Summaries | Headlines

Did Dust Bust The 2006 Hurricane Season Forecasts? (March 28, 2007) -- A recent NASA study suggests that tiny dust particles may have foiled forecasts that the 2006 hurricane season would be another active ... > full story

Lake Superior Summer Temperatures Rising Faster Than Regional Air Temperatures (March 23, 2007) -- A new analysis of data from buoys, weather stations, and historical ice records indicates that summer surface temperatures of Lake Superior have increased approximately 2.5 degrees C since 1979, ... > full story

Global Warming Could Be Reversing A Trend That Led To Bigger Human Brains (March 23, 2007) -- Early humans developed larger brains as they adapted to colder climates, according to University at Albany ... > full story

Dry Winters In North Mediterranean Stoke Hot European Summers (March 22, 2007) -- Shortages of winter rainfall over southern Europe precede hot summers further north on the continent, a new study ... > full story

Rocket Launches To Examine Alaskan Auroras (March 17, 2007) -- It may have been 40 degrees below zero at the Poker Flat Research Range in Alaska, but aurora and weather came together one recent winter night in a perfect match for Clemson University researchers ... > full story

Global December-February Temperature Warmest On Record (March 16, 2007) -- NOAA reports that February's combined global land and ocean surface temperature was the sixth warmest on record, but a strong El Nino in January helped push the winter to its highest value since ... > full story

Global 'Sunscreen' Has Likely Thinned, Report NASA Scientists (March 16, 2007) -- A new NASA study has found that an important counter-balance to the warming of our planet by greenhouse gases -- sunlight blocked by dust, pollution and other aerosol particles -- appears to have ... > full story

NASA Peers Deep Inside Hurricanes (March 14, 2007) -- Determined to understand why some storms grow into hurricanes while others fizzle, NASA scientists recently looked deep into thunderstorms off the African coast using satellites and ... > full story

Airborne Pollutants Know No Borders (March 12, 2007) -- Mounting evidence suggests that gas and aerosol pollutants are routinely transported by winds across and between continents and can affect the air and climate of areas far from their ... > full story

Pollution From China And India Affecting World's Weather (March 7, 2007) -- Severe pollution from the Far East is almost certainly affecting the weather near you, says a Texas A&M; University researcher who has studied the problem and has published a landmark paper on the ... > full story

NASA Detects Trends In Rainfall Traits From Drizzles To Downpours (March 6, 2007) -- Detection of long-term global rainfall has been considered a "mission impossible," yet the need to know whether trends in rainfall exist is urgent because of how enormously it affects people ... > full story

Corals That Can Fight Global Warming May One Day Help Fragile Reefs (March 5, 2007) -- Global warming is threatening corals, reported Cornell's Drew Harvell at the AAAS meeting February 18. But some corals can fight diseases as temperatures rise and may provide clues in how to protect ... > full story

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Numerical weather prediction -- Numerical weather prediction is the science of predicting the weather using "models" of the atmosphere and computational techniques. Manipulating the huge datasets and performing the complex ... > full article

Storm Prediction Center -- The Storm Prediction Center is responsible for forecasting (identifying, describing, and quantifying) the risk of severe weather caused by severe convective storms (specifically, those producing ... > full article

National Hurricane Center -- The U.S. National Hurricane Center is the division of National Weather Service's Tropical Prediction Center responsible for tracking and predicting the likely behavior of tropical depressions, ... > full article

Doppler radar -- Doppler radar uses the Doppler effect to measure the relative velocity information from a radar system. The Doppler effect shifts the frequency of the radar reflection based on the relative velocity ... > full article

Derecho -- A derecho is a widespread and long-lived, violent convectively induced windstorm that is associated with a fast-moving band of severe thunderstorms usually taking the form of a bow echo. Derechos are ... > full article

Weather forecasting -- Weather forecasting is the application of current technology and science to predict the state of the atmosphere for a future time and a given location. Weather forecasts are made by collecting as ... > full article

Meteorology -- Meteorology is the scientific study of the atmosphere that focuses on weather processes and forecasting. Meteorological phenomena are observable weather events which illuminate and are explained by ... > full article

National Weather Service -- The National Weather Service (NWS) is one of the six scientific agencies that make up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the United States government. It is tasked with ... > full article

Waterspout -- A waterspout is an intense columnar vortex (usually appearing as a funnel shaped cloud) that occurs over a body of water and is connected to a cumuliform cloud. In the common form, it is a ... > full article

Instrumental temperature record -- The instrumental temperature record shows the fluctuations of the temperature of the atmosphere and the oceans since the invention of ... > full article

Climate -- The climate is the weather averaged over a long period of time. Weather is the combination of events in the atmosphere and climate is the overall accumulated weather in a certain location. Over ... > full article

Weather -- Weather is a term that encompasses phenomena in the atmosphere of a planet. The term is normally taken to mean the activity of these phenomena over short periods of time, usually no more than a few ... > full article

Severe weather terminology (United States) -- This article describes severe weather terminology used by the U.S. National Weather Service. The National Weather Service has developed a multi-tier concept for forecasting all types of hazardous ... > full article

Winter storm -- A winter storm is a type of precipitation in which the dominant varieties of precipitation are forms that only occur at cold temperatures, such as snow or sleet, or a rainstorm where ground ... > full article

Monsoon -- A monsoon is a periodic wind, especially in the Indian Ocean and southern Asia. The word is also used to label the season in which this wind blows from the southwest in India and adjacent areas that ... > full article

Precipitation (meteorology) -- In meteorology, precipitation is any form of water that falls from the sky as part of the weather to the ground. This includes snow, rain, sleet, freezing rain, hail, and virga. Precipitation is a ... > full article

Climate model -- Climate models use quantitative methods to simulate the interactions of the atmosphere, oceans, land surface, and ice. They are used for a variety of purposes from study of the dynamics of the ... > full article

Typhoon Tip -- Typhoon Tip was the most intense and largest tropical cyclone on record. The storm weakened greatly before landfall, but still caused widespread flood damage across most of Japan during the 1979 ... > full article

Storm surge -- A storm surge is an onshore rush of water associated with a low pressure weather system, typically a tropical cyclone. Storm surge is caused primarily by high winds pushing on the ocean's ... > full article

Storm chasing -- Storm chasing is broadly defined as the intentional pursuit of a thunderstorm, regardless of motive. A person who storm chases is known as a storm chaser, or simply a chaser. While witnessing a ... > full article