Traditional Culture Encyclopedia - Weather inquiry - unusual weather

unusual weather

The so-called dragon water absorption, although it looks spectacular and mysterious, is actually a tornado at sea. It's just that different places have different effects, and ancient people didn't have a certain understanding of science and feudal superstition.

China is not the only place where dragons absorb water. America is called "the hometown of tornadoes". At least six waterspouts were found off the coast of Louisiana, spiraling up under the cover of black storm clouds. The scene of "Six Dragons Sucking Water" is shocking, just like a disaster film. At that time, the area was also hit by strong storms and hail.

In ancient times, when people encountered this phenomenon, they all thought that the real dragon was sucking water into the sky. There is a place called Bailong Village in Tai 'an City, Shandong Province. It is said that it was because the dragon absorbed water during the Zhenguan period. At that time, many people saw a huge black shadow flying in the clouds. Many years later, the weather in this area was fine, and the locals thought that the real dragon appeared to bless the local area, so they renamed this place Bailong Village.

In fact, dragon water absorption is just a kind of tornado. According to the different formation areas, tornadoes can be divided into "land tornadoes", "fire tornadoes" and "waterspouts". What we are talking about now is actually a waterspout. Tornado is a small-scale air vortex caused by strong convection under extremely unstable weather conditions. Under the action of updraft and shear wind from all directions, the middle of the airflow begins to rotate, and then expands up and down to form a columnar air vortex. When the airflow vortex expands to the ground, it will produce a great negative pressure on the ground, and then a tornado is formally formed.

When a tornado occurs on a lake or ocean, a dragon absorbs water, and the tornado sucks water into the hole left in the middle, thus forming an upward rotating vortex. In people's eyes, the tornado at this time is really like a long dragon hiding in the clouds to absorb water.

Generally, in summer, May-September is the high season for water absorption by dragons, and August is the most concentrated, because the weather is hot, thunderstorms and strong convective weather occur frequently during this period. In winter, due to the lack of climatic conditions, this phenomenon is rarely encountered.

After understanding the formation principle and reason of dragon playing with water, people will not cast superstitious and fantasy eyes on dragon absorbing water. In fact, there are scientific explanations behind many seemingly mysterious things. It just needs people to find out carefully.