Weather, features and articles | Educational Science

Aug 31, 2017

Irma Batters Florida, Could Retain Hurricane Strength Through Monday

Irma struck the U.S. mainland today (Sept. 10), making landfall in Florida at 9:10 a.m. local time as a Category 4 hurricane, and experts predict that Irma will remain a hurricane though the morning of Sept. 11 and perhaps longer. After hitting Cudjoe Key in the Florida Keys, Irma moved...

Aug 31, 2017

Hurricane Maria's Aftermath: Photos Reveal Devastation on Caribbean Islands

Hurricane Maria Aftermath (Image credit: NASA/Randy Bresnik/Twitter)Hurricane Maria underwent a dramatic transformation on Sept. 18, 2017, when the Category 1 storm strengthened into a major beast of a hurricane, reaching Category 5 status in just 18 hours. The storm roared through the Caribbean, smacking into the island of Dominica, before...

Jul 31, 2017

Death Valley Breaks Record for Hottest Month Ever in the US

July temperatures in Death Valley have incinerated previous records. With an average daily high temperature of 107.4 degrees Fahrenheit (41.9 degrees Celsius), July was the valley's hottest month on record, blazing through the former record of 107.2 degrees F (41.8 degrees C) set in 1917, the National Weather Service's Las...

Jul 31, 2017

El Nino's Absence May Fuel a Stormy Hurricane Season

The hurricane season is likely to be extra active this year, thanks to a likely no-show from El Niño. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center released an updated hurricane season outlook today (Aug. 9). The new prediction ups the odds for a blustery, extremely active hurricane...

Jul 31, 2017

Harvey Response: NASA Lends Space-Based Eyes to Recovery

NASA is aiding the humanitarian response to Tropical Storm Harvey by surveying the storm's impact from above. This effort will provide expert data to relief agencies. Harvey first hit southeastern Texas on Aug. 25 as a Category 4 hurricane, and made landfall in southern Louisiana as a tropical storm on...

Jan 31, 2017

Wind, Rain, Heat: Health Risks Grow with Extreme Weather

ATLANTA — As climate change proceeds, there will be more extreme weather events, and these events pose a threat to people's health, experts say. The annual number of natural disasters appears to be increasing around the world, said Dr. Mark Keim, an emergency-medicine physician and the founder of DisasterDoc LLC....

Nov 30, 2018

Monster Waves Are Battering the West Coast. Here's Why.

Cyclonic winds, rushing down from Alaska had nothing else to batter against, so they smacked into the water across miles of open ocean. The winds pushed and ground and heaved against the waves, making them bigger, more sustained and more powerful. By the time these waves reached the U.S. shoreline,...

Aug 31, 2018

What Is a Drought?

Droughts occur in nearly all types of climate. Of all the weather-related phenomena that can cause severe economic impacts in the United States, droughts come in second only to hurricanes, according to the National Climatic Data Center. But unlike hurricanes, which are easily identified and straightforward to classify in terms...

Jul 31, 2018

Hurricane Lane Looms Over Hawaii in These Astronaut and Satellite Photos

The hurricane, which is forecast to begin pummeling the islands later today (Aug. 22), has already prompted the governor of Hawaii to declare a state of emergency, and views from space offer a shocking look at just how daunting the storm is. It was briefly a Category 5 storm but...

Jul 31, 2018

What's Causing Hurricane Lane's Massive Rainfall?

Hawaii got a lot of rain today. It will get more this weekend. Hurricane Lane, the once-Category-4 storm that rapidly declined to a Category-2 as it moved over Hawaii's Big Island today, had as of this morning dumped 31 inches (78 centimeters) of rain on Hakalau Forest Biological Field Station...

Jun 30, 2018

Shocking Global Map Shows the Extent of a Global Heat Wave

Earth is boiling under record-high temperatures. Global heat waves have landed thousands of people in the hospital and fueled massive wildfires in places ranging from Greece to the Arctic Circle. An animation called earth shows just how high worldwide temperatures really are. The animation, designed by computer programmer Cameron Beccario,...

May 31, 2018

The Internet Is Obsessed With This Perfectly Symmetrical Mushroom Cloud

Capping a week when the last thing anyone wanted to hear about was news of a mushroom cloud, a viral photo of a glorious, impossibly symmetrical storm cloud has nevertheless entranced the internet with its perfect mushroominess. Gulf Shores, Alabama, resident Rick Geiss snapped the impressive picture from his local...

Apr 30, 2018

Why Is NOAA's Brand-New, Billion-Dollar Weather Satellite Going Blind?

A very expensive satellite's first several months in space are going very wrong. The cooling system that the multibillion-dollar device needs in order to properly observe the atmosphere failed to start, leaving the satellite partly blind. Named GOES-17, the glitchy orbiter is a brand-new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)...

Feb 28, 2018

Expect a Warm, Wet Spring Across the US

Spring is likely to bring weather that's warmer and wetter than usual to much of the U.S., especially in the mid-Atlantic region and the Northeast, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). However, areas plagued by recent drought — such as California, Oregon, southern Alaska and much of...

Jan 31, 2018

Here's What You Can Expect from This Spring's Weather

Is the United States heading into a chilly and rainy spring, or a tepidly warm and drought-ridden one? The answer, as always, depends on your location, according to the March, April and May weather outlook released today (Feb. 15) by the U.S. Climate Prediction Center (CPC). Temperatures will be lower...