storms

That's what it looks like, doesn't it? In reality this is Sydney, Australia, Earth, shrouded in a severe dust storm that has covered much of the country's eastern coast for the last few days. And while breathing is hard and transportation has ground to a standstill, the photos are spectacular.

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Last September, five days before Hurricane Ike pulverized the Texas coast, the National Hurricane Center pegged a point near Corpus Christi as the storm’s most likely landfall. Residents of the low-lying region around Galveston, some 250 miles north, breathed a sigh of relief.

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Like painted kites, those days and nights
went flyin' by
The world was new, beneath a blue
umbrella sky

Then softer than a piper man,
one day it called to you
And I lost you, I lost you to
the summer wind...

NASA engineers are hoping those words, famously crooned by Frank Sinatra, don't come true this summer for the unflappable Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity.

Summer is approaching on Mars, and with it comes the onset of huge wind storms that kick dust around the twin Mars Exploration Rovers and their life-giving solar panels.

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Nearly every summer rainstorm comes with thunder and lightning. Yet during even the blusteriest blizzard, there's nary a spark in the air. It can occur (although snow lightning strikes just six times a year on average in the U.S.), but winter air doesn't make for prime lightning-forming conditions, says meteorologist Robin Tanamachi of the University of Oklahoma.

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While attending a conference in Phuket, Thailand, earlier this year, Eddie Bernard, the developer of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)s tsunami-monitoring network, was surprised to find that most residents had returned to the coastal city after the devastating tsunami of 2004, which killed 8,000 people in Thailand. Not only that, but they seemed prepared for the next one. Speaker towers loomed over the beach, ready to blast a warning in case a wave approached. Signs everywhere told people which way to flee.

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In the aftermath of the Feb. 6 tornado, scientists at The University of Alabama, Huntsville have been analyzing radar images of the event, searching for signs that might help them issue faster warnings in the future. The radar signature from debris sucked up into the air is so distinctive that the group thinks it may be able to develop an automated detection system. Essentially, theyd program computers to automatically pick out these signs in the data, and raise a flag immediately.

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