On the afternoon of Friday, 15 May 2026, a wildfire broke out near Two Harbors, Minnesota, along the north shore of Lake Superior. Minnesota State Highway 61 was shut down to traffic and evacuation orders were issued for residents between Two Harbors and Castle Danger. Relative humidity levels were very... Read More

On the afternoon of 14 May 2026, a strong midlatitude cyclone centered over the prairie provinces of Canada forced very strong winds in the Northern Great Plains of the continental United States. This in turn lofted an extreme amount of dust into the lower atmosphere, lowering visibilities to less than... Read More

Edit: NWS Honolulu Science and Operations Officer (SOO) Robert Ballard graciously provided some insight into this case, and this post has been updated with his input. Thanks, Bob!In the morning hours of 8 May 2026, some interesting low level cloud plumes appeared over or near the Hawaiian island of Oahu.... Read More

Version 1 of the NOAA/CIMSS LightningCast model uses GOES-R ABI images to predict the probability of lightning in the next 60 minutes at any given location. It is being transitioned to NOAA/NESDIS operations. LightningCast v2 has been developed and is being evaluated at NOAA’s Hazardous Weather Testbed. Version 2 incorporates MRMS Reflectivity at -10oC, which is... Read More