Winter storm

A winter storm is an event in which the varieties of precipitation are formed that only occur at low temperatures, such as snow or sleet, or a rainstorm where ground temperatures are low enough to allow ice to form (i.e. freezing rain). In temperate continental climates, these storms are not necessarily restricted to the winter season, but may occur in the late autumn and early spring as well. Very rarely, they may form in summer, though it would have to be an abnormally cold summer, such as the summer of 1816 in the Northeast United States of America.

Snow

Snowstorms are storms where large amounts of snow fall. Two inches (5 cm) of snow is enough to create serious disruptions to traffic and school transport (because of the difficulty to drive and maneuver the school buses on slick roads). This is particularly true in places where snowfall is not typical but heavy accumulating snowfalls can occur. In places where snowfall is typical, such small snowfalls are rarely disruptive, because of effective snow and ice removal by municipalities, increased use of four-wheel drive and snow tires, and drivers being more used to winter conditions. Snowfalls in excess of 6 inches (15 cm) are usually universally disruptive.

Storm

A storm is any disturbed state of an environment or astronomical body's atmosphere especially affecting its surface, and strongly implying severe weather. It may be marked by significant disruptions to normal conditions such as strong wind, hail, thunder and lightning (a thunderstorm), heavy precipitation (snowstorm, rainstorm), heavy freezing rain (ice storm), strong winds (tropical cyclone, windstorm), or wind transporting some substance through the atmosphere as in a dust storm, blizzard, sandstorm, etc.

Storms generally lead to negative impacts on lives and property such as storm surge, heavy rain or snow (causing flooding or road impassibility), lightning, wildfires, and vertical wind shear; however, systems with significant rainfall can alleviate drought in places they move through. Heavy snowfall can allow special recreational activities to take place which would not be possible otherwise, such as skiing and snowmobiling.

The English word comes from Proto-Germanic *sturmaz meaning "noise, tumult".

Storms (Nanci Griffith album)

Storms is singer-songwriter Nanci Griffith's eighth album. In it she heads in a third musical direction, that of pop music. Griffith, whose background is primarily folk music, turned toward country music in her preceding four or five albums, and here, again, ventures into a little different style. Griffith enlisted the talents of noted rock music producer Glyn Johns for the musical style change. The album landed at #42 on the Billboard Country Albums chart, and at #99 on the Pop Albums chart in 1989.

Reception

Writing for AllMusic, critic Lindsay Planer notes that although her change in style was not well received by purists, Griffith "unfurled some of her finest musical stories to date."

Track listing

All tracks composed by Nanci Griffith; except where indicated

Storms (Hedley album)

Storms is the fourth full-length studio album by Canadian pop rock band Hedley. It was preceded by the release of two top-20 singles, including lead single "Invincible" in August 2011. The album was released in Canada on November 8, 2011 through Universal Music Canada. A critical and commercial success, the album debuted at No. 2 on the Top Canadian Albums chart. In May 2012, Storms was re-issued with a modified track listing that includes third single "Kiss You Inside Out".

Background

The album sees the group experimenting with elements of pop and rock music to create their most musically diverse soundscape yet, as well as the one with most overt pop overtones. Debuting at number two on the Canadian Albums Chart (edged out only by Michael Bublé's Christmas), it is also Hedley's most successful album thus far.

The track "Beautiful" was first released on Hedley's live album Go With the Show in 2010. It was performed at the Metro Centre in Halifax. A Jumbotron video was also recorded and can be seen on the DVD, as a special feature.

Winter

Winter is the coldest season of the year in polar and temperate climates, between autumn and spring. Winter is caused by the axis of the Earth in that hemisphere being oriented away from the Sun. Different cultures define different dates as the start of winter, and some use a definition based on weather. When it is winter in the Northern Hemisphere, it is summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and vice versa. In many regions, winter is associated with snow and freezing temperatures. The moment of winter solstice is when the sun's elevation with respect to the North or South Pole is at its most negative value (that is, the sun is at its farthest below the horizon as measured from the pole), meaning this day will have the shortest day and the longest night. The earliest sunset and latest sunrise dates outside the polar regions differ from the date of the winter solstice, however, and these depend on latitude, due to the variation in the solar day throughout the year caused by the Earth's elliptical orbit (see earliest and latest sunrise and sunset).

Winter (Tori Amos song)

"Winter" is a song by American singer-songwriter and musician Tori Amos, first released in 1992. The song was written about Amos' relationship with her father, who is a minister.

Release history

"Winter" was first released as the fourth single from Amos' debut studio album Little Earthquakes. It was released on March 9, 1992 by EastWest Records in the UK and Atlantic Records on November 24 in North America.

The song also appears on Amos' 2003 compilation, Tales of a Librarian. The music video can be seen on the two currently available video collections: Tori Amos: Complete Videos 1991–1998 and Fade to Red.

The single was released globally in a variety of formats with slightly differing artwork and track listings. The most commonly available version is the United States release, which is labeled as a "limited edition" release. That version comes in a digipak case with a compartment in which a "handwritten lyrics" insert is contained. The far more rare UK limited edition release features covers that would later appear on the Crucify EP which was released in the United States.

The Four Seasons (Vivaldi)

The Four Seasons (Italian: Le quattro stagioni) is a group of four violin concerti by Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi, each of which gives a musical expression to a season of the year. They were written about 1723 and were published in 1725 in Amsterdam, together with eight additional violin concerti, as Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione ("The Contest Between Harmony and Invention").

The Four Seasons is the best known of Vivaldi's works. Unusually for the time, Vivaldi published the concerti with accompanying poems (possibly written by Vivaldi himself) that elucidated what it was about those seasons that his music was intended to evoke. It provides one of the earliest and most-detailed examples of what was later called program music—music with a narrative element.

Vivaldi took great pains to relate his music to the texts of the poems, translating the poetic lines themselves directly into the music on the page. In the middle section of the Spring concerto, where the goatherd sleeps, his barking dog can be marked in the viola section. Other natural occurrences are similarly evoked. Vivaldi separated each concerto into three movements, fast-slow-fast, and likewise each linked sonnet into three sections. His arrangement is as follows: