Severe Weather

Australia is currently in one of the worst bushfires on record, and it’s not hard to see why. The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has released a climate statement for 2019, and found that last year was the hottest and driest on record for the continent.

While lightning strikes are generally considered to be a summer phenomenon, the rare and powerful superbolt form doesn't follow suit.

NASA has released images and footage of Hurricane Dorian, as it continues its menacing advance across the Atlantic Ocean.

Hurricanes and water go hand in hand. But researchers from Purdue University and MIT have now made a surprising discovery by tweaking a hurricane simulation – the storms can occur under much colder and drier conditions than previously thought, which may be common on other planets.

The summer of 2018 was marked by extreme weather events like droughts and floods. A new study has pinned the blame on stalled giant waves in the jet stream, and unfortunately they’re expected to only get worse with the changing climate.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has released a Statement on the State of the Climate in 2018. Temperature records were shattered, sea ice shrank and extreme weather events devastated every continent in one of the hottest years on record.​

Depending on where they occur, tropical cyclones are also known as hurricanes or typhoons. No matter what you call them, though, they're caused by the evaporation of warm ocean surface water. Norwegian scientists are now looking at stopping them, by using bubbles to cool that water down.

Researchers from Western Sydney University have uncovered the novel strategies Australian eucalypt trees use to survive extreme heatwaves. One remarkable process involves the tree evaporating large volumes of water through its leaves in a process is similar to sweating.

We don't see many tiny houses that can deal with extremes in weather. The Leaf House 3 is one exception, and Transcend Tiny Homes' new Amsterdam 24 is another. The towable dwelling is remarkably lightweight, offers plenty of storage space for its size, and is rated to withstand very high winds.

​​Researchers are developing a system to predict the path and intensity of hurricanes by harvesting data from inside the storm itself.

Halo WX, a new smoke detector just hitting the market, features all of the smoke and carbon monoxide detection one would expect, while also adding in alerts for natural disasters.

The Swedish firm White Arkitekter are the winners, with ARUP and Gensler, of an international competition to redevelop the area of Queens, New York, which was badly hit by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. The new master plan addresses extreme weather, sustainability and social integration.