To my dear visitors and commenters

Hi, everybody! I've noticed with lots of joy and happiness, that thousands of comments have been written in my posts. It's wonderful that so may people around the world appreciate my work. Therefore, I want to thank you for that and ,at the same time I want to ask you to be this blog's followers. It's fast and easy! Make it be even more visited and spread all over the world! I'm a woman, a teacher of English in Portugal, and I've been away for quite a long time because of my father's health. Unfortunately he died from Covid19 a few months ago. Now I felt it was time to restart my activity in this and other blogs I owe. I've recently created a new one in a partnership with a street photographer, Mr. Daniel Antunes. He's fabulous! https://pandpbydandd.blogspot.com I'd like you to visit it and, who knows, become our followers. The poems, chronicles and thoughts are all mine. Thank you so much! Kisses :-)

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Wednesday, February 19, 2014

The reindeers that glow in the dark

Herders in Lapland are spraying their reindeers with a special paint designed to reflect car headlights.

What a clever idea! And very useful too, either for the drivers and the reindeers themselves. We hope the paint doesn't do any harm to the poor deers!
reindeer with reflective antlers

As many as 4,000 reindeer are involved in accidents with cars every year in Lapland, which is a region of Finland.

The Reindeer Herders Association hopes the reflective spray will help drivers see them during the dark months.
The special spray is being tested on the reindeers fur and antlers to see if it stays on in different weather conditions.

From CBBC newsround

Sunday, February 16, 2014

What is a jet stream?

Jet streams drive weather systems worldwide and the UK has some of the most variable weather due to its location under a jet stream. But what are jet streams and how do they form?

Illustration of a typical jet stream

A jet stream is defined as a narrow zone of high-speed winds. They can extend several thousand miles long.
Jet streams are typically found about 30,000 feet up in the atmosphere and are formed through significant temperature differences between conflicting air masses.
The ribbons of strong winds influence global weather patterns and their positioning helps meteorologists to forecast the weather.
With speeds of up to 200 miles per hour, jet streams are also important to pilots because flight time and fuel consumption can be affected greatly by flying either with or against them.
So, if on your travels, you've ever felt that your return flight seemed quicker than on the way out - your pilot could well have flown within a jet stream.
Jet streams flow from west to east in the upper portion of the troposphere.
Jet streams are caused by a combination of a planet's rotation on its axis and atmospheric heating (by solar radiation and, on some planets other than Earth, internal heat). Jet streams form near boundaries of adjacent air masses with significant differences in temperature, such as the polar region and the warmer air towards the equator.
Other jet streams also exist. During the Northern Hemisphere summer, easterly jets can form in tropical regions, typically in a region where dry air encounters more humid air at high altitudes. Low-level jets also are typical of various regions such as the central United States.
Meteorologists use the location of some of the jet streams as an aid in weather forecasting. The main commercial relevance of the jet streams is in air travel, as flight time can be dramatically affected by either flying with the flow or against the flow of a jet stream. Clear-air turbulence, a potential hazard to aircraft passenger safety, is often found in a jet stream's vicinity, but it does not create a substantial alteration on flight times.
in Wikipedia

Wikipedia

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