Seasons South and North

Winds That Herald Storms Coming and Storms Going

Across the world from one another, two October winds are traditionally known as heralds of tropical storm activity. 

In Mexico, El Cordonazo, which means the lash or whip, giving a pretty good idea of how fierce it can be, can hit the west coast just around the 4th of October. It may continue for a couple of weeks longer. When it blows in off the Pacific Ocean, lashing at the trees and buildings, it is a herald of tropical storms and people know to protect their homes and themselves.

Far away from the Americas,  in India, another great wind makes an announcement, this time that the storms are finished for the season. The Gharapuri is a strong wind from the south the arrival of which means that the southwest rainy monsoon season is ended.

Discussion

Wind is something that we cannot see, but we can see its effects. Discuss with children how they cannot see the wind but they can see the trees bending, the clouds moving, flags flapping, laundry on the line billowing. Ask them what else they cannot see but the effects of which they can see (and try to lead the discussion more toward electricity or gravity and away from ghosts). 

The interest in these two winds is that they are heralds of a change in the weather. From repeated observation of these winds coming at the same time or just before the changes, people were able to recognize what was coming and even to plan and prepare. Ask the children what weather events or natural phenomena they know of the indicate something to happen in the future. Their lives are short and they have not seen many repetitions, so perhaps their knowledge will be limited to the sun going down meaning that soon it will be dark. No matter. The point is to encourage them to look at the world around them and to pay attention to it, to observe its changes and learn its patterns.

Geography

Discover more about Mexico and India and the oceans full of storms that surround them.

Mexico For Kids is a delightful site for learning more about this country.

India by the Woodlands Junior School is a great site for children to learn more about India.

Dance

With the children and some scarves or other very light fabric, create wind dances. Have some of the children be the lashing wind that heralds storms, while others can be the soft zephyr that heralds the end of the stormy season.

For more wind activities, see the post on Autumn winds of the 5th of May, 2009. See also the many books about winds in the panel to the right.

©2009 Anne Morddel

Seasons South and North

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Seasons On the Oceans - Tropical Cyclones

In honour of today being World Oceans Day, the post is about seasons on the oceans.

June is one of the months of peak storm activity over many of the world's oceans. Tropical storms have all ready occurred this year in both the northeast and the northwest Pacific Ocean and in the north Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal. The season is just beginning in the north Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. Worldwide, the number of tropical cyclones this year should peak in August or September. Many, many of the readers of this blog, and the children they are educating, live where tropical storms regularly come to shore.  For most others, the big storms are enough a part of the news that even little children hear about them.

When a tropical storm becomes large and the winds reach a speed of about 120 km per hour, it is called a tropical cyclone, a hurricane or a typhoon. A number of factors are necessary for a tropical cyclone to form but one of the key ones is that the surface temperature of the water - for 50 meters down -- must be at least 26.5 degrees centigrade. That's warm. One of the main effects of tropical cyclones is to create great waves, which stir up the water, bringing up cooler waters and reducing the temperature. When they hit land, they bring enormous amounts of rain to land that is often parched. As with everything in nature, they are a part of a cycle. Yet, as everyone knows, these storms are violent and dangerous for most creatures on land. The high winds, great waves and flooding destroy buildings, leaving many people homeless.

It is important that children learn about these great storms without fear, but with curiosity when examining them as phenomena and with practicality when learning how to prepare for and survive them. If you are living in an area of such storms, the best websites for practical knowledge for children are given below. If you live far from where such storms occur, perhaps now is the time not only to teach children about them, but to encourage children to be involved in helping others who have suffered from them. Save the Children has excellent and trustworthy programmes of disaster relief to which a class might donate.

Tropical Cyclone Dance

This works best with a large group of children.

You will need enough pieces of A4 size paper for each child to have one, in three colours: black, white, grey.

Have three or four children, holding white paper, stand in a tight circle and shake their papers quietly. They are the eye of the hurricane.

Have a larger group of children, holding black paper, stand in one or two large circles around the eye, and shake their papers as noisily as possible. They are the thunderstorms that surround the eye.

Have the last group of children, holding grey paper, stand in a circle around the thunderstorm group, shaking their papers with a medium amount of noise. They are the rain bands.

Now, have the children in the thunderstorms and rain bands move, waving and shaking their papers, around the eye, which does not turn.

This has been done by a class in India with coloured scarves, making a very lovely presentation.

Recommended Children's Books About Tropical Cyclones

David Wiesner's Hurricane

Jonathan London's  Hurricane!

Alexandra Wallner's  Sergio and the Hurricane

Dierdre McLaughlin Mercier's  Yesterday We Had a Hurricane

For older children:   Ocean Storm Alert!

Fo older children or for reading  aloud to children :

Theodore Taylor's beautiful story: The Cay

Marguerite Henry's true story about wild horses caught in a hurricane :   Stormy, Misty's Foal

Websites for children about hurricanes and tropical cyclones

The US government site, with games and how to prepare:  Hurricanes

The Weather wiz kids pages on Hurricanes

©2009 Anne Morddel

Seasons South and North

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