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make some noise if you're a fan of snow
yeah we'd love to be outside when it
snows we like to go sledding make a snow
fort or even just take a walk but there
are some times when it's definitely not
a good idea to go out in the snow and
one of those times is during a blizzard
a blizzard is a kind of big snowstorm
but it's special one blizzard start in
the same way that some other powerful
storms start when two big areas of air
meet one of these big areas of air is
colder and the other is warmer to make a
blizzard the warm air gets pushed up so
it's on top of the cold air warm air on
top of cold air makes conditions just
right for lots of wind and water to come
together that's true squeeks blizzards
don't usually have rain they have snow
but remember what snow is made of it's
frozen water since the air that's on the
bottom of the storm and closer to the
ground is cold the water can freeze into
snow scientists say that for a snowstorm
to be considered an official blizzard
three things have to happen first to be
a blizzard a snowstorm has to have a lot
of wind and the wind has to blow pretty
hard winds in a blizzard have to blow at
least 55 kilometres an hour as fast as a
car driving down the street that makes
it strong enough to blow around things
that are outside like lawn furniture or
garbage cans second the visibility in a
blizzard has to be pretty low visibility
is just how far you can see when things
like fog snow clouds or rain get in the
way you can't see as far so we'd say the
visibility goes down for example on a
clear sunny day you might be able to see
as far as the mountains in the distance
which is pretty far right as long as
there's nothing in the way like trees or
buildings but in a blizzard visibility
goes way down you might only be able to
see two blocks down the street or even
less you can't see very far in a
blizzard because of the snow that's
falling from the sky and being blown
around by all that wind in some really
strong blizzards there might be no
visibility meaning you wouldn't be able
to see much of anything at all even if
it's only a
meters or feet away sometimes when
there's no visibility like that people
will call it a whiteout
that means the blowing snow makes it
pretty difficult if not impossible to
see anything but the color white now the
third thing that separates blizzards
from ordinary snowstorms is time to be a
blizzard a snowstorm has to last three
hours or longer so you can see why
blizzards
are some serious storms have you noticed
that there's one thing that we haven't
talked about when it comes to what makes
a blizzard a blizzard oh you know what
squeeks that's not what I was thinking
of but you're right we didn't talk about
how cold a blizzard is well blizzard
usually are very cold but they don't
have to be a certain amount of cold to
be called a blizzard well we also didn't
talk about how much snow a blizzard has
to have that's because blizzards don't
have to have a lot of snow but they
usually have tons of it
lots of blizzards leave behind so much
snow that it's taller than you and some
leave behind even more the snow can even
be taller than me there are some places
where big areas of warm and cold air
meet pretty often during the winter so
they get blizzards all the time for
example there are lots of blizzards
right in the middle of the United States
and Canada because cold dry air comes
down from the North Pole and meets the
warm wet air coming up from the water
near Mexico places like the northeastern
US parts of the UK Romania Iran and
China can also get some pretty big
blizzards we just had a blizzard where
we live a few days ago but since it's
not snowing at all right now I think
it's the perfect time for us to go
outside and build a snowman
come on squeeks let's go get bundled up
thanks for joining us if you want to
keep learning and having fun with
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and we'll see you next time here at the
fort
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