Our favorite Eye on the Storm stories of 2024 » Yale Climate Connections

There’s a boatload of stories to be told on how climate change and extreme weather are intersecting, and how humans are grappling with the mix. At Yale Climate Connections, we’ve been working this beat for years, including through our Eye on the Storm department led by longtime meteorologists and weather/climate writers Dr. Jeff Masters and Bob Henson.

We know not every reader will have caught up with all 151 Eye on the Storm posts that we’ve published since January 1 of this year. To help make things easier, we’re highlighting a few of our favorites below. Many were written by Jeff and Bob, while others were penned by occasional or one-time contributors that enlivened and broadened the range of our coverage.

Resurfacing some deep dives

The capstone of multi-part Eye on the Storm posts in 2024 was an epic summer three-parter by Jeff on how (and indeed whether) the United States is truly preparing to adapt to the wrenching changes that climate change has already begun to bring, and the extent to which extreme weather might or might not jump-start that process.

Can a colossal extreme weather event galvanize action on the climate crisis?
(24 July)

When will climate change turn life in the United States upside down?
(19 August)

What should you do to prepare for the climate change storm?
(20 August)

In December, Bob looked into the potential for a collapse of the Atlantic Multidecadal Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, the crucial looping flow that courses through the Atlantic Ocean (incorporating the Gulf Stream). This circulation is expected to slow down through the century and beyond, and there’s increasing concern that a near-total collapse of the loop could begin over the next several decades – a collapse that might be identifiable years in advance.

Atlantic circulation collapse? New clues on the fate of a crucial conveyor belt
(10 December)

How much should you worry about a collapse of the Atlantic conveyor belt?
(11 December)

On a brighter note, meteorologist Michael Lowry gave us a vivid tour through an intense hurricane-hunter flight in 2022. The flight ended up confirming the promise of a new drone that may revolutionize data collection from inside tropical cyclones.

Meteorologist turns frightening flight into research project
(6 September)

A new era in hurricane tracking begins
(6 September)

How does our view of climate change compare to how it actually “looks”?

Several of the year’s posts delved into the contrasts between popular conceptions of human-caused climate change and the realities at hand. More and more weather events nationwide fall under the “wet get wetter, dry get drier” and “weather whiplash” themes, both of which have been linked to a warming climate in numerous studies. Climate communicator Kait Parker took an in-depth look at the stark contrasts that emerged across Texas during spring 2024, when intense drought gripped the state’s border with Mexico even as other parts of the state were awash in record-breaking rainfall.

A stark divide in Texas shows what climate change looks like
(18 June)

Heat waves are especially difficult to capture in photography. When folks are suffering and dying from heat, it’s often behind closed doors and out of view. And the natural (and healthy) instinct to cool off in pools or the ocean typically leads to lighthearted images that can hit a profoundly jarring note.

How do you picture a heat wave?
(26 June)

Another type of image, one already stereotyped, is the “climate haven.” It’s envisioned as a place where climate extremes (especially heat, fire, and sea level rise) are avoided and people can find a sense of refuge. Yet many of these so-called havens are in cooler, moister climates that are increasingly flood-prone, as highlighted by the catastrophic outcomes in and near Asheville, North Carolina, following Hurricane Helene.

Is the idea of a ‘climate haven’ under water?
(1 October)

Hurricane-related havoc in a warming world

The Atlantic’s frenetic hurricane action of 2024 (see Jeff Masters’ wrap-up on this “weirdly hyperactive” season) put an exclamation point on how warmer oceans are goosing tropical cyclone activity at those times when the atmosphere is in a favorable state. A new tool this year from the nonprofit Climate Central, the Climate Shift Index: Ocean, quantifies how much human-caused climate change has boosted the odds of above-average sea surface temperatures when observed at a given time and place. And for the year’s two most catastrophic U.S. storms, Helene and Milton, researchers concluded that the record- and near-record warm waters this year nearly doubled the economic damage from what it would have been absent climate change.

Human-caused ocean warming intensified recent hurricanes, including all 11 Atlantic hurricanes in 2024
(20 November)

The Atlantic season of 2024 was oddly bookended, with record-smashing early- and late-season hurricanes bracketing an unprecedented month-long lull from late August to late September. Pearl Marvell, a features editor and Spanish translator at Yale Climate Connections, took a poignant look at the physical and human devastation on tiny Union Island, part of St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the Caribbean, after Hurricane Beryl ripped through at Category 4 strength on July 1. Only a day later, Beryl became the earliest Category 5 storm ever recorded in the Atlantic.

The ballad of Union Island (6 August)

In case you’re wondering whether it’s time to add a Category 6 to the Saffir-Simpson Scale, two researchers have looked into that very question. As it turns out, the answer may be quite different for scientific purposes than for the public at large.

Does the Saffir-Simpson Scale for hurricanes need a Category 6?
(5 February)

Wildfires (re-)join tornadoes as a key threat in the Great Plains

Our ever-warming climate is parching ecosystems more readily, heightening the risk of landscape-charring wildfire. The nation’s biggest wildfire by far in 2024 wasn’t in California, Montana, or Alaska. It was in Texas and Oklahoma – a monster that ripped across more than a million acres, and most of that in its first 24 hours. The Smokehouse Creek Fire was the latest in a series of Southern Plains wildfire disasters stoked by intense heat and high wind, including some of the region’s worst blazes since European settlement more than a century ago. Researchers are now combining pinpoint satellite detection of fires with warning-and-awareness techniques already used for tornadoes. The results could advance wildfire safety nationwide.

New warning system could save lives during wildfires
(26 March)

Two of our contributors showed how development aimed at resilience against tornadoes can lead to safer and more climate-friendly communities overall. Storm chaser and photographer Charlie Randall visited Greensburg, Kansas, which became a Plains pioneer in renewable energy after it was decimated by a 2007 twister. And research scientist Daphne LaDue explained how simple building practices can help reduce the damage to most homes that are struck by even the fiercest tornadoes: “We know how to build better. We just need to start doing that.”

Portrait of a Kansas town that went all-in on clean energy after a devastating tornado
(10 June)

How to make your home more tornado-resilient
(9 April)

And on April 3, the 50th anniversary of the 1974 Super Outbreak – which spawned a record 30 tornadoes classified as violent – three experts shared their thoughts on how tornado behavior and awareness may be evolving, as tornado frequency increases across the highly vulnerable lower Mississippi Valley while communication and warning modes undergo dizzying change.

How might the next super tornado outbreak play out in tomorrow’s world?
(3 April)