Hurricane Zeta Arrives on the Gulf Coast – Dramatic Space Station Flyover Video
For the fifth time this year, a named tropical storm or hurricane is going to make landfall in Louisiana. For the eleventh time in 2020,…
Earth Observatory
East Troublesome Fire – Colorado’s Second Largest Fire on Record – Spreads to the Rockies
On October 14, 2020, a small fire started north of Hot Sulphur Springs in north-central Colorado. Within ten days, the East Troublesome fire had burned…
Earth vs. Pluto: Snowy and Icy Peaks with Very Different Origins
Like Earth, the dwarf planet of Pluto has mountains. Like their earthly cousins, some of those peaks are covered in blankets of white. But the…
NASA Picturing Earth: Astronaut Photography In Focus [Video]
For 20 years, astronauts have been shooting photos of Earth from the space station. Like everything the astronauts do, they are trained for this job….
Investigating California’s Rising and Sinking Coast
Global sea level has been rising at a rate of 0.1 inches (3.3 millimeters) per year in the past three decades. The causes are mostly…
The Looming Specter of a Massive Mega-Tsunami in Alaska
While kayaking in Barry Arm fjord in June 2019, Valisa Higman, an artist-in-residence at Alaska’s Chugach National Forest, noticed some odd fractures on a cliff…
Historic 2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season Is Not Done: Hurricane Delta Aims for the U.S. Gulf Coast
The historic 2020 Atlantic hurricane season is not done yet. Hurricane Delta, the 25th named storm of the season, is expected to make landfall on…
Monstrous Thunderstorms Rumble Over the Great Plains
During the summer, the U.S. Great Plains routinely experiences nighttime thunderstorms unlike anywhere else in the country. These large-scale storms—sometimes spanning entire states—account for more…
Coloring the Great Salt Lake – Astronaut Takes Beautiful Photograph From Space Station
While passing over northern Utah, an astronaut onboard the International Space Station (ISS) captured this photograph of an eastern portion of the Great Salt Lake….
California’s Nightmare Fire Season Continues – See NASA’s Latest Satellite Images
After a brief lull, a late-September heat wave reinvigorated California’s already brutal 2020 fire season. The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the NOAA-20…
Bobcat Fire Scorches Southern California – One of the Largest Fires on Record for Los Angeles County
After burning more than 180 square miles (460 square kilometers) of the San Gabriel Mountains in September 2020, the Bobcat fire now ranks among the…
Arctic Sea Ice Reaches Second-Lowest Minimum on Record
Arctic sea ice likely reached its annual minimum extent on September 15, 2020, according to researchers at NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data…
Extraordinary Fires Char the Pantanal, a Vast Floodplain in South America
The Pantanal, a vast floodplain in South America, is among the largest wetlands in the world. The mosaic of grasslands, shrublands, forests, marshes, and lakes…
A Meeting of Black Carbon Smoke and Tropical Storms
As large fires on the U.S. West Coast lofted vast plumes of smoke high into the atmosphere in September 2020, satellites and models tracked the…
Historic Fires Devastate the U.S. Pacific Coast – Scientists at a Loss for Words to Describe the Scope and Intensity
Climate and fire scientists have long anticipated that fires in the U.S. West would grow larger, more intense, and more dangerous. But even the most…
Massive Wall of Smoke on U.S. West Coast – Easily Visible From 1 Million Miles Away From Earth
Wildfires continue to rage in the western United States. On September 9, 2020, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this…
More, Longer, Hotter: California Heatwave Fits a Trend
In early September 2020, an intense heatwave broke temperature records in several locations in Southern California. The dry, hot conditions helped fuel new and existing…
Intense Heat, Winds, and Drought Fuel Smoky Infernos Across Western United States
Intense heat, winds, and drought have fueled smoky infernos in the western United States. Though serious fires burned in California and other western states for…