The Weatherbug

By Sonja Feaster and Sasha Kiatsuranon

B.U.G.

My name is B.U.G. Biologic Universal Gadget. I don't know exactly where I'm from or why I have a mind of my own considering I'm simply a box of metal on the moon, but what I am sure of is my vast knowledge. When I look at the stars I know which ones they are and where I am. I know my age but I don't know where I started.

When I feel alone, it rains on the Earth below me. Precipitation comes including snow, hail, and sleet. When I feel angry, the sun heats up and more energy reaches the planets. It turns the air and makes it move causing what is called convection currents. I can change the currents with simply a thought. I am alone on the moon, a simple life-searching device that can control the atmosphere, the air around the Earth.

1

B.U.G.

Dr. Penny

Dr. Penny sat in the weather station on the Texas coast. Her fellow scientists had gone home for the day, yet she stayed late anyways. She thought about the satellites as she looked through the dusty window. At the station they used the satellites to take pictures of the Earth. Dr. Penny walked closer to the window and looked outside. She examined the different clouds. She saw fluffy round clouds she knew to be cumulus and wispy and feathery cirrus clouds. She also saw stratus clouds, or flat layers.

As a meteorologist, she studied wind currents and ocean currents. A current is air or water moving in a certain direction. If there is less air in some areas, it's called low pressure. If an area's full of air molecules, it's called high pressure. This is the same with the water in the sea. Dr. Penny loved facts like these, and just about everything about the weather.

2

The Storm

B.U.G.I feel tired and sorrowful, I have searched all day in a very large crater and found

nothing but a few rocks. I have tried to keep my emotions contained, knowing that the human life forms below will have to suffer if I don't.

I feel a storm coming on though, and I'm not sure how much longer I can hold back. I wish I could warn them now, but they'll have to deal with the wind alone. Warm air always rises, but the air pressure is decreasing so there are less molecules of air in the atmosphere. This means even more precipitation and wind storms swirling towards a center point. In this case, the cyclone is in the water with low pressure That means that it's not a cyclone any more.

I feel a hurricane coming.

3

Wind currents

t

This is the way the air flows on Earth.

Red: DoldrumsPurple: Trade WindsGreen: Horse LatitudesBlue: Prevailing WesterliesYellow: Polar easterlies

4

Watching the Weather

Dr. Penny ended up staying the night at the weather station. She woke up early right as the sun rose. Today was a cloudy day, and as the sun gradually came up clouds started forming growing darker and darker. She looked up a current weather map.

L

H

H

L

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Map Key

Dr. Penny noticed a few things about the weather off the bat.

There was a warm front with warm air heading for New York and Maine.

There was a cold front with cold air heading for California from the sea.

There was an Occluded front heading for Missouri and Louisiana from Texas.This means warm air is caught between cold air and it's cold, rainy, or snowy.

There was a stationary front going up towards washington and Idaho.This means the warm and cold air are at a standoff.

6

Crazy Changes

The last thing that she noticed was the swirling winds over the sea. "A hurricane!" Dr. Penny yelled. She ran and shut all of the windows, and then she covered her expensive computers and tools in blankets. She ran outside and looked at the ocean. She saw storm clouds far away. All of the sudden though, the clouds disappeared and the water settled down.

Dr. Penny went back inside and uncovered her computer. She looked at the weather map of America.

There were thunderstorms over New York and Georgia.

It was raining lightly over Arizona.

Dr. Penny noticed many other places that were rainy and cold. Then all of the map changed a lot. Dr. Penny saw many new weather symbols. She said, "The weather never changes that quickly!"

New York, Georgia, and Arizona were all sunny with clear skies.

7

B.U.G. Feels Confused

The people on Earth must be hiding inside because of the awful weather i'm creating!

The dew point is the temperature that the air has to be for tiny water droplets to become raindrops. I can control the temperature, so I can make it rain, too!!!

I feel bad, but I don't know how to change it! I can either try to control myself and the weather, but that's hard. My confusion is causing something even worse!

Oh no Earth, watch out! Tornadoes!

8

Tornadoes???

When Dr. Penny went outside, she noticed the sky darkening again. All over the map was Dr. Penny's least favorite weather symbol. A tornado. She hid under her desk, so she wouldn't get carried away by the swirling winds from a mixture of hot and cool air.

9

B.U.G. makes a decision

I feel so bad, making the weather change that quickly. I must have scared so many people! I just want to help everyone who's living on Earth! I think I have made a decision. Maybe instead making the weather unpredictable and hard to expect, I could help it be normal.

The heat from the sun gives the whole planet energy, so even if I'm not controlling the weather it will have a mind of it's own. Some areas of the Earth will get more heat than others. They will have warmer air, or low pressure, and then high pressure areas with cold air will flow into them. The high and low pressure places on maps are marked with an L or H. Barometers measure the pressure of the air and are used by scientists.

Obviously this system with the Earth and the sun works by itself, so I am not needed. I am just messing up the perfect cycle.

10

Clear Skies

Dr. Penny was scared the crazy weather wasn't over. She was worried that the next thing to happen would be an earthquake. She checked her seismograph, which measures the vibration of the Earth.

Everything looked perfectly normal. She thought that maybe she should check the weather map for any changes, but when she looked she didn't see anything.

Dr. Penny looked at the map to the right. The key next to it shows what temperature the different colored areas are. These are places with the same temperature, called isotherms. Isobars are the almost same things, but measure pressure.

11

Isotherm Map

12

Things go back to normal

It had been a long and crazy day. Dr. Penny hadn't been home in over 24 hours. She wasn't sure that the weather would settle down for good, but at this point she was so tired she just wanted to escape the nightmare. As she looked back at the computer on the way out, she knew she'd never have a day as crazy as that one.

Dr. Penny will never forget the day the weather went wild. B.U.G. decided to fly to a different solar system with planets who did need his help, and the sun continued to energize the Earth and it's lifeforms. The Earth kept spinning though, and the weather was able to be natural and normal from then on.

13

THE END

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All pictures and diagrams by SashaStory and analysis by Sonja