The Western Wisconsin Derecho was a severe storm (or more accurately, a Derecho) that occurred through several counties of Western Wisconsin on July 15, 1980. It caused nearly $160M in damage (1980 dollars)(including severe damage to Menards headquarters) and is still referred to as “The July 15th (1980) Storm,” “July 15th, 1980,” or simply “The Storm.”

The best part is, the storm was all Minnesota’s fault!

That’s a half truth. The storm formed in MN, picked up speed, and did most of it’s damage in Wisconsin.

The storm developed during the heat wave of 1980. Eight days prior to the storm, MN had experienced highs above 90°F, which primed the fuse for a storm.

As the storm raced through St Croix, Pierce, Dunn, Eau Claire, Chippewa, and Clark counties, it caused a band of damage more than 20 miles (30 km) wide. A maximum wind speed of 110 mph (177 km/h) was recorded at the Chippewa Valley Regional Airport, while 100 mph wind was recorded in the city of Eau Claire. At 9:39 p.m., WEAU-TV broadcast an alert from the National Weather Service about one of several tornado warnings that evening for Eau Claire County; moments later, the station lost power and went off-the-air.

Although much of the storm’s damage was caused by straight-line winds a total of 10 tornadoes (ranging from power of F0 to F3) were reported.

Also, there was controversy because although the Feckless Jimmy Carter declared it a disaster area, due to the massive influx of Cubans into the country, the Mount St Helens eruption of 18 May, the severe tornadoes in Grand Island, Nebraska in June, and flooding in western Pennsylvania during August, the FEMA rules changed, covering only 75% of the damages, leaving WI with $800,000 of disaster to cover.

Source: My hero

10% of the people who attempt to climb Mount Everest die in the process.

Source: Planet Earth on Discovery

It’s called a Nautilus. That thing near the bottom is its jet. It uses the jet to move forward, and pockets of gas under its shell to float up and down.

Oh, and it swims backwards (shell first). The eyes are by the jet. But it doesn’t really use its eyes. It depends on smell instead.

Source: Planet Earth on The Discovery Channel

Jeff and I went to a plant nursery a few days ago because we are trying to decide what type of plants we should have in our back yard.

There are so many trees to choose from. We could have:

	Pomegranate- I’m still upset about an argument I had with my English teacher about the hidden significance of this particular fruit. For those of you who did not know this- anytime you read about a pomegranate- it means sex/girl parts. Yeah- I don’t get it either. Anyway, the guy showed us the tree and pulled the fruit off, cracked it in half and implored us to try it. There are these little seed things on the inside that are surrounded by a white membrane (like the stuff between orange peel and the orange). They are usually sweet if the fruit is ripe, more bitter if it isn’t quite ready yet.
	Lime- Key Limes or also known as Mexican Limes. Corona sized I’m told, but not usually the type you get in the grocery store. Mexican limes are round, not oval. If you let them ripen on the tree long enough, they become really sweet so you can just eat them like an orange. This tree is most promising, especially after last week’s successful foray into cilantro-lime rice.
	Palm Trees- oh sooo many varieties. It turns out that palm trees are heavily manicured and they actually produce fruit. They cut the fruit and the old fronds off during the manicure. The guy said that the fruit isn’t poisonous, but it probably wouldn’t taste very good. The fruit looks like little grapes.
	Orange- We just planted an orange tree- but we learned so much more about them. Orange trees are actually just cut off branches from bigger orange trees, not grown from seeds. I thought this was crazy! And, aside from the chilly MN climate it explains why my planted orange seeds never turned into anything.
	Apple- For most apple trees, you have to have a male and a female tree, otherwise you won’t get any apples. If I was going to plant an apple tree, it would be a Honeycrisp and the climate in AZ just isn’t suited for it. Boo.
	Almonds and Pecans- turns out that they grow from trees. I never gave it much thought, but if asked on ‘Who wants to be a Millionaire’ my final answer for ‘Where do Almonds and Pecans came from?’ would have been “The ground- like peanuts.”
	Fig- I saw the jungle Planet Earth where the whole jungle fights over fig trees, but this is a different variety. This tree has really cool looking leaves, but the fruit left me undecided. I had never tasted a fig aside from the Newton variety, so for those of you like me who have never tried a fig- it tasted kind of like a plum and a peach mixture, looks a little freaky on the insides.

There are birds that migrate from Australia (in the winter) to the Aleutian Islands (Alaska, in the summer). That’s a distance of over 10,000 miles.

Dude- I’ve heard of flying south for the winter, but I think you are taking things to extremes.

But these birds are all about extremes- they can dive up to 130 feet under the water in search for food.

I can see it now- Mountain Dew and Vans Shoes sponsor the X-Treme Bird challenge, a joint project of Animal Planet and ESPN 11.

Source: Planet Earth on The Discovery Channel

If you are like me, you’ve picked up a sand dollar on vacation somewhere, and it looked something like this.

It probably had some nice little card attached to it that explained the supposed religious significance of the 5 points, etc. And you may or may not have broken it open to see the “doves” inside.

But, if you are like me, you had no idea that sand dollars are really sea urchins. And really, they look like this:

The nice white keepsake is what is left after a giant starfish swims over the live sand dollar, expands its stomach to envelope the creature, and then liquefies all of the live cells. The remaining white shell is actually an exoskeleton. The doves are, to simplify it greatly, kind of like teeth.

I think I liked it better in the gift shop. Sea Urchin. Ewww.

Source: Planet Earth on The Discovery Channel

Algae is responsible for producing 3/4 of the oxygen in the atmosphere. Algae is not responsible for producing the Oxygen network. That’s NBC Universal.

Source: Planet Earth on The Discovery Channel

The Discovery Channel (at least in its older incarnation) was famous for scenes of animals, ahem, breeding. It’s always a bit… unsettling, but today’s segment on frogs would make late night Cinemax actresses blush. Read on if you dare… you’ve been warned.

You see, for certain types of frogs, notably leap frogs, consent to the act is not so necessary. The male frogs are all in a tree. The loudest (therefore most desirable) male frog is at the top of the tree. The lesser desirable male frogs are lower down in the tree.

The female frogs climb the tree, in an attempt to get to the top to mate with the alpha frog. But on their way up, the beta frogs engage in activities that would get the attention of the team from JungleLaw: SVU. Yep, they just hop on (pun intended) and start going at it, while the female tries to continue climbing to the top.

Another beta frog already on your woman? No prob. Just jump on. The more the merrier. Yep. Froggy menage a trois.

I told you it was disturbing. Don’t blame me. I just report the facts.

Source: Planet Earth on The Discovery Channel

A frog’s ears are tuned so that they can only hear the sound of their own species. So when a big group of frogs are croaking, they can only hear some of the chorus.

Source: Planet Earth on The Discovery Channel

Kangaroos live in Australia. And it gets really hot in Australia. Like 120° F Hot. And sometimes there isn’t very much water.

So fortunately, pregnant kangaroos have the ability to slow down embryo development during a drought.

Other kangaroo fun facts:

• They lick themselves to cool down. Their blood vessels are close to their skin, and when the saliva evaporates it cools the blood underneath, which in turn cools down their whole bodies. It’s true. I saw thermal camera footage to prove it.
• The soil a few inches down is significantly cooler than the topsoil. So in addition to licking themselves, they dig down a few inches and lay in the cooler dirt.

Source: Planet Earth on The Discovery Channel