Author: Derrick Lester

Observing a significant snowstorm sweep across the Eastern Seaboard from space has an almost cinematic quality. Surprisingly deliberately, the whirling white mass pushes across state lines, engulfs highways, and closes federal offices. The majority of people who watch it from their windows are unaware that a constellation of satellites is tracking every move the storm makes somewhere high above them, feeding data to systems that are smarter and faster than anything the public has been told much about. NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service intervened on January 6, 2025, when a powerful winter storm battered Washington, D.C. and…

Observing an ocean rise from space has a subtle unnerving quality. Not dramatically, not all at once, but inch by inch, measured in centimeters by a 1,336-kilometer-high satellite the size of a small bus. That is precisely what the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite has been doing, and the images it took over the Pacific Ocean in early June 2026 are being compared to one of the most catastrophic weather events in recorded history. After sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific rose at least 0.5 degrees Celsius above average for several months in a row, NOAA officially…

In the early morning of mid-June, Missoula is especially serene. The air feels like it belongs to a different season for a brief period of time, perhaps forty minutes, as the Clark Fork River absorbs whatever light filters over the Rattlesnake Wilderness before the valley floor warms. The thermometer then rises. Quick. In the afternoon, the city is baking silently under blue skies that almost seem artificial, with temperatures comfortably in the high seventies or low eighties. The forecast for this week seems almost too optimistic. Highs are expected to reach 80 degrees on Thursday, 83 on Friday, and 88…

One of the more reliable areas of broadcast news may appear to be the weather desk at a local TV station. Every few years, there might be a new radar system, but the faces and graphics remain the same. However, there’s a subtle sense that something important has changed this spring as you pass KSTP’s studios in the Twin Cities. It’s a gradual change that only becomes apparent when you take a step back and consider the bigger picture. When Matt Serwe announced his departure, it all began. For viewers who tuned in expecting consistency, Serwe had been the weekend…

When your phone displays nothing while you’re standing in a perfectly normal location, such as a highway in Wyoming, a rural Pakistani valley, or a boat a few miles off the coast, you experience a particular kind of frustration. Not a single bar. The signal is now just a blank icon. It’s the kind of moment when you realize how much of the world is just out of reach for the cellular network. Only roughly 15% of the Earth’s surface is truly covered by cellular infrastructure, according to satellite communications company Iridium. There is silence for the remainder. In the…

The mid-June weather in Fargo has an almost defiant quality. When you step outside expecting summer—steady warmth, long evenings, that certain golden light that makes the flatlands look almost cinematic—you are met with an 8-mile-per-hour northwest wind and a 30% chance of showers just as you had made the decision to leave the jacket at home. Every year, it takes place. And for some reason, it still surprises people every year. At around 13 degrees Celsius in the early hours of June 18, Fargo is doing what it does best right now: keeping everyone guessing. With partly cloudy skies and…

A Pacific Ocean that won’t cool down has a subtle unnerving quality. In the central-eastern equatorial Pacific, subsurface temperatures have been more than six degrees Celsius above average. This figure may sound technical, but it actually means that heat is building beneath the surface like pressure behind a dam, eventually forcing its way upward and altering weather patterns across entire continents. As we approach what looks to be a challenging winter season, that is precisely what is taking place at the moment. According to the World Meteorological Organization, there is an 80% chance that El Niño conditions will continue through…

Eden Gray knew exactly what she wanted going into her senior year of high school. music. drama. books. topics that evoked strong emotions in her. During her final year at Stretton State College in Brisbane, she participated in six musical ensembles as a saxophonist and percussionist. She finished with an ATAR of 95.35. That is an impressive outcome by all standards. What’s intriguing, though, is that her path is starting to become truly uncommon. And the reasons for making an uncomfortable statement about the direction Queensland’s education system has been stealthily taking for more than ten years. Queensland’s Year 12…

Denver excels at a certain type of morning more than almost anywhere else: the Rockies appear to be posing in the background, the sky is so blue it almost looks painted, and the air is cool and thin. You think, “This is manageable,” as you step outside before eight o’clock. The same sky has turned pale, almost white at the edges, and by two in the afternoon, the temperature is approaching 90°F. The city is baking quietly under what forecasters are calling, with little fanfare, “mostly sunny.” Denver’s current weather is characterized by this contrast: the relentless afternoon and the…

Most people wouldn’t be able to locate Sirik on a map. It is located in the southern Hormozgan Province of Iran, a section of coastline that faces Oman and the United Arab Emirates across the Gulf. The area has dry air and warm water, making it seem forgotten until all of a sudden it isn’t. A $25 billion deal between Tehran and Moscow is currently centered around that peaceful geography, which has American officials observing with a familiar, restless uneasiness and European diplomats quietly alarmed. Four new nuclear power reactors will be built on a 500-hectare site in Sirik as…