Dad faced front with his back to Mr. Duncan and grabbed the handles, while Scott took the other end.
“On three,” Dad said. “One, two, three.”
They lifted the stretcher.
“Luke, take the lead with those flashlights.”
Luke hurried into position and illuminated the tight trail. The paramedics took over as soon as they reached the main trail. Dad stayed with them until they loaded Mr. Duncan into the ambulance.
Luke stared at his dad in amazement. During this whole ordeal, Dad didn’t hesitate, he never acted uncertain about what to do, he didn’t complain about the weather or about being exhausted or soaked. Dad had a job to do, and he put his heart and soul into getting Mr. Duncan to safety. Satisfaction lit Dad’s face when the ambulance sped away.
Now Luke understood why search and rescue was so important to Dad. Pride filled his chest. His dad had made a difference.
With Megan tucked in close to her and a big grin spread across her face, Willajean stopped them when they reached the car. “Come on inside for some hot chocolate before you leave.”
“What about Max?” Dad asked.
“The hospital staff can take care of him.”
“All right. We’ll finish up here and be right in.”
After all the dogs were rewarded with plenty of praise and the equipment returned to the trunk, Dad put the three bloodhounds into the car, and Luke carried Lightning back to the kennel for a well-deserved rest.
Sad that he wouldn’t be able to smuggle her home tonight, he was also relieved, because she needed a bath. So did he. Half-dried mud caked his shoes, jeans, and shirt. Outside, Luke knocked off as much dirt as possible before entering the house.
Inside the warm kitchen they all sat around the table, drinking steaming mugs of hot chocolate and eating blueberry muffins. Luke gawked at the clock. Ten minutes after ten. It felt like only a couple hours had passed not six and a half.
Alayna joined them. Another surprise, because she’d been doing an excellent job of avoiding Luke for months.
Scott jumped up. “Here, have my seat.”
She smiled at him, and he gave her a goofy grin. Megan rolled her eyes.
“Luke, why didn’t you tell us Megan has a beautiful older sister?” Jacob asked. “We could have shown you around school. We know all the shortcuts.”
“I’m still learning my way around,” Alayna said. “Maybe you can show me tomorrow?”
The twins quickly agreed. Megan made a disgusted face behind their backs.
“To the successful rescue,” Willajean said, raising her mug and stopping the teens’ flirting. “For which I’m very grateful.”
Cup clunked cup as everyone agreed.
“To Megan for keeping her dad comfortable while waiting for rescue,” Dad said.
More clunks.
“To Luke for finding me,” Megan said.
“Despite the thunderstorm,” Scott added.
“A true Storm Watcher,” Willajean said.
They laughed as they banged mugs, sloshing hot chocolate onto the table. Luke’s cheeks burned. To cover his embarrassment, he said, “To Lightning, who led me right to Megan.”
Everyone but Dad raised a cup. Luke’s good mood died. How could Dad still be so stubborn? Lightning proved her worth tonight, and she had no trouble keeping up with the bloodhounds.
Luke pushed away from the table. Maybe he should check on the dogs before they left. He turned to leave.
Then Dad said, “I guess the little pup can keep coming home with you at night.”
Luke spun. “You know?” Amazement mixed with fear. Why wasn’t Dad yelling at him?
“Of course. I don’t vacuum with my eyes closed. What else would leave clumps of white fur all over your room?”
“To fathers,” Megan said quietly. “Even the dumb ones who follow their daughters over cliffs.”
They clunked their cold, almost empty mugs.
When Luke glanced at her in surprise, she added, “Talking is the only thing you can do when you’re stuck on a cliff with someone for twenty-four hours. Oh, and Mom, Dad got that animal dealer’s license because he needed it for his new job.”
Now it was Willajean’s turn to look shocked. “Really?”
“Yeah, he’s gonna be working over at the horse auction in New Holland.”
Willajean snorted. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“He won’t be able to work for a couple weeks,” Dad said. “The doctor at the hospital should be able to tell you how he’s doing.” He stood up. “We should go so you can check on him.”
“He’s a big boy,” Willajean said. “He can wait and wonder about where I am for a change. I guess he’ll be staying in the barn for awhile longer.” Willajean paused with a sly grin. “Maybe I’ll actually turn the electricity on for him.”
Dad laughed. “Now don’t be spoiling the boy.”
Luke exchanged a glance with his brothers. None of them had heard Dad laugh since Mom died. Dad might not be the perfect father, and Luke dreaded those bad days when Dad’s grief affected them all. But there were good days too.
All four of them were working to crank that valve down to slow their pain to a trickle. Maybe they’d become a family again. It’d take time and effort. But everything worth doing did.
Fact of life.
About the Author
Maria V. Snyder switched careers from meteorolo-gist to novelist when she began writing the New York Times best-selling Study Series (Poison Study, Magic Study, and Fire Study) about a young woman who becomes a poison taster. Maria earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Meteorology from Pennsylvania State University. She worked as an environmental meteorologist until boredom and children drove her to write down the stories that had been swirling around in her head. Writing proved to be more enjoyable, and Maria returned to school to earn a Master of Arts in writing from Seton Hill University. Unable to part company with Seton Hill’s excellent writing program, Maria is currently a teacher and mentor for the MFA program.
However, Maria’s meteorological degree did not go to waste. And to prove it to her parents... er... because she is still fascinated with the weather, she played with the weather while writing Storm Watcher. Weather is also important in her award-winning Glass Series (Storm Glass, Sea Glass, and Spy Glass) about a magician who captures magic inside her glass creations.
Maria lives with her family and a black cat named Valek (a.k.a. the bug assassin!) in Pennsylvania where she is hard at work on her next book. Readers are welcome to check out her website for book excerpts, free short stories, maps, blog, and her schedule at www.MariaVSnyder.com. Maria also loves hearing from her readers and can be contacted at [email protected]. For fun activities connected with Storm Watcher, readers can go to the special Storm Watcher Kennel site at www.stormwatcherkennel.com.
For More Storm Watcher Fun
Go to the Storm Watcher Kennel site:
www.stormwatcherkennel.com
Luke's
Weather
Notebook
(Important facts about all kinds of weather)
Five Horsemen
of Thunderstorms
The most dangerous clouds are cumulonimbus clouds. These thunderstorm clouds are called “weather factories.” They cause wind, hail, lightning, tornadoes, and even flooding. These five weather events are called the five horsemen of thunderstorms.
Below is a look at how each of these horsemen ride across the sky to create storms.
Wind
A thunderstorm is like a giant vacuum cleaner. As the storm grows, it sucks up the warm moist air near the ground. The upward-moving air is called an updraft. Once this column of air reaches 20,000 to 40,000 feet in the sky, it cool
s and descends. Then it’s called a downdraft.
The leading edge, or front, of the downdraft is called the forward-flank downdraft. This is what shakes the leaves on the trees as a thunderstorm approaches. The rear-flank downdraft is the back edge of the storm.
Downdrafts can be intense. They may slam to the ground with gusts that are stronger than hurricanes (75+ miles per hour). These are called downbursts. Tiny ones are called microbursts. Some microburst winds have been clocked above 120 miles per hour (mph). The highest microburst ever recorded was measured at 149.5 mph at Andrews Air Force base in Washington, DC, in 1983.1
Hail4
Hail is a ball of ice that forms inside a thunderstorm. As the warm moist air rises, the air cools and condenses. This creates droplets of water that freeze. These frozen raindrops are called graupel. They get caught in the updrafts and downdrafts. Each time they ride an updraft, they gain another layer of ice. Over time, the hail gets too heavy to stay in the air. So it falls to the ground.
Powerful thunderstorms with strong updrafts can “hold” hail up longer than weaker storms. Strong storms also produce large hailstones. To make a 1” hailstone, the updraft must be at least 50 mph. A 2” hailstone needs close to 70 mph updrafts.
Hailstone sizes in Inches2
0.25 pea
0.50 marble
0.75 penny/large marble/dime
0.88 mothball/nickel
1.00 quarter
1.25 half-dollar
1.50 walnut
1.75 golf ball
2.00 hen egg
2.50 tennis ball
2.75 baseball
3.00 tea cup
4.00 grapefruit
4.50 softball
Lightning (and Thunder)
The largest hailstone recorded landed in Vivian, South Dakota, on July 23, 2010.This hailstone was about the size of a volleyball. It weighed 1.94 pounds and was 18.6” around.3
Strange things have been found inside hail. Twigs, leaves, pebbles, nuts, and even insects have been trapped inside.
Lightning is called thunderstorm electrification in weather language.
Lightning lives in the center of a thunderstorm where the air moves fast. Frozen raindrops ride the air currents like a roller coaster. Some of the drops are going up, rising on updrafts. Others are falling, riding downdrafts. With so much movement, the drops sometimes collide. When they do, the raindrop that was going up becomes positively charged. The one going down takes on a negative charge.
A thunderstorm is like a battery: The top end is positive, and the bottom end is negative.
When a thunderstorm is directly overhead, the large negative charge at the base of the storm repels the negative charge on the ground. That causes the ground and any people (or objects) on the ground to become positively charged. These strong opposite charges close together create the electrical discharge (spark) that is lightning. It’s like what happens when you shuffle across a rug in your socks. If you then touch a pet or a friend or a metal doorknob, you may get “shocked” by a spark. That spark and shock are tiny compared to the ones lightning produces.23
The most common forms of lightning are:
Cloud-to-cloud: the strike occurs between clouds
Cloud-to-ground: lightning hits the ground
In-cloud: lightning happens inside the cloud; it often looks like a sheet
Cloud-to-air: a positively charged cloud hits negatively charged air
The brightness of lightning is equal to about 100 million light bulbs going on and off. The temperature of lightning is about 50,000° F. That is around five times hotter than the surface of the sun.24
When lightning flickers, it’s not just one bolt hitting the ground. It’s a series of multiple strikes. The bolts all hit the same spot. Then like a yo-yo, they return to the cloud. Each stroke, or flash, moves at a speed of about 200,000 mph. That’s the fastest yo-yo ever. And although it may look thick, a bolt of lightning is only about as wide as a pencil.11
Thunder comes from lightning cutting through the air. The bolt is like a yo-yo. When it travels down, it heats up and expands the air. Then it zings right back to the cloud. It cools and contracts the air as it goes. So thunder comes from air coming and going at terrific speed. Hot and cold, up and down. Everything collides and BOOM! The sky sounds like bowling balls smacking into pins, or like a growling animal.
Tornadoes
Light moves faster than sound, so the flash happens right away. But thunder takes five seconds to travel one mile. Counting to five lets you know how far away the storm is. If you count to five three times, the lightning is three miles away.
Tornadoes form only in severe (supercell) thunder-storms. The National Weather Services says a severe thunderstorm has hail at least 1” in diameter, and/or wind gusts of 58 mph, and/or a tornado.5
Not all supercells cause tornadoes. The storm must have strong winds in order to produce a tornado. These winds need to blow at different speeds and in different directions at various heights from the ground. This may happen when warm, moist air meets cool, dry air. If the rotating winds are caught in an updraft, they spin faster and tighter. This cone of air becomes a funnel cloud. Once it hits the ground, it becomes a tornado.
The tornado is the most destructive of all storms. But it usually only causes damage in a small area. Winds of over 300 mph have been recorded. Tornadoes can last a few minutes or as long as an hour. Most tornados last about ten minutes.6
An average tornado is about 375 feet wide.7 It stays on the ground for less than 1 mile. The widest tornado on record was 2.6 miles wide. It tore through El Reno, Oklahoma on May 31, 2013. The longest tornado path on record was from the Tri-State Tornado. It cut through Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana on March 18, 1925. It stayed on the ground for 219 miles. This tornado was also the deadliest tornado on record, killing 695 people.6
Cool picture of a supercell thunderstorm:
http://icons-ak.wxug.com/i/severe/supercell_explainer.png
Great website for more info about tornadoes:
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/index.html
Tornado Safety:
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/safety.html
Flash Floods
Think about when you overfill a glass with water. Water flows over the rim, and maybe on to the floor and your shoes. That’s like a mini-flash flood. The same thing happens in streams and rivers. When it rains too hard, water spills out over the banks. If enough water flows out and has nowhere to go, it causes a flash flood. These floods are dangerous.
Moving water packs a punch. People are often surprised by the power of moving water. It takes only 2’ of water to sweep a car away. Only 6” of fast-moving floodwater can knock you over.11
On June 9, 1972, the Black Hills flash flood in South Dakota dumped 15” inches of rain in 5 hours. Rapid Creek overflowed and killed 238 people.25
The worst flash flood on record was the Johnstown, Pennsylvania Flood. On May 31, 1889, heavy rains caused the South Fork Dam to burst. A wall of water swept through the town, killing 2,209 people.8
When Thunder Roars, Go Indoors!
Lighting kills. According to the National Weather Service, next to flooding, it is the second deadliest weather-related killer. About 73 deaths occur each year from lightning strikes. That’s more than from snowstorms, tornadoes or hurricanes.9
If you can hear thunder, then you’re within striking distance of a thunderstorm’s deadly lightning. The safest and smartest thing to do is go inside. Find a substantial building or a hard-topped vehicle right away. Always bring your pets inside with you. Picnic shelters, bus stops, dugouts, tents, and sheds are NOT safe. Neither are doghouses, treehouses, or other small buildings even without electricity. In a car, don’t lean against the doors during a storm.
Avoid
touching corded phones. Cell phones are okay. Never touch windows, doors, plumbing, or any plugged-in appliances. Don’t wash your hands, do the dishes, or take a shower during a thunderstorm. Also don’t lie on a concrete floor or lean on a concrete wall. Lightning can travel through the metal rebar inside the concrete.
After a thunderstorm passes, wait thirty minutes before going back outside. The National Weather Service says that if everyone followed these rules, lightning deaths would be reduced.
If you can’t find a safe building or vehicle, here are tips to lower your risk of being struck by lightning10:
Avoid open areas and fields
Do not stand on top of ridges or hills
Storm Watcher Page 15
