While out on my usual evening run, braving the midsummer Maryland mugginess, I captured the eerie scene shown above, using my iPhone 8 Plus. My jaw dropped. As a Washingtonian (the state), I rarely see thunderstorms back home, let alone picturesque shelf clouds. The map below indicates zero severe thunderstorm watches per year on average…

It’s quite astonishing when you consider some of the meteorological records Seattle has broken this summer. Seattle set a new all-time dry streak record of 55 straight days (no measurable rainfall ≥0.01 inches), all-time record for consecutive days with highs above 70°F of 64 days (and counting!), and record for second longest consecutive stretch with highs above 80°F…

It has been over two months since my last blog post (the final one required for my Rhetoric and Civic Life honors English course), but I have decided to start writing again for my personal enjoyment and enrichment. Back in the Pacific Northwest, the weather has been quite calm, with only a few minor thunderstorms…

Most kids either don’t know where they want to live when they grow up or they just want to stay near home, but I was an exception; as a kid, I dreamed of living in Death Valley, California. You may think that I was insane that I would want to be somewhere with the world…

Have you ever wondered where the snowiest place on Earth is? To be more precise, where in the world receives the most snowfall each winter? The Arctic, Greenland, and Antarctica are often portrayed as extremely cold, dark, snowy, and icy places, but they actually receive relatively little snowfall. The Arctic is sea ice and surrounded…

Meteorologists officially gave the name Stella to last week’s winter storm that primarily impacted the Northeast from March 13 to 15. However, you may remember it as the March nor’easter, the great blizzard of 2017, or “that one snowstorm that led Penn State to cancel classes the night before, even though not a single snowflake…

Since my last blog post, several notable severe weather or weather-related events have occurred. Punxsutawney Phil indicated six more weeks of winter by seeing his shadow (after stopping by the Penn State meteorology department two weeks earlier), an EF3 tornado ravaged New Orleans, Oklahoma experienced a number of wildfires, both the Northeast and Western Washington (where…

Nice sunny skies, palm trees, a warm ocean breeze–this is how many people envision California to be like. In reality, most of California has been in a persistent, severe drought. Now, I don’t mean that everywhere in California looks like Badwater Basin in Death Valley National Park, since in addition to deserts, there are also…

Tornadoes, thunderstorms, flash flooding, droughts, heat–the state of Oklahoma experiences a variety of severe weather phenomena. Although extreme temperatures tend to not impact people’s lives as much as severe storms, it is fascinating to witness or learn about record-breaking temperatures. In the last several weeks in Pennsylvania, you might have noticed the large temperature swings…

When we think of precipitation, we typically think of rain and snow. If you get heavy rain or snow or just steady rain or snow over a prolonged period, you can get flooding or significant snow accumulation respectively, which can cause a plethora of problems. However, there are other types of precipitation that can pose…