Story Time: weather stories for curious kids

High, high up in a cold grey cloud, there was a speck of dust so tiny you could never see it. Its name was Flake.

“It’s chilly up here,” said Flake. Then a little drop of water bumped into it. Brrr! The water froze onto Flake. Then another drop came, and another.

Flake started to grow. One arm. Two arms. Three, four, five, SIX arms, all sparkly and lacy. “Look at me!” said Flake. “I’m a snowflake!”

Flake got heavier and heavier, until whoosh! It began to fall. Down, down, down, twirling past the clouds, past a crow, past the tall bridge over the river.

Flake landed softly on a red mitten. A little girl looked at it very closely. “Six arms,” she whispered. “Just like all the others, but none of them are exactly the same.”

Flake sparkled. Then it joined millions of other snowflakes to make the very best snowman in all of Lethbridge.

It was the coldest week of winter. The windows had frost ferns on them, and Sam’s breath made clouds every time he went outside.

One afternoon, Grandma pointed west, toward the mountains. “Look, Sam. Do you see that long, straight edge of cloud, with blue sky underneath?”

“It looks like a giant smile,” said Sam.

“That’s the chinook arch,” said Grandma. “It means a visitor is coming. A warm wind called Chinook.”

That night, Sam heard the wind whistling around the house. Whoooo. Whoooo. In the morning, the frost on the windows was gone. Drip, drip, drip went the icicles.

Sam ran outside in just his sweater. “It’s warm!” he shouted. But his snowman looked sad and droopy.

“Chinook likes to eat snow,” laughed Grandma. “That’s why some people call it the snow eater. Don’t worry. Winter will be back, and so will your snowman.”

On the prairie, near a big field, lived a little gopher named Pip.

All summer long, Pip ate and ate. Seeds and grass and more seeds. Pip got rounder and rounder. “Why are you eating so much?” asked a meadowlark.

“I’m getting ready for my big sleep,” said Pip, with a mouth full of seeds.

“But it’s still warm,” said the meadowlark. “Winter is a long way away!”

“Gophers like to be early,” said Pip. And one day, while the sun was still shining, Pip went down, down, down into a cozy burrow, curled into a ball and fell fast asleep.

Above, the leaves turned yellow. The snow came. The chinooks blew. And Pip slept through all of it, warm and snug under the ground, dreaming of spring.

It was the hottest afternoon of July, and Maya and her cousin Leo were building a fort in the backyard when Uncle Ray called them in. “Look west,” he said. Meet the real gophers, and our other wild neighbours, in Wildlife of the coulees.

A cloud was growing over the foothills, piling up like whipped cream, higher and higher, until the top spread out flat like an anvil. The sky under it turned dark, almost green.

“Inside, both of you,” said Uncle Ray. “That’s a hail cloud.”

They had just closed the door when the first stone hit the deck. Tok! Then another. Then hundreds, bouncing on the grass like popcorn. The noise on the roof was so loud they had to shout. Leo pressed his nose to the window. “They’re huge!”

“Stay back from the glass,” said Uncle Ray. “We’ll go hunting when it’s over.”

Fifteen minutes later, the storm rumbled away east and the sun came out. The yard looked like winter. Maya grabbed a ruler, and Leo grabbed a bowl.

They found pea-sized stones, marble-sized stones, and one as big as a golf ball. Uncle Ray cut the big one in half with a warm knife. Inside were rings, like the rings of a tree.

“Every ring is a trip up and down inside the storm,” said Uncle Ray. “That hailstone went for quite a ride before it landed in our yard.”

Leo put the biggest one in the freezer. “Evidence,” he said. “For science.”

It was minus 25, and the snow squeaked under Ava’s boots as she walked to the bus stop. Her eyelashes had little frost crystals on them.

The sun was just coming up, low and pale. And on each side of it, there was another bright spot, glowing with a hint of red and blue.

“Three suns!” said her little brother, Noah.

“Those aren’t suns,” said Ava, who had read about this. “They’re sun dogs. Look at the air. See how it sparkles?”

Noah looked. Tiny glittering specks were floating everywhere, catching the light like glitter in a snow globe.

“Those are ice crystals,” said Ava. “Each one is a tiny six-sided prism. The sunlight bends through them, and it makes those bright spots. They’re always the same distance from the sun.”

She held her arm out straight and spread her hand wide, thumb to little finger. From the sun to the sun dog was just about one hand.

“Don’t look right at the sun,” she reminded Noah, putting her mitten in front of it. “Just look at the dogs.”

When the bus came, they were still counting sparkles.