Storm

Storm

A storm (Proto-Germanic *sturmaz "noise, tumult") is any disturbed state of an astronomical body's atmosphere, especially affecting its surface, and strongly implying severe weather. It may be marked by strong wind, hail, thunder and/or lightning (a thunderstorm), heavy precipitation (snowstorm, rainstorm), heavy freezing rain (ice storm), strong winds (tropical cyclone, windstorm) or wind transporting some substance through the atmosphere (as in a dust storm, blizzard, sandstorm, etc.). Storms generally lead to negative impacts to lives and property, such as storm surge, heavy rain or snow (causing flooding or road impassibility), lightning, wildfires, and vertical wind shear; however, systems with significant rainfall can alleviate drought in places they move through. Heavy snowfall can allow special recreational activities to take place which would not be possible otherwise, such as skiing and snowmobiling.

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Famous quotes containing the word storm:

    Beneath the azure current floweth;
    Above, the golden sunlight glows.
    Rebellious, the storm it wooeth,
    As if the storms could give repose.
    Mikhail Lermontov (1814–1841)

    I am less affected by their heroism who stood up for half an hour in the front line at Buena Vista, than by the steady and cheerful valor of the men who inhabit the snow-plow for their winter quarters; who have not merely the three-o’-clock-in-the-morning courage, which Bonaparte thought was the rarest, but whose courage does not go to rest so early, who go to sleep only when the storm sleeps or the sinews of their iron steed are frozen.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    I care not what the sailors say:
    All those dreadful thunder-stones,
    All that storm that blots the day
    Can but show that Heaven yawns;
    Great Europa played the fool
    That changed a lover for a bull.
    William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)