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Train cars between drifts of snow up to the top of the engine, with onlookers watching

The Monster Blizzard That Turned Kansas Into a Frozen Wasteland

The 1886 blizzard imperiled settlers and left fields of dead cattle in its wake.
by Erin Blakemore via HISTORY on January 17, 2024
Painting of a valley with storm clouds

Storm Patrol

Life as a Signal Corps weatherman was dangerous: besides inclement weather, they faced labor riots, conflicts with Native Americans, yellow fever outbreaks, fires, and more.
by Alyson Foster via Humanities on October 11, 2023
US Signal Station on the trail to Pike’s Peak.

Civil War Weather

The U.S. Army's contributions to meteorology.
by Cecily Nelson Zander via Emerging Civil War on February 28, 2023
Vintage drawing of a rural area with snowfall. In the foreground, two horses are pulling a man in a cart on the snowy road.

Cox’s Snow and the Persistence of Weather Memory

One of the worst snowstorms recorded in Virginia’s history began on Sunday, January 17, 1857. It remained in Virginians' collective memories eighty years later.
by Patricia Miller via Encyclopedia Virginia on January 5, 2022
Children wiping away sweat

8 Creative Ways People Kept Cool Before Air Conditioning

People have come up with a range of ingenious, harebrained, and sometimes grim but often remarkable ways to stay cool during a summer scorcher.
by Keith Johnston via Mental Floss on July 12, 2021
A map showing the path of the 1772 hurricane through the Caribbean.

Inside the Hurricane That Drove Alexander Hamilton to America

The young Founder’s evocative account of the tempest inspired people to send him to the Colonies for a formal education.
by Bob Henson via Washington Post on September 26, 2020

The Tragic History of Early Weather Forecasting

Read an excerpt from Al Roker's book about the Galveston Hurricane of 1900.
by Al Roker via TIME on August 4, 2015
Thomas Jefferson against a backdrop of his weather observations.

Discover Why Thomas Jefferson Meticulously Monitored the Weather Wherever He Went

The third president knew that the whims of nature shaped Americans’ daily lives as farmers and enslavers.
by Sara Georgini via Smithsonian on January 3, 2025
Destruction in the aftermath of the Galveston disaster, 1900.

Lessons from America’s Deadliest Natural Disaster

The 1900 Galveston hurricane changed the way we deal with severe weather. But as Hurricane Helene showed, there are still lessons to be learned.
by Teresa Bitler via The Saturday Evening Post on December 2, 2024
The Earth drawn as a baseball flying through space.

Climate Change Comes for Baseball

The summer sport is facing big questions about how it will adapt.
by Ellen Cushing via The Atlantic on November 2, 2024
1950s office worker holding a handkerchief to his brow.

How Air Conditioning Took Over the American Office

Before AC, office workers relied on building design to adapt to high temperatures. The promise of boosted productivity created a different kind of workplace.
by David Dudley via CityLab on September 3, 2024
Day laborer pumping up tire on tractor on large farm near Ralls, Texas, 1939.
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Stories of the Land: Diverse Agricultural Histories in the U.S.

An exhibit featuring public radio and television programs broadcast over 65 years that explore American agricultural life.
by Mariah E. Marsden via American Archive of Public Broadcasting on July 29, 2024
Tornado near Turkey, Texas, in 2009.
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The Real History Behind 'Twisters'

For as long as scientists have studied tornadoes, researchers have dreamed of controlling them.
by Kate Carpenter via Made By History on July 19, 2024
Map showing the forecast over the UK and part of France on D-Day.

A War Meteorologist’s Riveting Account of How the Allies Averted a D-Day Disaster

The D-Day landings turned the tide of the war, but their success rested on the uncertain calculations of Allied meteorologists.
by Marco Alessi, Anthony Wilks via Aeon on July 17, 2024
Charles F. Ritchell and his flying machine.

25 Years Before the Wright Brothers Took to the Skies, This Flying Machine Captivated America

First exhibited in 1878, Charles F. Ritchel's dirigible was about as wacky, dangerous and impractical as any airship ever launched.
by Erik Ofgang via Smithsonian on June 11, 2024
Whitehall, designed by Carrère & Hastings for Henry Morrison Flagler, 1902.

Building Palm Beach

On the town’s history & architecture.
by Benjamin Riley via The New Criterion on May 22, 2024
A photograph of the Arizona desert at sunset with cacti in the foreground.

I Want Settlers To Be Dislodged From the Comfort of Guilt

My ancestors were the good whites, or at least that’s what I’ve always wanted to believe.
by Natasha Varner via Electric Literature on February 8, 2024
Composite image of a girl holding a yellow umbrella in a bright meadow during thunder storm.

The Problem With Blaming Climate Change For Extreme Weather Damage

Why headlines blaming extreme weather on climate change don’t hold up, the peril of catastrophism, and the case that we’re actually safer than ever before.
by Ted Nordhaus via The New Atlantis on February 5, 2024
The Confederate States Almanac

On Harvests and Histories

Almanacs from the Civil War era reveal how two sides of an embattled nation used data from the natural world to legitimize their claims to statehood.
by Teresa A. Goddu, Jill Spivey Caddell, Khalid Salim Isma'El, A. R. George, T. J. Tomlin via JSTOR Daily on January 3, 2024
A woman standing with arms outstretched

The Last Lighthouse Keeper in America

In a technological age, impassioned devotees renew an ancient maritime tradition.
by Dorothy Wickenden via The New Yorker on October 30, 2023
Madeline Potts, a nurse with Chicago's Public Health Department, checks on a man at one of several cooling centers in the city July 28, 1995.

A Heat Wave Killed Hundreds in Chicago Nearly 30 Years Ago

As record temperatures bake portions of the United States this summer, a Chicago heat wave in 1995 offers a grim preview of the toll from climate change.
by Kim Bellware via Retropolis on July 10, 2023
Watercolor of a whale destroying a boat of whalers.

Captain Joy’s Last Voyage

What a whaling captain’s logbook can teach us about sperm whales and our oceans.
by Richard King, Kripa Bansal, Mia Hines, Carter Myers-Brown, Finn Warner, Mallory Hoffbeck, Karan Kunwar via Earth Island Journal on June 2, 2023
Smoke rises from a derailed cargo train in East Palestine, Ohio, on Feb. 4.
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The Air Pollution Disaster that Echoes in the Ohio Train Derailment

What is an industry-made disaster, and what is caused by natural factors like weather?
by Cassondra Hanna via Made By History on February 22, 2023
Seashore in the Fog, detail, Caspar David Freiderich, c. 1807.

By Stratagem and Hard Fighting

The historical record reveals the real circumstances that led to the improbable capture of eleven British ships.
by Mark R. Anderson via Journal of the American Revolution on January 12, 2023
An advertisement for Melbourne the "Ohio Rain Wizard."

Wanting to Believe In Rainmakers

A form of entertainment and outgrowth of desperation, self-styled rainmakers allowed the powerless people of the Great Plains to seemingly take action.
by Matthew Wills, Julie Courtwright via JSTOR Daily on December 18, 2022
Dark painting of a storm

Reading the Horizon

Predicting a hurricane in nineteenth-century South Carolina.
by Caroline Grego via Lapham’s Quarterly on November 30, 2022
Illustration of a whale by Jayne Doucette.

How Centuries-Old Whaling Logs Are Filling Gaps in Our Climate Knowledge

Using the historical record to model long-term wind patterns in remote parts of the world where few instrumental data sets prior to 1957 exist.
by Tristan Ahtone via Grist on November 2, 2022
Forest with rock pile

Using Thoreau’s Notebooks to Understand Climate Change

Thoreau's time at Walden Pond has provided substantial data for scientists monitoring the effects of a warming climate on the area's plant life.
by Olivia Box, Richard B. Primack, Amanda S. Gallinat via JSTOR Daily on March 16, 2022
Three children playing on a frozen river.

The Ohio River

When the river freezes, lives change.
by Tiya Miles via Perspectives on History on January 27, 2022
Lithograph of people fleeing the Great Fire of Peshtigo on horseback and on foot.

Why America's Deadliest Wildfire Was Largely Forgotten

In 1871, the Wisconsin town Peshtigo burned to the ground, killing up to 2,500. But due to another event at the time, many have never heard about the disaster.
by Erin Blakemore via HISTORY on July 29, 2021
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