National Lightning Safety Awareness Week is June 23-29, 2024. With the U.S. averaging 37 million lightning strikes and 21 deaths a year, it’s a good idea to pay attention.
Flash floods are getting more common, as warmer air can hold more moisture. But there are other changes leading to more inland flooding on the east coast.
Several parts of the world are suffering from extreme heat events.
Wikimedia Commons
Is there really a secret continent to Australia’s north? Not quite. The Maritime Continent is a region where hot seas and islands shape the world’s climate.
Lightning strikes near St. George, Utah.
jerbarber/iStock/Getty Images Plus
We crave certainty in our weather forecasts. But that’s only possible for big weather events such as cyclones and major storms. Everything else is probability.
Forest fires were mostly started by lightning. Their spread was then exacerbated by a lack of precipitation and abnormally high temperatures.
(Victor Danneyrolles)
Dorian M. Gaboriau, Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT); Jonathan Lesven, Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT); Victor Danneyrolles, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC), and Yves Bergeron, Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT)
The forest fires of the summer of 2023 in Québec were devastating. It was the worst year in 50 years. But with climate change, the worst may be yet to come.
Storm Ciarán has caused severe disruption on the south coast of England.
Stuart Brock/EPA
Temperatures plummeted across southeast Australia this week, with Canberra experiencing its lowest temperature since 2018 and the lowest for June since 1986. What’s going on?
Warm water along the equator off South America signals an El Niño, like this one in 2016.
NOAA
If greenhouse gas emissions continue at a high rate, breadbaskets of Europe and North America will see a 50% chance of a flash drought each year by the end of this century.
Spectators wait in the rain for the start of King Charles III’s coronation ceremony.
EPA-EFE/Neil Hall
March 2023 was the wettest for 40 years in England and Wales.
Satellite image of a forest fire in July 2021 in northern Saskatchewan (Wapawekka Hills). The image covers an area of about 56 kilometres in width and is based on Copernicus Sentinel data.
(Pierre Markuse), CC BY 2.0
Victor Danneyrolles, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC); Raphaël Chavardès, Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT), and Yves Bergeron, Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT)
North America’s boreal forests have been burning a lot, probably more and more over the past 60 years. Yet the long-term trend indicates that they are burning less than they were 150 years ago.