storm

3Apr

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An Electrical Engineer Explains How A Large Solar Storm Could Knock Out The Power Grid And The Internet

On Sept. 1 and 2, 1859, telegraph systems around the world failed catastrophically. The operators of the telegraphs reported receiving electrical shocks, telegraph paper catching fire, and being able to operate equipment with batteries disconnected. During the evenings, the aurora borealis, more commonly known as the northern lights, could be seen as far south as Colombia. Typically, these lights are only visible at higher latitudes, in northern Canada, Scandinavia and Siberia. What the world experienced that day, now known as the Carrington Event, was a massive geomagnetic storm. These storms occur when a large bubble of superheated gas called plasma is ejected from the surface of the sun and hits the Earth. This bubble is known as a coronal mass ejection. The plasma of a coronal mass e...

The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season is so intense, it just ran out of storm names

Here’s how active this year’s Atlantic hurricane season has been: When Tropical Storm Wilfred formed on Sept. 18, the National Hurricane Center ran out of names for only the second time since naming began in 1950. Even more surprising is that we reached the 21st tropical storm of the year more than two weeks earlier than the only other time this happened, in 2005. The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season is far from over. When the next tropical storm forms, forecasters will shift from the alphabetical list of people’s names to letters of the Greek alphabet – Alpha, Beta and so on. The 2005 season had six Greek-letter storms, ending with Zeta. So, why is the Atlantic so active this year? Meteorologists like myself have been following a few important differences, including many tropical storms ...

What is a derecho? An atmospheric scientist explains these rare but dangerous storm systems

Thunderstorms are common across North America, especially in warm weather months. About 10% of them become severe, meaning they produce hail 1 inch or greater in diameter, winds gusting in excess of 50 knots (57.5 miles per hour), or a tornado. The U.S. recently has experienced two rarer events: organized lines of thunderstorms with widespread damaging winds, known as derechos. Derechos occur fairly regularly over large parts of the U.S. each year, most commonly from April through August. Dennis Cain/NOAA Derechos occur mainly across the central and eastern U.S., where many locations are affected one to two times per year on average. They can produce significant damage to structures and sometimes cause “blowdowns” of millions of trees. Pennsylvania and New Jersey received the brunt of a d...