NASA: Precipitation Piles on in California Two successive atmospheric rivers hit California in March 2023, bearing rain, snow, and strong winds. Hundreds of thousands of people lost power as the storm toppled trees, unleashed mudslides, and flooded streets. Related: Atmospheric Rivers: How They Work, and How El Niño and La Niña Affect Them The clouds parted on March 16, allowing the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) […] WeatherBrains | March 20, 2023 0 Comments
NASA: Blizzard Warnings and Snow Replace Sunshine and Warmth in Southern California A powerful late-February storm brought blizzard warnings, cold rains, howling winds, and rare low-elevation snow to parts of southern California more accustomed to warmth and sun. The Operational Land Imager-2 (OLI-2) on Landsat 9 acquired this image (top) of snow blanketing much of the San Gabriel Mountains in areas north of Los Angeles on February 26, 2023. The other image […] SnowBrains | February 28, 2023 1 Comment
NASA: Antarctica’s Brunt Ice Shelf Finally Breaks In February 2019, a rift spanning most of the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica appeared ready to spawn an iceberg about twice the size of New York City. The question among scientists was not if the growing rift would finish traversing the shelf and break but when? Now, nearly four years later, it has done just that. Related: Colorado Fourth […] SnowBrains | January 25, 2023 0 Comments
NASA: Weather Whiplash – What Caused the Recent Flip From Extreme Cold to Unseasonably Warm In late December, many Americans reached for cold-weather gear as a blast of unusually cold Arctic air poured south and fueled a travel nightmare around Christmas. In Michigan and other parts of the Midwest, a “bomb cyclone” formed along the cold front bearing powerful winds and whiteout conditions. In certain parts of upstate New York and Canada, lake effect snow […] Weather WeatherBrains | January 5, 2023 0 Comments
NASA: The Freezing Snowy Nightmare Before Christmas Santa Claus better bundle and buckle up. Forecasters are warning that a blast of Arctic air will bring dangerously cold conditions to parts of Canada and the central and eastern U.S. in the days before Christmas 2022. The map above shows the surface air temperature anomalies forecasted for December 23, 2022. It was produced by combining satellite observations with temperatures […] Weather WeatherBrains | December 22, 2022 0 Comments
NASA: La Niña 3 Times – Looking at This Relatively Weak but Unusually Prolonged Event In December 2022, Earth was in the grips of La Niña—an oceanic phenomenon characterized by the presence of cooler-than-normal sea-surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific. The current La Niña, relatively weak but unusually prolonged, began in 2020 and has returned for its third consecutive northern hemisphere winter, making this a rare “triple-dip” event. Other triple-dip La Niña’s […] Weather WeatherBrains | December 8, 2022 0 Comments
NASA: Phytoplankton May Be Abundant Under Antarctic Sea Ice A decade ago, scientists on a NASA-sponsored ocean expedition found massive populations of phytoplankton blooming beneath sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. Now scientists using underwater instruments and a NASA satellite have found evidence of potentially significant blooms beneath the sea ice encircling Antarctica. The findings were recently published in the scientific journal Frontiers. Phytoplankton is to the ocean what […] Brains SnowBrains | November 29, 2022 0 Comments
Mount Terror: The 10,000-Foot Antarctic Volcano This article originally appeared on nasa.gov Mount Terror might sound like a place to avoid. But this Antarctic volcano is not as terrifying as its name implies. From a geological perspective, the mountain itself is relatively benign. It is a shield volcano located on the eastern side of Ross Island and consists of numerous pyroclastic cones and lava domes. But […] Brains SnowBrains | November 4, 2022 0 Comments
Weather
Brains