When does spring begin? For some, it’s the second Sunday in March, when we turn our clocks forward by an hour in the United States. For others, it’s when they first realize they’ve finished dinner and it’s still light out, or when the first crocuses poke up through the snow. Is it when you can […]
Read MoreTag: Winter (Season)
Winter Heat Waves and Hottest Ocean Ever
Winter was weirdly warm for half the world’s population, driven in many places by the burning of fossil fuels, according to an analysis of temperature data from hundreds of locations worldwide. That aligns with the findings published late Wednesday by the European Union’s climate monitoring organization, Copernicus: The world as a whole experienced the hottest […]
Read MoreCanada 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 […]
Read MoreIn 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 […]
Read MoreSaunas in Minnesota: Midwesterners Are Sweating it Out This Winter
Saunas in the state, part of a tradition with roots in the 1800s, have been especially popular since the pandemic as more people seek a communal experience. WHY WE’RE HERE We’re exploring how America defines itself one place at a time. For people in Minnesota, the sauna is a link to the past and a […]
Read MoreBraving the Winter to Visit a Valley Shrouded in Snow and Secrets
As the chopper rose into the sky, my heart raced with excitement and a twinge of fear: This was my first helicopter ride. The man beside me glanced over and asked why I’d choose to visit the Gurez Valley now, when it had so little to offer. “Even the locals avoid it if they can,” […]
Read MoreSummer 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. […]
Read MoreIt’s 50 Degrees in Minneapolis. Goodbye, Ice Shanties.
It’s not every art installation that instructs visitors to take small steps like a penguin. Then again, there’s nothing quite like the Art Shanty Projects, in which intrepid Minnesota artists in insulated jumpsuits and ice cleats annually recreate traditional ice fishing huts, called shanties, in their own eccentric style on a frozen lake in Minneapolis. […]
Read MoreAtmospheric 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 […]
Read MoreMore Atmospheric Rivers Are on the Way. Here’s What the West Can Expect.
The Western United States and Canada are likely to see excessive rain and heavy snowfall from a sequence of back-to-back atmospheric rivers beginning this weekend and continuing into next week. An atmospheric river is like a powerful fire hose with only one person holding it. It often has a narrow path of the heaviest and […]
Read MoreAfter Freeze Grips Much of U.S., a Warm Respite Beckons
In Dallas, where temperatures dropped as low as 10 degrees last week, highs were forecast to reach the 60s on Wednesday. In New York City, where the low dropped to 17 on Wednesday, unseasonably high temperatures in the 50s were expected by Thursday. And in St. Louis, which was covered in ice on Monday, a […]
Read MoreStorm Isha Sweeps Britain With Powerful Winds, Disrupting Travel
A powerful storm was moving away from Britain on Monday morning after battering the country overnight with a top gust of wind of 99 m.p.h, according to the Met Office, the country’s weather service, which said that a yellow warning would remain in effect until midday. “It is rather unusual in bringing impacts to most […]
Read MoreAt Least 70 Deaths in U.S. Are Connected to Severe Winter Weather
At least 70 people across the United States have died from weather-related causes after more than a week of frigid winter storms and brutally cold temperatures, according to reports from state officials, police departments, medical examiners and news outlets. The number is likely to grow as the authorities scramble to assess the death toll from […]
Read MoreExtreme Cold in the South Puts Millions Under Icy, Freezing Conditions
Bitter cold is gripping large parts of the South once again this weekend, creating hazardous conditions for millions in a region not accustomed to freezing temperatures. On Saturday morning, it was 5 degrees in Louisville, Ky., 9 degrees in Nashville, 20 degrees in Little Rock, Ark., and 21 degrees in Atlanta. Several states were under […]
Read MoreWinter Storm Blankets South and May End Snow Drought in Northeast
A winter storm will push east over large parts of the Southeast on Monday, bringing more snow and freezing temperatures to the region before reaching the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast on Tuesday, where forecasters said it could end a nearly two-year drought without snow.. The Southeast was bracing for extremely cold temperatures on Monday, with […]
Read MoreScenes From the Harsh Winter Storm Sweeping the U.S.
Plunging temperatures have put much of the country in a deep freeze this holiday weekend, combining with snow, freezing rain, ice or gusty winds in some places to endanger nearly 100 million people from Northern California to coastal Maine. Forecasters said hundreds of records gauging the cold could be broken this week, as frigid air […]
Read MoreDangerous Sub-Zero Wind Chills to Blanket Much of the U.S.
Wind chills of as low as minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit in Montana and the western Dakotas. Whiteout conditions near the Great Lakes, with as much as 2 feet of snow falling in parts of New York state. Possible snow squalls in the Northeast and the upper Mid-Atlantic. These are just some of the forecasts from […]
Read MoreClimate Change Is Driving a Sharp Drop in Snow Levels, Study Finds
Changing snow patterns have far-reaching consequences, from water shortages to shuttered ski resorts. A new study confirms that human-caused climate change has affected snow patterns across the Northern Hemisphere, including clear declines of snowpack in at least 31 individual river basins. What’s more, the researchers found that when a region warms to an average temperature […]
Read MoreU.S. Weather Forecast Sees Strong Winds for New York
Much of the United States on Wednesday will continue to grapple with a mixed bag of unsettled weather — snow, rain, strong winds, flooding and freezing temperatures — that has upended daily life for millions of people from coast to coast. Multiple storm systems began sweeping across the country earlier this week. On Tuesday, weather […]
Read MoreIce Skating Rinks Are Popping Up All Over America
This winter, for the first time in recent history, it’s possible to ice skate underneath the Brooklyn Bridge. Since November, when Glide at Brooklyn Bridge Park opened, almost 300 people have packed onto it at any given time, according to organizers. With the Manhattan skyline in the background, patrons skate on real ice under twinkling […]
Read MoreA Nor’easter Will Bring Significant Snow, and NYC Could Still Miss Out
A strong winter storm will drop the first significant snow of the season across parts of the Northeast this weekend, bringing up to a foot of snow in some places — though which places, exactly, remained uncertain on Friday morning. Forecasters said the final details of where the division of rain and snow will exactly […]
Read MoreSnow Shortages Are Plaguing the West’s Mountains
With gusts of wind howling around Mount Ashland’s vacant ski lodge this week, Andrew Gast watched from a window as a brief snowfall dusted the landscape. It was not nearly enough. The ski area’s parking lot remained largely empty. On the slopes, manzanita bushes and blades of grass were poking through patches of what little […]
Read MoreShe’s Still in Love With Her Little Island
“I think I learned all the different types of fog,” said Charlotte Gale, describing her first full summer as owner and sole resident of Duck Ledges Island, the one-and-a-half-acre rocky outcropping complete with tiny cabin that she bought last year in Downeast Maine. Indeed, it was an unusually wet summer in Maine, clouding the coastline […]
Read MoreA Record-Breaking Warm, Snowless Winter Confounds Midwesterners
Lucy Wallace, a recent transplant from San Diego, had been warned about the bone-chilling winters of her new hometown, Minneapolis. She bought a $900 winter coat, two pairs of boots and metal spikes to make her running shoes usable on icy sidewalks. So she was at once befuddled and relieved by the record-breaking warm temperatures […]
Read MoreDreaming of a Getaway
There is something about this time of year that makes me — and, it seems, a lot of other people — dream of being elsewhere. Here in New York City, on the eve of Christmas, the trees are bare and lack the compensating beauty of snow. The sky is unremittingly gray (when it’s not actually […]
Read MoreHow Cecilia Blomdahl in Svalbard Embraces Dark Days in the Arctic
Cecilia Blomdahl can still remember the first time she looked out at the Arctic Ocean on a winter night. The darkness was so dense she could not tell where land started and ended. It was 2015 and Ms. Blomdahl had arrived on Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago near the North Pole, to work at a restaurant […]
Read MoreWhen the season calls for merry murder mysteries
My “mystery winter” reading theme continues, and this week I decided to turn to the “Queen of Crime” herself: Agatha Christie. I asked my sister, a whodunit connoisseur, for her recommendation. She instantly suggested “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd,” a Poirot mystery that many consider to be Christie’s masterpiece. Not only is the plot suitably […]
Read MoreU.S. Fines Southwest Airlines $140 Million for Holiday Meltdown
The Transportation Department on Monday announced a $140 million fine against Southwest Airlines over a meltdown last winter that disrupted travel for about two million people during the holiday season. Of the $140 million, Southwest Airlines will pay $35 million to the federal government. For the remaining amount, the department is giving the airline credit […]
Read MoreCozy Retreats for a Winter Getaway
The season of mittens and hot chocolate is upon us and if you’d rather spend a tranquil afternoon beside a fire than brave the crowds at a big ski resort, these snowy getaways are for you. Picture yourself in a luxury treehouse in the woodlands of Vermont, or a quiet cottage in the Catskills, or […]
Read MoreAs Winter Approaches, Fears Grow for Homeless Migrants
With winter ahead, and the influx of migrants continuing unabated, New York City is set to enter a potentially perilous new phase in a crisis that has already overwhelmed homeless shelters. Last week, as temperatures dipped below freezing, dozens of immigrants hailing from much warmer climates opted to sleep on city streets in Lower Manhattan […]
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