As Hurricane Milton made landfall on Florida’s west coast the evening of October 9, a deluge of rain ruptured the city of St. Petersburg’s water main lines. The damage meant that some hospitals in the area—including one with a large neonatal intensive care unit (NICU)—were temporarily cut off from public …
Read More »Why Super Typhoons Like Yagi Are More Common Than You’d Think
The year’s first super typhoon erupted over the steamy waters of the western Pacific Ocean on Thursday as Yagi churned toward an eventual landfall in southern China. Having formed as a tropical cyclone in the Philippine Sea on Sunday, the powerful storm peaked on Thursday afternoon local time with maximum …
Read More »Your Guide to Surviving Extreme Weather
This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. No matter where you live, extreme weather can hit your area, causing damage to homes, power outages, and dangerous or deadly conditions. If you’re on the coast, it may be a hurricane; in the Midwest or …
Read More »Hurricanes Are Trapping Small Island Nations in Ever-Worsening Spirals of Debt
THIS ARTICLE IS republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Hurricane Beryl laid waste to communities—even whole islands—as it barreled through the Caribbean over the past week. Never has such a powerful Atlantic hurricane arrived this early in the year: The ocean is usually too cool. Smaller islands …
Read More »How to Build a Hurricane-Proof House
They couldn’t sleep. A hurricane was lashing their brand-new house with a torrent of wind and rain. Deborah Rodriguez and her husband were miles away, snuggled up in a hotel bed, but they could watch the drama unfold in real time: Their smartphones were connected to their home security cameras. …
Read More »Hurricane Beryl Isn’t a Freak Storm—It’s the Exact Nightmare Meteorologists Predicted
Hurricane Beryl’s record-shattering intensification into a scale-topping Category 5 storm has stunned even the most seasoned experts. This storm is the nightmare scenario that meteorologists were worried about heading into the 2024 hurricane season. All the warning indicators were blinking red in the weeks and months leading up to Beryl’s …
Read More »Get Ready for Monster Hurricanes This Summer
For over a year, global ocean temperatures have been consistently shattering records, shocking scientists. Now hurricane watchers are getting even more worried, given that ocean heat is what fuels the biggest, most destructive cyclones. Researchers at the University of Arizona just predicted an extremely active North Atlantic season—which runs from …
Read More »Oh Good, Hurricanes Are Now Made of Microplastics
As Hurricane Larry curved north in the Atlantic in 2021, sparing the eastern seaboard of the United States, a special instrument was waiting for it on the coast of Newfoundland. Because hurricanes feed on warm ocean water, scientists wondered whether such a storm could pick up microplastics from the sea …
Read More »AI Hurricane Predictions Are Storming the World of Weather Forecasting
Hurricane Lee wasn’t bothering anyone in early September, churning far out at sea somewhere between Africa and North America. A wall of high pressure stood in its westward path, poised to deflect the storm away from Florida and in a grand arc northeast. Heading where, exactly? It was 10 days …
Read More »A Global Surge in Cholera Outbreaks May Be Fueled by Climate Change
This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. In early 2022, nearly 200,000 Malawians were displaced after two tropical storms struck the southeastern part of Africa barely a month apart. Sixty-four people died. Amid an already heavy rainy season, the storms Ana and Gombe …
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