Just as regions of our planet have monsoon season, or tornado season, so too does Saturn have its own stormy season. Once every Saturn year or so—which corresponds to roughly 30 Earth years—a giant, churning storm works its way through the clouds of Saturn’s northern hemisphere, sometimes encircling the entire planet like a belt. Lasting [...]

Welcome to Scientific American‘s Science of Sandy live blog where we are posting continuous updates on the storm and its aftermath, and answering your questions. If you have pictures, video, audio or questions about this tropical cyclone (categorized as a hurricane and a tropical storm at various times in its progress)—share them with us at sciamsandy@gmail.com, [...]

Take a hurricane moving up from the south. Mash in a colder storm moving in from the west. Add a ridge of high pressure extending through the atmosphere above the northeastern Atlantic Ocean and Greenland, blocking the typical flow of the jet stream. That’s the recipe for what will become “Post-Tropical Storm Sandy” or, as [...]

On January 30, Plugged In’s unquenchable interest in infrastructure expressed itself in an actual tour of an infrastructure system itself. As part of ScienceOnline2013, the fabulous science/scientist/communications convention/festival/love-in held every year in my own city of Raleigh,  I led a tour of the stormwater tunnels beneath the city of Raleigh. I know all about these [...]

Today’s suggestion? Get used to it. Days of unspeakable heat? The heat taking the usual storm systems and turning them excessively violent? Lack of investment in infrastructure making recovery from those storms lengthy and piecemeal? Check, check, and check. Remember the “Snowstorm of 88” narratives we all grew up listening to? The next generation of [...]