10 amazing natural wonders/phenomena that you probably didn’t know about

I'm turning over a new leaf for this blogspot. Sure, I'm starting off with something completely unrelated to gaming this time around, but it's interesting nontheless...

1. Roll Clouds
‘Cool air sinking air from a storm cloud’s downdraft spreads out across the surface with the leading edge called a gust front. This outflow undercuts warm air being drawn into the storm’s updraft. As the cool air lifts the warm moist air water condenses creating cloud, which often rolls with the different winds above and below (wind shear).’

2. The Oarfish (aka a seaserpent!)
'I told you to feed Mr Bond to the Claw Fish! Not the Oarfish! It doesn't even have teeth!'

3. The Okapi
Okay this one is a little more well known, but not that well known. The Okapi has the horn like bits of a giraffe, the pattern of a zebra and some normal brown fur, and the ears of… micky mouse?

4. Fire tornadoes
Two forces of nature combine to haunt your dreams

5. Magnetic hills
These are often said to be optical illusions of the land where a car can appear to roll uphill. I think I once saw one that was quite steep, so they can be pretty extreme. There’s quite a few of them all over the world

6. Atmospheric sprites
I first found out about these when I used to browse the NASA photo archives. They’re trumpet shaped flashes, like lighting, that appear high in the atmosphere and are tens of kilometres in length (I think around 20km generally?). They also vary in colour, I’ve seen purple, blue and red ones around the net

7. Sailing stones

These strange desert rocks seem to move very slowly by themselves. It’s not known how they move and sometimes they may move in non linear lines


8. Neutron Star mass
I’m sure you know what Neutron Stars are but generally I don’t think people know just how powerful their mass is. The video in the link pretty much sums it up, I read somewhere that a small thimbleful piece of a Neutron Star would weigh hundreds of tons!

9. Thor’s Well

I found this whilst looking for reference images for a project. It looks awesome, but unfortunately I don’t know much more then that about it

10. Fire rainbow
Okay I actually don’t know how well known this one generally is (I hear they are more common in the USA), but it was too cool not to include!