Extreme Weather News

[ Goto Spanish translation; Ir a la traducción al español ] On Monday evening, Sept. 23, 2024, an unusual hurricane struck southern Mexico, dumping 20 inches of rainfall along the coast according to estimates from NASA's IMERG precipitation product. The following image shows these rainfall estimates: Click here for a full resolution version of this image. Observations from an international constellation of satellites were the starting point for calculating these estimates, and the data confirm that forecasters in prior days were right to warn of possible heavy rainfall. Forecasters did have

Updated: Wednesday, September 18, 2024 Hurricane Francine made landfall on Wednesday, September 11, at 5:00 p.m. CDT on the southern coast of Louisiana, approximately 30 miles south-southwest of Morgan City. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) classified it as a Category 2 storm, with maximum sustained winds estimated at 100 mph. Francine originated from a westward-moving tropical wave of low pressure, known as an African easterly wave. This wave, as is typical, emerged off the west coast of Africa before traversing the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean. These waves often serve as seedlings for

On the morning of Sunday, June 30, Hurricane Beryl became a rare early season major hurricane when it reached Category 3 status with sustained winds of 115 mph as it was moving across the Atlantic 420 miles east-southeast of Barbados in the direction of the Leeward Islands. Then, just a few hours later at 11:35 a.m. EDT, Beryl became the earliest Category 4 hurricane on record in the Atlantic with sustained winds reported at 130 mph by the National Hurricane Center (NHC), surpassing Hurricane Dennis from the epic 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. Beryl also became historic as the strongest and

A pair of powerful atmospheric river events brought heavy precipitation across much of coastal California this week, resulting in record rainfall totals, extensive flooding, numerous landslides, hurricane-force winds, and power outages. These types of atmospheric river events that impact the U.S. West Coast are also known as the “Pineapple Express” due to their transport of moisture up from the Tropics originating around Hawaii. The first event had the greatest impact on northern and central California. It was initiated when a large low-pressure trough located in the northeast Pacific

In mid-December 2023, the far north region of Australia’s Queensland state experienced heavy precipitation and flooding as a result of Tropical Cyclone Jasper, which made landfall on December 13 north of the town of Port Douglas. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center began issuing bulletins on Jasper on December 5 as it developed into a tropical depression over the Western South Pacific Ocean. By December 7, Jasper had strengthened to a Category 4-equivalent cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson scale as it tracked southwestward. By the time it made landfall on December 13, Jasper’s winds had weakened back