Atmospheric Chills
When winter weather
overwhelms, it's not always snow that is to blame...the worst
culprit is atmospheric ice or 'freezing rain'.
When an ice storm ravaged Eastern Ontario and Quebec in 1998,
engineers at the University of Quebec looked at it as a natural
laboratory for examining the destructive power of ice. The
university now has a space where scientists can conduct ice storm
simulations all year round. By depositing precipitation onto power
lines they hope to be able to design equipment that can withstand
rough Canadian winters. Researcher, Masoud Farzaneh says, "each time
we have a storm, we learn. Each storm is a professor." Click the
video to learn more.
