Month: December 2018

From Texas Standard: Where do tornadoes come from? It’s not a riddle or a trick question, although the answer may seem obvious: the sky, right? Evidently, that’s not the case. Tornadoes form from the ground up, not from the sky down – at least that’s the claim made by University of Ohio atmospheric scientist Jana Houser and her colleagues in a recent paper. Houser says the idea that tornadoes might move from ground to sky is not…

Where do tornadoes come from? It’s not a riddle or a trick question, although the answer may seem obvious: the sky, right? Evidently, that’s not the case. Tornadoes form from the ground up, not from the sky down – at least that’s the claim made by University of Ohio atmospheric scientist Jana Houser and her colleagues in a recent paper. Houser says the idea that tornadoes might move from ground to sky is not new. Researchers have…

[embedded content] [embedded content] [embedded content] [embedded content] [embedded content] [embedded content] Members of the NPR Visuals team used their skills in photography, illustration, data visualizations and video to tell stories that reflect the world around us. The year was filled with political news as we tracked the 2018 midterm elections. We continued our coverage of Puerto Rico’s recovery efforts after Hurricane Maria significantly damaged the island in 2017. Photographers documented South American migrants who…

2018 was a hot year — in fact, the fourth warmest on record. The only years that were, on average, warmer were the past three, according to the World Meteorological Organization. It has been warming for decades now. But 2018 brought several major new and markedly more precise reports from scientists about what climate change is doing to the weather and how dire they expect the consequences to be. That didn’t stop President Trump and…

Texas is not a state known for strong environmental protections. The fact is, many green groups head into legislative sessions more concerned about stopping bills that might do harm than supporting bills that might help. With that in mind, here’s a quick breakdown of some bills that have been filed and some that might be in 2019. They say Texas is bigger than France. But you know what’s bigger than Texas? A massive island of plastic…