NOAA

This carnivorous sponge was one of several seen during Dive 09 of the 2026 Cook Islands ROV Exploration cruise. Unlike fitler feeding sponges, carnivorous sponges prey on animals such as small crustaceans that they capture from the water column. Credit: NOAA Ocean Exploration / 2026 Cook Islands ROV Exploration Get…

Topline The northern lights could be visible from some northern states on Sunday night, according to a forecast from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, although forecasters are not predicting any space weather activity that would typically produce bigger light shows. NOAA is not predicting any space weather activity that…

HPC Government agency will use Google Cloud H4D VMs to replace HPE Cray machines Uncle Sam will no longer be hosting his own supercomputers to predict the weather. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has picked Google Cloud to provide the infrastructure for its weather forecasting operations. In an…

Accurate weather forecasting saves lives and protects infrastructure, but predicting complex global atmospheric patterns requires immense computing power. NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) is taking a major leap forward by selecting Google Cloud as the primary provider of high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure for its Weather and Climate Operational Supercomputing…

Emergency Solar Hand Crank NOAA/AM/FM Radio pros and cons Pros Competitively priced emergency radio USB-C/solar, and hand crank charging It's a good radio -- great reception, loud, clear speaker, decent runtime. Cons No earphone jack Hand cranking takes a LONG time! Power bank feature is definitely a "last resort" feature.…

NOAA now puts the chances of a very strong El Niño this year at 81 per cent, warning it could become one of the most powerful climate events since records began in 1950, after earlier models led by the World Meteorological Organisation put the odds at just 10 per cent.…

Gray whales are experiencing a potentially catastrophic population decline, a sharp reversal from what had been considered a conservation success. As of July 6, 2026, there were 145 gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus) stranding deaths in the Pacific, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) data...Read More

Rain falls in San Francisco on March 31, 2026. Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE After emerging in June, El Niño is now gathering power in the Pacific Ocean. A new outlook released on Thursday shows an 81% chance that El Niño, the climate pattern that generally brings a wet winter to California along…

Topline The northern lights have a higher chance to be visible next week, according to a forecast from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, beginning on Monday night when a coronal mass ejection from the Sun is expected to arrive at the Earth. Although the northern lights likely won’t be…

A lighting storm over Sagami Bay, Japan. El Niño events make Pacific Ocean storms both likelier and greater in intensity. (Image credit: Getty Images) It's official: El Niño is here, and it's shaping up to be among the strongest ever recorded. The natural climate cycle, which supercharges temperatures and shifts…