Mother Nature never runs out of tricks. Just when you think you've seen every one of her weird little outbursts you possibly can, along comes some unbelievable new phenomena that makes you go "Now I've seen it all!" ... until you haven't again. For example ...

自然母親的戲法無窮匱。每當你覺得看過了她的每一個奇怪表演，你也許能吧，通常都是看到了一些難以置信的現(xiàn)象，讓你說出“我什么都看過了。”直到又有你沒看過的出現(xiàn)。例如：

7
Thundersnow

雷雪

On their own, snow and lightning are relatively common occurrences. But put them together, and it looks like you're in a freaking Roland Emmerich movie.

就它們自身而言，閃電和雪都是相對常見的現(xiàn)象，但是把它們放到一起的話，會讓你感覺自己身處Roland Emmerich 該死的電影里。

There are some very specific conditions required for this unbelievable scene. You need precisely the right combination of high temperatures down low and low temperatures up high, and then boom. Literally ... with snow on top.

要看到這樣的場景需要去一些特定的地點。你需要高溫氣團下降，低溫氣團上升的精確組合，然后 “呯~~~”。正如字面所言，雪在頂部產(chǎn)生。

6Murmurations

低語

When thousands of starlings take to the sky at the same time, that's known as a "murmuration." It's the perfect name, because these real-life birdnadoes could very well cause your heart to skip a few beats.

當數(shù)千只椋鳥同時飛向天空，這種現(xiàn)象叫做“低語”。這是一個貼切的名字，因為這些真實存在的鳥兒真的能在你心間奏響節(jié)拍。

The weirdness doesn't stop there. These little feathered shapeshifters evidently hit their creative peak when they're targeted by birds of prey, in which case they've been known to morph into something surprisingly logical ... if a bit creepy.

奇特的并不止于此。這些小小的羽毛變形器很顯然是在被捕食者盯上的時候達到創(chuàng)意頂峰的，在這種情況下它們會變成一些驚人地合理的事物，這有點恐怖了。

5
UFO Clouds

UFO云

Clouds can take on many forms, yet for some reason all we ever see is Gary Busey's smiling face. Perhaps that's more of a personal problem. But when you combine hilltops that are cone-shaped and symmetrical with an isolated mountain under the right circumstances, you end up with a scene straight out of Independence Day:

云的形狀多種多樣，出于一些原因，我們所看到了只有Gary Busey的笑臉。也許是個人原因吧。但當你把勻稱的尖錐形山頂與一座孤立的山在正確的場景下結(jié)合的時候，你會直接得到獨立日的一幅場景：

That's Cape Town in South Africa a few years back. The mountain effectively forced air to flow upward while it was simultaneously being pushed down by gravity, and then the temperature in the peak of the usually invisible atmospheric wave this causes dropped to the dew point, allowing for clouds straight out of a Richard Dreyfuss movie. The more boring name for them is "lenticular clouds," though scientists agree that "UFO clouds" is a lot more fun.

這是幾年前的南非開普敦。山脈非常有效地使得云層抬升，而同時重力又牽引著云層，之后由此引起的不可見的大氣波的峰值溫度下降到凝結(jié)點，使得Richard Dreyfuss電影里的云直接出現(xiàn)在現(xiàn)實里。比較無趣的名字是“透鏡云”，所以科學家贊同“UFO云”更有趣。

4
Upward Lightning

向上閃電

Every once in a while, a lightning bolt decides to break out of its rut by striking upward for a change.

This is actually the fault of skyscrapers. When a normal strike occurs in the vicinity of a tall building, it can sometimes initiate a positive upward leader, sending a bolt right back where it was supposed to come from.

每過一段時間，閃電就決定擺脫現(xiàn)狀，向上打。
這實際上是摩天大樓的錯。當一道正常的閃電發(fā)生在高建筑附近的時候，有時就會產(chǎn)生出一位積極向上的領(lǐng)袖，把一道閃電送回來的地方。

3
Walls Of Sea Smoke

海煙墻

Wanna see the visual embodiment of a classic rock song? No? No one wants that, because it would probably be visibly greasy? Well, here's some smoke on the water anyway. Look, it's even this nice violet color. A purple haze, if you will ...

想看經(jīng)典搖滾的視象化體現(xiàn)嗎？不，沒人想看，因為可能看起來會很油膩？好吧，那是一些在水汽?？?，它甚至是這種漂亮的藍紫色。紫煙，如果你愿意，，


This is called "sea smoke," even though it's more accurately a sort of steam fog -- but that doesn't make for a very good band name, now does it?

這叫做海煙，雖然準確來說這是一種水汽——但這并不是一種很好的樂隊名字，不是嗎？

Sea smoke isn't too uncommon. You get it when cold enough air starts moving over warm enough water. But it's thankfully rare for the resulting fog to form up into a huge, ghostly wall like it did over Lake Superior a couple years back. Harmless as it may be, we've seen enough horror movies to know that no one's driving over that bridge.

海煙并不是很罕見。當足夠冷的空氣流經(jīng)溫暖的海面的時候就會產(chǎn)生這樣的現(xiàn)象。但謝天謝地它很少像兩年前蘇必利爾湖上形成的巨大的鬼墻那樣的規(guī)模。也許它人畜無害，但我們看過足夠的恐怖片知道了沒人能通過那座橋。

2
Cloud Tsunamis

云嘯

A cloud tsunami sounds like something a Care Bear would surf, but it's a real phenomena:

云嘯聽起來像是愛心熊會在上面沖浪，但這是一種真實存在的現(xiàn)象：

That's what residents of Panama City Beach, Florida saw in 2012, at the exact moment the offshore humidity was high enough to cause the low-forming clouds to look like giant heavenly harbingers. Once friction slows the air down, it creates the illusion of clouds splashing over the city skyline, minus the casualties that come with regular old tsunamis. While scary-looking, they're just about the best kind of tsunami you could hope for, if you're in the habit of hoping for tsunamis.

而這正是佛羅里達巴拿馬城居民2012年看到的，當時海邊的濕度足夠高到形成看起來像是巨大天兆的低空云。一旦摩擦降低了空氣流速，就會在城市的天際線上產(chǎn)生出云朵飛濺的錯覺，同時并沒有傳統(tǒng)海嘯帶來的人員傷亡。雖然看起來嚇人，但這是最好的海嘯了。

1
Rain Bombs

雨彈

If that's close to what you'd imagine an F6 tornado would look like, you're not all that far off the mark. What some call "rain bombs" have been described as "tornadoes in reverse." They don't only have a problematic appearance; they can really ruin your outdoor plans if you're not accustomed to air and water blasting out of the sky at you at speeds of over 115 miles per hour.

These come about when a dry patch of air gets in the way of a thunderstorm and sucks away some of the storm's moisture, which is a great way to piss off a storm. Below the storm cloud, the air begins to cool, eventually becoming denser than the surrounding air. The cool air drops into warmer air, starts to accelerate, and next thing you know, you're in the middle of Neptune's temper tantrum.

如果你是在想一場六級龍卷風的場景，那你還不算太離譜。被稱為“雨彈”的事物通常被描述為倒過來的龍卷風。不僅是外觀上的問題，如果你不習慣風雨以每小時115英里的時速從空中俯沖下來的話，那雨彈確實能摧毀你的外出計劃。
發(fā)生的原因是一片干燥的空氣擋住了雷雨，并吸收走了一些雷雨的濕氣，真是對付暴雨的好辦法。在暴風云的下面，空氣開始冷卻，變得比周圍的空氣更稠密。冷空氣撞向暖空氣，開始加速，接下來的事情你知道的，你身于海神的憤怒中了。

They're also pretty hard to predict, so the next time you think a picnic sounds like a good idea, maybe just stay the hell inside. Forever.

它們也相當難以預(yù)測，所以下次你覺野餐是個好主意的時候，也許就是在地獄里面了。永遠。