The Evaporative Demand Drought Index, or EDDI, provides early warning of oncoming droughts and crop impacts by measuring the "thirst" of the atmosphere.
In one of our nation’s most relentless hurricane seasons, NOAA research scientists were on the front lines of gathering key data used to help produce forecasts that saved lives and protected property. They also worked behind the scenes pushing the frontiers of weather forecasting skill in storm track, wind speeds and rainfall amounts by running and refining experimental forecast models for the future. And they tested new drones in air and water to assess their ability to gather data that can improve hurricane prediction.
Catastrophic flooding from Hurricane Harvey that led to more than 60 deaths and thousands of rescues showed again that an accurate NOAA forecast by itself is not enough to ensure people grasp the risks and make sound decisions that save lives and property.
Measurements from satellites this year showed the hole in Earth’s ozone layer that forms over Antarctica each September was the smallest observed since 1988, scientists from NASA and NOAA announced today.
Extensive, mature forest cover can mitigate the impact of severe heat waves, droughts and other weather extremes over large regions, according to new NOAA research published in the journal Nature Communications.
On Friday, August 25, U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy will sail from Dutch Harbor, Alaska, with a team of NOAA scientists and collaborators on a 22-day cruise to study environmental change in the western Arctic Ocean.
The August 21 eclipse will give NOAA scientists an unprecedented opportunity to compare conditions of the atmosphere with and without the eclipse, and see how it interrupts processes in the lowest part of the atmosphere in direct contact with Earth’s surface across the entire continent.
Over the next four months, NOAA scientists will launch unmanned ocean vehicles, called Saildrones, from the Arctic to the tropical Pacific Ocean to help better understand how changes in the ocean are affecting weather, climate, fisheries and marine mammals. The wind and solar-powered research vehicles that resemble a sailboat will travel thousands of miles across the ocean, reaching some areas never before surveyed with such specialized technology.