News & Features

Nighttime temperatures across much of California were record warm in July 2018, part of an accelerating warming trend in the state since the start of the twenty-first century. 

In 2017, land areas recorded more than 60 days of extreme daytime heat worldwide, nearly double the 1961-1990 average. 

As part of the State of the Climate in 2017 report, experts describe a record three-year-long episode of mass coral bleaching at tropical reefs worldwide. Previous global bleaching events required the presence of El Niño, but the devastating 2014–2017 event began before El Niño emerged and continued long after it ended—implicating human-caused global warming in the mass die offs.

The State of the Climate in 2017 report includes a summary of the devastation in Puerto Rico from Hurricane María, describing damage so widespread and severe that thousands of residents of the Caribbean island moved to the U.S. mainland in the aftermath. 

See highlights from the 2017 issue of the planet's most comprehensive annual physical, the American Meteorological Society's State of the Climate report. 

Strong winds whipped wildfires into a frenzy near Athens, Greece, during the end of July, leading to one of the worst wildfire tragedies in the country's history.

But basin-wide quiet periods favor rapid intensification of U.S. landfalling hurricanes.

Exceptional drought in preceding months primed southern Colorado forests for wildfire in mid-June 2018.

The first named storms of the Atlantic and eastern Pacific Ocean hurricane seasons formed during the end of May and beginning of June.

Less than two years after a massive flash flood destroyed large portions of the historic district of downtown Ellicott City, Maryland, even heavier rains led to a destructive repeat for the city in May 2018.