News & Features

February 2021 was the United States' coldest February in 30 years, but the winter overall was warmer than average. Much of the West remained in some level of drought.

Understanding the Arctic polar vortex. ...

Polar vortex expert Amy Butler and Arctic expert James Overland offer perspectives on the February cold snap in the southern U.S., the polar vortex, and how the Arctic might influence mid-latitude weather.

Today, NOAA and its partners are accelerating the advancement of numerical weather prediction by sharing a second application based on the Unified Forecasting System (UFS) framework with the ... ...

All tornadoes -- whether small or large -- originate from thunderstorms, but not all thunderstorms are the same. Different environments and situations create forecasting challenges. For instance, ... ...

Clouds have both cooling and warming effects on climate, so a climate model's ability to parse cloud effects can reduce uncertainty in future climate projections. A new study distinguishes between climate models with low and high climate sensitivity related to clouds and aerosols.

A warmer-than-average start to spring is favored for the central and eastern United States while a drier-than-average March is likely across the southern tier of the contiguous U.S.

A new study in Nature Climate Change finds regional variations in snowpack melt as temperatures rise. The researchers conclude that, in the United States, snowpack in coastal regions and the south is most “at-risk” from climate change while snowpack in the northern interior of the country is less vulnerable.

Tornados, like most weather phenomena, are hard to predict more than several days in advance. By focusing on active tornado seasons that may be linked to climate signals, researchers at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory have made a small but important step in seasonal tornado that shows promise in predicting active seasons up to two months in advance.

La Niña has been going strong this winter, but the Northern Hemisphere doesn't appear to be paying attention. Our blogger discusses what may be going on.