Word: weather
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Earth Charge. Since 1917 scientists have known that the earth's surface is charged with negative electricity, but no one knew for sure what keeps it charged. In areas of fair weather, an electric current flows between the earth and the air in a direction which would tend to dissipate the charge. It is not much of a current: only about 1,500 amperes, not much more for the entire earth than flows in a few power lines. But the electricity taken from the earth must be restored somehow or the earth's electric charge would soon drain...
...lost charge, but no one had proved it. Three years ago the institution borrowed airplanes from the Air Force and began to measure electrical stirring in the still air above active thunderheads. Sure enough, the instruments showed a current moving in the opposite direction to the current in fair-weather areas. The scientists figured that all the thunderstorms going on at one time generate a net current of about 1,500 amperes, just enough to balance the drain and keep the earth's charge constant...
...Late weather reports last night promised good traveling conditions. But the weather will probably be poor for skiers this vacation, and some aficionados are heading for Colorado...
...minutes, he may take an hour and a half to say it because he often groans, weeps or passes into a state of ecstasy. After Mass he begins hearing confessions of the streams of men & women who wait through the night at the church door in all kinds of weather. Confessions are finished at 1 in the afternoon; then the bearded Capuchin sits down to his single meal of the day: a bunch of herbs and a few small pieces of bread...
...Processors complained that they could not even buy from CCC's stockpile; the seed had not matured enough in the open air. By the time it does, deterioration from the weather may make it unusable...