Dexter, Missouri - Third grade teacher, Adam Clark, is what you might consider a person who is obsessed with weather in Stoddard County and beyond. Throughout the school year he and his students have been tracking hurricanes and learning about weather patterns.
Clark is a certified Skywarn Spotter with elite spotter training and loves to incorporate weather into his science lessons at school whenever possible. He taught a lesson using Hurricanes Madeline and Lester one afternoon and the students were quite intrigued by the chances of two hurricanes hitting at the same time.
The students had a few questions so Mr. Clark sent an email to Grant Dade, KFVS12 Meteorologist. To the students' amazement Grant responded and after a few emails back and forth he made a trip down to Dexter from Cape Girardeau to visit with the students and talk about you guessed it, "weather"!
The first question(s) came from a student who wanted to know if it was unusual for two hurricanes to be following such a close path to each other and if it was possible for the two hurricanes to merge and what would happen if they did. The students were talking about the two hurricanes coming towards Hawaii. The second student wanted to know if the two hurricanes did come together, would the storm have two eyes and another student wanted to know if they could wipe out Hawaii.
Grant replied in the email, "As for two hurricanes merging, this would not happen. As storms get close together the outer wind fields will shear the storm apart. For a hurricane to survive it needs to be in a low wind environment. I know that doesn't make a lot of sense because the hurricane produces a lot of wind. But the environment around the hurricane has relatively calm wind. Sometimes hurricanes do move over the basic same path. but what will usually happen is the following hurricane will weaken because the previous hurricane will churn up the water cooling the sea surface temperature. As to will the hurricane devour Hawaii, the answer is no. :-) It is true it could be strong enough to destroy most of the dwellings on the island but the land mass it self would not be destroyed."
Mr. Dade was not only informative and interesting, but had a bit of a comical side to his way of educating. He allowed the students to ask questions and while explaining the answer would use his entire body either jumping or stretching or turning and twisting. He was very animated and even got a few students to help him with wind and tornado demonstrations!
What did we learn from Grant's appearance at Central Elementary? That clouds weigh as much or more than 22 tons and aren't as fluffy and light like a cotton boll. That everything is frozen high in the sky and as the "ice" falls it turns to rain or stays frozen depending on the temperatures. That the thunder is not someone bowling or from clouds running into each other, but that there is sudden increase in pressure and temperature from lightning produces rapid expansion of the air surrounding and within a bolt of lightning. The largest piece of hail was as big as a soccer ball!
It was probably one of the most interesting class sessions this reporter has experienced in more than 30 years! Thank you Grant and KFVS12 for coming to Dexter and talking to students about weather!
The students learned a few new things and got their photo taken with our local weather celebrity! Grant even drove the KFVS12 Storm Tracker down and the students were able to go outside and see the vehicle! It was a great afternoon of learning and fun! Thank you Grant Dade for taking time out of your day to visit Clark's Central Elementary classroom!
