News & Features

Working with private companies, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Risk Management Agency uses precipitation data from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center as part of an insurance program for ranchers and those who grow hay or other livestock forage. This video describes how it works.

According to the 2009 National Climate Assessment, heavy downpours have increased in frequency and intensity during the last 50 years. Models predict that downpours will become still more more frequent and intense as greenhouse gas emissions and the planet’s temperature continue to rise. 

Although you might have a hard time convincing residents of the eastern United States, Scandinavia, and Russia (outside of Sochi, anyway), January's global average surface temperature balanced out as ...

Persistent cold temperatures in the Midwest this winter almost completely frozen over many of the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL) reported that 88 percent of the Great Lakes were frozen as of mid-February.

The historic rainfall that flooded the Colorado Front Range in September 2013 did little to dampen drought in the state's southeastern plains.

Water resources manager Laura Briefer describes how Salt Lake City’s Department of Public Utilities is using climate information to help plan for the city’s future.

Sochi will be among the warmest cities to have hosted a Winter Olympic Games. Climate change could make many previous Olympic cities unsuitable for Winter Games by the end of the century.

Maps of precipitation deficits through January show California mountain areas generally have greater deficits than lower elevations, and Southern California with larger deficits than areas to the north. The drought outlook for February remained grim.

January 2014 was remarkably mild across nearly all of Alaska, resulting in this January ranking among the  “top ten” warmest on record for many Alaskan communities according to preliminary analyses.

The WestMap climate analysis and mapping toolbox is an interactive, web-based tool that helps users see the climate conditions that underlie droughts, storms, floods, and changes in streamflow.