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

One of the defining characteristics of spring in the upper midwest is a land surface that warms up much more quickly than the many lakes do. There’s a couple of reasons for this: water itself has a higher heat capacity than soil does, sun penetrates into the lakes somewhat which... Read More

In the afternoon and evening of 23 April 2026, numerous tornadoes touched down across the Great Plains of the continental United States. The storm reports gathered by NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center show a line of tornadoes extending from central Iowa down to north central Oklahoma, accompanied by numerous reports of large hail... Read More