Word: thunderhead
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Inflation looms like a giant thunderhead on his horizon. His concern shades almost the other consideration (with the exception of defense), focusing the President's energies as never before and relegating some of his evangelism on such things as tax reform and Government reorganization to the dim corners, it not oblivion. Carter has been compelled to choose, the very crux of leadership. He has declared inflation the principal adversary of America. He has chosen the battleground and marshaled all of his considerable energy and talent for the effort...
Long observed as glowing halos around the yardarms of sailing ships, in the vicinity of church steeples and near the wing and propeller tips of aircraft, St. Elmo's fire occurs when strong electrical fields are created in the atmosphere. If atmospheric voltage rises high enough, as under a thunderhead, the electrical resistance of the air breaks down and electrons flow from such pointed objects as a ship's mast, agitating nearby air molecules to produce a strong coronal light...
...long, stormy letdown of Pan American World Airways has been as visible as a thunderhead, and just as ominous. Pressed by soaring fuel costs and shrinking transatlantic passenger loads, Pan Am lost $18.4 million last year, despite a stringent cost-cutting program imposed by Chairman William T. Seawell: 8,000 of 40,000 employees have been fired. By July of this year, matters were even worse. Losses were running in the $30 million range, and Pan Am and TWA, a line with even greater first-half losses but lesser troubles overall, had appealed to the Civil Aeronautics Board for federal...
...test being conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), was to prevent the buildup of electrical potential during a storm, and thus to prevent the occurrence of damaging lightning. Like iron filings near a bar magnet, the 4-in.-long, hair-thin fibers, when released in a thunderhead, align themselves with the lines of force in the electrical field of the cloud. What is more, negative and positive charges build up at opposite ends of the fibers, creating miniature electrical fields and ionizing the air around them. The ionization increases the conductivity of air within the thunderhead...