Jeopardy champion WATSON--the computer program that earlier this year decisively beat the two all-time human champions of America's favorite game show--has a new challenge. A modified version of WATSON has been appointed to direct a major new scientifi...

A Great Example of Why Snow Forecasting is Tough Mar 31, 2011; 4:39 PM ET One of our Facebook Fans asked this morning why we had their town at 1 inch of snow for tonight's storm while the NWS had a warning out for 8-14 inches in Newton, Massachusetts....

A YouTube video of chatting babies is an internet sensation. The Central Queensland News reports on a few suggestions as to the subject of their discussions, including : "That diaper is so 2010" and getting a retort along the lines of "If you're so smart, where is your other sock, Einstein?" This ...

The beautiful and distinctive U-shaped glacial valleys typical of alpine areas from Alaska to New Zealand have fascinated and frustrated geologists for centuries. read more

Rainfall Tops 50 Inches in Southern Thailand Mar 31, 2011; 12:25 PM ET AMOUNTS 20 OR MORE TIMES NORMAL MARCH RAINFALL A rash of heavy falls of rain that began at the middle of last week has continued into Thursday, the last day of March. Going through...

Torrential rains in excess of 40 inches (1.016 meters) deluged Thailand's Malay Peninsula this week, triggering floods that have killed at least 17 people. The floods submerged 61 major highways, affected 840,000 people, and forced the helicopter rescu...

NASA space shuttle Endeavour took a beating from Mother Nature Wednesday when severe thunderstorms ripped through the Kennedy Space Center with high winds and battering hail.

Margaret LeMone | 30 March 2011  •  Walking out of the NCAR Foothills Lab last Wednesday, 23 March, at 3:15 p.m. MDT, I was stopped in my tracks by an incredible sky: a high, very thin layer of small, uniform, tiny cloudlets. Since each of the clo...

Because it reacts quickly and dynamically to climate change, the Antarctic ice sheet, that has repeatedly expanded and retreated for 25,000 years, is of particular interest to geoscientists. (Credit: U. Leeds) U. LEEDS (UK) — At some point in time, ...

In past blogs I have talked about atmospheric rivers---plumes of moisture approaching our region that generally start in the tropic and subtropics. These moisture rivers are generally associated with warm air (since warm air can contain more water vap...

March will go out like a lion across the Northeast with a major snowstorm in the works for Thursday night and Friday.

With birds chirping and temperatures warming, spring is finally in the air. But for University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) environmental chemist Torsten Meyer, springtime has a dark side. read more

Abnormal Falls of Rain Pelt Southern Thailand Mar 28, 2011; 12:21 PM ET MORE THAN 10 TIMES THE NORMAL MONTHLY RAINFALL Since the middle of last week, multiple outbursts of torrential rain have pounded southern Thailand. The latest outbursts struck lat...

Image: Sunengy You've no doubt heard of offshore wind power, how about offshore solar power? Well, Australian solar power company Sunengy would like you to, or at least floating solar power--announcing that it has partnered with India's Tata Power to...

University of Cincinnati research is investigating why a highly sophisticated civilization decided to build large, bustling cities next to what is essentially swampland. The research by UC Geography Professor Nicholas Dunning, a three-year, interdiscip...

You might have noticed my blog decreased in frequency a bit during the past week and there were some issues with the graphics.The reason?...I have been in Beijing the last ten days giving a short-course on weather systems and forecasting technology to ...

A barrage of strong thunderstorms spread a trail of hail and wind damage across the South over the weekend from the lower Mississippi Valley to the Southeast coast.

The names Tomas and Igor will no longer be used to name hurricanes in the Atlantic, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced this March. Hurricane Igor made landfall near Cape Race, Newfoundland on September 21, 2010, and was that island's...

Snowflake.jpg February 10, 2011 | A new study by NCAR scientists looks at the accuracy of snow gauges, instruments used for collecting and measuring snow. Making accurate measurements of snowfall is critical for weather forecasting, climate studies, ...

WindFarm1.jpg February 15, 2011 | A new NCAR study compares two different methods for forecasting power production at wind farms: turbine-based versus farm-based. The turbine-based method involves forecasting winds at each individual turbine on a giv...

Although the Cascade snowpack is roughly normal this year (which is low for a La Nina year in which we expect it to be above normal), the central Sierra Mountains of central CA have been hit very, very hard.The Alpine Meadows ski resort near Lake Taho ...

In a finding that has global implications for climate research, scientists have discovered that when icebergs cool and dilute the seas through which they pass for days, they also raise chlorophyll levels in the water that may in turn increase carbon d...

A few strong thunderstorms could ruin weekend plans from the Mississippi valley to the Southeast this weekend, with the first round of heavy storms expected beginning tonight.

by Michael A. Livermore. In a recent House Energy and Commerce Committee climate hearing, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) jokingly asked if some of his fellow colleagues were going to overturn the law of gravity, “sending us floating about the room...

This amazing picture (no doubt you’ve seen something like this before) was recently taken outside Tahoe Donner Ski Resort in California. According to The Weather Channel, the Lake Tahoe area this season has received some 600 inches (or more than 50 feet!) of snow. There have even been some unofficial ...

Today several locations in western Washington reached in the low 60s....in fact some surged into the mid-60s. Offshore flow helped....as air descended down the western slopes of the Cascades it it is compressed and warmed. Here is the profiler data f...

Bob Henson | 23 March 2011  •  As nice as it is, the return of sunlight each spring has a few nasty side effects. One of them is sunlight’s ability to catalyze ozone destruction. That process has happened in a big way this month over the Arctic....

Indian Ocean Dipole Mar 23, 2011; 12:32 PM ET OCEANIC INDEX WEIGHS UPON WEATHER FROM SOUTH ASIA TO AUSTRALIA I have cranked out a lot of words in this column, yet I have had little to say about the oceanic indices. Foremost of these is the well-known ...

(University of California - San Diego) "Lost" samples from a famous origin of life researcher could send the search for Earth's first life in a new direction.

by Daniel Klein. Spring doesn’t seem like it would be maple syrup time (based on the pictures on Vermont syrup bottles), but so it is. At the cusp of freezing and melting snow is when the sap is running. And while the rest of the country is ...