Just over a year ago, the Earth was coming off of one of the strongest El Niños on record. Waters in the eastern Pacific warmed by El Niño began to cool toward normal in summer and even edged in the opposite direction — as sometimes happens — toward a La Niña. That cooling reached modest levels through the fall, registering as a weak La Niña. Now
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Since the beginning of the year, the Northwest Pacific Ocean has been eerily quiet, with nary a tropical system forming in a region that normally sees more storm activity than any other. After a record 200 days without a tropical cyclone developing in the basin, Super Typhoon Nepartak burst onto the scene over the weekend, and is poised to bring
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The Atlantic hurricane season officially begins on June 1, but is off to an early start this year. Not only is a storm poised to form off the coast of the Southeast, but the first named storm of the season actually occurred way back in January. Forecasters put the greatest odds on this hurricane season being a near-average one, with smaller chances
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Warm ocean waters that sucked the color and vigor from sweeping stretches of the world’s greatest expanse of corals last month were driven by climate change, according to a new analysis by scientists, who are warning of worse impacts ahead. Climate change made it 170 times more likely that the surface waters of the Coral Sea, which off the
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The first 100 days of 2016 were record warm for many spots around Alaska, continuing a pattern of warmth that has gripped the state over much of the last three years and looks to continue for at least the next few months. The prolonged period of decidedly unusual balminess — the result of a particular combination of climate factors (and a nudge
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“It was a gut punch.” That’s how Kim Cobb, a scientist at Georgia Tech, described what she saw on a recent dive on the reefs surrounding Christmas Island. She’s studied them for the better part of two decades and what she saw this April was something she had never seen before. Once vibrant reefs, some of the most pristine on the planet, were
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Back in November, El Niño reached a fever pitch, vaulting into the ranks of the strongest events on record and wreaking havoc on weather patterns around the world. Now it is beginning to wane as the ocean cools, so what comes next? It’s possible that by next fall, the tropical Pacific Ocean could seesaw into a state that is roughly El Niño’s
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Californians, say hello to an old friend. After four years of drought, the state’s largest reservoir is again a reservoir instead of a mudpit. Lake Shasta, located in the northern half of the state, was down to just 29 percent of normal storage capacity as recently as December. But one of the strongest El Niño’s on record has helped steer rain to
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From crippling drought in southern Africa to a record number of February tornadoes in the U.S. Southeast, an exceptionally strong El Niño has been making headlines around the globe as it tampers with the world’s weather. While the event has begun its slow decline, those wide-ranging impacts will continue to be felt for weeks and months to come
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Last month was far and away the hottest February on record for the planet, by a margin that has surprised even the climate scientists who closely monitor global temperature data. It was also the most anomalously warm month Earth has seen in 135 years of NASA record keeping, continuing an astonishing recent streak that could see 2016 set a new
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Neighborhoods have been turned into lakes and roads into streams as record-breaking rain has fallen relentlessly on Louisiana and other parts of the Gulf Coast this week. The deadly flooding and eye-popping rainfall amounts — reaching above 21 inches in the worst hit areas — came courtesy of a slow-moving system pulling abundant moisture from the
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The Pacific Northwest has been in a historic drought for years. Nonetheless, if you ask someone on the East Coast to picture our region, they’re bound to conjure up images of thick flannel, immaculately trimmed beards, artisanal coffee, and, yes, rain, lots and lots of rain. These are tired stereotypes, but it’s no secret that Pacific Northwest
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