Has it ever really rained frogs?
Extreme Weather Quiz
Britain has just been battered by Storm Ciara, the strongest storm of the century so far. Winds reached speeds of up to 156 km/h, a month and a half’s rain fell in just 24 hours, and 20,000 homes were left without power.
Extreme weather and freak events like this are not new, but they are becoming more common. To mark the occasion, we’ve put together this topical quiz all about the weather. You’ll be surprised just how weird the weather can be!
Do you know the sorts of things which have fallen from the sky, the nickname of the man who has been struck by lightning seven times, the difference between fog and mist or the speed of the strongest winds? Well, we’re about to find out! See if you can reach the sunny score of 10 out of 10, or whether you’ll have to settle for a dreary total. Good luck!
1.
July 10th 1913 was the hottest day ever on Earth, with temperatures reaching 56.7 °C. Whereabouts was this?
Cambridge, UK
The Sahara Desert
Death Valley, California
The Gobi Desert
2.
Roy Sullivan was a park ranger in the USA who was struck by lightning seven times during his life, surviving them all. What nickname did this earn him?
Sparky
Roy the Lightning Rod
Electro Man
The Human Lightning Conductor
Roy lived to be 71 years old. The chances of being struck by lightning even once over that time are less than 1:10,000. He was very unlucky – but, at the same time, very lucky indeed!
3.
You’ve heard the saying, raining cats and dogs, but it does occasionally rain animals. Which of these has never been reported as falling from the sky?
Mice
Jellyfish
Spiders
Frogs
It’s believed that the creatures were picked up by tornadoes before being dropped back to the ground. As well as jellyfish, spiders and frogs, other creatures it has rained include fish, worms, starfish, octopodes and toads – no cats or dogs though!
4.
Discarding tornadoes, the fastest winds ever recorded were on Barrow Island, Australia, in 1996. The wind was as fast as what?
As fast as a Formula 1 racing car
As fast as a helicopter
As fast as a jet plane
As fast as a rocket
The winds reached a speed of 408 km/h (253 mph) – faster than a Formula 1 car but slower than a rocket or a jet. Windspeeds in tornadoes are even stronger, and can reach up to 480 km/h (300 mph)
5.
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the world's largest snowflake fell in January 1887, in Montana, USA. How big was it?
0.38 cm wide
3.8 cm wide
38 cm wide
380 cm wide
The giant snowflake was reported by a farmer, and some doubt his observation. Clusters of flakes have been observed measuring up to 10 cm wide, but the largest single flake properly verified was about 1.7 cm wide
6.
Thick fog containing the poisonous gas sulfur dioxide is known as what?
A Custard Skin Fog
A Pea Soup Fog
An Onion Gravy Fog
A Mashed Potato Fog
Fogs caused by air pollution date back to the 13th Century, and cities like London have recorded deaths from these since the 17th Century
7.
Hail can be deadly. In April 1888, a severe hailstorm in Moradabad, India, killed how many people?
2
24
246
2,460
The stones which fell were said to be the size of, “goose eggs, oranges and cricket balls”
8.
The year 1816 is known as the Year Without a Summer, after temperatures around the world fell and crops failed. What caused this freak weather?
A mini Ice Age
Earthquakes
Industrial pollution
The eruption of a volcano
In April 1815, Mount Tambora on the island of Sumbawa, Indonesia, erupted. It was the largest eruption in almost 1,000 years and the material ejected blocked out the sun, cooling the earth by 0.7 degrees – enough to cause unusual weather, crop failures and famine
9.
In the Northern Hemisphere, very hot days during the summer are known by what name?
Dog Days
Lion Days
Bear Days
Wolf Days
The Dog Star, Sirius, becomes visible at dawn during July and August. The ancient Greeks believed that this brought about hot weather, hence the modern association
10.
Fog and mist are both formed by low-lying clouds. What is the official difference between mist and fog?
Mist is not classed as a danger to life
Mist forms only above bodies of water
Fog reduces visibility to less than 1 km
Fog forms at lower temperatures than mist
You can see for less than 1 km in a fog. Mist reduces visibility to less than 5 km
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Cambridge holds the record for the hottest temperature in the UK of 38.7 °C in 2019