. Where the lots of the other ones, the sun is like either down.

SPEAKER_02 17:38

Setting?

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Yeah, it's either setting or has already set. Okay, so it probably is like the same or similar like cloud. It's just how the sun, how light is catching it and refracting. Anyway, okay, keep it going.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

And how the ice crystals are flat on this one? Yeah. They're not always flat.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

Yeah, I don't know. Hmm. Hmm. I just know ice that it's in my drink. As sunlight passes through the edge of each ice crystal, it bends and then exits. This is called refraction, I believe. It bends and exits through the bottom, splitting into bright bands of color just like a rainbow. If you live far north or south of the equator, the sun never climbs high enough, so you won't see this rare show. But you will get northern and southern lights.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

So it's okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

We've never seen this rare show. We don't live too far north or south. Next one, volcanic lightning.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

What? New favorite sentence.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

When a volcano erupts, it sends out molten rock, hot gases, and ash into the sky. Sometimes lightning flashes through the ash cloud, making the eruption even more dramatic and powerful.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

That is a cool picture. You should scroll back up. You guys should go look up volcanic lightning. It looks like we were we've been watching Lord of the Rings. This looks like something you'd see in Lord of the Rings, like over in Mordor. You're like, ooh, here you go. Here's your ring. I'm not going over there.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

Most lightning starts in thunderclouds where small ice particles move around.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

Ice particles again. I tell you.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

As these ice particles move up and down, they bump into each other and build up an elect a large electric charge. It works like rubbing your hair on a balloon, which makes the hair stand up. But in a thunderstorm, the electricity is much stronger. It can light up the sky. Inside the storm, lighter positively charged ice pieces move to the top of the cloud while heavier, heavier, negatively charged pieces sink to the bottom. This creates an imbalance of electrical energy. When the difference becomes too great, lightning flashes across the sky, connecting the charges and balancing the storm's energy.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

So when I was I was in like the second or third grade or something, right? We had like the science, like fair or whatever, like science. Right. And like my thing was on this, like balloons and like static electricity and doing charges and stuff, and had like you know the poster board, things like that. I remember doing it in the house.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

That's cool. I don't remember what my my science for project was about.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

A volcano with baking soda.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

I don't think so. But in volcanic eruption, there is no ice, only broken rock and ash. As these pieces move and rub against each other, they create enough static electricity to match a strong thunderstorm.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Ain't nothing wrong with a little bump and grind.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

Lightning from a volcano can be five times hotter than the surface of the sun. What? And can melt ash into tiny glass beads.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

I used to think the sun was hot, but now I think the sun is weak. Five times hotter?

SPEAKER_00 20:48

Yeah. These glass beads left behind after the eruption help scientists learn about the eruption's power.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

So there's just like a bunch of glass beads everywhere?

SPEAKER_00 20:57

To find some of those.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

I would that would be so crazy. You're just walking along and like an old volcano is over there, and like you're walking along, and there's just like glass beads all over the ground.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

I wonder how you'd know what they were from.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

That's true. I wonder how big these beads are, or if they're so small, like you wouldn't really notice them.

SPEAKER_02 21:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

I don't know. Next one up. 22 degree halo. Okay, see the halo.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

So is this only at night, or is this just that picture? Because it looks like there's stars and that's the bus.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

Yeah. A glowing ring around the moon has inspired weather stories every time.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Sometimes I just need to wait a second.

unknown 21:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

People often say rain soon. These bright halos look mysterious and have led to many myths, but the real cause is scientific, not magical.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

Like most things.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Even when the sky seems clear, halos form because of thin icy clouds high above. These clouds often show up before the storms, but seeing a Halo does not always mean it will rain. It sometimes mean the cloud means the clouds are made of ice crystals, not water. Ice crystals everywhere. Right? In the cold upper atmosphere, only crystals can form, which creates this beautiful ring. Each small ice crystal acts as a prism, splitting sunlight or moonlight into soft bands of color and creating a faint rainbow around the sun or moon. If you sorry, you have to be in the right place to see the full ring, which is 22 degrees wide, about as wide as your hand held out.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

What? 22 degrees. I don't I'm not quite sure I understand that, but okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

This shows that everyday things can be amazing if you know how to look for them. Ready for the next one?

SPEAKER_01 22:52

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

I don't know if I can see this one. That's a big catatumbo lightning.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Tumbo? Matumbo?

SPEAKER_00 23:00

Catatumbo. Sorry if I said that wrong. Whoever anyone. You like that one?

SPEAKER_01 23:07

Whoa. Does that all happen at once, or is this like a Venezuela? Right, but sometimes they have like the pictures where like they superimpose like every lightning strike. So like they didn't all happen at once. But are is this all happening at once?

SPEAKER_00 23:20

I think so.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

Ready? Oh dang. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

The Catatumbo lightning is Venezuela's wild, electrifying spectacle and an atmospheric marvel found nowhere else on earth. Where the Catatumbo River meets Lake Oh boy. Maracabo.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

Sorry. Storm clouds gather above the mountains and put on a lightning show like no other. For up to one hundred and sixty nights each year, sometimes for ten hours at a time. The sky lights up with as many two as many as two hundred and eighty lightning strikes an hour.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

Jeez.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Kevin would love to see this.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

I would. This is was one of my favorite things about living in Texas. I would just go out, like not out into the open, mind you. Open garage. Yeah, like with the garage open or different stuff, like under the and just watch these thunderstorms come in. And because like the lightning was, I don't know, about 280 an hour, but there was a lot of lightning. It was every few, like every 10 seconds or something.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

There's just and the thunder was so loud, it would shake our house.

SPEAKER_01 24:31

Right. Yep. Just rolling thunder. Yeah, super cool. Yeah, this would be very exciting. In Venezuela. Well, hopefully we can go to Venezuela in a while.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

Alright. This lightning, capital of the world, where night can be brighter than day, and nature's power is impossible to miss.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

That's super cool. So it's just in this one spot, and it's because of certain things like the mountains with the lake and the river. So all these things kind of come together and make this happen. And it's called Katatumbo.

unknown 25:06

Right?

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Katatumbo. Katatumbo. Because that's the name of the river. I wonder what that means. Or if it's just like a name, like Mississippi. I don't know what Mississippi means, it just means Mississippi.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

Right. Next one is Snow Roller.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

A snow roller.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

These this happens in Idaho.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

In only Idaho, just because it's so windy?

SPEAKER_00 25:28

I don't know if it's only Idaho.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

I know that it's what is the size of those? Because right now they're just like a bunch of rolls of toilet paper sitting on the ground.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

Uh it was on here. I might have deleted it. I want to say it was like big feet.

SPEAKER_01 25:41

Called snow rollers.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

Small as a tennis ball and as large as a car.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

Whoa, that is a big range.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

Sometimes nature creates a winter surprise. Snow rollers. Look as if a playful spirit rolled up an icy pastry along the landscape, turning the ordinary snowfall into something special. Making a snow roller takes just the right conditions. The snow has to be sticky enough to hold together, but loose enough to roll. The wind should be gentle, coaxing the snow into a curling up sorry, into curling up like nature's own pastries. If the snow is on a gentle slope, gravity helps each roll form as it tumbles downhill. No matter how they form, snow rollers are nature's fleeting masterpieces. They are so rare they're almost impossible to recreate. If you find one, take a moment to appreciate the perfect uh mix of conditions and create that created this winter a wonder. You get to do air ice.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

I get to do it. Okay. What that looks like a bunch of like fiber optic wire stuff. That's very crazy looking. Okay, I'm reading this. On cold humid nights in shadowy northern forests, you might come across a surreal sight, delicate silvery locks of ice growing from decaying wood. This is hair ice. A frosty mane made of thousands of threads, each as fine as a strand of hair, shimmering in the moonlight like nature's own winter wig. Will you go back up to that page?

SPEAKER_00 27:23

So this is off of the tells you more about it in the next part.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

For decades these icy threads puzzled scientists. The creator isn't frost, but a clever fungus working its magic beneath the bark. The fungus hidden in the bark releases special chemicals as ice forms. These chemicals shape the ice into slender threads and keep the crystals from clumping together. In perfect conditions, these icy manes can last for days, but most disappear by morning, leaving only stories of their brief beauty. I mean I guess just like how pasta and stuff is made, right? Like it just starts and it's like up and out, just going up and out and like just keeps going. Yeah, I mean it looks like hair or fiber optic or what are those like little th the nope, that's in our a different episode. Well, I don't think we're thinking of the same thing. No, I was just thinking of the little like light things you can buy.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

It has a light and then it has like it's a it's a fiber optic. I can't remember what it's called, but it's an R80s show. Okay. My mom had my mom had one. Okay. Next one is Earth's Shadow.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

What? Isn't that just called nighttime?

SPEAKER_00 28:35

Right there.

unknown 28:35

I think it's cool.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

Earth's shadow was just what it sounds like. Our planet casting its own silhouette onto the sky. At twilight, look to the horizon opposite of the sun, and you'll see a wide blue black band slowly rising or sinking. A reminder that night is arriving as day ends. Earth's huge curved shadow stretches more than 800,000 miles into space. This cosmic cloak is responsible for lunar eclipses. When the sun, earth, and moon line up just right, our planet's shadow covers the moon, creating one of the sky's most dramatic shows. This one. How do you say that?

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Crepuler.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

You see these all the time. Sometimes you'll step outside and find yourself in a celestial spotlight.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

Yeah, I was gonna say these are like people probably call them like god rays or heaven rays or something.

SPEAKER_00 29:31

With golden beams of sunlight fanning out through the clouds at dramatic angles. These are creske crescuscular. These rays are named for twilight when their beauty is most striking. And finally, this last one is called glory. See that?

SPEAKER_01 29:52

Glory. This this looks like it's looking at the water.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

What's next to the boat? It looks like a person in a halo, like a rainbow halo.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

Yeah, what? To mean yeah, like yes, but if it's just in the water, is it just an oil spill?

SPEAKER_00 30:05

I'll tell you. A glory is a magical rainbow halo that circles your shadow's head. An optical enchantment, best seen from mountaintops or skyscrapers. These high places also create broccoli spectras, ghostly stretched shadows looming in the mist below. Together they turn ordinary moments into scenes from a fairy tale. Glories appear when sunlight passes through tiny droplets in clouds or fog, scattering into bright rings of color, like small rainbows floating in the mist. Because of how the light moves through the droplets, these circles are much smaller and more personal than a typical rainbow. So this is taken from the Golden Gate Bridge.

SPEAKER_01 30:51

Right before they jumped.

SPEAKER_00 30:52

So maybe that's actually one of the people that jumped and not the ice crystals. Next time you see a strange color on the horizon or a long shadow across mountain fog, pause and look a little closer. The sky is full of surprises, some brief and some bright, all reminding us that our planet is full of mystery. By learning about these rare weather events, we satisfy our curiosity and deepen our sense of wonder. Remember, even a small act of kindness can be someone's beacon in their darkest moment. Choose kindness every day. Reach out to someone today. You have the power to change a life. Be the signal of hope this world needs to be.