Science of Weather: Earth. Wind. Weather. gallery at Michigan Science Center
Weather impacts everyone, at the Michigan Science Center there's a gallery where you learn about the atmosphere!
Anna Sterner, Director of Programs at Michigan Science Center describes the exhibit and the Michigan Science Center, "This is our General Motors Earth Wind Weather Gallery. This is the Michigan Science Center's newest permanent exhibit gallery that exists here. This exhibit is all about exploring the forces that have shaped our planet, which is also helping us to understand weather and forces that go on outside of Earth and on other planets in our solar system as well."
This gallery has quite the showcase. There are so many fun interactives here at this gallery, let's check out a few. First, we stopped at the Sea of Clouds.
Anna Sterner adds, "So clouds, whether they form up high in the sky or whether they form here close to the ground in the form of fog. More similar to what we're seeing here is really just water vapor condensing as it gets colder and turning back into droplets."
Next on our list is the Aeolian landscape exhibit.
"So classic examples of this would be the sand dunes up in northern Michigan. Those are shaped by the wind and constantly reforming and reshaping as wind and weather changes here in Michigan. But an even bigger, more classic example is probably something more similar to the sands in Egypt. But in this exhibit, we have sand, which is our landscape, and then we have a fan. But the cool thing is, is that you can actually be the force that shapes this landscape right here inside the exhibit by turning the fan and changing those wind currents." says Anna Sterner.
Now you'll notice as a centerpiece here, the 12-foot tornado simulator.
Anna Sterner, "So this tornado was actually formed by a column of bands that kind of go up and down the sides of the exhibits that are pushing the air in the perfect direction in order to form a vortex."
And you can see the rotating column of air form periodically throughout the day. Now that's the Science of Weather, in Detroit, I'm Meteorologist Kylee Miller.
