The US is shifting to a new set of climate ‘normals’ – data sets averaged over the past 30 years. But normal is a relative concept in a time of climate change.
While land tornadoes are associated with huge supercell thunderstorms, waterspouts can form during smaller storms or even just showers or the presence of the right kind of clouds.
The interaction of solar winds and the Earth’s atmosphere produces the northern lights that dance across the night sky.
(Benjamin Suter/Unsplash)
It has only been in the past century that weather prediction on Earth has advanced enough to work two weeks in advance. Predicting space weather, however, is only reliable an hour in advance.
Bad weather and humidity can both cause headaches.
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Yes, some of this is normal seasonal transition. But at least a portion of it is due to a particularly vigorous cold front that swept across southeast Australia over the weekend.
Climate change can trigger conflict between farmers and herders in Somalia.
Eric Lafforgue/Art In All Of Us/Corbis via Getty Images
Understanding when there will be extreme heat and extreme cold can help people prepare.
Debris near Lebanon, Tennessee, after tornadoes struck on the night of March 3, 2020, killing more than 20 people across the state.
AP Photo/Mark Humphrey
Zachary Lawrence, University of Colorado Boulder and Amy Butler, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
The media often call unusually cold, snowy storms a ‘polar vortex.’ The real polar vortex isn’t coming down to visit the lower 48, but changes to the polar vortex can influence winter weather.
Permafrost is thawing across the Arctic, releasing microbes and organic materials that have been trapped in the frozen ground for thousands of years.
NOAA via Wikimedia Commons
New research shows that permafrost contains huge amounts of particles that make it easier for cloud moisture to freeze. Thawing permafrost is releasing these ice-nucleating particles.
The jet stream can have a big impact on how long a plane ride will last.
Aeroprints via Wikimedia Commons
When planes fly from east to west, they are flying against a river of air called a jet stream. These air currents can make your flight longer or shorter, depending on which way you are going.
Sudden warming more than 10 km above the north pole can mean sudden freezing down here.
February 1969 afforded a spot of skiing for Nottingham residents.
Photographer: Nottingham Post, courtesy: Nottingham Local Studies photographic collection