Aug 27, 2020

This Day in Weather History: Area south of Belleville pummeled in 1989

Posted Aug 27, 2020 7:30 PM

The following is  Weather History for Thursday, August 27, 2020 from the National Weather Service.

In 1989, during the afternoon and evening, severe thunderstorms tore through southeast Nebraska, northern and eastern Kansas, as well as Missouri. Baseball sized hail bombarded areas a few miles south of Belleville, Kan., while tennis ball sized hail pummeled areas just south of Lincoln, Neb.

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In 1883, the catastrophic Krakatoa explosion reached a climax.

Actually comprised of four stupendous explosions, the Krakatoa eruptions were so violent that two of the three volcanoes that were on the island, Danan and Perboewatan, disappeared when their magma chambers emptied causing both volcanoes to collapse. The north face of the third and largest volcano, Rakata, was sheared off. In all, around 75 percent of Krakatoa Island disappeared. The combined power of the four explosions was equivalent to a 200-megaton hydrogen bomb; 3.5 times more powerful than the 57-megaton Tsar Bomba, the most powerful nuclear bomb in history that exploded about 10 degrees north of the Arctic Circle over Novaya Zemlya on Oct. 30, 1961. The fourth and final explosion itself was 150 megatons. The collapsed volcanoes were responsible for the gigantic tsunamis that killed around 36,000 people. The highest wave reached around 150 feet while a second reached around 135 feet.

The average global temperature in 1884 cooled 1.5 degrees Celsius and would be 1.2 degrees below normal for the next five years. The sun and moon appeared blue, green, and even lavender throughout the Pacific Basin. Believed to be the loudest noise ever recorded, the eruptions were heard around 3,000 miles away on the Western Indian Ocean island of Rodrigues. The pressure waves were so powerful that sailors suffered ruptured eardrums as far as 40 miles away. The pressure waves circled Earth seven times.