Tornados and a Meteor

The dawn of day 106 showed us something I have never seen before. Jackie and I have were staying in Flagstaff and the weather was not good. It was very dark, raining, sometimes with hailstones and it was very windy. A check of the weather forecast and morning news showed us that two tornados had touched down in Bellemont, just 10 miles to the west of where we were. Large trucks had been pushed over, houses damaged and 28 train cars were derailed. Thankfully nobody was seriously injured.

Our plan for the day was to go see Meteor Crater on the east side of Flagstaff, but we decided against travelling on the bike due to the ongoing bad weather. We rented a car for the day and it was just as well, as the strong winds lasted until well into the afternoon.

Meteor Crater was formed about 50,000 years ago when a meteor weighing approximately 300,000 tons hit the earth at a very high speed. Estimates of the speed very between 12 and 25 kilometres per second (45,000 and 28,600 mph). It is estimated the crater took less than 10 seconds to be formed. The meteor vaporised on impact and very little of it has ever been found.

The crater is about 1,200 m (4,000 ft) in diameter, some 170 m deep (570 ft), and the its rim rises about 45 m (150 ft) above the general level of the land surrounding the crater. It is an impressive sight.

Access to the crater is limited to near the visitor centre, which houses a museum, a threatre where talks are given and a short video shown about the formation of the crater.

Here are some of the pictures we took....

The crater....

Jackie taking a picture of the slope and rim....

Jackie’s picture of the slope and rim!....

The crater and by now, a terrific blue sky....

Taken by Jackie, this is me struggling to walk in the still very strong wind....

When standing at the rim, it is not possible to include all of the crater in one photo, at least not with my standard lens and I had forgotten to take my fisheye lens with me!