The picture perfect storm that’s raked the center of the country over the past two days caused 135 reports of damaging thunderstorm winds and 12 reports of tornadoes on Wednesday. The storm also generated some pretty strong winds as it swirled through the Great Lakes, with a 55 MPH gust in Buffalo, 49 MPH gust at Chicago O’Hare, and a 45 MPH gust in Detroit, leading to some wind damage and coastal flooding. The weather will slowly calm down as the storm lifts north into Canada.

This 5.50 megabyte GIF shows a 15-hour infrared satellite loop of Hurricane Joaquin as it slammed the Bahamas between 5:15 AM and 8:15 PM EDT on Thursday. The hurricane is a category four on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale with sustained winds of 130 MPH, and it could strengthen a bit before weakening on Saturday. Joaquin is the strongest hurricane to hit the Bahamas since Floyd in 1999, which raked the island chain with sustained winds of 155 MPH.

Hurricane Joaquin is a category three hurricane tonight with 115 MPH winds, and all indications point toward further strengthening. The 11:00 PM advisory from the NHC says it’ll be a category four with 140 MPH winds by this time Thursday. There’s still a decent chance it could make landfall along the East Coast this weekend. We’re going to see a major flooding event regardless of Joaquin’s whereabouts—a potential landfall will only make things much worse.

The most famous image of Earth is one taken by the crew of Apollo 17 on their way to the Moon in 1972. Not only is it a beautiful picture, but it was the first time many people had ever seen an actual photo of our full planet. Fast forward a few decades, and we can see that view every day. Here’s your world today—as seen by satellites floating around in orbit—in all of its watery wonder.

That’s you. That’s me. It’s one giant group photo. Every sucky thing that’s ever happened, is happening, or ever will happen is right there, to loosely paraphrase some brainy guy a few decades ago. Kinda makes you want to fly out there and escape it all, but then you wouldn’t have Auntie Anne’s pretzels, and what’s the point of living then?

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.

It's snowing across the eastern U.S. and along the eastern Rockies, where Denver could see more than a foot of snow. There's a risk for a significant ice storm in north Texas (including Dallas and Fort Worth) on Monday. I'll have more information on that tomorrow when the event is a little closer on the weather models.

This beast of a nor'easter looks incredible on infrared satellite imagery this evening, and the storm is only in its infancy. Conditions will rapidly deteriorate in locations that haven't gone down hill already. Locations caught under the deformation zone (heaviest persistent bands) will see two or more feet. Stay safe and enjoy.

There are more than seven quintillion grains of sand in the world, almost all of which are visible in these satellite images if you look reeeeally hard. Here's a look from space at your world today, in all of its scary, powerful goodness.

Your world is a beautiful place, most of its inhabitants aside. The wonder of looking at our pale blue dot from hundreds of miles in space will never get old. Here's a look at your world today, in all of its awesome goodness.

Here's a true color look at our home planet this afternoon; the western half of it, anyway. It's beautiful, and there are lots of really cool features you can see from space today. Let's take a closer look at our pale blue dot.

Big storms usually paint dramatic and beautiful scenes in the sky when viewed from both below and above. The nor'easter off the East Coast this afternoon is as photogenic as it is intense.

Mother Nature decided that today is cool clouds day! A speedy eight-hour loop of today's satellite imagery across the eastern U.S. reveals plenty of cool features to drool over, including a vanishing storm and a mysterious swirl over Lake Huron. Let's take a look...

This gorgeous low pressure system approaching the Pacific Northwest will bring gusty winds and heavy rains to the region over the next couple of days. Some areas could see more than three inches of rain over the next week.

Here's a look at Hurricane Edouard as it churns out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, the basin's first major hurricane since Sandy in 2012. It will safely curve away from Bermuda and impact the Azores as a post-tropical depression with some gusty winds and heavy rain later this week.

Tropical Storm Edouard poses no threat to land as it churns in the Atlantic (towards the left side of the image). Another tropical wave sitting off the African coast has a 20% chance of developing over the next few days, per the NHC.

We often see animated satellite images of storms over the Atlantic that show us 12- or 24-hour loops, but how about a satellite loop that lasts 2,150 hours? An ambitious YouTuber created this awesome time lapse video showing four months of storms over the western Pacific in just two minutes.

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.

This water vapor imagery from GOES East shows moisture (and a lack thereof) over the central and eastern Atlantic. Any disturbance that manages to get its act together over the next couple of days has to deal with the slug of dry air to the west. The summer doldrums continue...

One of the cooler results of the NotReallyAPolarVortex sweeping across much of the United States is that it allows us to see just how much of an effect the sun and water have on our weather.