extreme weather News

Deluges Follow Droughts as ‘Hydrological Extremes’ Become ‘New Normal’

Texas struggled through its driest year in history in 2011. Four years later was its wettest ever. The Mississippi River rose to all-time-high flood levels in 2011. In 2012, its second-lowest. After a six-year drought that made agricultural irrigation a …

Saving Coral Reefs Requires ‘War’ on Global Warming: Study

Reducing pollution and curbing overfishing won’t prevent the severe bleaching that is killing coral at catastrophic rates, according to a study of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. In the end, researchers say, the only way to save the world’s coral from …

Rising Sea Temperatures Could Kill 90% of Coral Reefs by 2050: Scientists

There were startling colors here just a year ago, a dazzling array of life beneath the waves. Now this Maldivian reef is dead, killed by the stress of rising ocean temperatures. What’s left is a haunting expanse of gray, a …

Nationwide Says Extreme Weather Brings Bigger Claims, Need for Disaster Plans

More extreme weather has led to more extreme insurance claims in the U.S. over the past few years. In a review of more than 100,000 commercial catastrophe claims during a 10-year period, Mark A. Anderson, a claims executive at Nationwide …

XL Catlin Launches $500,000 Fund for Scientists Researching Ocean Risks

XL Catlin has launched a $500,000 fund to support “early career scientists” undertaking research into the changing ocean environment. The XL Catlin Ocean Risk Grants will be awarded to scientists for final year BSc, Masters and PhD research. The fund …

Study Warns on Cumulative Effect of ‘Drip, Drip, Drip’ of Nuisance Flooding

Climate change is being felt in many coastal communities of the United States, not always in the form of big weather disasters but as a steady drip, drip, drip of nuisance flooding. According to researchers at the University of California, …

New Climate Index Shows Extreme Weather Is Now 3 Times More Frequent

Extreme weather over the last five years has been occurring with a regularity that’s about three times the norm, according to a newly created index from a group of number crunchers. The Actuaries Climate Index, which was officially launched near …

Obama Administration Calls for Stricter Building Codes

President Barack Obama is asking the private sector to tighten building standards to reduce losses from natural disasters after studies linked an increase in extreme weather to climate change. The administration will announce Tuesday the start of work by the …

New York Launches Website for Extreme Weather

New York is launching a website to help communities across the state prepare for extreme weather. The website created by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) provides access to more than 1,000 maps, data on sea …

Meteorologists Can Predict Tornadoes Weeks in Advance

Researchers say they’ve come up with a way to predict the likelihood of tornadoes two or three weeks in advance — a step toward better warnings of storms that kill an average of 80 Americans each year. Victor Gensini, a …