Dr. Jeff Masters

“Visibility hovered around or below 1 km in Fort McMurray, Alberta for most of the day Sunday, with the airport reporting exceptionally low visibility of just 200 metres at 5:00 p.m. local time.” The AQI hit 2242: 10x higher than the “hazardous” level. www.theweathernetwork.com/en/news/weat...

NEW: Extraordinary footage has emerged of the huge tsunami that hit Russia’s remote Kamchatka peninsula after the 8.8 magnitude earthquake on July 30th.

(🎥 Doni Nikz)

The smoke is generally too far north to affect tropical storms.

Map showing Air Quality Index forecast for Tuesday in North America.

PM 2.5 forecast for 8 am EDT Tuesday from NASA's model (fluid.nccs.nasa.gov/wxmaps/chem2...) calling for AQIs in the orange "Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups" to red "Unhealthy" range for most of the Midwest and Northeast. See: yaleclimateconnections.org/2025/07/15-s... for sources of smoke forecasts.

Wildfire smoke from Canada is bringing AQIs for PM 2.5 into the red "Unhealthy" range unusually far south today. See my post, "15 sources of wildfire smoke forecasts for North America" (yaleclimateconnections.org/2025/07/15-s...) to see ways to get forecasts on where the smoke is going.

Is 'heat dome' overhyped? Why some meteorologists dislike this term » Yale Climate Connections A closer look at the buzzy term dominating summer forecasts

It's the "it" term for heat waves these days, even if it's not the most apt description in some cases.

yaleclimateconnections.org/2025/08/is-h...

Surface PM 2.5 forecast for 11 am EDT Friday from Environment Canada’s Air Quality Model (weather.gc.ca/firework/fir...) shows a plume of wildfire smoke causing surface AQI near 100 (Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups) diving deep into the U.S. See my post, yaleclimateconnections.org/2025/07/15-s...

From www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/...: “Iran’s capital Tehran risks running out of water in weeks. It is the culmination of a five-year drought and decades of mismanagement. The government is pleading with citizens to restrict water use and has shut down offices and schools to combat the crisis.”

Source: a 2021 study, An Analysis of Flood Fatalities in the United States, 1959-2019: www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/13...

86% of all U. S. drowning deaths occur when people deliberately drive or walk into flood waters.

Some of the models do make forecasts of all sources of fine particles (PM 2.5), including smoke, cars, power plants, industrial sources, etc. The best are from NOAA: airquality.weather.gov?element=apm2...
and from Environment Canada: weather.gc.ca/firework/fir...

15 sources of wildfire smoke forecasts for North America » Yale Climate Connections Forecasting wildfire smoke is hard. We review the best tools to help you predict when unhealthful levels of smoke are coming.

We now live in the Pyrocene, a proposed new geologic epoch of fire activity brought about by human-caused climate change. Living in the Pyrocene means a new reality: knowing what the latest wildfire smoke forecasts are, in order to plan your outdoor activities. I review the best tools to do so:

Detailed look at the Texas floods. “Call on God, but row away from the rocks.” It seems to me like in our response to this disaster that we are seeing a lot of calling on God - both figuratively and literally - but not much about how we could have and should in the future “row away from the rocks.”

Some good news for a change! We will keep a critical source of microwave satellite data going for at least another year, or until the satellites, which are already operating 15 years past their expected lifetime, fail.

Fantastic reporting on the state of microwave satellite imagery.

The Palmer, in use since 1992, “hosted two helicopters and up to 45 researchers, and made daring visits to the Thwaites “doomsday” Glacier in West Antarctica. The ship provided a home base for autonomous vehicles mapping the currents below the ice and helicopter access to its perilous ice shelf.”

Thanks, here's an updated version of the graphic that I put into the post:

Climate Change Is Making Fire Weather Worse for World’s Forests

The chances of seeing extreme fire weather are roughly double in today’s climate compared with the preindustrial period. “It really puts to bed any debate about the role of climate change in driving these extreme fires,” Dr. Cunningham said.

Deadliest U.S. flash floods on record, from my latest post, yaleclimateconnections.org/2025/07/the-.... Placing deadly disasters in historical context helps us see if modern disaster preparedness and weather forecasts are sufficient in an age of climate change and increasing vulnerability.

Deadliest U.S. river floods on record, from my latest post, yaleclimateconnections.org/2025/07/the-.... Most recent one to make the top-15 list was flooding in 1972 from Hurricane Agnes.

Deadliest U.S. storm surge floods on record, from my latest post, yaleclimateconnections.org/2025/07/the-.... Katrina comes in at #8, but lots of uncertainty about death tolls from storms 100+ years ago.

The deadliest floods in U.S. history » Yale Climate Connections The July 4 floods in central Texas rank as the 10th-deadliest flash flood in U.S. history.

Our latest: the deadliest U.S. floods on record, divided 3 ways: flash, river, and storm surge (with help from @cj-mock.bsky.social). The Texas July 4 floods had the highest toll from a flash flood in 49 years--a warning sign that we need to do more to safeguard people from flash flooding.

Screenshot from polarportal.dk, a website that makes research on the Arctic research conducted by Danish institutions available to the public and researchers. The image shows Greenland in tan and the Greenland Ice Sheet in red and white. The red part indicates melting and covers all except about 20% in the northeast, which is roughly the area higher than 2500 m above Se level. Below the map is a chart that compares 2025 melting to the 1981-2010 average. The average melting peaks in mid-July at about 35%. For the last few days, melting has occurred over roughly 80% of the area of Greenland, with a maximum melt area of 80.6% on 24 July 2025. This is the highest value in our dataset, which starts in 1981.

Melting over 80.6% of the area of the Greenland Ice Sheet. This is the highest value in our data set, which starts in 1981.

@polarportal.bsky.social

A Thought Experiment Reveals the Fingerprints of Climate Change Came Early By Ben Santer, Susan Solomon, David W.

"...work to understand the nature and causes of climate changes are rejected, and are replaced by ideology, conspiracy theories and disinformation. Stopping climate work will lead to a data vacuum that could last years or even decades. This experiment in willful ignorance can only end poorly."

‘Alligator Alcatraz’ is harsh. Climate change is making it even harsher. » Yale Climate Connections Hundreds of people face intense heat and relentless mosquitoes at the Florida Everglades facility.

A gross subversion of what emergency management should be doing: "Alligator Alcatraz is overseen by the Florida Division of Emergency Management Executive Director Kevin Guthrie. Federal tax dollars from FEMA are expected to help fund the facility, which will cost $450 million a year to operate."

What Happens When Housing Prices Go Down (because they are)? A reflection on affordability, finance, and the deep contradictions we refuse to face.

Climate migration will drive housing demand, but: "We don’t build starter homes anymore. We don’t build backyard cottages, garage apartments, or other small-scale dwellings. The only products that get built are big, expensive, and debt-dependent because that’s what today’s financing system demands."

Drought is climate change’s biggest threat, since it impacts both food and water.

A weird lack of Northern Hemisphere tropical cyclones so far in 2025 » Yale Climate Connections It’s been one of the least active years on record for tropical cyclones in the Northern Hemisphere. That could change soon.

What's the deal with the relative lack of tropical cyclones across the whole Northern Hemisphere so far this year? yaleclimateconnections.org/2025/07/a-we...

“Five years ago, he said, farmers would say they’ve been through droughts before, and this one would soon pass. Now, he said, their tone has changed to “This is a different kind of a drought.”

The discourse surrounding precipitation changes in a warming climate (both public discussion and even scientific one at times) is complicated by widespread conflation of changes in averages vs extremes (and also actual vs *potential* evaporation/evaporative demand). [Thread]