A wave of powerful storm cells swept the southeastern United States this week, spawning hundreds of tornadoes that wreaked havoc from Texas to Virginia. While damage was widespread throughout the region, the most terrible toll was seen in Alabama, which has accounted for two-thirds of the more than 300 reported deaths -- the deadliest since the Great Depression -- and where many small towns were simply wiped from the map. Especially hard-hit was the university town of Tuscaloosa, the state's fifth-largest, where a monstrous F5 tornado (seen in this terrifying firsthand video) tore a vicious track through entire neighborhoods and business districts -- narrowly missing the region's primary hospital -- and continuing a path that rained debris as far as Birmingham, over sixty miles away. The disaster prompted a visit from President Obama today, who declared "I've never seen devastation like this" after surveying the area with Governor Robert Bentley, Senator Richard Shelby, and Mayor Walter Maddox. More: photos from In Focus and The Big Picture, aerial footage of the aftermath, "before and after" sliders, the path of the Tuscaloosa twister on Google Maps, People Locator, local aid information, MetaTalk check-in thread
posted by Rhaomi on Apr 29, 2011 - 102 comments

John Park Finley, American meteorologist, wrote the first known book on tornadoes (Tornadoes, 1887). Though some of his "safety" guidelines for surviving a tornado have since been refuted as dangerous (seek shelter on the side of a house facing an oncoming tornado!), the book remains a seminal work in tornado research. [more inside]
posted by Wossname on Jan 25, 2011 - 9 comments

Last Wednesday, a series of thunderstorms rolled through downtown Chicago. At least once, the John Hancock Building, Trump International Hotel and Tower, and the Willis Sears Tower got struck simultaneously (vimeo). [more inside]
posted by Ufez Jones on Jun 28, 2010 - 40 comments

Hurricane Tracker lets you see where the big Atlantic storms are, where they've been, and where they're projected to be.
posted by Dave Faris on Sep 4, 2008 - 32 comments

Hurricane Gustav is headed for landfall in Louisiana in the next 48 hours, with currently around an equal chance of being a category 3 storm or a category 4 storm. Gustav has 150 mph winds at the moment as it begins to enter the gulf of Mexico and a million people evacuate. After failing in their response to Hurricane Katrina three years ago, Fema is trying to be more proactive. Of course, some people are staying in harm's way, live blogging, and once again, there's the cry "bring it on". [more inside]
posted by cashman on Aug 30, 2008 - 235 comments

The Weather World 2010 project at UIUC began as a comprehensive meteorology tutorial designed for a high school/undergraduate level. It has since expanded to include guides to remote sensing and reading weather maps. (Some highlights include optical effects, severe storms, and the basics of weather forecasting.) For folks in the US, it also has current surface and satellite imagery for a number of different atmospheric properties.
posted by Upton O'Good on Jul 13, 2008 - 6 comments

Paraglider survives 32,000ft fall. A German paragliding champion named Ewa Wisnierska was "sucked into a storm that pulled her higher than Mount Everest." She "soared skywards," and was soon "covered in ice" as she "battled hailstones the size of oranges," becoming one with the weather. "I could see the Earth coming," she later said, "wow, like Apollo 13 – I can see the Earth."
posted by BLDGBLOG on Feb 16, 2007 - 57 comments

Pull out a US $20 bill. Take a look at the picture of the White House. See that tree peeking in from the right, the 140 year old elm that's been there since Andrew Johnson? Well, it's gone. Yup. Fallen over, thanks to the soaker summer storms which have been hammering the Mid-Atlantic in recent days. Cleanup has started, but no word on whether the $20 bill will be needing another update.
posted by brownpau on Jun 26, 2006 - 38 comments

Noted in the live stream from this TV station This is the "Local2 News" live tv stream (which has been pointed to in three previous MeFi threads about other news stories. Currently they've from time to time been showing storm track predictive models (which they say are their own development). I'd rather have pointers to more models than the TV station's occasional glimpses, but, this is the most varied set of storm track predictions I've seen. Anyone know where they're getting them?
posted by hank on Sep 22, 2005 - 24 comments