Tag: Weather

They Grow Your Berries and Peaches, but Often Lack One Item: Insurance

Farmers who grow fresh fruits and vegetables are often finding crop insurance prohibitively expensive — or even unavailable — as climate change escalates the likelihood of drought and floods capable of decimating harvests. Their predicament has left some small farmers questioning their future on the land. Efforts to increase the availability and affordability of crop […]

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MIT-derived algorithm helps forecast the frequency of extreme weather

To assess a community’s risk of extreme weather, policymakers rely first on global climate models that can be run decades, and even centuries, forward in time, but only at a coarse resolution. These models might be used to gauge, for instance, future climate conditions for the northeastern U.S., but not specifically for Boston. To estimate […]

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Artificial reef designed by MIT engineers could protect marine life, reduce storm damage

The beautiful, gnarled, nooked-and-crannied reefs that surround tropical islands serve as a marine refuge and natural buffer against stormy seas. But as the effects of climate change bleach and break down coral reefs around the world, and extreme weather events become more common, coastal communities are left increasingly vulnerable to frequent flooding and erosion. An […]

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Insurers Report Rising Hail Damage Claims

Golf balls, tennis balls, softballs. All sound like the stuff of fun games — except when they are used to describe the size of the hailstones that often accompany severe thunderstorms. Those hailstones can cause significant damage to homes and cars, a growing worry as warming temperatures fuel more destructive storms. This month, baseball-size hail, […]

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Utility-Caused Wildfires Are Becoming a National Problem

After a utility pole fell and ignited a wildfire, Frank King and his family raced to escape as electrical transformers exploded around their homes near Oregon’s coast. A bright red glow was visible in the rearview mirror for miles. The fire three and a half years ago destroyed 300 homes in Otis, Ore., including the […]

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A new way to quantify climate change impacts: “Outdoor days”

For most people, reading about the difference between a global average temperature rise of 1.5 C versus 2 C doesn’t conjure up a clear image of how their daily lives will actually be affected. So, researchers at MIT have come up with a different way of measuring and describing what global climate change patterns, in […]

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High Winds Fuel Wildfires in Virginia and Other Mid-Atlantic States

High winds and low humidity helped spark dozens of wildfires across a handful of Mid-Atlantic States on Wednesday, causing officials to scramble to contain the blazes and issue air quality alerts. And with weather forecasts calling for increased fire danger again on Thursday, fire crews across the region were bracing to continue battling the flames. […]

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Rains Are Scarce in the Amazon. Instead, Megafires Are Raging.

By this time of the year, rain should be drenching large swaths of the Amazon rainforest. Instead, a punishing drought has kept the rains at bay, creating dry conditions for fires that have engulfed hundreds of square miles of the rainforest that do not usually burn. The fires have turned the end of the dry […]

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Tumbleweeds Bury Utah’s Cars and Houses

On Saturday morning, residents of South Jordan, Utah, about 20 miles south of Salt Lake City, woke up to an astonishing sight. Thousands of tumbleweeds had blown into town and piled up against people’s homes overnight. Roads were blocked. Entire cars buried. In some cases, the tumbleweed jumbles reached the rooflines or upstairs balconies of […]

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Canada Braces for Wildfire Season as ‘Zombie Fires’ Blaze

Canada’s emergency preparedness minister is warning that this year’s wildfire season will be worse than the record-breaking season of 2023, when thousands of fires burned tens of millions of acres and set off massive plumes of smoke that enveloped major U.S. cities, including New York and Washington. This year’s fires could be especially bad in […]

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The Fires Sweeping Across Texas Offer a Terrifying Warning

On Thursday, as flames from the Smokehouse Creek Fire raced eastward across the Texas Panhandle for the fourth straight day at speeds faster than a person can run, a cold front, driving a snow squall, swept southward over the Great Plains. In an elemental collision, the fire and snow met east of Amarillo, the swirling […]

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California Rainfall Totals: L.A. Saw a Historically Wet February

February was the wettest month in downtown Los Angeles since 1998. With over 12 inches of rain drenching the city, it was the fourth-wettest February — and the seventh-wettest month overall — in the city’s nearly 150-year recorded history. You can feel the saturation in the soil, Park Williams, a professor and expert in water […]

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Texas Wildfires: Firefighters Rush to Control Blaze Ahead of Warm Weather

A vast and growing wildfire, one of several burning in the Texas Panhandle, has now become the largest on record in the state’s history, according to state figures on Thursday. The fire has scorched more than a million acres of land, devastating cattle ranches, consuming homes and continuing to rage out of control. Ranchers, some […]

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In Chicago, It’s Summer in February

February is usually frigid perfection for the ice rink at Millennium Park in downtown Chicago, a favorite winter stop for tourists and local families that stands in the shadow of the reflective sculpture known as the Bean. On Tuesday morning, the rink was melting. Under an intense sun and 70-degree air temperatures, water slowly trickled […]

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Atmospheric River Brings Rain and Flooding Threat to California

Rain from an atmospheric river was falling in parts of California early Monday, as a new storm began to test the state’s preparedness weeks after a deadly deluge caused power outages and destructive mudslides. Flood watches were in effect for millions of people, mostly in California, through Wednesday as the possibility of thunderstorms, strong winds […]

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Winter Storm Forecast: Parts of the Northeast Could Get a Foot of Snow

A winter storm is expected to move through the Northeast starting on Monday and lasting into Tuesday, bringing up to a foot of snow in some areas stretching from central Pennsylvania to the Catskills and Hudson Valley in New York, forecasters said. As of Saturday, the storm was over the Southern Plains in the southwestern […]

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How Ford’s F-150 Lightning, Once in Hot Demand, Lost Its Luster

In July Michael Puglia drove home with what seemed like the coolest vehicle he’d ever own — a Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck. It was big enough to haul around his children and all their hockey gear. He’d never have to gas it up, and the ride was exhilarating. “It’s unbelievably fast and responsive,” […]

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In Los Angeles, a Growing Sense That ‘Historic’ Weather Is Becoming Normal

Californians have long joked that their state has three seasons: wildfire, earthquake and flood. But as an atmospheric river parked itself over Los Angeles this week, knocking out power and dumping record rainfall, there was a serious coming to terms. “The weather seems more extreme on every level,” Fred Rosen, a retired entertainment executive, said […]

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Southern California Braces for Potential Mudslides Even as Rains Slow

A ferocious atmospheric river storm that has battered California for days began to taper off Tuesday, but officials warned that even small amounts of additional precipitation could set off landslides in rain-drenched Southern California. Between Sunday and Monday, the storm dumped record-breaking amounts of rain on the Los Angeles basin and prompted millions of residents […]

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Tragedy, Resilience and a Miracle at Chile’s Burned Botanical Garden

On Friday afternoon, several hundred people were roaming the idyllic grounds of Chile’s national botanical garden, mostly unaware that, just across some hills and a highway, a raging wildfire was galloping toward them. The danger quickly became clear. Rangers began racing around the park on motorbikes, shouting for visitors to flee to the exits. But […]

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Summer Has Long Stressed Electric Grids. Now Winter Does, Too.

For decades, managers of electric grids feared that surging energy demand on hot summer days would force blackouts. Increasingly, they now have similar concerns about the coldest days of winter. Largely because of growing demand from homes and businesses, and supply constraints thanks to aging utility equipment, many grids are under greater strain in winter. […]

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Many Southern California Schools Will Remain Open Despite Floods

Most school districts in Southern California, including Los Angeles Unified, the second-largest in the country, were planning to keep most classrooms open on Monday, officials said, even as the state battled heavy rain, flooding and mudslides. Many students depend on schools for basic nutrition, the Los Angeles superintendent, Alberto Carvalho, said at a news conference […]

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Los Angeles Area Sees Mud Slides and Floods as Rain Lingers

Mudslides and severe flooding were reported in Los Angeles on Monday, as a storm that made its way to Southern California after pummeling northern areas of the state was forecast to bring more heavy rain and winds for another day. “The major wind and power outages will be the less dangerous part of the storm, […]

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Incendios forestales en Chile causan 99 muertos y desaparecidos

Días después de que devastadores incendios arrasaron la costa del Pacífico de Chile, asolando vecindarios enteros y atrapando a personas que intentaban huir en sus autos, las autoridades informaron el domingo de que al menos 99 personas habían muerto y cientos permanecían desaparecidas, y advirtieron que el número de muertos podría aumentar considerablemente. “Esa cifra […]

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Forest Fire on Chile’s Coast Kills At Least 64 and Leaves Hundreds Missing

Days after devastating wildfires swept through Chile’s Pacific Coast, officials said on Sunday that at least 64 people had been killed and hundreds remained missing and warned that the number of dead could rise sharply. “That number is going to go up, we know it’s going to go up significantly,” President Gabriel Boric said on […]

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Southern California Faces ‘High Risk’ of Excessive Rain and Flooding

Parts of Southwest California on Sunday braced for heavy rains — potentially as much as an inch an hour — that could lead to life-threatening floods, officials said, prompting evacuation orders in some places and at least one school district to cancel classes for Monday. The Weather Prediction Center issued a rare “high risk” prediction […]

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Atmospheric River Drenches California, With More Storms on the Way

A powerful storm known as an atmospheric river swept over California on Thursday, soaking the state with rain and leaving a trail of damage that has become familiar to residents in recent years: fallen trees, flooded roads and snarled travel. Though the storm was not expected to cause the kind of chaos that was sown […]

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