July is the hallmark of summer in the United States. Long days, intense sun and high humidity typically make it the hottest month of the year. The heat can also trigger flash droughts, wildfires and summer storms. This July didn’t disappoint.Here’s how July and the year to date fared in terms of the climate record. 

Scientists have determined this year’s Gulf of Mexico “dead zone,” an area of low oxygen that can kill fish and marine life, is 8,776 square miles, an area about the size of New Jersey. It is the largest measured since dead zone mapping began there in 1985.The measured size is close to the 8,185 square…

Compared to its dazzling deep-sea coral neighbors, the green Latrunculia austini sponge is pretty drab. Dotted with craters and pitted by deep holes the golf-ball sized sponge is curious-looking rather than beautiful. But green Latrunculia’s unique chemical composition holds a promise much greater than mere beauty.

As severe weather brewed in the Texas panhandle late in the afternoon of May 16,  NOAA National Weather Service forecasters alerted residents in parts of western Oklahoma about the potential for large hail and damaging tornadoes that evening, particularly in the area around Elk City.Ninety minutes later, a dangerous, rain-wrapped EF-2 tornado struck the small…

Detecting and predicting lightning just got a lot easier. The first images from a new instrument onboard NOAA’s GOES-16 satellite are giving NOAA National Weather Service forecasters richer information about lightning that will help them alert the public to dangerous weather.

It has been warm this winter for much of the country. But even with that said, temperatures recorded during a four-day period in late February 2017 across the central and eastern United States were extraordinary for the end of meteorological winter—December through February.

Sea ice on track for lowest maximum amount on record.

Using the Deep Discoverer ROV, scientists will investigate deepwater habitats, geology, and the biology of sea animals as it dives as far as 3.7 miles (6,000 meters) deep. The public can watch online.The 2017 explorations will run through September and are part of the third and final year of NOAA’s Campaign to Address Pacific monument…

For Bill Mook, coastal acidification is one thing his oyster hatchery cannot afford to ignore.Mook Sea Farm depends on seawater from the Gulf of Maine pumped into a Quonset hut-style building where tiny oysters are grown in tanks. Mook sells these tiny oysters to other oyster farmers or transfers them to his oyster farm on…

Since the GOES-16 satellite lifted off from Cape Canaveral on November 19, scientists, meteorologists and ordinary weather enthusiasts have anxiously waited for the first photos from NOAA’s newest weather satellite, GOES-16, formerly GOES-R.The release of the first images today is the latest step in a new age of weather satellites. It will be like high-definition from…