Lucky you. You survived a nuclear war! Well, don't be too glad. What happens after it is so gruesome, you'll wish you had died on the spot.

Today, it all goes out of hand. The East-West conflict revived. China waged war on Japan. The Muslim nations joined forces against the USA. Or someone simply made a mistake -- whatever, it doesn't really matter. The only thing that does matter right now is that the inconceivable has happened. There's nuclear war. And now, the SBM's, ICBM's and SLBM's cross the sky, like oddly shaped, featherless birds of destruction.

All hell breaks loose. There's eye-popping flashes of light everywhere and ear-ripping bangs as the bombs go off. Cities evaporate. Infrastructures crumble. Everywhere, huge mushroom-shaped clouds tower up into the sky. All electricity goes out because of electro-magnetic effects. And of course, many die: according to even the mildest scenario's, hundreds of millions die instantaneously as the nukes go boom.

But you -- you survive all that. Better take shelter: for the next days, it will rain highly radioactive fall-out particles only. For almost three days and three nights in a row, it will rain radioactivity in a region several hundreds of kilometers around each impact site. And to be honest: it's best you stayed indoors for a whole year, patiently waiting until radioactivity levels finally begin to drop.

But wait, there's more trouble. As the mushroom clouds begin to fade, the REAL consequences of nuclear war become apparent. From the explosion sites, huge amounts of evaporated stuff, smoke and soot rise up into the sky. It's quite different from the usual smoke columns that come from fires. The intense heat from the nuclear impact sites pushes the debris straight into the highest parts of the atmosphere, the so-called stratosphere. There, it slowly starts to disperse, covering ever bigger portions of the world. But what's worse -- the soot blocks the Sun.

Within days, a weird and unprecedented climate shift sets in. Total darkness covers everything. Temperatures drop rapidly. And chances are the soot blanket that prevents the Sun from shining spreads across the globe, transforming even the Latin Americas, Asia and Africa into chilly shadow worlds. There you have it: the infamous, dreaded Nuclear Winter.

Within weeks, it's minus 23 to 30 degrees Celsius everywhere. Do you live near the shore? Consider yourself lucky: since oceans cool so slowly, temperatures near the sea will drop `only' some five to ten degrees. But there is a downside: because of the big temperature differences between the sea and the inland, unimaginable storms and hurricanes will harass the coastal areas.



Big Winter: After a nuclear war, dust and soot may blanket the Earth

Oh, and that's just the beginning of your Winter out of Hell..

http://www.exitmundi.nl/nukes.htm