The weather segment at the end of news bulletins has stuck to a familiar format for more than 50 years. But the question of who should actually present the weather has been in a constant state of flux.
Cyclone Debbie looms over Queensland on Monday afternoon March 27.
EPA
The category 4 cyclone - the fifth storm of this year’s season, and the strongest so far - has buffeted the Queensland coast across a wide area centred on Airlie Beach.
Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows. John Constable, 1830-1.
Tate
As the planet warms, the amount of moisture in the atmosphere is increasing. This will cause a lot more heavy rainfall, even in areas that are becoming drier.
Lightning strikes are powerful – but we haven’t had solid estimates of their energy until now. Researchers turned to the hollow stone tubes they create by vaporizing sand for more precise calculations.
Cape Grim, on the northwest tip of Tasmania, is exposed to some of the cleanest air in the world.
CSIRO/Bureau of Meteorology
Conservative commentators accused government officials last week of hyping risks from Hurricane Matthew. A meteorologist explains why this is impossible in the internet era.
Sydney is in the process of smashing the record for the longest run of days above 26°C. Weather, El Nino and climate change are all playing their part.
Drought is a quintessentially Australian experience, yet many of us don’t properly know how they form.
AAP Image/Caroline Duncan
High temperatures make droughts worse, right? Wrong: it’s the other way around. Ahead of an El Niño summer that looks set to bring drought to much of Australia, here’s a quick primer on how they form.
We’re no longer caught off guard when hurricanes make landfall, the way people were into the early 1900s. Better communications, measurements and observations all feed into better forecasts and more warning.
A broken paddle on parched earth, one result of four years of drought in California.
Robert Galbraith/Reuters
The “warm blob” of remarkably warm water in the Pacific is changing weather patterns and impacting marine life, providing clues to how ecosystems may change in a warmer future.
“Snowmageddon” was predicted – three feet of snow, blizzards whipped up by high winds, a freeze of the whole transport system. What New York got was “snowperbole”. Yes, it snowed, but not as badly as predicted…
The Ross Sea: one of the places where sea ice extent is increasing.
Brocken Inaglory/Wikimedia Commons
This year could well see a new record set for the extent of Antarctic sea ice – hot on the heels of last year’s record, which in turn is part of a puzzling 33-year trend in increasing sea ice around Antarctica…
The human body operates at an average internal temperature of 37°C, give or take various fluctuations during the day. But too much or too little external heat can exacerbate certain health conditions…