Explain weather systems and forecasting in understandable language. Hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, heatwaves, winter weather, clouds, atmospheric science, El Niño and La Niña, weather forecasting, and climate patterns.
On the evening of October 24, 2023, the forecast for Acapulco was straightforward. A tropical storm named Otis was approaching Mexico’s Pacific coast. Residents went to bed expecting rain and moderate wind. By sunrise, Otis was a Category 5 hurricane with 165 mph winds, making landfall as the strongest storm ever to strike that coastline. … Read more
On May 20, 2013, Crystal Harris stood in the parking lot of Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Oklahoma. The sky had turned a bruised shade of green. Then the sirens started. She had 16 minutes. Sixteen minutes between the first tornado warning and the moment a 210-mile-per-hour EF5 tornado, born from a supercell thunderstorm, … Read more
On a July afternoon in Wichita, Kansas, eight-year-old Mia lay on her back in the grass, pointing at a swollen cumulus cloud drifting overhead. “That one weighs more than a hundred elephants,” her father told her. Mia sat up. “Then why doesn’t it fall on us?” Her question is the same one scientists have been … Read more
Tim Samaras spent thirty years chasing tornadoes. He deployed more scientific probes into the paths of twisters than anyone alive. On May 31, 2013, near El Reno, Oklahoma, he positioned a probe in front of what he thought was a typical tornado. What rolled toward him was not typical. It was a wedge, one of … Read more
Lois Grippen was working the ticket booth at the Coconino County Fairgrounds when the afternoon turned strange. The sky stayed blue. The sun kept burning. But somewhere near the midway, a column of dust started spinning. It grew from a wisp into a tower of swirling dirt and straw within seconds. Grippen heard tents ripping … Read more
Captain Edward Connors had 30 seconds. His Lockheed L-1011 was on final approach to Dallas-Fort Worth, descending through a summer thunderstorm on August 2, 1985. The airspeed indicator flickered. A sudden headwind pushed the nose up, then a tailwind slammed it down. The wings lost lift. Delta Flight 191 struck the ground a mile from … Read more
The Winter Night a Maple Tree Told the Story Sarah Cormier heard it first. At 3:47 AM on January 6, 1998, the maple tree in her Montreal front yard split down the middle under the weight of ice. The difference between freezing rain vs sleet had just become personal. That sound echoed across eastern Canada … Read more