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Summer in North America is a collision of extreme weather seasons. While the Atlantic and Pacific coasts brace for tropical weather threats, tornadoes endanger the U.S. Midwest, and heatwaves stretch across the continent and intensify the risk for drought and fire. Much of the Western U.S. and Canada’s wildlands cope with destructive wildfires each year— a hazard made more challenging by increasingly drier and hotter environments. The 2023 wildfire season was not only Canada’s worst on record...

This year’s Atlantic hurricane season came to life with the help of a resilient overachiever. Between June 28th and 29th, a freshly formed tropical depression rapidly intensified into Hurricane Beryl, breaking its first of many records by becoming the easternmost Atlantic hurricane to form in June. Hurricane Beryl continued to rapidly intensify before it reached Category 4 status on the Saffir-Simpson scale...

Aside from delightful frozen treats and poolside afternoons, how do you imagine the summer season? For many people, the unforgettable sensation of excessive heat swiftly comes to mind. Each year summertime around the world involves dangerous extreme heat, and the United States is no exception. Although astronomical summer in the Northern Hemisphere doesn’t start until the 20th of June...

The arrival of spring marks an eager transition from the brief, icy days of winter to the sprouting promise of new growth and a forthcoming summer. For those in the Central U.S., spring also designates the season of seemingly continuous severe weather. This involves hazardous winds, large hail, flash floods, tornadoes, and more. Any state has the potential for tornadoes, but the U.S. Midwest and Great Plains account for 30% of the estimated 1,200 tornadoes that impact the U.S. each year, since the official record began in 1950 (1). A certain type of thunderstorm held responsible for nearly all significant tornadoes in the country, the supercell, occurs most commonly in this region (2). A supercell is a towering, anvil-shaped thunderstorm with a sustained rotating updraft called a mesocyclone (3), which is defined under certain criteria by a rotation signature on doppler radar (4).