A sudden warming event high in the stratosphere that is threatening to reverse a major air current found in that layer of the atmosphere has occurred, a reversal that, in turn, runs a high probability of disrupting the air currents that contain the polar vortex that circles the Arctic, somethingread more
Hurricane Ida’s destructive appearance marks the first Category-4 hurricane of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season, causing massive damage and flooding across the state of Louisiana. The storm’s impact was compounded by the resilience of its powerful Category-4 winds, a tempest that held on to its open-water strength—even hours after theread more
It mightn’t be quite a case of the flapping of a Brazilian butterfly’s wings causing a tornado in Texas, but a team of climate researchers has found a correlation between melting Arctic sea ice and the formation of tornadoes in the United States, with fewer tornadoes being reported when northern sea ice is unseasonably low.
"A relationship between Arctic sea ice and tornadoes in the US may seem unlikely," says study co-author Jeff Trapp, an atmospheric sciences researcher with the University of Illinois at Urbana. "But it is hard to ignore the mounting evidence in support of the connection."
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Colorado State University’s Department of Atmospheric Science has released their extended forecast for the 2018 hurricane season in the North Atlantic, and while they’re not calling for the same magnitude of devastating, record-breaking storms from the 2017 season, they sill expect this year to see higher than average activity.
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