Photo of the week May 29th, 2013

Once again the weather is in the news. Floods, people killed by lightning strikes, tornadoes and related damage. Climate change is REAL, it is happening, and has been happening for thousands of years - it is just that it appears to be becoming more extreme. The Cumulonimbus cloud, as shown here, is a rain bearing cloud of great vertical extent, with extremely fast moving air, and is generally associated with thunderstorms and heavy rain. Do not let its beauty deceive you, for this cloud carries greater destructive potential than you would at first imagine. Not only can such clouds drop over a million tons of water in a single storm, updraughts inside the clouds move at speeds in the tens of thousands of feet pre minute and the transient temperature of the lightening bolt is greater than the surface of our sun! (the surface of the sun is around 6,000C and yet a lightening bolts plasma core reaches around 30,000C albeit for a fraction of a second). Never underestimate the power of the weather, and be ever vigilant, as it is currently changing the way we go about many of our activities, from farming to flying, building to sailing. Watch the sky, it is beautiful and powerful. Photo courtesy of WAASPS Ltd. changing lives one flight at a time, and teaching aviation meteorology as part of flight training programmes. www.waasps.com