Hurricane and tornado winds spin in circles, but there’s another, equally dangerous storm type where winds barrel straight ahead. They’re called derechos, and are most common in summer.
Lerwick in Shetland, off the north coast of Scotland, received more rainfall than normal as a result of nuclear testing.
John Dowling/Shutterstock
In the Southeast US, tornadoes strike at night more often than in other regions. This poses special challenges for getting early warnings to the public.
Satellite photo showing a river of moisture extending from Hawaii to Calfiornia, Oct. 24, 2021.
NOAA
Earth’s biggest rivers are streams of warm water vapor in the atmosphere that can cause huge rain and snowfall over land. Climate change is making them longer, wetter and stronger.
Large, intense bushfires can pump so much heat into the atmosphere they form their own thunderstorm system. And that can make the weather on the ground even more dangerously unpredictable.
The air up high is just really bad at ‘holding’ onto the radiation coming from the Sun, and the warmth passes straight through it on its journey toward the ground.
Kevin Spencer/flicr
Media Files: Washington Post weather editor Jason Samenow on how weather coverage is evolving – and building audience growth
The Conversation40.1 MB(download)
The Washington Post's weather editor explains how digital media changed the way we connect to the weather, and why it's wrong for weather editors to leave climate change out of the discussion.
Over the past 20 years, Great Lakes water levels have gone from sustained multiyear lows to multiyear highs. Climate change is accelerating the transition between dry phases and wet phases.
Debris in a boatyard in Mexico Beach, Fla., on Oct. 11, 2018, after Hurricane Michael heavily damaged the town.
AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File
For the start of Atlantic hurricane season on June 1, scholars explain weather forecasting, evacuation orders, inland flooding risks and how social ties influence decisions to stay or flee.
Blizzard conditions cover the Central and Northern Plains on March 13, 2019.
NASA Earth Observatory
What raises a common winter storm to the level of ‘bomb cyclone’? It’s all about rapid, sharp changes in atmospheric pressure – and the scientists who coined the term meant to highlight their power.
Life-threatening cold temperatures in the central US are caused by changes in wind circulation in the Arctic that bring cold air south. Climate change could make these events more frequent.
Heavy snow in Washington, DC, is an example of “weather” - not “climate”.
ERIK S. LESSER/EPA-EFE
Twice every day the Bureau of Meteorology sends out the official weather forecasts for towns and cities across Australia. Here’s how we work out what to say in them.