Background Articles

A powerful coastal storm brought flooding and damaging winds to western Alaska on Oct. 8, with severe flooding and evacuations in Kotzebue and high water reported across the Bering Strait/Norton Sound region. Communities are now preparing for a larger storm expected over the weekend, with state emergency operations activated.

A severe hailstorm in Calgary on July 13, 2025, caused $92 million in insured damage, highlighting the increasing frequency and severity of such events in Alberta's "Hail Belt" and underscoring the need for improved risk management and climate resilience strategies.

At 3:10 p.m. Monday, a wind gust of 60 mph was clocked atop the Juneau Federal Building in downtown Juneau.

Thunderstorms are rare in the cold, dry Arctic, but a surprising event in August 2019 has scientists rethinking how these storms form in polar regions. A team of researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China has uncovered new insights into this phenomenon.

Thunderstorms are rare in the cold, dry Arctic, but a surprising event in August 2019 has scientists rethinking how these storms form in polar regions. A team of researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China has uncovered new insights into this phenomenon.

Ahead of Wednesday’s anticipated severe weather, county officials are making some important announcements.

The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) has issued an updated damage report from Tuesday and Wednesday’s severe weather. According to MEMA, one person in Grenada County died. Six were injured, two of which were in Scott County. Details regarding where the other four injuries took place have not been released...

Spokane experienced its fourth-hottest year on record in 2024, with exceptional summer heat, a significant dust storm, and an unprecedentedly wet late-year. Weather extremes spanned subzero temperatures in January to record summer heat and heavy rainfall later on.

There was almost twice as much lightning north of 80 degrees in 2021 as in the previous nine years combined, a Finnish firm says.

In a single decade, summer lightning tripled across the Arctic, a change directly attributed to rapid Arctic warming, a new scientific paper reports. “Now that we have Arctic warming, you can really get a lot more of the optimal conditions for thunderstorms,” said Robert Holzworth, a University of Washington professor emeritus of Earth and space

A new report points to harsher more severe weather incidents happening in our province.

Alberta consistently sees an average of 1400 wildfires each year however, the increased economic costs due to firefighting, equipment, damaged properties, evacuations, insurance, remote housing and food can be a challenge.

Waking to the smell of a wet ashtray (which, as a Child of the Seventies, I can still remember), I knew the wind had shifted. Wildfire smoke hung in the neighborhood.