A tropical wave located a few hundred miles southwest of the Cabo Verde Islands on Tuesday morning was headed west at about 15 mph. Satellite imagery showed that the wave had a modest-sized area of heavy thunderstorms that were poorly organized. The system was located far enough south of the dry air of the Saharan Air Layer to favor development, …
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What it was like to sound the alarm ahead of Hurricane Katrina » Yale Climate Connections
I first started blogging for Weather Underground, the weather service I founded, in the spring of 2005. For the first few months, it was a slow time for interesting weather events, and I had trouble finding topics to write about. I was relieved when June 2005 brought two Atlantic tropical storms to discuss. But as July brought an unprecedented five …
Read More »Hurricane Erin exits stage right as new systems bubble in Atlantic » Yale Climate Connections
Hurricane Erin continued to churn in the North Atlantic well southeast of New England on Friday. Rip currents will continue to plague parts of the U.S. East Coast, Bermuda, and Atlantic Canada into the weekend, as Erin’s massive circulation – including tropical-storm-force winds spanning an area 600-700 miles wide – pushes immense volumes of high surf. Erin had already embarked on …
Read More »Hurricane Erin pulling away from U.S., but coastal flooding will peak Thursday night » Yale Climate Connections
Hurricane Erin made its closest approach to the U.S. at 2 a.m. EDT Thursday, when its center passed about 200 miles (320 km) southeast of the Outer Banks of North Carolina. At the time, tropical storm-force winds of the massive hurricane extended out about 230 miles (370 km) to the northwest of the storm. The U.S. Coast Guard Station at …
Read More »Get ready for an active mid-August in the Atlantic » Yale Climate Connections
The relatively modest Atlantic hurricane season to date may soon kick into high gear. Long-range outlooks from multiple models are in unusual agreement on the chance of a powerful hurricane moving toward North America in the one- to two-week window. That’s way too far out for any definitive forecasts in terms of location, strength, or timing – or whether this …
Read More »Dexter becomes the Atlantic’s fourth named storm of 2025 » Yale Climate Connections
Tropical Storm Dexter formed along a stalled front a few hundred miles east of the North Carolina coast and about 300 miles west-northwest of Bermuda at 11 p.m. EDT Sunday, August 3. Dexter’s formation date of August 4 (in Greenwich time) comes over a week before the typical August 15 appearance of the season’s fourth named storm, based on 1991-2020 climatology. …
Read More »15 sources of wildfire smoke forecasts for North America » Yale Climate Connections
We now live in the Pyrocene, a proposed new geologic epoch of high wildfire activity brought about by human-caused climate change. The occurrence of extreme fire weather is now roughly double compared to the preindustrial period, according to a study released just this week. The Pyrocene has brought a long summer of wildfire smoke in 2025 across North America, where plumes …
Read More »As flash floods rage, the tropical Atlantic stays mellow » Yale Climate Connections
The devastating flash floods of early July across central Texas — including the July 4 disaster along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County that took at least 116 lives — secured this month’s place as a terrible one in the annals of U.S. flash flooding. But it hasn’t stopped there. Other significant flash floods have struck the nation since then, …
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