Dr. Jeff Masters

Estimated annual U.S. wildfire smoke deaths 2011-2020: 40,000. With 3°C of global warming: 64,000. With 1.5°C: 52,400.

A 2024 paper, Trends of Heat-Related Deaths in the US, 1999-2023 (jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...), shows a sharp increase in U.S. heat-related deaths beginning in 2016, as tallied by CDC. Not obvious why from U.S. summer temps over that time period. Would need a regional analysis.

In Texas, “2.2% of all summer deaths were caused by moderate and extreme heat.” Heat’s toll is hugely under counted.

True, but as I say, “Hurricanes are like bananas: They come in bunches.” Steering currents have multi-year phases that favor different coastal areas. It's easy to fool yourself into mistaking natural variability for a climate trend. For example, South Florida got hit by 5 Cat 4s in 1945-1950:

Climate is usually talked about on scales of 30+ years; 25 years is too short a period to look at for climate trends.

Will climate change bring more major hurricane landfalls to the U.S.? » Yale Climate Connections A deep dive on the latest hurricane science.

My comprehensive look at the future of major hurricane landfalls for the continental U.S. There is no long-term trend in major hurricane landfalls, but with more majors now prowling the Atlantic, a shift in steering currents could change that.

Yay! Great news.

January had the 3rd most intense Florida drought conditions since 1895, behind only 1932 and 2008, according to www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monit...

The paper: "Establishing nationwide power system vulnerability index across US counties using interpretable machine learning"
arxiv.org/pdf/2410.19754
They used a a power system vulnerability assessment framework based on intensity, frequency, and duration of power outages from 2014-2023.

power outage vulnerability map for the U.S.

A nice map from a 2024 paper showing which counties have the highest vulnerability to their power grid, based on power outage data from 2014-2023. It rated the counties holding Los Angeles/Riverside/San Bernardino, Houston, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and Detroit as ones facing "extreme" risk.

I’ve had to update my plot of the strongest tropical cyclones by ocean basin all too often in recent years, since climate change increases the number of high-end storms. Per post-season analysis, Melissa is now the strongest Atlantic hurricane ever recorded outside the Gulf of Mexico.

6.7

Recent Increasing Trend in October–November Caribbean Tropical Cyclone Activity October–November Caribbean tropical cyclone (TC) activity has increased since 1979, most notably for hurricane-strength TCs The western Atlantic has trended warmer while the equatorial Pacific ha...

From 1950–1995, max of one Caribbean hurricane in Oct-Nov in any year. But in 1996-2024, the region had two+ hurricanes in Oct-Nov nine times. Causes: increased SSTs and Potential Intensity, decreased vertical wind shear, increased mid-level relative humidity, stronger tropical waves.

Introducing Yale Climate Connections’ new Spanish-language page » Yale Climate Connections We’re putting climate coverage in Spanish at your fingertips.

Help us spread the word: We're making climate information more accessible than ever to Spanish-speaking audiences around the world!

yaleclimateconnections.org/2026/02/intr...

Groundbreaking study reveals tenfold heat increase over Europe Researchers have created a new mathematical solution to analyse how emission-intensive actors are responsible for increasing climate damage.

Handy new model can “compute the frequency, duration, intensity, spatial extent and other variables of extreme events. This allows researchers to analyse the extent to which emission-intensive actors such as states or companies are responsible for increasing climate damages and risks.”

Tropical Cyclone Horacio: Earth’s first Category 5 tropical cyclone of 2026 » Yale Climate Connections Located over the remote South Indian Ocean, Horacio is not a threat to any land areas.

We have our first Cat 5 of 2026: Horacio in the remote South Indian Ocean. It's not a threat to any land areas.
yaleclimateconnections.org/2026/02/trop...

One NOAA tide gage is forecast to see major coastal flooding from the coming Nor'easter, during the 1 a.m. Monday high tide cycle: Lewes, DE. This would be the 8th-highest water level since records began in 1919, ~1.3' below the record set in the 1/23/16 Nor'easter, and ~0.7' below Hurricane Sandy.

Like I’ll be discussing in a future article, “hurricanes are like bananas, they come in bunches”. Southeast Florida’s bunches came in 1945-1950, and will come again some day.

The future of Atlantic hurricane tracks » Yale Climate Connections A look at what we know and don't yet know about how climate change could affect the paths of these storms — and the all-important question of how often they'll make landfall.

My comprehensive look at how Atlantic hurricane tracks are changing and will change. One takeaway:
No significant changes in tracks have been reliably detected in recent decades, though there appears to have been a significant shift to the south for storms attaining hurricane strength.

Insurers want to protect NCAR: "NCAR has long supplied the foundational capabilities that enable catastrophe modeling and climate-informed pricing. Disruption would heighten uncertainty in risk assessments, and undermine the stability and affordability of insurance coverage for U.S. consumers."

North: The Future of Post-Climate America. Book Talk with Jesse M. Keenan (In Person) - Yale Program on Climate Change Communication Climate change is already influencing how and where people live. Jesse M. Keenan discusses his new book, North: The Future of Post-Climate America (Oxford University Press), which explores how ...

I'm looking forward to joining friends and colleagues at @yale.edu @yaleclimatecomm.bsky.social on Monday to discuss, North: The Future of Post-Climate America (Oxford). yaleconnect.yale.edu/ypccc/rsvp_b...

Wow, thanks, I assumed that the map I got from the EPA was current, but it was indeed from Friday. The Monday purpleair.com map shows the air pollution episode caused by the mobilization of PM2.5 particles from the melting snowpack. Concerning that airnow.gov is not updating the pollution maps.

Wow, thanks, I assumed that the map I got from the EPA was current, but it was indeed from Friday. The Monday purpleair.com map shows the air pollution episode caused by the mobilization of PM2.5 particles from the melting snowpack. Concerning that airnow.gov is not updating the pollution maps.

Significant air pollution episode over Michigan the past 2 days as 50° temps melt a 7-week-old snow pack, mobilizing PM 2.5 particles that had fallen on the snow. Light winds, low mixing, and fresh emissions contributing to the event. AQI largely in the orange "Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups" range.

54.0 days to decision from 21.5 25.8% denial rate from 15.2%

FEMA decision time for disaster declarations has more that doubled as of 2025.

Previously 1 in 6 applications denied, now 1 in 4.

Incredible new interactive dashboard from @andrewrumbach.bsky.social

andrewrumbach.com/disaster-lab

Despite Eastern U.S. cold, January 2026 was one of the world's warmest Januaries on record » Yale Climate Connections Near-record warmth in the Western U.S. gave the contiguous U.S. an above-average temperature for the month.

Between its mild start and its frigid ending, the eastern U.S. is one of the few areas on Earth where temperatures *didn't* end up above average for January 2026. Almost everywhere else, the ever-warming band played on. From @drjeffmasters.bsky.social:

yaleclimateconnections.org/2026/02/desp...

Weak self-induced cooling of tropical cyclones amid fast sea surface warming - Nature Geoscience Tropical cyclones cool the ocean surface less than previously thought, indicating that current projections may underestimate their future intensity and frequency, according to an analysis of global se...

Hurricanes are getting stronger: This study found from 1992-2021, Cat 1+ hurricanes globally intensified by 1.74 m/s (3.9 mph) over the 30-year period, and that a cold bias in IPCC climate models "probably contributes to an underestimate in projections of major hurricane frequency.”

Nice tool! I like how they give a 1-year, 15-year, and 30-year probability of a wildfire burning your property. There's just a 0.28% chance in 1 year for the sample property I show below, but a 7.56% chance over 30 years.

Mitigating the climate crisis by stopping the burning of fossil fuels has a massive co-benefit we should talk about all the time: a >3% of GDP savings through less air pollution.

Very little rain coming in the next 2 weeks. “With less than 4” of rain since November, the South Florida Water Management District said water levels in the Biscayne Aquifer have fallen dramatically. In some places, levels are the lowest in more than a decade”. www.miamiherald.com/news/local/e...