Weather is supposed to be predictable, at least in theory: satellites watch every cloud, supercomputers crunch equations, and forecast models get updated almost by the minute. Yet, scattered across the sky and around the globe are phenomena that refuse to fit neatly into the equations, leaving even veteran atmospheric scientists muttering that they still ...
When Mother Nature unleashes her fury, few forces match the raw, terrifying power of a tornado. The heartland of America has earned its infamous nickname through decades of devastation, where spinning columns of air have rewritten geography and shattered communities. This is the story of when Tornado Alley truly lived up to its fearsome reputation. ...
For years, solar physicists braced for a low-activity period in our Sun—a prolonged calm that many thought reflected an upcoming grand solar minimum. But new findings are challenging those expectations. Data show the Sun has been steadily growing more active since about 2008, reversing what had been a multidecade decline in sunspots, solar wind, and ...
On the surface, NASA’s new satellite imagery appears to drop a bombshell: Antarctica, the icy giant that contains 90% of the globe’s fresh water, has been accumulating ice since 2021. This appears to run counter to the incessant drumbeat of global warming but scientists caution that this is far from a reversal of climate change. ...
Hurricanes have always been a force of nature, but in a warming world, their behavior is becoming less predictable and potentially more destructive. Over the past four decades, hurricanes have inflicted $1.5 trillion in economic losses in the U.S. alone, accounting for more than half of all weather-related damages. While coastal development and economic growth ...
Rainforests, often referred to as the “lungs of the Earth,” are integral to maintaining the balance of life on our planet. These rich, vibrant ecosystems are home to an incredibly diverse range of flora and fauna, many of which exist nowhere else. Covering only about 6% of Earth’s surface, rainforests play an outsized role in ...
On the night of June 20, 2025, a violent tornado ripped across rural southeastern Enderlin, North Dakota and nearby region. What began as another severe-weather threat turned into a historic event: the first confirmed EF5 tornado in the U.S. in 12 years. The upgrade to EF5 status came months later after detailed damage assessments revealed ...
