How Drought Develops—and Why It’s So Hard to End
The Slow Disaster That Sneaks Up on You Drought is the weather disaster that arrives without announcement. There is no warning siren, no radar signature, no single moment when the threat becomes undeniable. It accumulates quietly over weeks and months — a deficit of rainfall here, a stretch of above-normal temperatures there — until one […]
Traveling With Pets in Summer: What You Need to Know Before You Go
Summer Travel Season Has Arrived. Your Pet Needs a Plan. Summer is the peak season for travel with pets — family road trips, beach vacations, visits to relatives, camping trips, and the general expansion of outdoor life that warmer months bring. It is also the season when the specific hazards of traveling with animals are […]
Heat Stroke: Recognizing and Responding to Summer’s Most Dangerous Health Emergency
Heat Kills More Americans Than Any Other Weather Hazard Summer is officially here, and with it comes the deadliest season for weather-related mortality in the United States. Heat kills more Americans each year than tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, and lightning combined — a fact that the dramatic spectacle of those other hazards tends to obscure. The […]
Sun Protection Beyond Sunscreen: Clothing, Hats, and What UPF Actually Means
The Most Reliable Sun Protection Isn’t in a Bottle The 5/11 Weather Daily piece on UV radiation established why May and June sun is more dangerous than most people treat it, and what SPF numbers actually mean. One thing that piece noted in passing is worth expanding on as summer arrives fully: physical sun protection […]
The Galveston Hurricane of 1900: America’s Deadliest Natural Disaster
The Storm That Erased a City On the morning of September 8, 1900, Galveston, Texas was the fourth-largest city in the state and one of the wealthiest ports in the American South. By the morning of September 9, between 6,000 and 12,000 of its approximately 38,000 residents were dead — the largest single death toll […]
First Tastes of Summer: Recipes for What’s Just Arriving at the Market
The Market Is Changing. Here’s How to Cook What’s There Right Now. The farmers market in late May and early June looks completely different from the one you visited in April. The tender spring greens and radishes that defined early spring have given way to something more substantial: the first summer squash, small and tender […]
Hurricane Myths Debunked: What You Think You Know Could Get You Killed
Hurricane Season Opens June 1. The Myths Are Already Circulating. Every hurricane season, the same dangerous misconceptions circulate through coastal communities — repeated by neighbors, shared on social media, and acted upon by people who trust them. Some of these myths lead people to stay when they should evacuate. Others lead them to shelter in […]
Why Summer Afternoon Thunderstorms Are So Predictable: The Daily Cycle of Summer Convection
The 4 p.m. Storm That Arrives Like Clockwork Anyone who has spent summers in Florida, the Rocky Mountain foothills, or the humid Southeast knows the pattern: mornings are clear and warm, afternoons build dramatic cumulus clouds, and by 3 or 4 p.m. thunderstorms are rumbling across the landscape with near-daily regularity. The storms clear by […]
How Hurricanes Form: The Science Behind the Atlantic’s Most Powerful Storms
Hurricane Season Begins June 1. Here’s What That Actually Means. The Atlantic hurricane season officially begins June 1 and runs through November 30 — a six-month window that encompasses the period when ocean temperatures, atmospheric moisture, and wind patterns combine to support tropical cyclone development in the Atlantic basin. The season’s official start date is […]
The Heat Wave of 1936: The Deadliest Summer in North American History
The Summer That Killed Thousands The summer of 1936 arrived on a landscape already devastated. The Great Plains were in their fifth year of severe drought. Topsoil that had survived for millennia was blowing off the land in the massive dust storms covered in earlier Weather Daily pieces. Farmers who hadn’t yet abandoned their land […]