hurricanes

After days of churning in the Caribbean, where Hurricane Lee reached Category 5 status with maximum sustained winds of 165 miles per hour (mph), the storm is headed toward the Atlantic Coast of New England and Canada. According to the National Hurricane Center, the “large and dangerous” Category 1 storm is projected to make landfall […]

With nearly four months still to go in 2023, the U.S. has already set a record for the most natural disasters that have cost $1 billion or more in a single year. Since 1980, there have been 371 climate– and weather-related disaster events in the U.S. with costs and damages reaching or exceeding $1 billion, […]

Once a native species of Florida, American flamingos mostly disappeared in the state due to hunting around the turn of the twentieth century. These days they are mostly found in the Caribbean and Central and South America. Recently, the exotic birds — whose pink feathers come from their diet of brine shrimp and algae containing […]

Hurricane Idalia made landfall in the Big Bend area of Florida at 7:45 a.m. today after strengthening into a Category 3 storm in the Gulf of Mexico. Idalia began as a tropical storm that passed to the west of Cuba, cutting off power and causing major flooding and evacuations. Florida’s coastal residents were anticipating a […]

In the past few decades, meteorologists have found that hurricanes in the United States have been deadlier than normal, and that they have killed a disproportionate number of people of color, according to a new study by a team of researchers from the U.S. and the United Kingdom. Tropical hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean are […]

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists at the Climate Prediction Center have updated their forecast for this year’s Atlantic basin hurricane season to an above-normal activity level, up from the near-normal activity level predicted earlier this year. Forecasters are saying that the likelihood of the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season — which lasts from June […]

For the first time since 2016, El Niño conditions are brewing in the tropical Pacific Ocean, which means the world is likely in store for rising temperatures and an increase in extreme weather, the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported in a press release. The last major El Niño event was the hottest year […]

In October of 2020, the town of Lake Charles, Louisiana, was in the process of recovering from Hurricane Laura, a Category 4 storm that had damaged nearly every structure in the town six weeks earlier.  Then Category 2 Hurricane Delta bore down, flooding several of the already damaged buildings. “Add Laura and Delta together and […]