Weather dot com has built itself into a traffic juggernaut over the past couple of years by positioning itself as the leading source for telling you what THIS is. With great power comes great responsibility, and you won’t believe how close you are to death until you’ve checked your local forecast.

No sooner did the calendar crack May than we had to start worrying about a potential tropical system forming off the coast of the southeastern United States later this week. Anyone who lives near the coast from Florida to North Carolina needs to keep a close watch on this system. Here’s what you need to know to stay ahead of what could become Ana.

Welcome to May! We are now two-thirds of the way through spring, and right on schedule, the atmosphere has a mini heat wave in the forecast for most of us east of the Rockies. On top of that, models are trying to spin up some sort of a tropical cyclone-ish thing off the East Coast next week.

As temperatures warm up and the school year winds down for kids across the country, people are eager for summer to arrive before spring has a chance to set in. Everyone wants to know what kind of weather we’ll have this summer, but there’s one factor that could have some consequences: El Niño.

Social media is flooded with fake and misleading weather forecasts created by untrained, uninformed, and often underage individuals we like to call “weather weenies.” We try like hell to curtail their damaging hoaxes, but one country went a step further: beginning on Friday, weather weenies are outlaws in China.

The sky is very blue today.

People will go to any length for a little bit of internet fame, like setting your crotch on fire, jumping off a building, or planking on train tracks. Thankfully, there are less painful ways to achieve notoriety: lie through your teeth! Some sorry individual froze a water balloon yesterday and tried to pass it off as hail.

There’s a moderate risk for severe weather across a tiny but heavily-populated portion of Texas this afternoon, including Dallas, Fort Worth, Waco, and Arlington. Intense tornadoes (≥EF-2), very large hail, and destructive wind gusts are possible. Stay alert if you’re in the area today, and prepare to take quick action to ensure your safety. You can keep up with watches/forecasts over at the Storm Prediction Center, and keep track of warnings from your local NWS office.

Cities like Dallas, Fort Worth, and Shreveport are under the gun for what could be an interesting bout of severe weather this afternoon, with storms potentially producing very large hail, damaging winds, and strong tornadoes. If you live in the area, make sure you have a way to receive warnings and a plan if you need to take life-saving action.

A car crashed through a set of gates and caught fire outside of the National Weather Center in Norman, Oklahoma, late Thursday afternoon, as part of what police are calling a “suspected suicide.” The building is a major nerve center for weather forecasting and research in the United States.

It’s hard to imagine a conspiracy theory so off the rails that it makes people involved with one of the country’s major Tea Party groups throw their hands up in the air and go “whoa, man, this is too much,” but lo and behold, chemtrails rose to the challenge.

Many millions of us will experience severe thunderstorms over the coming weeks and months. When one of these intense storms crops up, a number of you will find yourselves driving into a major hailstorm, during which you may feel the urge to park under an overpass to protect your car. Don’t.

We already know that your weather app sucks, but the websites you use probably aren’t much better. One of the most common questions people ask about the weather is “what website/app should I use?” Here’s a list of great resources that will give you all the weather information you want, and more.

Today will be a pretty interesting weather day across some of the most heavily-populated sections of the East Coast, as there’s a heightened risk for large hail, damaging winds, and tornadoes in major cities like Atlanta, Charlotte, D.C., Baltimore, and Philadelphia. Here’s what you need to know to stay safe.

News came down from a mountaintop high in the Alps today that the overlords who control the weather have preemptively retired a potential hurricane name in the eastern Pacific to prevent panic attacks and immature snickering around the world. That name, of course, is “Isis.”

If it's daytime in mid-April, it means that there's a risk for severe weather somewhere on the Plains. Texas will be ground zero for the storms for the next few days—today, cities like San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Amarillo could all see hail larger than golf balls, damaging winds, and possibly a tornado or two. Insert your favorite "everything's bigger in Texas" joke here.

Oh, did you foolishly think we'd finally gotten rid of that cruel, soulless winter? Hah! Nothing doing. Not only is there cool air and even some snow on its way, but breezy conditions and dry air are setting the stage for wildfires in places from New England to the coasts of southern California.

The first violent tornado of the year touched down in north-central Illinois last Thursday, packing winds of up to 200 MPH as it razed the small town of Fairdale. The storm killed two people and injured several more. Here's an in-depth look at the tornadic storm from beginning to end.

More than a foot of rain could fall on the southern United States over the next week, with some spots on the Gulf Coast seeing more than ten inches of rain yesterday alone. On a scale from "grab an umbrella" to "Jim Cantore's comin' to town," this week will be a solid "build yourself an ark."