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Landon hollingsworth

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Janice.P

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looks like a tornado in the sky

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this happend becaus ea trondo had hit a river

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Why stop at 1 when I found 18 weird things!

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You can hardly believe these strange and unusual weather phenomena's are actually real. Some of the you will be familiar with, whilst others will leave you amazed. Our favourite is the Catatumbo Lightning that occurs at the Catatumbo River in Venezuela.
1. Frost Flowers in the Arctic Ocean
Photo by Jeff S.Bowman

These frost flowers in the Arctic ocean form from imperfections on the surface of the ice in sub-zero temperatures, normally around the -20C mark. The spikes have been found to contain microorganisms making them temporary miniature ecosystems similar to coral reef.
2. Brinicle
Photo via huffingtonpost

First discovered in the 1960's a brinicle forms below sea ice when a flow of very cold saline water meets an area of ocean water forming the equivalent of an underwater icicle.
3. Fire Whirls
Photo via imgur.com

Also known as fire devils or fire tornadoes this terrifying looking weather forms when intense rising heat and strong winds combine together. Sometimes they can form a tornado like structure that suck up burning debris and gases but luckily for us they rarely form full blown tornados.
4. Glory
Photo via wherecoolthingshappen.com

A glory is an optical illusion similar to a rainbow although it resembles a halo shape instead. It occurs as light tunnels through air inside rain droplets and then emits lights backwards.
5. Sun Dogs
Photo via nationalgeographic.com

Sun Dogs are halos that occur when light interacts with ice particles in the atmosphere.
6. Asperatus Clouds
Photo via weirdworldwonders.com

This type of cloud formation might look like the world is about to end but Asperatus Clouds usually dissipate without the formation of a storm.
7. Lenticular Clouds
Photo via atmospheric-phenomena.blogspot.co.uk

Lenticular Clouds have a round disc shape that has actually meant they have been the explanation for some UFO sightings. The stationary clouds normally form in perpendicular alignment to the wind direction.
8. Sprites, Elves and Blue Jets
Photo via extremeinstability.com

Sprites, Elves and Blue Jets are colourful patches in the sky that form as a result of electrical charges in the atmosphere.
9. Volcanic lightning
Photo by Marco Fulle

This rare phenomenon otherwise known as a Dirty Thunderstorm is caused by rock fragments, ash and ice particles from the volcanic plume colliding together to generate a thunderstorm.
10. Mammatus Clouds
Photo via iamlilith.com

Photo via netdost.com

Mammatus clouds form as pouches on the underside of the cloud. Depending on the levels of moisture in the cloud, some pouches will sink lower than others which causes the hanging and drooping effect.
11. Waterspouts
Photo via Unknown

Waterspouts form over bodies of water such as oceans. Whats surprising though is that the vortex does not suck up any water and is made entirely of condensation.
12. Catatumbo Lightning
Photo via reversehomesickness.com

Catatumbo lighting gets its name from the river that it commonly occurs at, Catatumbo River in Venezuela. The storm occurs 160 days a year on average and can last 10 hours a day. Not somewhere you would want to relax.
13. White rainbows
Photo via rainbowlodge-inn.com

Even though they are called rainbows, White Rainbows actually form in fog. Condensation doesn't reflect much light so as a result the colours given off are weak, creating a ghostly rainbow.
14. Penitentes
Photo via alittlebithigher.wordpress.com

This unusual snow formation can be found at very high altitudes. At these high altitudes ice can be turned into vapor by the sun before it is melted. Some areas are effected differently meaning patches of jagged spikes start to form, eventually there is a whole field left of spikes.
15. Morning Glory
Photo via geog.ucsb.edu

Photo via Unknown

Morning glory clouds are so rare that very little is known about them. Although if they do occur it will likely be in the small town of Burketown in Australia.
16. Moonbow
Photo via Wikipedia

A Moonbow otherwise known as a Lunar or Space Rainbow occurs when light reflects off the surface of the moon and refracts off of moisture in the atmosphere and clouds. They tend to be a lot fainter than a traditional rainbow due to the amount of light given off of the moon.
17. Supercells
Photo via susanspiritusgallery.com

A Supercell is a thunderstorm taken to another level and is normally classed as a supercell when there is the presence of a persistently rotating updraft. Overall a supercell is the least common of all thunderstorms and they have the potential to do the most damage.
18. Fire Rainbows
Photos via DailyMail

The name commonly given to them is thought of as misleading as a 'Fire Rainbow' has nothing to do with rainbow or fire. The phenomenon you see above is actually an optical illusion formed by plate-shaped ice crystals.

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18 Insane and Unusual Weather Phenomena's That Are Actually Real

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You can hardly believe these strange and unusual weather phenomena's are actually real. Some of the you will be familiar with, whilst others will leave you amazed. Our favourite is the Catatumbo Lightning that occurs at the Catatumbo River in Venezuela. 1.

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a hole punch in a cloud is when it looks like theres a hole punch in the cloud

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Louisiana  in 1947 report fishes fell from the sky after a rambunctious storm and in a town in Serbia have thousand of frogs rain from the sky after a tornado. mentalfloss.com

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Violent Tornado's are a problem to the world! There has been a total of 64 Violent Tornado's recorded since 1950! The most recent violent tornado was in 2016! A home was destroyed near County Road 1680 and Indian Meridian Road where an EF-4 rating was applied (DI 2, DOD 9). Further east, a fatality occurred when the tornado destroyed a modular home. They are to be very deadly and could possibly lift you off the ground, possibly killing you due to landing impact. https://www.weather.gov/oun/tornadodata-ok-violent

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A lot of electrons connecting with each other

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Strange Clouds That Look Like the Sky Is falling or something is landing on them.

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Square waves (also referred to as cross sea, or squared sea) are a rare ocean phenomenon caused by two ocean swells colliding perpendicular to one another. These waves are often formed at peninsular's of land where two different seas or oceans meet.

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These gravity wave clouds were formed when air was diverted up and over a small island.

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Tornado. Tornadoes are a type of extreme weather. They are vertical funnels of rapidly spinning air. Tornadoes include clouds, strong wind, rain, and sometimes hail.

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https://www.star-telegram.com/news/nation-world/national/article256938007.html
Up here? Oh! That's the website!

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Fish were falling from the sky as storms moved through a Texas town, officials say. Yes, really.

"2021 is pulling out all the tricks... including raining fish in Texarkana today," the eastern Texas city shared to Facebook on Wednesday, Dec. 29. "And no, this isn't a joke ... While it's uncommon, it happens, as evidenced in several places in Texarkana today."

The post garnered hundreds of comments in less than 12 hours, many from residents sharing photos and videos of their fish finds.

"Summerhill Road today right when it happened," one replied. "A whole lot more too! It was definitely something I would have not believed if I didn't see it for my own eyes!"

"Close to Texas High School," shared another. "They were in the front and back yard, the street, and the neighbor's yard."

James Audirsch told KTAL what he saw, saying that some of the fish falling at Orr Maxx used car dealership on Summerhill Road were 4-5 inches long.

"There was a loud crack of thunder and when we opened up the bay door, I looked outside and it was raining real hard and a fish hit the ground," Audirsch recalled, "and then I said, 'It's raining fish!' Brad was like, 'No it's not,' and I'm like, 'No, it really is!' and fish were droppin' here and everywhere."

Tim Brigham, manager of Discount Wheel and Tire on Summerhill Road, said he saw the fish falling from the sky as thunderstorms brought hail through the area, according to the Texarkana Gazette.

"They were bouncing off the concrete," he told the newspaper.

How was it raining fish?

"'Animal rain' is a real weather phenomenon that happens when small animals get swept up in waterspouts or updrafts, and then fall to Earth with raindrops," according to National Geographic. "Reported rains of bats, fish, snakes, birds, frogs, and jellies stretch back for centuries."

So, what are waterspouts and updrafts?

Waterspouts are a " whirling column of air and water mist," according to the National Oceanic and Atomospheric Administration. Tornadic waterspouts can form over water and can occur alongside severe thunderstorms, hail and lightning.

Updrafts describe the air moving upward in a thunderstorm, according to the University of Illinois.

"As waterspouts and updrafts move over land, they lose their swirling energy," National Geographic reports. "The storm clouds that formed the waterspouts are forced to dump their heavy loads. The heaviest objects are dumped first, and the lightest objects (usually simple raindrops) are dumped last. This explains why reports of animal rain usually describe only one type of animal raining down. A cloud will dump all objects of a similar weight at the same time-fish (heavy), followed by insects (lighter), followed by rain (lightest), for example."

When have other animals 'rained' from the sky?

In 2017, fish fell from the sky in Oroville, California, KDVR reported at the time.

Much further back, in 1873, the Library of Congress says it rained frogs in Kansas City.

"'Scientific American' concluded that it must have been caused by a tornado or other land-based storm, since there were no swamps or other bodies of water in the vicinity (Cerveny, 2006)," reports the Library of Congress.

This story was originally published December 30, 2021 10:48 AM.

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Raining fish in Texas? Here's what is behind this unusual animal phenomenon

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Fish were falling from the sky as storms moved through a Texas town, officials say. Yes, really. "2021 is pulling out all the tricks... including raining fish in Texarkana today," the eastern Texas city shared to Facebook on Wednesday, Dec. 29. "And no, this isn't a joke ...

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Living in the UK, we at BBC Science Focus are used to the weather being almost impossible to predict.

However, these weird phenomena would take even the most experienced weather-watcher by surprise. These are some of the rarest known weather phenomena caught on camera, for your visual pleasure.
See more amazing science photography:
Fire tornadoes (or 'fire whirls', to give them their correct name) are most common in large-scale wildfires, and are not actual tornadoes but vortices that suck in gases and combustable materials. They can last an hour or more, and the temperature inside them can reach over 1,000 degrees inside.

Sometimes you might even see a much smaller fire whirl form on small bonfires and have also been created and studied in science labs across the world.

Essentially a microburst is a smaller version of a downburst. A downburst is very much the opposite of a tornado, in that instead of the wind pulling air to a central point and then sucking it up from the ground, a downburst drops the air and forces it out in all directions once it reaches the ground. This can lead to a lot of strong winds emanating from a single point.

Wet downbursts are associated with large amounts of rainfall during a thunderstorm, while a microburst is the same but on a smaller level. But both are very visually impressive, especially when seen with lightning at the same time.

Unlike what we would regard as 'normal' lighting, Sprites occur way up in the Earth's atmosphere at about 50 to 90 kilometres above us, so images of them are rarely captured.

Sprites are a kind of cold plasma discharge that occurs above a thundercloud as nature's way of balancing out the positive lightning charges are released between the thundercloud and the ground below.

The spread of artificial lights at night is making it more difficult to see and study faint objects such as sprites, but better lighting techniques can help keep light on the ground and out of the sky. For more information on this check out the International Dark Sky Association's webpage.

Twin tornadoes are incredibly rare, and you can be waiting 10 to 15 years between each one, so a good reason why they have made this list. A twin tornado forms from the same storm supercell, so the storm has to be very violent for a twin to form.

It is thought that two funnels can be visible during a cross-over period, where a new tornado forms as the old one dies out. It can also occur when one funnel is so strong that another, less powerful funnel can form from the vortices being generated by the first.

Fallstreak holes in altocumulus clouds photographed in Arizona USA, 31 March 2020 Alamy

Also known as a hole punch cloud or cloud canal, a Fallstreak hole can form inside cirrocumulus or altocumulus clouds. These holes are thought to appear when the water temperature in the clouds is freezing but hasn't formed ice. When ice crystals do form (which can be helped by things like a passing plane), it sets off a chain reaction with can led to water droplets evaporating and leaving a massive hole behind.

Because of their strange appearance and rarity, their formation has been known to be incorrectly blamed on unidentified flying objects.

These weird, uniform clouds get their name from Lord Kelvin and Hermann von Helmholtz, who studied the effects of velocity difference between fluids. This is also the same effect that can be seen around Jupiter's Red Spot and the bands around Saturn.

When two liquids of different densities and velocities pass over each other, small and unstable motions can occur, and can form uniform waves. So, with Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds you are essentially seeing two layers of air moving at different speeds; the upper layer moving faster than the lower layer.

Another rare phenomena, but no less dangerous, Tornadic waterspouts can suck fish out of the water, carry them into the cloud and deposit them on to land. They have the same characteristics as a land-based tornado and are usually accompanied by high winds and severe thunderstorms.

The less dangerous type of waterspout is known as the fair weather waterspout, which are very weak and only last a few minutes. It also differs in that it forms on the surface of the water and doesn't tend to move very far, due to the gentle nature of the surrounding climate conditions

Waterspouts are most common in the UK around late summer, and it is estimated that only 15 a year occur here, while in Europe they are also prevalent off the coasts of Spain, Italy and the Netherlands

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The weirdest and rarest weather phenomena from around the world

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Living in the UK, we at BBC Science Focus are used to the weather being almost impossible to predict. However, these weird phenomena would take even the most experienced weather-watcher by surprise. These are some of the rarest known weather phenomena caught on camera, for your visual pleasure.

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Rainbow cloud is very cool.

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Dust devils form in an upward motion from the ground to the sky. They are short-lived whirlwinds because cold air eventually gets pulled in. Dust devils can become tornadoes when a storm's updraft moves over the the existing ground circulation

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Giant snow drifts of South Dakota

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Meteorologists refer to "violent" tornadoes as those rated at least EF4 on the Enhanced Fujita scale. They make up a tiny fraction of all tornadoes in the U.S. but account for half the deaths from all tornadoes.

Since 1950, the majority of these violent tornadoes have happened from spring into early summer. The Newnan, Georgia, tornado on March 25 was the year's first EF4 tornado.

The only other two violent tornadoes in 2021 happened in December.

One of those tore across parts of Kentucky on Dec. 10. EF4 damage was found in the devastated community of Mayfield, with estimated winds of 190 mph and a damage path of 166 miles.

Another EF4 tornado spawned from the same supercell thunderstorm tore along an 80-mile path from far northeastern Arkansas across the Missouri Bootheel into extreme western Tennessee.

It was the deadliest U.S. tornado outbreak in 10 years, with at least 92 lives lost, 77 in Kentucky.

There were stories of survival, including two Kentucky sheriff's deputies who, after a very close call of their own, rescued a girl.

(MORE: Tornado Outbreak Recap)

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Top 5 WEIRD Cloud Formations you Wouldn't Believe Existed

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 Fighting Fire Instead of Making Snow from Jacob.Sus

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 Fighting Fire Instead of Making Snow from Jacob.Sus

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As the Caldor Fire was advancing toward Lake Tahoe, California, in late August, officials turned on snow machines at the area's ski resorts to wet the ground and increase the air's humidity. Among the most surreal photos in 2021 were those captured by photographer Josh Edelson as the snow machines were full-blast at the Sierra-at-Tahoe Resort. Fire crews eventually stopped the spread of the fire before it scorched the area's ski resorts or towns near the lake. However, the Caldor Fire still charred 346 square miles and destroyed about 1,000 structures before it was fully contained in late October.

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We're used to tracking tornadoes in the South, Plains or Midwest. But 2021 was a busy year for tornadoes in the mid-Atlantic states.

The July 29 outbreak spawned 14 tornadoes in Pennsylvania and six in New Jersey, including an EF3 tornado in the northeast Philadelphia suburbs.

Another seven tornadoes were spawned in eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey as the remnant of former Hurricane Ida swept through. That included an EF3 tornado in Mullica Hill, New Jersey's first F/EF3 tornado in 31 years.

In October, 13 tornadoes touched down in western Pennsylvania on Oct. 15, 16 and 21. That pushed the state's 2021 tornado tally to 44, second-most of any year, according to the National Weather Service.

As of the time this article was published, 13 tornadoes were confirmed in New Jersey in 2021, according to the state's climatology office. That's the second-most in any year dating to 1950, behind only 1989's 19 Garden State tornadoes. The state averaged one to two tornadoes a year from 2001 through 2020.

One of these tornadoes was deadly – an EF2 tornado that downed a tree on a home in the northwest Philadelphia suburbs.

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On cold and humid nights in some northern forests, you can find something strange growing on rotting branches. It’s ice, but nothing like you’ve seen before. There are thousands of long, thin strands of the stuff, as thick as human hair and all packed together in soft waves. What you’re looking at is, fittingly enough, called hair ice.

The way these woolly growths formed had puzzled scientists since 1918, but we know the culprit now — it’s a fungus!

The fungus grows on dead tree bark, and when ice starts to form along its surface, the fungus releases chemicals that shape it into the distinctive narrow strands. Those chemicals also prevent the small, thin ice crystals from growing into larger ones and keep the hairy texture structured. Hair ice can stay in place for days in the right conditions, but often it forms in the cooler temperatures of night and melts away in the morning.

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Virga

Virga is ghostly precipitation that never makes it to the ground. When the air beneath a cloud is very dry, precipitation falling through it evaporates before reaching Earth’s surface. What’s left are feathery streaks extending from the cloud’s base, capturing the path the rain or ice took before becoming water vapor. The evaporation process takes a lot of energy out of the surrounding air and causes it to cool. That cold air may then sink very quickly and dump a dangerously concentrated parcel of air and water/hail in a microburst.

But for the most part, virga is a visual effect. It shows up on radar as a typical rain or snow shower, but there’s no evidence of that at the surface. Great storms could be raging above your head, but the only trace you’ll see are the thin wisps of virga drifting through the sky.

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Hoboob
Iv'e drove trough one in arazona

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Long pillars of multicolored light streaking the sky seem like the perfect backdrop for impending alien invasion, but in reality, light pillars are a common effect that can be found all over the world.

They do come from above — not extraterrestrials, but tiny crystals of ice hanging in the atmosphere. Ice is very thin, shaped like plates with hexagonal faces. When ice drifts down through the air, it falls close to horizontally. At the top and bottom are the faces with more area. Ice is very reflective, so when light hits those wider faces, it bounces around and reflects off more ice crystals.

That means we get these vertically stacked mirrors floating in the atmosphere. The light hitting it gets reflected up and up (or down and down, depending on the source), and becomes a radiant column in the sky.

Light can come from the sun, moon, cities, street lights — any strong light source.

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November was off the charts, even for the typically soggy Pacific Northwest.

Torrential rain from an atmospheric river triggered massive flooding in southern British Columbia and far northwestern Washington state. Abbotsford, British Columbia, and Sumas, Lynden and Ferndale, Washington, were among the towns that experienced at least some flooding.

Landslides cut off all exit routes out of the town of Hope, B.C., and left the Port of Vancouver cut off from inland areas. Parts of Highway 5 – known as the Coquihalla Highway – collapsed. Four people were killed in a landslide on Highway 99 south of Lillooet, B.C.

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November was the wettest month on record in Bellingham, Washington (14.57 inches), and the second-wettest month in Vancouver, B.C. (12.3 inches).

Perhaps most stunning was aerial footage of the British Columbia flood zone after a light snow had fallen.

There will be more from British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest later in the countdown.

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Snownado

Mediterranean nations including Greece and Turkey were treated to a thick layer of snow earlier this year, which is rare enough as it is — but the storm system even triggered a "snownado." Also called snow devils, these rare funnels of the white stuff occur under certain conditions involving wind shear over snow cover, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

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the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, are perhaps the best-known (and most hunted) of all the world's weird weather phenomena.

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2021's weather will be remembered largely for a pair of deadly outbreaks of extreme temperatures, a particularly devastating hurricane that left its mark well inland, and two severe weather outbreaks in December.

But those were just a few of the weather oddities in 2021.

With that in mind, we ranked the 21 most bizarre things we saw in the year's weather, mainly in the United States. We also have a sizable list of honorable mentions below our top 21 list, simply because we love weird weather.

21. Donut-Shaped Hail

The day after Labor Day, I stumbled upon a photo of a hailstone the likes of which I hadn't seen before.

The donut- or Cheerio-shaped hailstone shown below was captured in a social media post on Sept. 7 in the Madison, Wisconsin, suburb of Verona.

"I have seen some stones with a very thin inner structure that could have melted away quicker sitting on the ground, leaving a donut shape. But not this well defined," said Ian Giammanco, meteorologist and hail expert with the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety in a reply to a tweet at the time.

20. Flood Devastation in Washington, British Columbia

November was off the charts, even for the typically soggy Pacific Northwest.

Torrential rain from an atmospheric river triggered massive flooding in southern British Columbia and far northwestern Washington state. Abbotsford, British Columbia, and Sumas, Lynden and Ferndale, Washington, were among the towns that experienced at least some flooding.

Landslides cut off all exit routes out of the town of Hope, B.C., and left the Port of Vancouver cut off from inland areas. Parts of Highway 5 - known as the Coquihalla Highway - collapsed. Four people were killed in a landslide on Highway 99 south of Lillooet, B.C.
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November was the wettest month on record in Bellingham, Washington (14.57 inches), and the second-wettest month in Vancouver, B.C. (12.3 inches).

Perhaps most stunning was aerial footage of the British Columbia flood zone after a light snow had fallen.

There will be more from British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest later in the countdown.

19. Pennsylvania and New Jersey's Tornadic Year

We're used to tracking tornadoes in the South, Plains or Midwest. But 2021 was a busy year for tornadoes in the mid-Atlantic states.

The July 29 outbreak spawned 14 tornadoes in Pennsylvania and six in New Jersey, including an EF3 tornado in the northeast Philadelphia suburbs.

Another seven tornadoes were spawned in eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey as the remnant of former Hurricane Ida swept through. That included an EF3 tornado in Mullica Hill, New Jersey's first F/EF3 tornado in 31 years.

In October, 13 tornadoes touched down in western Pennsylvania on Oct. 15, 16 and 21. That pushed the state's 2021 tornado tally to 44, second-most of any year, according to the National Weather Service.

As of the time this article was published, 13 tornadoes were confirmed in New Jersey in 2021, according to the state's climatology office. That's the second-most in any year dating to 1950, behind only 1989's 19 Garden State tornadoes. The state averaged one to two tornadoes a year from 2001 through 2020.

One of these tornadoes was deadly - an EF2 tornado that downed a tree on a home in the northwest Philadelphia suburbs.

18. Lightning Blasts Concrete, Driver Injured

According to a 2004 study by lightning researchers E. Phillip Krider and Kenneth Kehoe, there's a 10% chance of lightning striking within 250 feet of a U.S. citizen each year.

But what happened in the Florida Panhandle in May was an extremely unlucky circumstance.

As the tweet below lays out, lightning struck the pavement on Interstate 10 in Walton County. The bolt blew out a chunk of concrete, which then went through the windshield of a pickup truck, injuring both the driver and a passenger.

There have been numerous cases of lightning strikes on vehicles.

You're usually protected if the windows are rolled up. As long as you're not touching anything metallic leading to the vehicle's frame, such as a door handle, radio or ignition, you should survive.

If you're caught in a storm while driving, the National Lightning Safety Institute suggests pulling off to the side of the road, turning off the engine, putting your hands in your lap (instead of the steering wheel) and waiting until the storm has passed.

17. The Strongest and Longest Tornadoes of 2021 Were in December

Meteorologists refer to "violent" tornadoes as those rated at least EF4 on the Enhanced Fujita scale. They make up a tiny fraction of all tornadoes in the U.S. but account for half the deaths from all tornadoes.

Since 1950, the majority of these violent tornadoes have happened from spring into early summer. The Newnan, Georgia, tornado on March 25 was the year's first EF4 tornado.

The only other two violent tornadoes in 2021 happened in December.

One of those tore across parts of Kentucky on Dec. 10. EF4 damage was found in the devastated community of Mayfield, with estimated winds of 190 mph and a damage path of 166 miles.

Another EF4 tornado spawned from the same supercell thunderstorm tore along an 80-mile path from far northeastern Arkansas across the Missouri Bootheel into extreme western Tennessee.

It was the deadliest U.S. tornado outbreak in 10 years, with at least 92 lives lost, 77 in Kentucky.

There were stories of survival, including two Kentucky sheriff's deputies who, after a very close call of their own, rescued a girl.

16. A March Tornado in Vermont

Tornadoes probably aren't the first, second or third things that come to mind when Vermont is mentioned.

The state only averages one tornado each year. Being so far north, you'd think any Vermont tornadoes would happen in summer.

But in late March, an EF1 tornado ripped an attached garage from a home near Middlebury, Vermont. Two people were injured.

This tornado, embedded in a line of severe thunderstorms, was only the state's second March tornado in records dating to 1950.

15. Snowless Denver Extends into December

A fall snowstorm along the Front Range of the Rockies is usually one of the few guarantees in weather. But not in 2021 along Colorado's Front Range.

Not even a dusting.

For the first time in records dating to 1882, Denver didn't pick up even a tenth of an inch of snow through November. It took until Dec. 10 for that streak to end.

Other than the sight of dog walkers in shorts on Dec. 1, and some record-low early December mountain snowpack, perhaps the weirdest thing about this was the contrast with 2020.

An inch of snow blanketed Denver on Sept. 8, 2020, its second-earliest fall snow, and one day after thick wildfire smoke blanketed the Front Range.

And that made our strangest weather of 2020 list.

14. 100 Degrees in North Dakota in Late September

Late-September triple-digit heat is typical in Texas - not North Dakota.

On Sept. 28, two locations in western North Dakota - near Dickinson and Watford City - soared to 100 degrees.

As the National Weather Service tweeted below, it was the latest in the year any North Dakota city had reached triple digits.

But it was more exceptional than that.

It was also the farthest north triple-digit reading so late in the year in the entire Northern Hemisphere, according to weather historian Christopher Burt and weather records expert Maximiliano Herrera.

13. Fighting Fire Instead of Making Snow

As the Caldor Fire was advancing toward Lake Tahoe, California, in late August, officials turned on snow machines at the area's ski resorts to wet the ground and increase the air's humidity.

Among the most surreal photos in 2021 were those captured by photographer Josh Edelson as the snow machines were full-blast at the Sierra-at-Tahoe Resort.

Fire crews eventually stopped the spread of the fire before it scorched the area's ski resorts or towns near the lake.

However, the Caldor Fire still charred 346 square miles and destroyed about 1,000 structures before it was fully contained in late October.

12. Siberian Wildfire Smoke Reaches North Pole

2021 was another destructive year for wildfires in Russia.

They flared up early in the spring in parts of Siberia. By summer, they had burned the largest area on record for any year in Russia in the satellite era.

In late summer, around 200 active Siberian fires covered about 62,000 square miles - about the size of Florida, and larger than all other combined active wildfires burning around the globe at the time.

This led to a surreal occurrence: wildfire smoke traveling over 1,800 miles from Siberia over the North Pole, as documented by NASA satellites in the first week of August.

While it was believed to be the first time Siberian wildfire smoke flowed over the North Pole, NASA later retracted that statement, saying, "An absolute determination of the first occurrence is not possible at this time."

In December, a " zombie fire" was seen smoldering in the snowpack in one of the coldest places on Earth, Siberia's "Pole of Cold."

11. A Hail Death From Hypothermia

In early July, a slow-moving thunderstorm dumped torrential rain and copious hail over the Mexico City metro area.

Streets quickly turned into rivers, which can be dangerous enough for motorists and anybody trying to walk through floodwaters.

The flooding also built up large piles of hail, and it was in one such pile of hail that a person became trapped and died from hypothermia.

While past hailstorms in Bangladesh, India and China have been deadly, hailstorms in North America are rarely deadly, though about two dozen are injured each year in the U.S.

But that's from the impact of falling hail on the body. We can't immediately recall a hailstorm death from hypothermia.

10. 2021's Weirdest Rainfall Shift

From mid-March through mid-October, not even a measly 0.01 inches of rain fell in Sacramento, California.

While summer is California's dry season, it was the city's record-longest dry streak, which had stood since 1880 - six years after the state's capitol building was completed.

One week later, the strongest known Eastern Pacific bomb cyclone tapped an exceptionally strong atmospheric river and dumped 5.44 inches of rain over the city on Oct. 24. That was the city's wettest day in records dating to the Gold Rush.

It's hard to imagine a sharper precipitation lurch.

9. North America's Largest Fire Thunderstorm

Some wildfires burn hot enough to create their own thunderstorms, called pyrocumulonimbus clouds.

What happened in western Canada during the record-crushing heat wave as June turned to July was on another level.

A fire-generated thunderstorm exploded over the Sparks Lake Fire in British Columbia on June 30. The cloud grew to over 62,000 square miles, about the size of the state of Georgia, according to NASA. It was the largest pyrocumulonimbus cloud ever documented in North America.

The massive fire thunderstorm generated just under 113,000 cloud-to-ground lightning strikes in 15 hours, according to Chris Vagasky, a lightning expert with Vaisala. Vagasky noted that's about 5% of the average annual lightning in Canada.

Just over two weeks later, a team of scientists documented 10 such fire thunderstorms at once in central Canada on July 16, the most observed on a single day in North America in their eight years of study.

Besides starting more wildfires from lightning strikes, these massive fire thunderstorms can pump smoke high into the atmosphere that can linger and cool the atmosphere near the fires.

8. Thunderstorms Flush Scorpions Into Homes

Of all the dangers from thunderstorms, scorpions aren't usually on the list.

But in November, thunderstorms with heavy rain in southern Egypt washed scorpions out of nests and into homes.

At least three people were killed and over 450 were hospitalized after being stung.

This is an occasional issue in this part of the world.

We'll spare you the visuals, but if you want more on this story, watch our video here.

7. Earliest Cherry Blossoms in 1,200 Years

Those eager for spring in Japan got their wish unusually early in 2021.

The annual cherry blossom bloom in Kyoto, Japan, reached its peak on March 26, the earliest date in records dating to the ninth century, according to data from Osaka Prefecture University. That's about two to three weeks earlier than average.

This appears to be a sign of climate change.

According to climate scientist James Hansen, Japan's March temperatures have increased by about 5 degrees Fahrenheit over the past century.

Parts of Japan had their warmest March on record in 2021, according to NOAA.

6. Rain Fell Over the Peaks of Greenland's Ice Cap

Even in the middle of summer, there are parts of the world that are usually too cold for rain.

But on Aug. 14, rain was observed at the highest point on Greenland's ice cap for the first time, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

The rain fell for several hours at Summit Station, a staffed research station about 10,551 feet above sea level in the heart of Greenland.

In July, another Greenland warm spell sent temperatures soaring into the upper 60s, an all-time record for the area.

Both are disconcerting signs in a warming climate. One recent study found Greenland is on track to lose more ice this century than in 12,000 years, which could then produce feet of sea level rise.

5. Category 4 Louisiana Landfalls in Back-to-Back Years

You would think after suffering through three hurricane landfalls in 2020 that 2021 would give Louisiana a break.

But almost a year to the day after Hurricane Laura ransacked southwestern Louisiana, Hurricane Ida slammed southeastern Louisiana on Aug. 29.

It was the first time Category 4 landfalls have occurred in back-to-back years in Louisiana. Prior to Laura and Ida, one hadn't come ashore in the Pelican State since Betsy in 1965.

The other two - Last Island (1856) and Chenier Caminada (1893) - were in the 19th century.

4. Ida's Prolific Northeast Deluge

Ida's Louisiana impact was terrible enough. Then its remnant met up with a frontal system in the Northeast.

The up-to-11-inch deluge on Sept. 1 overwhelmed infrastructure in the New York City Tri-State area. Roads turned into rivers, subways gushed like geysers, water filled buses up to the seats and Newark Liberty International Airport flooded.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 53 people died due to drowning in the Northeast from Ida. Twenty-eight of those drowning fatalities were in New Jersey and 18 were in New York, some in flooded basements and ground-floor apartments.

Additionally, Ida spawned tornadoes in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, one of which prompted extremely rare simultaneous tornado and flash flood emergencies in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

3. December Derecho in the Upper Midwest

Five days after Winter Storm Atticus dumped up to 21 inches of snow, an outbreak of severe thunderstorms raked the Upper Midwest with destructive winds and tornadoes - in December.

This outbreak spawned Minnesota's first December tornadoes in records dating to 1950. Previously, only one severe thunderstorm warning had ever been issued in December in Minnesota.

The line of severe thunderstorms which raced from Kansas and Nebraska to Wisconsin met the criteria for a derecho. Only 1% of all derechos happen in December, according to NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.

By the morning after, it appeared as if the warmth, rain and severe thunderstorms had taken a large bite out of the Upper Midwest's snowpack.

This second outbreak in five days smashed the nation's December monthly tornado record.

2. February's Crippling Cold Wave

Some cold outbreaks are record-breaking and at least uncomfortable. What happened in parts of the South in February was deadly, crippling and destructive.

A two-week siege of cold and snow in the Plains tied or set over 9,000 cold records from Feb. 7 to 20.

This led to a cascade of power outages that left almost 10 million customers in the dark for days. An estimated 210 people died in Texas alone from exposure to the cold or carbon monoxide poisoning from improper use of outdoor grills or vehicles to stay warm, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.

Water pipes froze, then burst once they thawed, damaging homes and buildings. One Austin, Texas, family filled a bathtub with snow in the hopes of using it to flush toilets. Icicles formed on indoor ceiling fans.

At least 3.8 million fish were killed by the cold along the Texas coast, according to Texas Parks and Wildlife. Thousands of sea turtles were rescued and later released from the cold Gulf of Mexico.

Snow and ice only added to the misery. It snowed for the first time in 12 years on the beach in Galveston. Del Rio, Texas, along the Rio Grande Valley, had its snowiest day on record (11.2 inches on Feb. 18).

Damage from this cold siege was estimated at just under $21 billion, by far the costliest U.S. winter storm event in NOAA's records since 1980.

1. June's Record-Smashing, Deadly Heat Wave

The extremity and duration of the early-summer heat wave in an area typically considered an escape from searing heat and its costly toll placed this firmly atop our list.

In the last days of June, over 70 locations in the Northwest U.S. and western Canada tied or set new all-time record highs.

Our full summary is here, but some truly bizarre things we saw during this heat wave included:

-Lytton, British Columbia, shattered Canada's all-time record high three days in a row, and was as hot as Death Valley, California, on June 29 (121 degrees Fahrenheit), then burned to the ground the following day.

-Salem, Oregon, tied Las Vegas' all-time record high (117 degrees), shattering their own record in what was possibly the hottest temperature on record west of the Cascades.

-Quillayute, Washington, reached 110 degrees. That town hadn't previously reached 100 degrees in records since 1966.

-Seattle's Sea-Tac Airport sweltered through three straight days with highs in the 100s. They only had two such days on record prior to the heat wave dating to 1945.

-Portland's light rail system was suspended after a power cable was singed by the heat.

As with many heat waves, this event wasn't just bizarre - it was deadly.

Over 100 deaths were attributed to the heat in both Washington and Oregon. At least 570 died in British Columbia. It was considered the deadliest weather event on record in both Canada and Washington.

Five western states - California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon and Utah - had the hottest summer on record since 1880.

Honorable Mentions

There were a number of other oddities in 2021's weather that, while not making the top 21 list, we thought deserved at least a mention. They are listed in roughly chronological order.

- Madrid, Spain, had its heaviest snowfall since 1971.

-A Montana windstorm sent a silo on a wild ride.

-A Wisconsin power plant generated snow flurries.

- Saharan sand dunes were blanketed by snow.

-Behold, a Vermont "snownado."

- Four separate supercell thunderstorms each prompted tornado warnings for Selma, Alabama, on St. Patrick's Day.

-That same day, a tornado wrapped a boat around a tree in Alabama.

-An English Civil War fort was revealed by flooding.

-This family had to shovel itself out of its cabin.

-Flash flooding was reported near the towns of Hurricane and Tornado.

-When two of Pittsburgh's three rivers were different colors.

- Strange clouds hugged the Mississippi River in New Orleans.

-A Florida man had to shovel his sidewalk.

-News anchors fled from a tornado.

-A pilot documented St. Elmo's Fire in Georgia.

-Here's what happened when pouring coffee in high winds.

-Watch an icy flood in a Saudi desert.

-When your golf cart has snow tires.

- Tornado + rainbow.

- Hail fell inside a Walmart.

-When drought forced hatcheries to truck salmon to the ocean.

-A 190-mph super typhoon - in April.

-A drone was caught in a tornado's inflow.

-A giant sequoia in California was still smoldering over a year after a 2020 wildfire.

-A wildfire nearly burned a newsroom.

-Here's why this car was stuck in sand.

-It rained on only one side of this guy's vehicle.

- This tornado looked like an old Atari joystick.

-We almost had an unprecedented May tropical depression in the western Gulf of Mexico.

- Mexican hailstone from hell - or maybe this one was stranger?

-Speaking of hailstones - one in Texas set a record.

- This tornado was atop a Colorado mountain.

-The first May without an F/EF3+ tornado since 1919.

-Why there was a green spot in a drought-suffering North Dakota field.

-When cave breathing led to fog.

-A sea of spider webs formed after a flood.

-Claudette was named over land, then was reborn over land.

-See Thailand's iridescent cap cloud.

-An Iowa man made a "snow angel" in the summer.

-How lightning sparked a fire in the Gulf of Mexico.

- Disney canceled fireworks due to "Elsa".

-The danger of a hair-raising British beach.

-A road was buried in 4 feet of mud for seven miles.

-A " mosquito-nado."

-A camera captured its own demise in a wildfire.

-Canadian summer cold fronts brought smoke, too.

- Earth's hottest month and America's hottest summer on record happened in 2021.

- Trapped in a flooded elevator.

-A typhoon toppled a million-dollar pumpkin.

- Rain poured into a state capitol.

- Henri's weird track resembled a coiled snake - and it made landfall in Rhode Island.

-A Greek "firenado" sent a tree flying.

-Not only a Tennessee all-time 24-hour rain record, but for any non-coastal U.S. state.

- Hurricane Larry's post-tropical "ghost" pummeled Greenland.

-A rare flower bloom in one of the world's driest places.

- Smoky waves in the sky over Wyoming.

-A weird rope cloud fed into future Hurricane Sam.

-Then, an unmanned Saildrone penetrated Hurricane Sam.

-These California meteorologists were really excited over a drop of rain.

-Drought exposed a 130-year shipwreck - in North Dakota.

-Another hectic hurricane season fizzled after early October.

- Hail crashed through an Australian mall.

- Flooding swamped a wedding reception.

-Over 7 inches of rain in one hour.

-An Alaskan atmospheric river isolated a town.

- Landspout tornado meets a volcano.

- High winds bent these Washington goalposts.

-What's for dinner? A frying-pan tornado.

- Trudging through ankle-deep hail in Spain.

- Stranded by a blizzard for days in an English pub.

-A Turkish storm took a washing machine for a spin.

-" Watermelon snow" is worse than it sounds.

-A tornado just missed a ship on the Ohio River.

-A tornado tipped over a school bus with the driver inside, and an RV landed on it.
The Weather Company's primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
-A Florida vehicle was damaged by wind-driven coconuts.

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The 21 Strangest Things About 2021's Weather | The Weather Channel - Articles from The Weather Channel | weather.com

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2021's weather will be remembered largely for a pair of deadly outbreaks of extreme temperatures, a particularly devastating hurricane that left its mark well inland, and two severe weather outbreaks in December. But those were just a few of the weather oddities in 2021.

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Sun Pillars hey develop as a result of ice crystals slowly falling through the air, reflecting the sun's rays off of them.

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Light Pillars in nighttime sky explained

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Haboobs form when a thunderstorm collapses and either all the air it collected is blown out in powerful gusts, or the air within it cools and falls rapidly to the surface in a microburst.

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Amazing and Intense Late Season Haboob Dust Storm, Stanfield, Arizona - 10/3/2022