Some Antarctic icebergs linger close to home for decades, running aground near the ice shelves that spawned them or circling partway around the continent on coastal currents. Others, like Iceberg A-81, make a faster exit, heading north out of the Weddell Sea along a route well-traveled by the region’s bergs. Fast is relative, though. After
As summer winds down in West Africa, so does much of the region’s dust activity. Dust storms can still occur, though, as one did in early September 2026, when a plume covered parts of Mali and neighboring countries. The MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image on September 5, 2026. According to
In August 2026, back-to-back winter storms left parts of the Atacama Desert in northern Chile covered in a rare blanket of snow. The typically arid region has seen snowfall before, notably in 2025 and before that in 2011. But one of the 2026 events was unusually widespread, stretching from the Andes to near the Pacific
The start of August 2026 saw ongoing and new wildland fires burning in eastern Washington. West of Chelan, the Little Giant fire continued to produce heavy smoke, while a cluster of smaller fires farther east near Spokane affected tens of thousands of people. The smoke from these and other fires poured east-northeast across the state
Tropical Storm Arthur, the first named storm of the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season, brought high winds and heavy rain to the U.S. Gulf Coast in mid-June. NASA’s Terra satellite captured this natural-color image (left) at 10:30 a.m. Central Time (15:30 Universal Time) on June 17. The second image (right) depicts infrared signals known as brightness temperature,
Chiang Mai, Thailand’s second-largest city, lies within a network of narrow valleys in the country’s northern highlands. Though the historic city is known for panoramic views of the surrounding mountains, clear skies have become less common. In recent decades, smoke has increasingly darkened the skies during the dry season, particularly in March and April. A
