To better predict where thunderstorms will rip across the central United States this spring, researchers are teaming a high-flying aircraft with fine-grained computer simulations.
The last month has seen a trail of smashed records across the central United States, as pulse after pulse of cold air careened down the Great Plains. How does this fit into the bigger picture of a warming U.S. climate?
The past month has seen a remarkable run of challenging snow forecasts across the United States, with millions of people either much more or much less snow than they expected. But if predicting snow is a tough business, measuring it is no piece of cake either.
A major winter storm is threatening the Washington, D.C., area this week, on the heels of record-setting snowfalls and blizzard conditions in several parts of the United States last month. Are these onslaughts catching people off guard?
They’ve been carried by truck into supercell thunderstorms, flown on aircraft into hurricanes, and sliced and diced the atmosphere in myriad ways. Where are research radars headed next, and where will they take science and society?
As a step toward meeting the goal of providing earlier warnings, NCAR scientists and their colleagues are examining what enables poorly organized clusters of thunderstorms to develop into tropical storms and hurricanes.
Satellite images have revealed at least three dramatic eye-like features not far off the U.S. Atlantic and Pacific coasts over the last several weeks. While these can look startlingly like the eyes of hurricanes, they’re not quite the same thing.
Much of the United States has felt winter’s bite this week, with fresh but frigid cold to the east and a weeks-long spell of stagnant, polluted chill to the west.
New research points to gravity waves, which ripple unseen through the atmosphere, as the culprit in many cases of clear-air turbulence. If those waves can be forecast, the research suggests that planes in many cases could be rerouted around them.
More than two days ahead of landfall, it was clear that Hurricane Sandy could bring higher water than New York and New Jersey had seen in decades. But for thousands of people in the area, the threat simply didn’t register. (Part 1 of 2)
Sandy's storm surge was more than twice that of other recent tropical cyclones in the New York City area—but several other factors teamed up to bring waters to their catastrophically high level. (Part 2 of 2)
Though we’re still more than two weeks from the end of 2012, it’s not too soon to get a sense of how the year will go down in meteorological annals. Some of the signals from January to November are so strong that December won’t change the outcome.
Every so often, a quiet corner of research suddenly grabs the spotlight. Such was the case this week when a Category 1 Atlantic hurricane morphed into Superstorm Sandy.
Hurricane Sandy is on track to carve its way into weather annals. There will no doubt be devastating, deadly effects, along with some impacts one doesn’t expect in a hurricane.
Hurricane Sandy may pummel the mid-Atlantic coast early next week, possibly carving out multiple niches in U.S. weather history while producing what could easily be billions of dollars in damage.
First in the queue for the NCAR-Wyoming Yellowstone system is a set of 11 computing-intensive projects tackling major problems in Earth and atmospheric science.
The United States faces more varied weather risks than most nations on Earth, but we also have uniquely strong capabilities to confront these risks, thanks to decades of research conducted by government agencies, universities, and the private weather industry.
Researchers at NCAR are working with forecasters and emergency managers to unravel the communication challenges around hurricanes like Isaac, which had relatively weak winds but a strong storm surge.
Studies show 63% of hurricane-related deaths occur inland. To help emergency managers prepare, NCAR scientists are pinpointing vulnerable populations using tropical storm winds, census data, and flood maps.
Heat and drought are punishing much of the United States right now, but there’s actually some good weather news to report. July 2012 is on track to produce fewer tornadoes than any July on record, and by a long shot.
