This is a
timeline of scientific and technological advancements as well as notable
academic or government publications in the area of
atmospheric sciences and
meteorology during the 21st century. Some historical weather events are included that mark time periods where advancements were made, or even that sparked policy change.
April–September – A Service Assessment Team was formed by the United States government to assess the quality of forecasts and post-tornado assessments conducted by the
National Weather Service (NWS) office in Baltimore/Washington for the
2002 La Plata tornado. Their assessment and findings, released in September 2002, found:[2]
That the local NWS office failed to indicate the initial findings of F5 damage on the
Fujita scale was "preliminary" to the media and public.[2]
The Service Assessment Team also recommended the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration require local National Weather Service offices to only release "potentially greater than F3" if F4 or F5 damage was suspected and to only release information regarding F4 or F5 damage after Quick Response Team (QRT) had assessed the damage.[2]
September – The
National Weather Service creates a national Quick Response Team (QRT), whose job is to assess and analyze locations believed to have sustained F4 or F5 damage on the
Fujita scale.[2]
May – The
2007 Greensburg tornado family occurred, producing a
tornado family of 22 tornadoes, including the first tornado to receive the rating of EF5 on the Enhanced Fujita scale; the 2007 Greensburg tornado.[11]
June – Richard M. Zoraster, with the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency, publishes a
case study, through the
University of Cambridge, on the population vulnerably during
Hurricane Katrina in 2005.[15]
October – The
Hong Kong Observatory and the U.S. Center for Severe Weather Research publish a joint paper analyzing a rare tornado in Hong Kong on May 20, 2002.[20]
A violent tornado impacts areas around
El Reno, Oklahoma.[24] The
University of Oklahoma's RaXPol mobile Doppler weather radar, positioned at a nearby overpass, measured winds preliminarily analyzed as in excess of 296 mph (476 km/h). These winds are considered the second-highest ever measured worldwide, just shy of the 302 ± 22 mph (486 ± 35 km/h) recorded during the
1999 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado.[25][26]
June – A
review elucidates the current state of
climate changeextreme event attribution science, concluding probabilities and costs-severities of links as well as identifying potential ways for its improvement.[45][46]
July
Scientists report that
heatwavesin western Europe are increasing "three-to-four times faster compared to the rest of the northern midlatitudes over the past 42 years" and that certain atmospheric dynamical changes can explain their increase.[47][48]
August – The
National Centers for Environmental Information publish a report called Assessing the Global Climate in July 2022, where they state an all-time record cold temperature occurred in Australia during the month. On October 7, 2022, Zack Labe, a climate scientist for the NOAA
Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory released a statement and a climate report from
Berkeley Earth on the average monthly temperature, tweeting, "There are still no areas of record cold so far in 2022."[52][53] Labe's statement also denied the record cold temperatures in Brazil, reported by the
National Institute of Meteorology in May 2022, a month before the official start of winter, was also not record cold temperatures.[54]
September
Category 5
Hurricane Ian strikes Florida, causing $113 billion in damage, making it the costliest hurricane in Florida history and third costliest hurricane to ever strike the United States.[55]
NOAA conducts the first successful launch of the Altius 600 small uncrewed aircraft system into Hurricane Ian, which records winds up to 216 miles per hour (348 km/h).[56]
October –
Timothy Marshall, a meteorologist,
structural and
forensic engineer; Zachary B. Wienhoff, with Haag Engineering Company; Christine L. Wielgos, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service of Paducah; and Brian E. Smith, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service of
Omaha, publish a detailed damage survey and analysis of the
2021 Western Kentucky tornado.[57]
February–March –
Cyclone Freddy becomes the longest-lasting and highest-
ACE-producing tropical cyclone ever recorded worldwide, traveling across the southern Indian Ocean,
Mozambique, and
Madagascar for 37 days and producing 87.01 units of ACE.
December 2023 – April 2024 – The Detecting and Evaluating Low-level Tornado Attributes (DELTA) project, led by NOAA, along with the
National Severe Storms Laboratory and several research universities, occurred.[71]
2024
January – A study by the Northern Tornadoes Project and the
University of Western Ontario released information on Treefall Identification and Direction Analysis (TrIDA) maps, a new
artificial intelligence (A.I.) application tested using Canadian tornadoes as the
machine learning data. TrIDA maps had approximately 80% verification rates.[72]
Anthony W. Lyza, Matthew D. Flournoy, and A. Addison Alford, researchers with the
National Severe Storms Laboratory,
Storm Prediction Center,
CIWRO, and the
University of Oklahoma's School of Meteorology, published a paper titled Comparison of Tornado Damage Characteristics to Low-Altitude WSR-88D Radar Observations and Implications for Tornado Intensity Estimation. In the paper, the authors state, ">20% of supercell tornadoes may be capable of producing EF4–EF5 damage" and that "the legacy F-scale wind speed ranges may ultimately provide a better estimate of peak tornado wind speeds at 10–15 m AGL for strong–violent tornadoes and a better damage-based intensity rating for all tornadoes".[76]
A study published by the
University of California, San Diego, in Nature, concluded that accelerated melting of ice in Greenland and Antarctica has decreased Earth's rotational velocity, affecting
Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) adjustments and causing problems for computer networks that rely on UTC.[78]
Researchers with the
Ocean University of China’s College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences and Physical Oceanography Laboratory published an article to the
American Meteorological Society explaining how the
Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), which was first discovered in 1999, has two distinct patterns: “the coastal IOD and the offshore IOD”.[82]
^"HGX Tornado Warning #8". mesonet.agron.iastate.edu. National Weather Service Houston/Galveston TX.
Archived from the original on September 1, 2020. Retrieved January 24, 2023.
^Bucci, Lisa; Alaka, Laura; Hagen, Andrew; Delgao, Sandy; Beven, Jack (April 3, 2023).
Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Ian(PDF) (Report). National Hurricane Center.
Archived(PDF) from the original on April 3, 2023. Retrieved May 8, 2024.
^Pieter Groenemeijer (ESSL); Lothar Bock (DWD); Juan de Dios Soriano (AEMet); Maciej Dutkiewicz (Bydgoszcz University of Science and Technology); Delia Gutiérrez-Rubio (AEMet); Alois M. Holzer (ESSL); Martin Hubrig; Rainer Kaltenberger; Thilo Kühne (ESSL); Mortimer Müller (Universität für Bodenkultur); Bas van der Ploeg; Tomáš Púčik (ESSL); Thomas Schreiner (ESSL); Miroslav Šinger (SHMI); Gabriel Strommer (ESSL); Andi Xhelaj (University of Genova) (July 30, 2023).
"The International Fujita (IF) Scale"(PDF). European Severe Storms Laboratory. Retrieved July 30, 2023.
^Frost, Robby; Welty, Colin; Ruppert, James (May 2024). "The Influence of the Great Plains Low-Level Jet on Tropical Storm Erin's (2007) Overland Intensification". 36th Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology (
Academic publication).
University of Oklahoma via the
American Meteorological Society.
This is a
timeline of scientific and technological advancements as well as notable
academic or government publications in the area of
atmospheric sciences and
meteorology during the 21st century. Some historical weather events are included that mark time periods where advancements were made, or even that sparked policy change.
April–September – A Service Assessment Team was formed by the United States government to assess the quality of forecasts and post-tornado assessments conducted by the
National Weather Service (NWS) office in Baltimore/Washington for the
2002 La Plata tornado. Their assessment and findings, released in September 2002, found:[2]
That the local NWS office failed to indicate the initial findings of F5 damage on the
Fujita scale was "preliminary" to the media and public.[2]
The Service Assessment Team also recommended the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration require local National Weather Service offices to only release "potentially greater than F3" if F4 or F5 damage was suspected and to only release information regarding F4 or F5 damage after Quick Response Team (QRT) had assessed the damage.[2]
September – The
National Weather Service creates a national Quick Response Team (QRT), whose job is to assess and analyze locations believed to have sustained F4 or F5 damage on the
Fujita scale.[2]
May – The
2007 Greensburg tornado family occurred, producing a
tornado family of 22 tornadoes, including the first tornado to receive the rating of EF5 on the Enhanced Fujita scale; the 2007 Greensburg tornado.[11]
June – Richard M. Zoraster, with the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency, publishes a
case study, through the
University of Cambridge, on the population vulnerably during
Hurricane Katrina in 2005.[15]
October – The
Hong Kong Observatory and the U.S. Center for Severe Weather Research publish a joint paper analyzing a rare tornado in Hong Kong on May 20, 2002.[20]
A violent tornado impacts areas around
El Reno, Oklahoma.[24] The
University of Oklahoma's RaXPol mobile Doppler weather radar, positioned at a nearby overpass, measured winds preliminarily analyzed as in excess of 296 mph (476 km/h). These winds are considered the second-highest ever measured worldwide, just shy of the 302 ± 22 mph (486 ± 35 km/h) recorded during the
1999 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado.[25][26]
June – A
review elucidates the current state of
climate changeextreme event attribution science, concluding probabilities and costs-severities of links as well as identifying potential ways for its improvement.[45][46]
July
Scientists report that
heatwavesin western Europe are increasing "three-to-four times faster compared to the rest of the northern midlatitudes over the past 42 years" and that certain atmospheric dynamical changes can explain their increase.[47][48]
August – The
National Centers for Environmental Information publish a report called Assessing the Global Climate in July 2022, where they state an all-time record cold temperature occurred in Australia during the month. On October 7, 2022, Zack Labe, a climate scientist for the NOAA
Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory released a statement and a climate report from
Berkeley Earth on the average monthly temperature, tweeting, "There are still no areas of record cold so far in 2022."[52][53] Labe's statement also denied the record cold temperatures in Brazil, reported by the
National Institute of Meteorology in May 2022, a month before the official start of winter, was also not record cold temperatures.[54]
September
Category 5
Hurricane Ian strikes Florida, causing $113 billion in damage, making it the costliest hurricane in Florida history and third costliest hurricane to ever strike the United States.[55]
NOAA conducts the first successful launch of the Altius 600 small uncrewed aircraft system into Hurricane Ian, which records winds up to 216 miles per hour (348 km/h).[56]
October –
Timothy Marshall, a meteorologist,
structural and
forensic engineer; Zachary B. Wienhoff, with Haag Engineering Company; Christine L. Wielgos, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service of Paducah; and Brian E. Smith, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service of
Omaha, publish a detailed damage survey and analysis of the
2021 Western Kentucky tornado.[57]
February–March –
Cyclone Freddy becomes the longest-lasting and highest-
ACE-producing tropical cyclone ever recorded worldwide, traveling across the southern Indian Ocean,
Mozambique, and
Madagascar for 37 days and producing 87.01 units of ACE.
December 2023 – April 2024 – The Detecting and Evaluating Low-level Tornado Attributes (DELTA) project, led by NOAA, along with the
National Severe Storms Laboratory and several research universities, occurred.[71]
2024
January – A study by the Northern Tornadoes Project and the
University of Western Ontario released information on Treefall Identification and Direction Analysis (TrIDA) maps, a new
artificial intelligence (A.I.) application tested using Canadian tornadoes as the
machine learning data. TrIDA maps had approximately 80% verification rates.[72]
Anthony W. Lyza, Matthew D. Flournoy, and A. Addison Alford, researchers with the
National Severe Storms Laboratory,
Storm Prediction Center,
CIWRO, and the
University of Oklahoma's School of Meteorology, published a paper titled Comparison of Tornado Damage Characteristics to Low-Altitude WSR-88D Radar Observations and Implications for Tornado Intensity Estimation. In the paper, the authors state, ">20% of supercell tornadoes may be capable of producing EF4–EF5 damage" and that "the legacy F-scale wind speed ranges may ultimately provide a better estimate of peak tornado wind speeds at 10–15 m AGL for strong–violent tornadoes and a better damage-based intensity rating for all tornadoes".[76]
A study published by the
University of California, San Diego, in Nature, concluded that accelerated melting of ice in Greenland and Antarctica has decreased Earth's rotational velocity, affecting
Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) adjustments and causing problems for computer networks that rely on UTC.[78]
Researchers with the
Ocean University of China’s College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences and Physical Oceanography Laboratory published an article to the
American Meteorological Society explaining how the
Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), which was first discovered in 1999, has two distinct patterns: “the coastal IOD and the offshore IOD”.[82]
^"HGX Tornado Warning #8". mesonet.agron.iastate.edu. National Weather Service Houston/Galveston TX.
Archived from the original on September 1, 2020. Retrieved January 24, 2023.
^Bucci, Lisa; Alaka, Laura; Hagen, Andrew; Delgao, Sandy; Beven, Jack (April 3, 2023).
Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Ian(PDF) (Report). National Hurricane Center.
Archived(PDF) from the original on April 3, 2023. Retrieved May 8, 2024.
^Pieter Groenemeijer (ESSL); Lothar Bock (DWD); Juan de Dios Soriano (AEMet); Maciej Dutkiewicz (Bydgoszcz University of Science and Technology); Delia Gutiérrez-Rubio (AEMet); Alois M. Holzer (ESSL); Martin Hubrig; Rainer Kaltenberger; Thilo Kühne (ESSL); Mortimer Müller (Universität für Bodenkultur); Bas van der Ploeg; Tomáš Púčik (ESSL); Thomas Schreiner (ESSL); Miroslav Šinger (SHMI); Gabriel Strommer (ESSL); Andi Xhelaj (University of Genova) (July 30, 2023).
"The International Fujita (IF) Scale"(PDF). European Severe Storms Laboratory. Retrieved July 30, 2023.
^Frost, Robby; Welty, Colin; Ruppert, James (May 2024). "The Influence of the Great Plains Low-Level Jet on Tropical Storm Erin's (2007) Overland Intensification". 36th Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology (
Academic publication).
University of Oklahoma via the
American Meteorological Society.