CIMSS

09/21/2026

How was Wisconsin's summer? Ask the Weather Guys!

Meteorological summer is defined as the weather from June 1 through Aug. 31. The reference, or normal, climate period is the 30-year period of 1991-2020. The State Climatology Office recently completed its analysis of our 2026 summer conditions and created a comparison with previous summers.The stat...

09/18/2026

Never a dull moment when Tom Skilling visits! Thank you Tom for highlighting the work we do and our researchers.

In the thick of the season, some of the nation’s top hurricane scientists are thousands of miles from the ocean.

09/09/2026

The Atlantic continues to show no signs of tropical development and there is no indication this is going to change in the near future. In fact an unusually strong late season Saharan Air Layer (SAL) outbreak is now spreading across the Main Development Region (MDR) which will suppress activity over the next week or so. 2026 will set a record for the latest forming hurricane in the Atlantic during the satellite era surpassing the date of September 11 set in 2002 and 2013.

09/08/2026

Why do clouds have flat bottoms and fluffy tops? Ask the Weather Guys!

Clouds are composed of tiny liquid water droplets, whose diameters are about the width of a human hair, and tiny shards of ice in a variety of shapes, or habits. Whether a cloud is mostly liquid water droplets or ice particles depends, as you might guess, on the ambient temperature of the air in the...

09/02/2026

Hurricane Lowell is a powerful Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 135 knots/155 mph. The storm is on the verge of reaching Category 5 with some satellite estimates already at that level including the CIMSS ADT and the microwave AI method the D-MINT algorithm. The storm is following a fairly classic track for storms in this region from east to west. Other major hurricanes that have passed through this are are shown below. Note there is one exception in this plot, Hurricane Iniki in 1992 that turned sharply north. NOAA is sending aircraft to the region for both research and monitoring of the storm starting today. One goal will be to sample the atmosphere north of the storm to see if a turn to the north toward Hawaii is possible as some models show. Right now it is too early to say. About as many models go west as do turn north. Such bifurcations in track forecasts are common at longer forecast ranges and represent an area of research focus in order to understand and reduce these uncertainties. If you would like to see where other historical storms have occurred maybe where you live you can do so using this very handy tool:

https://coast.noaa.gov/hurricanes/ =4/32/-80

09/01/2026

Tropical Storm Edouard is making landfall near the Louisiana/Texas border with potentially damaging wind gusts, minor coastal flooding and perhaps several inches of rain even far inland. The system is a tiny storm in terms of it's size with the core of the storm only about 50 miles across. Contrast this with the larger storms Lowell, Karina and Marie in the Eastern Pacific (a region where on average storms are smaller). It is important to remember that storm size is not related to storm intensity. Tropical cyclones can be large but weak or compact and strong. Cyclone Tracy was about the size of Edouard and hit Darwin, Australia in 1974 with sustained winds of 110 mph. Two storms of the same intensity may have very different impacts because of their size. Larger storms tend to produce larger areas of damage from winds and especially from storm surge. Communicating the threat of each storm can be a challenge as many in the public tend to focus on the Saffir-Simpson category alone. This is why it is important to listen to the actual warnings issued for your area regardless of that storm category or whether the center of the storm will pass close to you. The National Hurricane Center is providing experimental warnings this season to try to improve threat impacts communication. For example you can see that for Edouard the tropical storm warnings do not stop at the coast but extend inland to counties away from the coast. As noted the rainfall threat will extend far inland as well.

09/01/2026

A targeted Moderate Risk has been issued for rainfall associated with Tropical Storm Edouard as it approaches the upper Texas coast and moves inland this afternoon/evening. Locally heavy rainfall of 6"+ may lead to scattered to numerous instances of flash flooding.

08/31/2026

Does every hurricane develop an eye? Ask the Weather Guys!

Seen from space, a hurricane appears as a vast spiral of clouds stretching across hundreds of miles. Near the center of strong hurricanes is the eye, a roughly circular region of comparatively calm weather, light winds, and low pressure.The eye is one of the storm's most recognizable features, but i...

08/31/2026

Listen to the Weather Guys from 12-1 today on the Wisconsin Public Radio's Lee Rayburn Show:

Listen to The Lee Rayburn Show on WPR, Wisconsin’s midday call-in program featuring expert guests, listener questions and practical conversations about everyday life.

08/31/2026

The National Hurricane Center has started advisories for Potential Tropical Cyclone #5 just off the coast of Louisiana. The system has been slowly organizing the last few days with increasing convection. This morning a scatterometer pass from the OCEANSAT scatterometer indicated that the circulation has become nearly closed. Aircraft reconnaissance are currently flying the system now to determine if it is more organized. The data show it is close to becoming a TC. Tropical Storm watches have been issued for the LA/TX coast in anticipation of the system strengthening.