Weather, features and articles | Educational Science

Sep 30, 2006

10 Surprising Ways Weather Has Changed History

How Weather Changed History The NASA GOES-13 satellite captured a snapshot of three tropical storms (and a tropical wave) on July 22. Hurricane Dora is in the Pacific, while Bret and Cindy whirl in the Atlantic. Low #1, a tropical wave, has brought rain to parts of the Caribbean. None...

Sep 30, 2006

Rising Seas and Stronger Storms Threaten New York City

Global warming could substantially raise sea levels around New York City over the next century and put the Big Apple at greater risk of being flooded by hurricane waves, a new computer model predicts. Sea level around the city could jump 15 to 19 inches by 2050 and by more...

Sep 30, 2006

The World's Worst Thunderstorms

A new global satellite survey of thunderstorm activity has helped meteorologists pinpoint exactly where Earth’s hotspots for intense thunderstorms are: the American Midwest, Argentina , and some semi-arid regions like the edges of the Sahara desert. The new study, which appeared in the August issue of the Bulletin of the...

Aug 31, 2006

Study: Earth and Space Weather Connected

Space weather in the upper reaches of the atmosphere is affected by weather conditions down here on Earth, a new study suggests. Using a combination of satellite imagery and computer simulations, researchers found that tides of air created by intense thunderstorms over South America, Africa and Southeast Asia are altering...

Jul 31, 2006

Weather Official: 'Alarming Increase' in Lightning Deaths

Lightning killed at least 14 people in the United States during the second half of July, a pace twice as deadly as in a typical year for the same two weeks. In the past two weeks, we've seen an alarming increase in the number of lightning deaths in this country,...

Jun 30, 2006

Drought Conditions Worsen in Parts of U.S.

Expansion of drought conditions across the upper Midwest caused NOAA's Climate Prediction Center to issue an unscheduled update Friday to its U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook. Drought conditions that have worsened recently, affecting parts of the northern Plains and the Upper Mississippi Valley, should continue and may expand across eastern Montana,...

May 31, 2006

New Satellite Provides 'Breathtaking' Views Inside Storms

New images from a recently launched radar satellite show the promise of providing unprecedented views inside storms all around the globe. NASA's new CloudSat satellite reveals never-before-seen details of both the clouds and precipitation within a storm, from the Earth's surface to 19 miles high. We're seeing the atmosphere as...

May 31, 2006

Alberto, Season's First Tropical Storm, Causes Little Damage

Updated 3:52 p.m. ET Tuesday, June 13 CEDAR KEY, Florida (AP)—The first tropical storm of the season raked northern Florida with rain and powerful wind gusts Tuesday but did not blow up into a hurricane as forecasters had feared. A hurricane warning that had been issued for more than 100...

May 31, 2006

Cell Phones Increase Risk of Death By Lightning, Doctors Claim

If you're chatting on a cell phone during a lightning storm, dropped calls could be the least of your worries. According to a letter published in this week's issue of the British Medical Journal, people who talk on, or even just carry, mobile phones outdoors during storms are more likely...

Apr 30, 2006

New Clues to the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Weather experts have hindcasted the storm that sank the Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior during a November 1975 storm. Hurricane-force gusts and waves coming from an unexpected angle likely contributed to the disaster immortalized by Gordon Lightfoot in the song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, researchers say. All 29...

Feb 28, 2006

Rain in Phoenix Ends Record Dry Spell at 143 Days

PHOENIX—A good old-fashion downpour in the predawn here today ended a record string of 143 days without rain. The previous record was 101 days, set in January 2000. NOAA reported light rain around dawn and a 0.26-inch accumulation at Phoenix Sky Harbor airport, the official recording station. Elsewhere around the...

Dec 31, 2005

Snowfall Scale to Rank Storms' Impact

Soon, when a snowstorm proves crippling, the government will call it exactly that. Sometimes, anyway. And in some places. The Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale, or NESIS, will be used to evaluate the impact of a powerful snowstorm soon after it strikes, and give it a rank in a fashion similar...

Sep 30, 2007

Something to Sweat: Earth Gets Steamier

It’s not the heat, but the humidity that will get you. Not only is the planet getting hotter, but it's also becoming more humid, as a result of human-induced global warming, a new study finds. A steamier Earth could mean more extreme precipitation and sweatier days for humans. Scientists had...

Sep 30, 2007

Wildfires Release as Much CO2 as Cars

Large wildfires in the western United States can pump as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in just a few weeks as cars do in those areas in an entire year, a new study suggests. As forest fires devour trees and other plants, they release the carbon stored in the...

Aug 31, 2007

Hurricanes at Eye Level: Wind, waves and destruction

Uproar (Image credit: Image Courtesy of NOAA Photo Library)The Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 to Nov. 30. ...Waves striking seawall give appearance of geysers erupting. Photo was taken in 1938 off of the New England coast. Waves of Destruction (Image credit: Image Courtesy of NOAA Photo Library)Sixteen feet of...