Other Weather Facts

Hurricane Emily crossed the island of Bermuda during the early morning. Emily, moving northeast at 45 mph, produced wind gusts to 115 mph at Kindley Field. The thirty-five million dollars damage inflicted by Emily made it the worst hurricane to strike Bermuda since.

Cool Canadian air prevailed across the central and eastern U.S. Toledo OH reported a record low of 27 degrees. Limestone ME received an inch of snow. Warm weather continued in the western U.S. Boise ID reported a record high of 87 degrees.

The western U.S. continued to sizzle. Afternoon highs of 85 degrees at Astoria OR, 101 degrees at Tucson AZ, and 102 degrees at Sacramento CA, equalled October records. It marked the fourth time in the month that Sacramento tied their record for October.

Cold Canadian air invaded the north central U.S. bringing an end to the growing season across those states. Unseasonably warm weather prevailed in the southwestern U.S. Phoenix AZ reported a record high of 105 degrees.

Afternoon highs of 103 degrees at Long Beach CA and 105 degrees at the Los Angeles Civic Center were the hottest since September records were established in 1963. Fierce Santa Ana winds accompanying the extreme heat resulted in destructive fires.

A black frost over most of New England kills unripened corn in the north resulting in a year of famine.

Unseasonably warm weather prevailed across Florida. Afternoon highs of 92 degrees at Apalachicola and 95 degrees at Fort Myers were records for the date.

In the midst of a hot September for Death Valley, California, the afternoon high was 104 degrees for the second of three days, the coolest afternoon highs for the month.

Santa Ana winds brought fires to Los Angeles County, and to points south and east. Half a million acres were consumed by the fires, as were 1000 structures. Twenty firemen were injured.

Unseasonably warm weather continued in the western U.S. In California, afternoon highs of 96 degrees at Redding and Red Bluff were records for the date.

Dense fog contributed to a 118 vehicle accident on I-94, just south of Milwaukee WI. It was the seventh day of an eight day stretch of dense fog. At the time of the accident the visibility was reportedly close to zero.

Floodwaters roared through a migrant labor camp near the town of Picacho AZ flooding fifty cabins and a dozen nearby homes. 250 migrant workers lost their shelters. The month was one of the wettest Octobers in Arizona weather history.

Seattle WA received four inches of rain in 24 hours, a record for the city.

Excessive flooding was reported along the Mississippi River and all over the Midwest, from Ohio to the Milk River in Montana. In some places it was the worst flooding of record.

A big early season lake effect snowburst on the lee shores of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario produced 47 inches at Governeur NY and 48 inches just south of Buffalo.

A hurricane struck South Florida drowning 124 persons stranded in the Florida Keys.

Morning fog in the central U.S. reduced the visibility to near zero at some locations. Morning lows of 28 degrees at Rockford IL and 24 degrees at Waterloo IA were records for the date. Afternoon highs of 92 degrees at Hollywood FL and Miami FL were records for the date.

The journal of John Winthrop recorded that a mighty tempest struck eastern New England. This second severe hurricane in three years blew down many trees in mile long tracks.

Baseball sized hail killed 246 people in India in 1888.

One lightning bolt has enough electricity to service 200 000 homes.

The Empire State Building gets struck by lightning on the average of 500 a year.

Language Facts


According to Illinois state law, it is illegal to speak English. The officially recognized language is "American."

Widow is the only female form in the English language that is shorter than its corresponding male term (widower).

Victor Hugo's Les Miserable contains one of the longest sentences in the French language 823 words without a period.

There is only ONE word in the English language with THREE CONSECUTIVE SETS OF DOUBLE LETTERS.... Bookkeeper

There is a word in the English language with only one vowel, which occurs five times: "indivisibility."

There is a seven letter word in the English language that contains ten words without rearranging any of its letters, "therein": the, there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, therein, herein.

There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: "abstemious" and "facetious."

There are thirteen languages spoken by more than 100 million people. They are: Mandarin Chinese, English, Hindi, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Bengali, Portuguese, Malay-Indonesian, French, Japanese, German, and Urdu.

There are roughly 6,500 spoken languages in the world today. However, about 2,000 of those languages have fewer than 1,000 speakers. The most widely spoken language in the world is Mandarin Chinese. There are 885,000,000 people in China that speak that language.

There are only two sequences of four consecutive letters that can be found in the English language: "rstu" and "mnop." Examples of each are understudy and gynophobia.

There are only 4 words in the English language which end in "duos": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

There are at least two words in the English language that use all of the vowels, in the correct order, and end in the letter Y: abstemiously & facetiously.

There are 41,806 different spoken languages in the world today.

The word "queue" is the only word in the English language that is still pronounced the same way when the last four letters are removed.

The word "honcho" comes from a Japanese word meaning "squad leader" and first came into usage in the English language during the American occupation of Japan following World War II.

The shortest word in the English language with all its letters in alphabetical order is the word "almost."

The Philippines has more than 1,000 regional dialects and two official languages.

The only MLB team to have both its city's name and its team name in a foreign language is the San Diego Padres.

The longest word in the Finnish language, that isn't a compound word, is 'epaejaerjestelmaellistyttaemaettoemyydellaensaeka eaen'. In English it means 'even with their lack of ability to disorganize'.

The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis. The only other word with the same amount of letters ispneumonoultra-microscopicsilicovolcanoconioses, its plural.

The longest word in the English language is 1909 letters long and it refers to a distinct part of DNA.

The longest one syllable word in he English language is "screeched".

The letter most in use in the English language is "E" and the letter "Q" is least used.

The computer programming language ADA was named in honor of Augusta Ada King. The U.S. Defense Department named the language after the Countess of Lovelace and daughter of Lord Byron because she helped finance and program what is thought to be the first computer, the “analytical engine” designed by Charles Babbage.

The Chinese language does not require punctuation.

The "huddle" in football was formed due a deaf football player who used sign language to communicate and his team didn't want the opposition to see the signals he used and in turn huddled around him.

South Africa used to have two official languages, now it has eleven.

Some biblical scholars believe that Aramaic (the language of the ancient Bible) did not contain an easy way to say 'many things' and used a term which has come down to us as 40. This means that when the bible -in many places -refers to '40 days,' they meant many days.

Seoul, the South Korean capital, just means "the capital" in the Korean language.

Rudyard Kipling was fired as a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner. His dismissal letter was reported to have said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don't know how to use the English language. This isn't a kindergarten for amateur writers."

Out of all the eight letter words in the English language, only one has only one vowel in it: "strength"

Only 3 words in the English language end in "ceed": "proceed," "exceed," and "succeed."

On June 26th, 1945, the charter of the United Nations was signed by 50 countries in San Francisco. (The text of the charter was in five languages: Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.)

Of all the words in the English language, the word "set" has the most definitions.

Of all the languages in the world, English has the largest vocabulary about 800,000 words.

No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.

No language has more synonyms than English.

Latin is a dead language.

In Vulcan, Alberta Canada, the tourist welcome sign is written in both English and Klingon (alien language from “Star Trek”).

French was the official language of England for over 600 years.

Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, has been translated into more languages than any book outside of the Bible.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the Finnish word SAIPPUAKIVIKAUPPIAS a soapstone seller is the longest known palindrome in any language.

"Underground" is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters "und."

"The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest tongue twister in English.

"Four" is the only number whose number of letters in the name equals the number.

"Forty" is the only number which has its letters in alphabetical order. "One" is the only number with its letters in reverse alphabetical order.

"Rhythms" is the longest English word without the normal vowels, a, e, i, o, or u.

Many languages in Africa include a “click” sound that is pronounced at the same time as other sounds. You must learn these languages in childhood to do it properly.

More than 1,000 different languages are spoken on the continent of Africa.

There is no word that rhymes with purple.

The most common letters in English are
R S T L N E.

Pinocchio is Italian for "pine head."

There is no word that rhymes with orange.

It has been estimated that the number of actively spoken languages in the world today is about 6,000.

The language of a society changes slowly but steadily with the result that an educated person will not be able to read or understand words in his language written 500 years ago.

No word in the English language rhymes with"month".

"Go." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.

Of all the words in the English language, the word ' set ' has the most definitions!

The language in which a government conducts business is the official language of that country.

Somalia is the only African country in which the entire population speaks the same language, Somali.

All pilots on international flights identify themselves in English.

The most difficult language to learn is Basque, which is spoken in northwestern Spain and southwestern France.

There are more than 2,700 languages in the world. In addition, there are more than 7,000 dialects.

__________________
Always do what you are afraid to do
Saqib Riaz(TIPO KHAN)

Sun Facts

Our sun has an expected lifetime of about 11 billion years.

Our sun and the surrounding planets orbit around the center of the Milky Way galaxy once every 250 million years.

Only 55% of all Americans know that the sun is a star.

On its trip around the sun, the earth travels over a million and a half miles per day.

No solar eclipse can last longer than 7 minutes 58 seconds because of the speed at which the sun moves.

Lightning bolts can sometimes be hotter than the sun. (about 50 000º F)

It takes only 8 minutes for sunlight to travel from the sun to the earth, which also means, if you see the sun go out, it actually went out 8 minutes ago.

In Spit Bergen, Norway at one time of the year the sun shines continuously for three and a half months.

In Newport, Rhode Island it is illegal to smoke from a pipe after sunset.

In Devon, Connecticut, it is unlawful to walk backwards after sunset.

If the sun stopped shining suddenly, it would take eight minutes for people on earth to be aware of the fact.

For 186 days you can not see the sun in the North Pole.

Every eleven years the magnetic poles of the sun switch. This cycle is called"Solarmax".

Because of the speed at which the sun moves, it is impossible for a solar eclipse to last more than 7 minutes and 58 seconds.

Aztecs believed that the sun died every night and needed human blood to give it strength to rise the next day. So they sacrificed 15,000 men a year to appease their sun god, Huitzilopochtli. Most of the victims were prisoners taken in wars, which were sometimes started solely to round up sacrificial victims.

At the distance at which our sun is located from the center of the Milky Way galaxy, Earth and the rest of our solar system are moving at a speed of about 170 miles per second around the center.

At its center, the sun has a density of over a hundred times that of water, and a temperature of 10-20 million degrees Celsius.

All the coal, oil, gas, and wood on Earth would only keep the Sun burning for a few days.

An area of the Sun's surface the size of a postage stamp shines with the power of 1,500,000 candles.

Your fingernails can turn yellow from wearing nail polish and from the sun.

If the entire solar system were the size of a quarter, the sun would be visible only under a microscope, and the nearest star would be 300 feet away.

The Sun provides our planet with 126,000,000,000,000 horsepower of energy every day.

If the earth were the size of a quarter, the sun would be as large as a 9 foot ball and would be located a football field distance from the earth.

More than 1 million earths would fit inside the sun.

99% of our solar systems mass is concentrated in the sun.

The sun is 330,330 times larger than the earth!

__________________
Always do what you are afraid to do
Saqib Riaz(TIPO KHAN)

Moon Facts

The lunula is the half-moon shaped pale area at the bottom of finger nails.

The term "honeymoon" is derived from the Babylonians who declared mead, a honey-flavored wine, the official wedding drink, stipulating that the bride's parents be required to keep the groom supplied with the drink for the month following the wedding.

The Sea of tranquility is found on the moon.

The saying 'once in a blue moon ' refers to the occurrence of two full moons during one calendar month. The last two occurred in January & March 1999. The next one isn't until the end of 2001.

The moon actually has mirrors on it. They were left there by astronauts who wanted to bounce laser beams off them, so that the distance to the moon can be measured.

The Earths core is a ball of Iron-Nickel at 7,000 C and is 80% the size of the moon.

Moon was Buzz Aldines mother’s maiden name. (Buzz Aldine was the second man on the moon).

Just twenty seconds worth of fuel remained when Apollo 11's lunar module landed on the moon.

Jupiter's moon Ganymede is the largest moon in the Solar System, and is larger than the planets Mercury and Pluto.

It takes about 1.25 seconds for moonlight to reach the Earth.

If you pile up the cans of Yeo's products, you would be able to reach the moon.

If you fold a piece of A4 paper in half 44 times it will reach the moon.

All the moons of the Solar System are named after Greek and Roman mythology, except the moons of Uranus, which are named after Shakespearean characters.

A full moon is nine times brighter than a half moon.

A manned rocket can reach the moon in less time than it used to take to travel the length of England by stagecoach.

A "Blue Moon" is the second full moon in a calendar month (it is rarely blue).

27% of Americans believe we never landed on the moon.

The lunula is the half-moon shaped pale area at the bottom of finger nails.

When the moon is directly over your head, you weigh slightly less.

The moon weighs 81 billion tons.

__________________
Always do what you are afraid to do
Saqib Riaz(TIPO KHAN)

Stars Facts

There are more stars than all of the grains of sand on earth.

You can see stars from the bottom of a well even in day light.

Stars with really strong gravity cause themselves to become smaller and smaller and eventually turn into black holes.

Stars come in different colors; hot stars give off blue light, and the cooler stars give off red light.

In honor of the original thirteen states, the U.S. $1 bill has the following on the back: 13 steps on the pyramid. The motto above the pyramid has 13 letters (annuity coatis). E pluribus Unum, written on the ribbon in the eagle's beak, has 13 letters. 13 stars appear over the eagle's head. 13 stripes are on the shield. 13 war arrows are in the eagle's left talon.

All of the stars comprising the Milky Way galaxy revolve around the center of the galaxy once every 200 million years or so.

Until the mid sixteenth century, Comets were believed to be not astronomical phenomena, but burning vapors that had arisen from distant swamps and were propelled across the sky by fire and light.

Our galaxy has approximately 250 billion stars and it is estimated by astronomers that there are 100 billion other galaxies in the universe.

A galaxy of typical size, about 100 billion suns produces less energy than a single Quasar.

A Comet's tail always points away from the sun.

A Pulsar is a small star made up of neutrons so densely packed together that if one the size of a silver dollar landed on earth, it would weigh approximately 100 million tons.

The Star Alpha Herculis is twenty five times larger than the circumference described by the earth's revolution around the sun. This means that twenty five diameters of our solar orbit would have to be placed end to end to equal the diameter of this Star.

__________________
Always do what you are afraid to do
Saqib Riaz(TIPO KHAN)

Planets Facts

Uranus' axis is at 97 degrees. which means that it orbits on its side. (Most of the planets spin on an axis nearly perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic but Uranus' axis is almost parallel to the ecliptic.

The three most recently discovered planets were Uranus in 1781, Neptune in 1846, and Pluto in 1930.

Mercury is the only planet whose orbit is coplanar with its equator. Venus and Uranus are the only planets that rotate opposite to the direction of their orbit.

Jupiter has the shortest day of all the planets. Although it has a circumference of 280,000 miles compared with Earth's 25,000 Jupiter manages to make one turn in 9 hours and 55 minutes.

If you are having problems remembering the planets in their correct order, just remember this sentence "My very educated mother justed served us nine pickles," Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto.

According to scientists, Gold exists on Mars, Mercury, and Venus.

__________________
Always do what you are afraid to do
Saqib Riaz(TIPO KHAN)

Earth Facts

Baby robins eat 14 feet of earthworms every day.

At one time the earth consisted of one land mass and a huge body of water. Geologists today call the land Pangaea (from the Greek words "all land" while the water was called Panthalassa (from the Greek words "all sea"). Between 180 and 200 million years ago, Pangaea split into two parts: Laurasia, which consisted of North America, Europe and Asia; and Gondwanaland, which consisted of Africa, South America, India, Antarctica and Australia.

Astronauts brought back about 800 pounds of lunar rock to Earth. Most of it has not been analyzed.

Approximately 40,000 tons of meteoric dust hits the Earth each year.

According to Hawaiian lore, the earth mother Papa mated with the sky father Wake to give birth to the Hawaiian Islands.

About one-tenth of the earth's surface is permanently covered with ice.

A Red Giant(a kind of exploded star) has a lower density than any vacuum here on earth.

A Blue Earth, Minnesota, law declares that no child under the age of twelve may talk over the telephone unless monitored by a parent.

You would need to travel at 6.95 miles per second to escape the Earth’s gravitational pull. This is equivalent to traveling from New York to Philadelphia in about twenty seconds.

Venus rotates so slowly that in a typical day lasts approximately 244 Earth days (5,856 hours).

If you dig in your backyard, don’t worry about running into the earth’s core. You’d have to dig a hole 4,000 miles (6,437 kilometers) deep!

Some scientists believe that the earth began billions of years ago as a huge ball of swirling dust and gases.

Some parts of the earth receive direct rays from the sun all year and are always warm. Other places receive indirect rays, so the climate is colder.

__________________
Always do what you are afraid to do
Saqib Riaz(TIPO KHAN)

Other Universe Facts

The universe is so vast in relation to the matter it contains that it can be compared in the following way: A building 20 miles long, 20 miles wide and 20 miles high that contains 1 grain of sand.

The three most common elements in the universe are 1) hydrogen; 2) helium; 3) oxygen.

As late as 1820, the universe was thought to be 6,000 years old. It is now thought to be between 15 and 20 billion years old.

Scientists believe that hydrogen comprises approximately 90 to 99 percent of all matter in the Universe.

A bucket filled with earth would Weigh about five times more than the same bucket filled with the substance of the sun. However, the force of Gravity is so much greater on the sun that a man Weighing 150 pounds on our planet would Weigh 2 tons on the sun.

A space vehicle must move at a rate of 7 miles per second to escape the earth's Gravitational pull. This is equivalent to going from New York to Philadelphia in about twenty seconds.

There are approximately 10,000 pieces of equipment revolving around the earth. About 3,000 of these pieces are satellites, the rest are odd bits of Debris.

Astronomers believe that the universe contains one atom for every 88 gallons of space

__________________
Always do what you are afraid to do
Saqib Riaz(TIPO KHAN)