Storm Brings Tornado Outbreak and Blizzard Conditions
A far-reaching storm system tore across the South on Tuesday, causing what is likely to go into the record books as the worst Christmas Day tornado outbreak on record. The storm responsible for the severe weather also spread a swath of snow and ice from Texas to Indiana, and the whole mess of extreme weather is sliding east on Wednesday, with a str… Read More
Mississippi Faces Shipping Closure as Water Levels Drop
The Mississippi as seen from Ed Drager's tug boat is a river in retreat: a giant beached barge is stranded where the water dropped, with sand bars springing into view. The floating barge office where the tug boat captain reports for duty is tilted like a funhouse. One side now rests on the exposed shore. "I've never seen the river this low," Drager… Read More
Resilient Drought Holds on Through Dry Autumn
Another week of below-average precipitation across the lower 48 states has brought little relief to drought-stricken areas, making it increasingly unlikely that long-suffering areas will see the dry spell subside by the end of the year. As of December 11, 61.87 percent of the land area in the continental U.S. was still under some degree of drought… Read More
Hurricane Season Ends; Sandy Will Long be Remembered
The 2012 Atlantic Hurricane season officially came to a close on Friday, after four landfalling storms left coastal communities in tatters from Louisiana to New York. For the third straight season there were 19 named storms in the Atlantic, which is the third-highest level of storm activity observed since 1851.… Read More
Stunning NASA Visualizations: Sandy vs. Katrina
The visualizations show that both the extent and location of the strongest winds differed greatly between these two damaging storms. In the case of Katrina, tropical storm force winds stretched about 300 miles from edge to edge, and the strongest winds were located within a circle of towering thunderstorms surrounding the storm center, known as the… Read More
Hurricane Isaac Spurs Design of Storm Surge Warnings
Yet despite the fact that storm surge is the leading killer during hurricanes, the National Weather Service (NWS) has never issued a weather warning specifically for this threat. Instead, surge has long been addressed as part of the broader hurricane warning system.… Read More
Slow-Moving Hurricane Isaac Pummels Louisiana
New Orleans’ system of flood-protection levees and canal floodgates, upgraded to the tune of $14.5 billion after the system’s catastrophic failure due to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, continued to hold against the wall of water pushed onshore by the storm — a surge that reached 11 feet in Shell Beach, La., according to Brian McNoldy’s Tropical Atlanti… Read More
Isaac Upgraded to a Hurricane, Slams Into Louisiana
Shortly after noon on Tuesday, the Weather Channel reported that Isaac had been upgraded from a tropical storm to a Category 1 hurricane, with sustained winds above 74 mph, hours before its expected landfall in southeastern Louisiana Tuesday night.… Read More
