We created Earth in Action to provide a lens into what's happening on our planet, as it happens. Whether it's something typical, like the current air temperature, or an extreme event like a major dust storm, we wanted to provide an opportunity for people to see them.
Met Éireann is progressing in the area of more localised weather warnings, via the use of polygons to represent areas under warnings. This will mean a move away from county-based warnings to a sub-county-based warning approach, which will identify where the expected impacts will be in the county.
Britain is about to be hit with showers of 'blood rain', according to experts from the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS). This is thanks to a plume of red Saharan dust, which is currently sweeping over Europe towards the UK. When this dust mixes with Britain's persistent rain, the precipitation will take on a distinctive reddish colour - creating a phenomenon known as 'blood rain'.
A record-breaking snowfall event unfolded in far eastern Russia last week when the town of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, located on the Kamchatka peninsula's east coast, received more than 1.8 metres (6 feet) of lying snow in places. Strong winds accompanying the snowfall caused extreme drifting of more than 3 metres against buildings and cars. Two key ingredients combined to cause such an extreme snowfall event. Strong Pacific low pressures dragged moist air from the tropics northwards, which clashed with cold Arctic air already over the region. Conveyor belts of tropical air are called atmospheric rivers and often bring heavy rainfall to places such as California.
SODANKYLÄ, Finland - Deep snow. Fleeting daylight. Wet clothes. Frozen weapons. Sub-zero temperatures. NATO soldiers training in Arctic warfare are learning that in a future conflict, fighting the enemy may be only half the battle. The other would be surviving the region's harsh winters. "The environment can be hard for someone who is not used to it," said Finnish Lt. Laura Lähdekorpi, bundled up and dressed in camouflage to blend in with the snow.
If you've ever glanced at your phone's weather app to check the day's forecast or to help plan for an upcoming storm, you've probably run across a scenario where you see an outrageous forecast. It happened to me earlier this week when I noticed my app was predicting more than 13 inches of snow for the Charlotte, NC area. Not only would that be a historic storm, but it would also be fairly apocalyptic for an area where even an inch of snow is a rarity.
Wind chill is a measure of how quickly bodies lose heat when you combine low temperatures with high winds. And wind chill conditions can be dangerous. "The stronger the winds [and] the colder it is, the more likely you are to develop frostbite in a short amount of time or hypothermia," says Jessica Lee of the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center.
A heavy snowfall warning is in place for Toronto with 10 centimetres of snow expected to affect the morning commute on Wednesday, according to Environment Canada. Residents are urged to plan ahead with extra time for travel due to poor visibility from the heavy and blowing snow, said the national weather agency in a yellow snowfall warning issued late Tuesday afternoon.
Consider the Kamchatka Peninsula, a Russian territory that reaches into the Pacific Ocean north-east of Japan, which has been battling with record amounts of snow this winter. On January 16 alone, a small city on the peninsula's southern coast, called Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, experienced a baffling five and a half feet of snow, effectively burying local residents and their cars completely. Some areas saw more than six and a half feet in just the first half of January.
Recently, Anchorage, Alaska's largest city with nearly 400,000 residents, has just recorded its snowiest January on record. Tucked in between the mighty Cook Inlet and pushed right up against the Chugach Mountains, Anchorage sits in prime location for some serious snow totals. Moisture from pacific storms builds up over the inlet, and thanks to orographic lift caused by the mountains, forces that moisture to drop over Anchorage. Thanks to Alaska's northernly location, that moisture often falls in the form of snow.
In November 2025, a massive storm rolled across the lower Mekong River delta, dumping multiple inches of rain onto the wide, flat river plain that covers much of Cambodia. The river rose and rose. The force of the water churned up mud from the river bottom. The muddy water flowed downstream and rushed into the many farming and fishing towns that line the Mekong's banks.
Wexford, Wicklow, Dublin, Meath and Louth will be under a Status Yellow wind warning and Met Éireann are warning of fallen trees and loose debris, as well as difficult travelling conditions associated with this warning. Counties Cork, Waterford, Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford, Wicklow, and Dublin will be under also be under a Status Yellow rain warning and these counties can expect flooding, poor visibility and difficult travel conditions for the 24-hour period.
It has been an eventful few months for the Northern Hemisphere atmosphere. An unusually early sudden stratospheric warming episode in late November appears to have factored into a weakened and distorted polar vortex at times in December, likely causing extra waviness in the polar jet stream. This helped fuel extensive intrusions of frigid air into the mid-latitudes, contributing to cold snaps in North America, Europe, and Asia, and priming the atmosphere for disruptive winter storms in January.
Growing up outside Manchester, I spent countless summer holidays at my grandparents' farm in the Yorkshire Dales. My grandfather would step outside each morning, scan the sky, and announce with absolute certainty what the weather would do that day. No smartphone apps, no weather channel, just decades of observation. I used to think it was nonsense. How could watching birds or looking at clouds possibly compete with satellite technology? But here's the thing: he was almost always right.
The Environment Agency (EA) has issued 85 warnings for England, meaning flooding is expected, mainly concentrated in the south-west and Midlands. A further 245 flood alerts are in place, meaning flooding is possible, from North Yorkshire to Cornwall and from the Welsh borders to Norfolk. Natural Resources Wales has another 11 flood alerts in place while Scotland has one flood warning and five flood alerts.
During a rare break in the weather, the NYT says helicopters airlifted the researchers and their equipment 19 miles to their planned outpost site on top of the glacier. The two helicopters involved flew a dozen total loads of cargo from the icebreaker ship to the camp site, while glacial scientists and engineers erected a small tent city, complete with bathrooms, generators, and a mess hall.
The pattern change began Monday when the barometric pressure surrounding the region started to fall gradually. That increase in low pressure is coming from the southwest and the air is flowing north, opposite of many winter low-pressure systems that dip in from the Pacific Northwest. As a result, light but steady rain is expected to start in Monterey County and the Central Coast late Tuesday morning. The rain is expected to reach the region closer to San Francisco sometime Tuesday night, Murdock said.