The taxonomist in me can’t help but notice that photographs of Hurricane Sandy, now bearing down on the Atlantic coast, fall into distinct categories. So I’ve made a helpful guide to 10 common storm images, complete with identification tips. 1. The Satellite Overview Diagnostic traits: white, swirly, often accompanied by a NOAA stamp. You wouldn’t [...]

It is difficult to focus on hurricane warnings right now, when Oklahoma is reeling from some of the worst tornadoes ever recorded. But the storms do raise questions about the abilities of U.S. scientists to predict severe weather, and the answers are not clear. Just last week the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released an [...]

UCAR president Thomas Bogdan leads the movement to form a U.S. Weather Commission. Photo by Carlye Calvin Despite the ever-present caveat that predicting the weather is a difficult and inexact science, it seems that forecasts have been getting better and better. Yet some leaders in meteorology say continued improvement is not guaranteed and could even [...]

The 2012 New York City Marathon may not be televised, but it is being organized on an unofficial basis by men and women who have banded together to run anyway. The official race was belatedly cancelled on Friday in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Teams from Canada, Germany, and Switzerland (identifiable because they carried their [...]

As New York, New Jersey and the rest of the northeastern U.S. come to grips with Hurricane Sandy’s impact, some leaders there are realizing that two debilitating hurricanes in as many years there are a sign that infrastructure there needs rethought, not just rebuilt. Postmortem assessments of Sandy’s impact should include a “fundamental rethinking of [...]

If you’ve followed the U.S. news and weather in the past 24 hours you have no doubt run across a journalist or blogger explaining why it’s difficult to say that climate change could be causing big storms like Sandy. Well, no doubt here: it is. The hedge expressed by journalists is that many variables go [...]

GOWANUS, NEW YORK CITY–The winds continue to increase here, howling past windows and splattering the rain. Tiny beads of water almost feel like sand when you step outside thanks to the strong gusts. Such is Hurricane Sandy as it speeds into the New York metropolitan region and prepares to turn and slam in slow motion [...]

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 [...]

Utility companies in the United States are good at their job – so good that Americans can largely take for granted that, when they flip a switch, their lights will come on. But, if extensive investments are not made over the coming decade, the nation might soon use “blackout” as its mot du jor. If [...]

I am here at home in Maplewood, New Jersey, four days after an angry wind whipped through the trees, sending my entire family downstairs into the living room for the night. There we huddled, tucked under covers on mattresses hauled down from higher, more exposed floors of our house while we listened to the roar [...]

Story 5 Hurricane Sandy hit New York City and surrounding areas hard this week, flooding streets and damaging homes. The full moon played a role in the severity of the flooding, due to a phenomena called syzygy. Links: Astronomy links full moon to Hurricane Sandy high tide Story 4 Astronomers have detected ancient starlight from [...]