Weather & Space News Blog
 since Feb. 2003
 WX - Telegraph abbreviation for weather often used with Morse code
 The Wire - Name once given to the telegraph

Houston Cleans Up: Severe weather batters Houston-area: Some residents without power and homes after strong winds, heavy rains and a tornado moved through southeast Texas Sunday night | Storms drop record rainfall at airport

Storms, hail hit Colorado

May 31, 1985 Tornadoes: 43 tornadoes killed 85 people, caused $450 million in damage in Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio and Ontario. Full story

Hurricanes May Spark Debate: Hurricane season could set into motion an angry debate over the impact of global warming

He’s Out! South Florida’s weather guru says it’s time to go … He’s headed to Alaska before August. Interestingly, he says South Florida may not see as many hurricanes this year because May was wetter than usual.

Where To Install Temp Sensor?: WeatherBug’s Chief Chirp explains where we should install an outdoor temperature sensor

Quake & Volcano: Earthquake rocks Indonesia’s Aceh region: 5.6-magnitude temblor triggers panic, but no reports of damage

Explosion shakes western Mexico volcano Monday

Top 5 WXnation.com city weather and webcam pages visited on Memorial Day: 1. Dallas/Fort Worth 2. Houston 3. Boston 4. Denver 5. New Orleans … See the top 20 so far this month in the center column of our home page.

Have a safe Memorial Day! Parts of the country could see stormy weather and possible travel delays… National watches/warnings map and live U.S. satellite/radar image

Tornado Warning In Houston Area: As of 11 p.m. CDT Sunday… Flash flood warnings are not far away. National Weather Service warnings/watches map | Houston-area weather and live webcam images

Other Weather News: Expert works to get hurricanes’ number

Canada overdue for killer tornado 20 years after destruction in Barrie, Ont.

Weather Service braces for storm

SpaceWeather: Another aurora alert

Top 5 WXnation.com city weather and webcam pages visited on Saturday: 1. Dallas/Fort Worth 2. Austin 3. San Antonio 4. New York City 5. Toronto … and Sunday: 1. Houston 2. Dallas/Fort Worth 3. Austin 4. San Antonio 5. Indianapolis See the top 20 so far this month in the center column of our home page.

In The Air Wednesday Night: I live just south of Fort Worth Alliance Airport, and jets frequently take off and fly right over my house in the midnight and 3 a.m. hours. I don’t mind it at all. Something slightly different was in the air at midnight Wednesday, however.

I was updating this blog when I heard a buzzing sound just outside my window. My first thought was, ‘Who is doing yard work at this odd hour?’

After a minute or two I decided to investigate by looking out of my bedroom window. As I was headed for the bedroom, I heard the buzzing sound and then a thump against the side of my house followed by a moment of silence. ‘What was that?’ I thought…

I went to the window and quickly discovered that my neighbor was flying a remote-controlled plane in the easement beside my home. The small plane was buzzing about in the darkness, and, within a minute or so, I was back to work and the plane was grounded.

Being in the flight path of the airport, I’ve heard a couple of planes come in so loudly that I was convinced they were going to graze my roof. Fortunately, the only plane to hit my house is a much smaller model. Here’s to hoping that I don’t wake up to windows in the bedroom shattering and a toy plane sitting at the foot of my bed…

Scorcher In Seattle: Heat advisory first ever for Seattle: Friday’s 89-degree high at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport broke that date’s 33-year-old record. Thursday’s high was also 89 degrees, breaking a 58-year-old record.

TWC vs. AccuWx vs. NWS: The folks at CapitalWeather have posted a link to a detailed story on the historic competition between AccuWeather and The Weather Channel.

Active Hurricane Season For Texas Gulf Coast?: Houston hurricane guru Neil Frank says a warming period in the Atlantic might make for an especially active season for the Texas Gulf Coast. Full story from The Galveston County Daily News

Sprint may charge its 2 million Florida customers 93 cents a month for hurricane costs

Small facelift for BBC weather map

The $6.6 Million Camera: Arizona to get $6.6 million pixel camera for taking detailed research photographs of the night sky

Top 5 WXnation.com city weather and webcam pages visited on Friday: 1. Dallas/Fort Worth 2. Indianapolis 3. Toronto 4. New York City 5. Atlanta … See the top 20 so far this month in the center column of our home page.

From Florida: Tornado, lightning, rain pummel Treasure Coast

From New England: New England sulking over soggy May: Nor’easter pounds psyches ahead of summer tourist season

From Canada: Flooding in Nova Scotia forces evacuations

From England: Former BBC weather chief joins storm over corporation’s ‘miserable’ graphics

Top 5 WXnation.com city weather and webcam pages visited on Thursday: 1. Dallas/Fort Worth 2. Toronto 3. San Antonio 4. Vancouver 5. Austin … See the top 20 so far this month in the center column of our home page.

Weather News: Families scramble as southwestern Colorado trailer park floods

Lingering nor’easter unleashes another batch of heavy rains, high winds

Udall tornado’s toll still haunts survivor

Image slideshow: Lightning strikes house in Denton County, Texas, Wednesday afternoon

Quake News: Quake near L.A.’s downtown could wreak historic havoc

Science News: Oklahoma has Del City … the South Pacific has Eel City

OK AI: Speaking of the Sooner State, Oklahoma City makes it into the Top 5 on the same day that Carrie Underwood became the latest American Idol:

Top 5 WXnation.com city weather and webcam pages visited on Wednesday: 1. Dallas/Fort Worth 2. Minneapolis/St. Paul 3. New York City 4. Oklahoma City 5. West Palm Beach … See the top 20 so far this month in the center column of our home page.

Frustrations: Nor’easter continues to plague New England … brings wet, raw, windy weather … The frustration is easy to see in blog posts from CapitalWeather and Gothamist Weather. It looks like D.C. will warm to 80 on Friday.

Thunderstorms roll across Plains, into Mississippi Valley

Hurricane Preps: Kissimmee Utility Authority announces record downloads of 2005 hurricane guide

The Weather Channel(R) launches into tropical weather season with Hurricane Week 2005

Protests: Scots protests may change weather map as BBC takes temperature

Space News: Electrified wind has deep origins: Solar wind can gust from 750,000 to 1.5 million mph

Voyager I enters solar system’s final lap: Launched 28 years ago, it is now 8.7 billion miles from the sun.

Mars rover Spirit stumbles across wet, violent past

Astronomy Picture of the Day: Particle sizes in Saturn’s rings

WXnation Blog Picture of the Day: This one is from the WXnation Webcam in north Fort Worth, taken yesterday morning. Image links a to large version in a new window…

Also see archived blog and WXnation Webcam images

Top 5 WXnation.com city weather and webcam pages visited on Tuesday: 1. Dallas/Fort Worth 2. New York City 3. Denver 4. Tulsa 5. Boston … See the top 20 so far this month in the center column of our home page.

No Spring: New England gets spring nor’easter

Continued cold may spell 2nd coldest May since 1941 in D.C.

No Relief: Meanwhile, Dangerous heat in Arizona prompts Excessive Heat Warning for 5th straight day Monday: The warning was introduced three years ago, but it took this early string of record-breaking heat for it to really register with the public

Heat kills 12 immigrants Arizona

Resources: Current U.S. temperatures map and weather watches/warnings and advisories map. Also check out weather and webcams for your city

No Tax: Law lifts tax on hurricane supplies for 12 days: Many items will be tax-free in Florida from June 1 – 12

Volcano in western Mexico produces most powerful eruption in more than a decade

Top 5 WXnation.com city weather and webcam pages visited on Monday: 1. Dallas/Fort Worth 2. Washington, D.C. 3. New York City 4. Denver 5. Pittsburgh … See the top 20 so far this month in the center column of our home page.

Central Plains Heat Breaks Records: Temperatures in Kansas towns hit 101, 102

Not much to say other than it was a hot weekend in Central and North Texas! Highs at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on Saturday and Sunday: 99. Helping move my in-laws into their new Fort Worth home over the weekend: priceless! (It was cool … just not in a literal sense)

Tornado Terror: A half-century later, hearing “Udall” can still make meteorologists break into a cold sweat as a tornado slammed the Kansas town on May 25, 1955, killing 77 people and injuring 250. Full story

Other Weather News: Four hurricanes revealed Florida’s flood potential

CITGO teams up with WeatherWave to promote new weather alert service: Voice generated weather alerts for subscribers’ mobile phones

Space News: SpaceWeather.com, as usual, has received some great images of auroras and the moon*

*This one might be my computer’s background image for the next few days…

Science News: Scientists hope laser rivals energy found at center of the sun

Monument to creationism sparks evolution debate

Lightning Strike Update: I have a small update to my Friday the 13th lightning strike post. Neighbors revealed to me that a home on our street was hit by lightning early Saturday morning the 14th, and all electronics were fried — even the air conditioner. Other homes had electronics zapped, including my next-door neighbor. I hope they all are able to replace their lost items quickly, especially my one neighbor! When we all first moved onto our street in 2003, a lightning strike on our street sparked a fire a few homes down from mine. Original post from Aug. 12, 2003 here…

Top 5 WXnation.com city weather and webcam pages visited on Sunday: 1. New York City 2. Detroit 3. Indianapolis 4. Vancouver 5. Boston … and on Saturday: 1. Minneapolis 2. Vancouver 3. New York City 4. Boston 5. Orlando … See the top 20 so far this month in the center column of our home page.

Deadly Blizzard: 41 feared dead in blizzard during a military exercise in Chile

Adrian Update: Hurricane fizzles over Honduras

Weather News: Inside a tornado: Cameras capture the closest ever view of the fierce winds turning just off the ground around a tornado’s center. View footage posted at National Geographic

Lightning destroys couple’s home

Science News: Report: Part of the Antarctic ice sheet getting thicker

Earthquake that triggered Asia’s deadly tsunami in December stronger than first thought: Researchers now believe the quake had a magnitude of 9.15

Space News: Weather satellite launched after delays

Top 5 WXnation.com city weather and webcam pages visited on Friday: 1. Atlanta 2. Vancouver 3. Charlotte 4. New York City 5. Seattle … See the top 20 so far this month in the center column of our home page.

First Hurricane Of The Season: Hurricane Adrian makes landfall, slamming into El Salvador late Thursday, cutting off power and unleashing heavy rains, killing at least one … Latest from Tropical Prediction Center … More on Adrian is in yesterday’s post.

Quake News: Sumatra quake shook the ground everywhere on Earth’s surface … Weeks later the planet was still trembling.

Research: L.A. quake faults squeezed

Small earthquake shakes west central Missouri

World Of Webcams: Kansas water park drops webcam after TV news story

Top 5 WXnation.com city weather and webcam pages visited on Thursday: 1. Indianapolis 2. Chicago 3. Louisville 4. Vancouver 5. Nashville … See the top 20 so far this month in the center column of our home page.

Quake Forecasts: Californians now get hourly quake forecasts: Online map shows probability of strong shaking … As always, the live list of most recent earthquakes is located in the left column of this page. Other earthquake resources are in our National/International page

Adrian May Become Hurricane: Central America could be hit by major storm: 400,000 people in Guatemala seen as at-risk | Adrian may become hurricane, unlikely to affect Florida | Latest path and latest news coverage.

New Tropical Storm Feed! I’ve added a live RSS feed for Adrian from the Tropical Prediction Center to the list of feeds (from the Storm Prediction Center and USGS) in the left column of this page. Look for the latest data on each tropical storm and hurricane — 24/7 — in that spot. As always, additional hurricane resources are in the right column of our National/International page

Other Weather News: FEMA chief disputes claims that agency wasted millions of taxpayer dollars

Spring rain prompts flooding concerns in N. Calif.

Rain doesn’t stop these “Star Wars” fans

Top 5 WXnation.com city weather and webcam pages visited on Wednesday: 1. Minneapolis/St. Paul 2. Kansas City 3. Sacramento 4. Vancouver 5. Seattle … See the top 20 so far this month in the center column of our home page.

Tropical Storm Adrian’s Early & Unusual: Hurricane season is two weeks away, but don’t tell that to a weird tropical storm that has formed on Tuesday. Tropical Storm Adrian emerged in the eastern Pacific Ocean and is moving in an unusual path that could put it just south of Florida by the weekend. Full story and latest updates from the Tropical Prediction Center

Forecasters predict quiet hurricane season … in Hawaii

Mount St. Helens 25 Years Later: St. Helens comes back to life [Live St. Helens VolcanoCam image to the right courtesy USDA Forest Service]

Sleeping Giant: Meanwhile, not far from St. Helens, Mount Rainier will eventually awaken: An agency ranks Rainier as the third most dangerous volcano in the nation.

Another NWS/Santorum story, this one from The Washington Times

Speaking of Washington, local TV station ABC 7 asks, “Is D.C. region becoming tornado alley?”

Space News: Report: U.S. Air Force seeking President Bush’s approval of space weapons

Top 5 WXnation.com city weather and webcam pages visited on Tuesday: 1. Boston 2. New Orleans 3. Los Angeles 4. Omaha 5. Orlando … See the top 20 so far this month in the center column of our home page.

Okla. Quake: Magnitude-2.8 earthquake felt in Oklahoma City, Norman

Magnitude-3.2 quake hits just south of Palm Springs

Aurora pictures are flowing into SpaceWeather.com’s Aurora Gallery, including this one from Niagara Falls, N.Y.

Hurricane Updates: NOAA: Busy hurricane season ahead:

Conrad C. Lautenbacher Jr., head of the administration, told reporters the Atlantic will have 12 to 15 tropical storms, seven to nine of them becoming hurricanes, and three to five of those hurricanes being major, with sustained winds of at least 111 mph.

Public needed for hurricane forecasters | Hurricane forecasts get better, ever so slowly: Tracking improves, but predicting intensity, rainfall lags

Freak Storm: Thanks to CapitalWeather for the tip (and good commentary): Freak China snow and sand storm kills 15 explorers

Columnist wonders if “there is truly a gender difference when it comes to an interest in heavy weather.” Full article

Dark cloud forms over sudden BBC weather change

Top 5 WXnation.com city weather and webcam pages visited on Monday: 1. Vancouver 2. Dallas/Fort Worth 3. Los Angeles 4. New York City 5. Houston … See the top 20 so far this month in the center column of our home page.

Space Weather Warning: Forecasters at NOAA Space Environment Center in Boulder, Colo. issue space weather warning: A geomagnetic storm on Sunday was classified as an extreme event, measuring G-5 — the highest level on the NOAA Space Weather Scales… So, how does this affect us?

Possible impacts from such a geomagnetic storm include widespread power system voltage control problems; some grid systems may experience complete collapse or blackouts. Transformers may experience damage. Spacecraft operations may experience extensive surface charging; problems with orientation; uplink/downlink and tracking satellites. Satellite navigation may be degraded for days, and low-frequency radio navigation can be out for hours. Reports received by the NOAA Space Environment Center indicate that such impacts have been observed in the United States.

Be sure to check out the latest SpaceWeather.com image collection, May 2005 Aurora Gallery

WeatherBug ‘Eye’s A.M. TV: Watch for WeatherBug’s storm chasers and bloggers as they will talk about Storm Chase 2005 on the CBS Morning Show this morning, between 7:30 and 8:30 a.m. ET. The players:

Look for Chief Chirp, Stephanie Blozy, Meteorologist, Mark Lee, WeatherBug Achieve Teacher, Megan O’Leary and [Chief Meteorologist, Mark Hoekzema], along with about a hundred local students from a New York City WeatherBug Achieve school.

Weather News: Gulf Shores still cleaning up after Hurricane Ivan

Storms brewing for FEMA amid start to hurricane season

Weather now a factor in base closing fight

Man, I hate it when weather brings down a blimp — especially a “massive drug-searching blimp.” What I hate even more is when weather causes a crane to crush a major broadcasting company’s building, taking them off the air.

Virtual reality weather maps with realistic 3-D landscapes are set to revolutionize the BBC’s forecasts. Full story

Top 5 WXnation.com city weather and webcam pages visited on Sunday: 1. Austin 2. San Antonio 3. Vancouver 4. New York City 5. Dallas/Fort Worth … See the top 20 so far this month in the center column of our home page.

Expect More Hurricanes & Storm Babies! William Gray, a professor in Colorado State University’s department of atmospheric science, predicts a “bleak picture” in terms of increased major hurricane activity for the next 15 to 20 years in Florida Full story

Here comes another ‘storms create more babies’ story

Parts of the Southeast and Ohio Valley were hit by storms Saturday. Full story

Auroras! SpaceWeather.com says now’s the time to look for auroras. If you don’t see ‘em, here’s the next best thing

Top 5 WXnation.com city weather and webcam pages visited on Saturday: 1. Dallas/Fort Worth 2. Washington, D.C. 3. Detroit 4. Indianapolis 5. Minneapolis/St. Paul … See the top 20 so far this month in the center column of our home page.