Weather

Coming as no surprise to the millions who sweltered through a Northern Hemisphere summer, the season that has just passed was Earth’s hottest since records began in 1880. The steamy baton is expected to now be passed on to the Southern Hemisphere.

NASA and NOAA have confirmed that July 2023 was the hottest month in recorded history, which goes back about a century and a half. The finding follows a worrying trend that has a decent chance of setting 2023 as the hottest year on record.

It’s not just you – it has been hot lately. According to preliminary reports of global average temperatures, last week was the hottest week on record, with the record for hottest day broken several times in a row.

Scientists have demonstrated a more advanced lightning rod than a humble metal stick. Beaming a high-powered laser into the sky was shown to deflect lightning bolts, enabling laser lightning rods that protect a wider area from dangerous strikes.

Dust devils are a common occurrence on Mars, but Perseverance has now captured one from up close for the first time. The NASA rover recorded video from right inside the dust devil, as well as the first audio of the phenomenon on the Red Planet.

Trees can provide scientists with a way to look back into the past. Now, researchers have used tree-ring data to determine that a massive drought could have spurred incursions by Hunnic hordes into the eastern Roman Empire in the 430-450s CE.

Scientists are claiming to have solved a longstanding mystery around why lightning takes on a zigzag shape as it flashes across the sky, pinning it on high-energy molecules responsible for redistributing electrical fields.

Fascinating new research from atmospheric scientists at Penn State University has found during thunderstorms, electrical discharges on tree leaves can generate significant volumes of chemicals that may affect the air quality in surrounding forests.

The best bits of thunderstorms often happen above the clouds. Scientists have now described in detail the most powerful “gigantic jet” of lightning ever observed, which blasted energy equivalent to 60 regular lightning bolts upwards into space.

A lightning strike that lit up the sky across three US states has been confirmed as the longest on record, with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) today certifying the 768-km (477-mile) length of the flash that occurred back in April 2020.

A new type of storm has been discovered in the skies over the Indian Ocean. Named “atmospheric lakes,” these events are slow-moving pools of concentrated water vapor that can last for days and bring large amounts of rain to the surface below them.

After sending a fleet of self-sailing drones into the path of Hurricane Sam to help improve forecast models, Saildrone has now launched three uncrewed surface vehicles into the Gulf Stream winter to gather data on carbon uptake in the ocean.