Weather

Each year lightning kills hundreds of millions of trees worldwide, leaving behind scorched trunks and shattered branches, but one species of tropical tree in Panama has turned this destructive force of nature to their advantage.

In a world first, Japanese researchers flew a lightning-proof drone in a thunderstorm, using it to induce and direct natural lightning strikes. The team is now working on how this flying lightning rod might capture and store lightning energy.

A climatic mystery about a year that gave summer a deadly pass may have been solved. Using new ice core techniques, scientists have concluded that the dark, chilly year of 1831 was due to the massive eruption of a volcano north of Japan.

GenCast, an AI-powered weather prediction tool, can crank out 15 days of highly accurate weather forecasts in minutes. Not only will it help you dress right in the morning, but it can give valuable, life-saving warnings for extreme weather events.

Meteorology may not seem like an eco-unfriendly field, but it does need to clean up its act in at least one way. A new high-tech glider could help it do so, by allowing single-use weather-balloon-carried devices to be reclaimed and reused.

The dynamic way different-shaped snowflakes perform distinct 'dances' within clouds has been found to influence how much precipitation is likely to form. The discovery of this unique cloud choreography opens the door to precise weather forecasts.

One picture taken every day of the year starting September 2023 through to September 2024 provides a pretty fascinating perspective of the twilight zone transit due to the Earth's 23.5-degree axial tilt as it orbits around the Sun.

Thor and the Hulk may be more closely related than we thought. Thunderstorms are known to produce gamma rays in the atmosphere, but a new study has found that not only do they happen way more often than we realized, but they’re much weirder.

Solar eclipses don’t just look cool – they can send gravity waves rippling through Earth’s atmosphere like dropping a stone in a pond. An international team of students has measured these gravity waves for the first time.

Earth’s seasons change as we orbit the Sun – but can the climate also be affected by the solar system’s changing position in the Milky Way? A new study suggests an ice age about two million years ago may have been triggered by an interstellar winter.

This week’s global NVIDIA GTC, GPU Technology Conference, included a discussion about using accelerated computing to drive climate action. Three startup companies have taken advantage of NVIDIA's AI and Earth-2 platform to do just that.

Do you live in a lightning hotspot? A new set of maps shows just where all that discharged electricity makes contact with the ground across the United States each year. Tip: If you're worried about getting hit, you might want to skip Florida.