We all know that person. If it's 105° at your house, it's 110° at theirs. If you get two feet of snow, they've got three. If your gallbladder bursts, they get pneumonia. It seems like a basic human instinct to try to one-up each other, but the world would be a much better place without disaster snobs.
Technicians at the Oklahoma Army National Guard base in Tulsa accidentally triggered the fire suppression system in a hangar on Tuesday morning, causing foam to comically flood out of the hangar onto the tarmac. In a freak coincidence, a dust devil formed on the base and kicked up a foamnado.
Earlier this year, the Storm Prediction Center announced that they're adding two new categories to their severe weather maps in an attempt to better convey the threat for severe weather to the public. They recently announced a date for the transition, sounding the death knell for ridiculous maps like we have today.
Hurricane Marie is now a powerful Category 5 hurricane as it churns off the Mexican coast this evening, packing sustained winds of around 160 MPH. The eastern Pacific hurricane rapidly strengthened from a Category 1 to a Category 5 in just 24 hours.
Tropical Depression Four has formed in the western Atlantic Ocean over the Turks and Caicos Islands, packing winds of 35 MPH. The storm is expected to steadily strengthen into Hurricane Cristobal this week, potentially threatening the southeastern coast before turning out to sea.
I suck at drawing, and odds are you do, too. One of the great things about computers is that they do the work for us. We have spell check to save us from those embarrassing tyops and calculators for hassle-free math. For those of us who love maps but can't draw, there are programs that create great maps with little skill needed.
A resident of St. Louis took an awesome time lapse of a strong thunderstorm rolling across his neighborhood yesterday. The storm bubbled up on the horizon before racing towards the camera, developing an awesome shelf cloud along the way.
In the ultimate sign that the tides have turned and professionals aren't afraid to call out Grade A Weenies anymore for fear of harassment, The Weather Channel talked some sense into the Great Hurricane Hype of 2014, and it's downright refreshing.
When NASA launched the first weather satellite back in 1960, it was little more than two television cameras strapped to a satellite and shot into orbit. Fast forward through the technological explosion of the late 20th century, and now you can watch the evolution of storms in near real-time, one-minute increments from your living room.
How do you know when to trust someone when they say "a hurricane is coming?" Should you only trust the NWS? Television weatherpeople? Your favorite Gawker weather blogger? All too often, people don't care where they get their weather information, and that's a huge problem.
In yet another shining example of good information falling into uninformed hands, a rumor is spreading through Facebook that a tropical storm could hit southern California in the next couple of days. Thankfully (or not, given the crushing drought), there is a 99.5% chance that it will not happen.
Chaos and relief erupted at a county fair in Montana over the weekend after a severe thunderstorm tore down two crowded tents and stopped a Rick Springfield concert from happening. The storm also set free a majestic herd of alpacas, bless its heart.
A hard-to-pronounce volcano in the middle of Iceland is showing signs that it could erupt soon, and to add insult to injury, the volcano sits beneath a glacier which could itself explode if and when it comes in contact with magma.
...especially if you've spent the past six months criticizing them non-stop. Gulp.
With the recent spate of flash floods in Detroit and Baltimore and New York, a common question rising in the storms' aftermath asks how often certain areas of the country see flash floods. I put together some maps to show how frequently different parts of the United States experience these dangerous torrents of water.
