Hurricane

A daredevil seabird species has learnt to harness the insane power of hurricanes, seeking out storms over the ocean to 'ride' them for their own benefit. It's the first time this behavior has been observed, and now has scientists wondering if it's far more widespread in the avian world.

Climate change will trigger stronger storms more often, and the threat may not be properly communicated. Now, scientists at Berkeley Lab suggest there’s room for a Category 6 on the scale – with five storms in the past decade reaching that strength.

Independent analyses by NASA, NOAA, WMO, Copernicus and the UK Met Office have all confirmed that 2023 was officially the hottest year on record. A slew of other records were also broken amidst a string of severe weather events across the globe.

Hubble has helped astronomers measure changes in the weather on an exoplanet. Forecasts for the planet Tylos predict a gigantic hurricane today with a top of over 3,000 °F (1,650 °C), followed by a strong chance of showers of molten iron tonight.

When a bold male seabird threw caution to the wind to 'ride' a typhoon, it was the start of an 11-hour, 712-mile journey, taking him 15,000-ft higher and three times faster than usual. The bird survived and didn't lose any points off his flying licence.

Ahead of the start of the Atlantic hurricane season next month, two storm-monitoring NASA CubeSats have successfully launched into space atop a Rocket Lab Electron booster from the Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has again joined forces with Saildrone to chase hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean using unmanned surface vehicles, and captured footage from inside the first Category 4 storm of the 2022 season.

Earlier this year, Saildrone joined forces with NOAA to launch sensor-packed unmanned surface vehicles into paths of hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean to gather data. Now one of those drones has captured footage from inside a Category 4 hurricane.

Though some folks chase storms for thrills or curiosity, there are also those who do so for scientific purposes. And it's the lattermost pursuit that will see a small fleet of unmanned surface vehicles deliberately head into hurricane territory.

Scientists have found evidence of a “space hurricane” for the first time. The storm, made up of swirling clouds of plasma, raged in Earth’s upper atmosphere for hours, dumping huge amounts of electrons like rain in a system that resembles a regular hurricane.

A new study looking at nearly four decades of data has shown that in almost every part of the world where hurricanes form, their strongest winds are getting even stronger, with global warming thought to be a key contributing factor.

Astronauts aboard the ISS turn their cameras toward Hurricane Dorian, with results that are both beautiful and frightening.