Hurricane Katrina 2005

Hurricane Katrina hit America during the hurricane season of 2005. It has been classed as the costliest hurricane in American history and one of the fifth deadliest. It was also the sixth storongest. The highest speed that Katrina reached was 175mph.

Huriicanes start as tropical storms and then gradually turn into hurricanes. If they are over oceans they pick up water making it stronger. Hurricanes turn clockwise north of the equator and anti-clockwise south of the equator. Amazingly, the centre (eye) of the hurricane is peaceful and there is not much wind at all.

The Eruption of Vesuvius

Mount Vesuvius is a volcano in Rome. It is most famous for erupting and killing the whole of Pompeii.

Volcanoes are usually situated where two of the earths plates meet. It is normally caused by the plates pushing against each other and lifting up.

Only active volcanoes can erupt. Some old volcanoes are dormant meaning they cannot erupt anymore.

Volcanoes erupt when the convection for the earths mantel gets too much and the lava explodes out of the top.

Once lava has left the volcano it cools and turns into igneous rock. The rock has crystals and they are diffrent sizes depending on how long they took to cool.

2007 Tewkesbury Floods

Tewkesbury is a town in Gloucester that neighbours the River Severn and the River Avon. With both of these rivers so close it is no wonder it flooded so badly during the extremely heavy rainfall during Summer 2007.

Summer 2007 was the wettest Summer in the UK since records started 233 years ago. Average rainfall was 140 millimetres witch is more than double the average rainfall for that time of year. Some areas received their months worth of rain in just 24 hours. In the UK it cost over 2million pounds to fix the damage caused by the flooding.

On the 20th July the flooding started because the the position where the two rivers met overflowed with the amount of water. An ampicar (an amphibious automobile or a car that rides on water) delivered fish fingers to children stuck in a school.

On the 22nd all four access routes into the town were cut off and the Gloucester football stadium was flooded.

On the 23rd most homes in Gloucster were without electricty when main power station had to be turned off becuase of flooding.

Most floods are caused by overflowing rivers and lakes. The rivers and lakes would usually flood if it has been raining heavily.

Scarbourgh Bluffs

The Scarbourgh Bluffs are a set of cliffs that run 14 kilometres on Lake Ontario. The can reach as high as a seven story building.

In the 1940's cottages were built there and the cliffs have been eroding ever since. In the 1970's people really started to worry when a 6 metre chunk fell of the cliffs.

Recently (Summer 2008) so much of the Bluffs fell off that it took with it one quater of someones cottage.

This is caused by erosion. The type of erosion shown here is probably Freeze-Thaw weathering. This is when water gets into cracks in rocks and freezes. When water freezes it expands and the force of the ice makes the crack bigger. Eventually the crack gets SOOOOO BIGGG that part of the rock breaks off.

Tsunami in Tahiland (26/12/04)

Tsunami's are created when earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, explosions, landslides or other rapid movements occur under water.



A tsunami could also be created when two of the earths tectonic plates rub together.



The Tsunami that occurred in Thailand was caused by an earthquake off the coast of Sumatra.



The earthquake caused a Tsunami affecting most of the countries bordering the Indian Ocean. This was how it happened.


This specific Tsunami killed 229,866 people in 11 different countries which makes it the 2nd deadliest earthquake ever recorded.