The wave of early retirements, firings of probationary workers and other Trump administration incentives for federal employees to leave government service led to more than 560 departures from the NWS, according to a NOAA employee who requested anonymity for fear of retribution.

The bleaching event has been so severe that NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch program has had to add levels to its bleaching alert scale to account for the growing risk of coral death.

It’s the first time in recorded history that the planet was above a hoped-for limit to warming for an entire year, according to measurements from four of the six teams. Scientists say if Earth stays above the threshold long-term, it will mean increased deaths, destruction, species loss and sea level rise from the extreme weather that accompanies warming.

The Great Lakes are likely to see more precipitation this winter, according to a newly released seasonal outlook from the Climate Prediction Center.

A severe geomagnetic storm is heading toward Earth, likely to hit Thursday, and what that means for Chicagoans is conditions are ripe for another spectacular display of the aurora borealis (northern lights) in our neck of the woods.

An eruption of solar particles is headed toward Earth and the impact could be strong enough to make the aurora borealis visible in the lower Midwest, including northern Illinois, through Thursday.

It’s official, Chicago: February 2024 was the warmest in 153 years of recording keeping.

Chicago is one of 18 cities chosen for the Heat Watch Campaign, which will map the city's urban heat islands — places with fewer trees and more pavement, where temperatures can soar 20 degrees higher than surrounding areas.

State climatologist Trent Ford said conditions aren't alarming, yet, but if June isn't signficantly wetter than May, there's cause for concern.

About 60% of the Midwest and northern Great Plain states are in a drought. Nearly the entire stretch of the Mississippi River — from Minnesota to the river’s mouth in Louisiana — has experienced below average rainfall over the past two months.

Anchored a mile off Navy Pier, Chuoy the Buoy fills a Chicago-sized gap in shoreline monitoring. Swimmers, boaters, anglers, researchers and meteorologists alike will benefit from data collected close to the city’s lakefront.   

Methane is a big contributor to climate change, leading to about a 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit (0.5 degrees Celsius) increase in temperature since the 19th century, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Carbon dioxide has caused about 50% more warming than methane.

Earth simmered to the sixth hottest year on record in 2021, according to several newly released temperature measurements.

According to a federal report released Monday, the U.S. experienced 20 billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in 2021, including hurricanes, wildfires and out-of-season December tornadoes.

Temperatures edged out the record for the continental U.S. set back in 1936 during the “Dust Bowl” summer, according to the latest climate report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The Chicago region is warming faster than the globe, says the newly sworn-in administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. How a new plan aims to take on the root cause of climate change: greenhouse gas emissions.