Hurricane Ready - Season Starts Soon

Organizations such as NOAA, The National Hurricane Center, FEMA, The American Red Cross and Readygov are reminding everyone about Hurricane season which starts very soon..

Remember that Hurricanes do not just affect coastal areas. Many of us remember what has happened in recent history with Irene, Lee and Superstorm Sandy.  The NHC has issued it's general forecast for this year and they are expecting an active Hurricane season. 

These organizations have generously distributed this PDF guide about Tropical Cyclones to the public.

PREPAREDNESS GUIDE (NOAA) - Click to open

Tornado Genesis

Here is a Nat Geo video featuring Tim Samaras who tracked down the birth of a Tornado near South Central Kansas.  Winds were clocked at over 200 miles per hour.

Terrifying Twisters in North Texas

Northern Texas on May 15th had 16 tornadoes touch down and as you can imagine residents had a tough night dealing with these storms. Up to softball sized  hail was witnessed during the severe storms.  Sadly Granbury Texas had a mile wide EF-4  tornado with calculated winds of 180 mph. There were 6 casualties, over 100 injuries and loss of property.

Here is a video from the Red Cross that will give you an idea of the damage and the need for
 support for the families affected by these deadly storms.

If you wish to donate to the Red Cross to help the people of Granbury Texas please click here:

http://www.redcross.org/charitable-donations 

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Taking Pictures from Orbit

Space Weather is something that has always fascinated me. You are going to end up asking me, how does taking pictures from orbit have to do with Space Weather?  Well not too much however, seeing high quality images of the Earth gives us an idea of the conditions in both the atmosphere such as seeing the aurora and the in our sky with cloud formations, storms and at times, views of the surface such as ocean currents and river flows.  Just looking at the complex and beautiful textures that can be seen from space is worth seeing this video.

Special thanks to Commander Hadfield for sharing such a great and informative video 

from on board the International Space Station.

Strongest Solar Flare of 2013 (so far)

Scientists at NASA have proclaimed that they have detected what apparently is the strongest solar flare so far for this year.  This expulsion of solar energy from the Sun caused a radio blackout to occur that was measured as a M6.5.

Please watch this brief video showing the solar flare courtesy of NASA