A single lightning bolt can sound like a sharp crack in one spot and a rolling rumble a few miles away, and the split comes down to how far its miles-long channel is from your ear.

Evapotranspiration — corn's version of sweating — is quietly making already brutal Midwest heat waves feel worse, and meteorologists say the effect is only ramping up for the season.

The Weather Channel has named winter storms for 14 seasons running, using a population-and-area formula it built itself. The National Weather Service — and the AP — still won't use the names.

The same alert can mean 100 degrees in one city and 105 in the next, because heat-index thresholds are set locally, not nationally.

One alert gives you up to three days of notice. The other means the National Weather Service thinks conditions are already dangerous enough to spread a fire fast. Confusing the two can cost the exact hours evacuation guides say matter most.

The National Weather Service quietly retired "Excessive Heat Warning" in 2025. Here's what the new terms mean, and the exact thresholds regional offices use to issue them.

Three humidity-adjusted heat numbers dominate the summer forecast, and they answer different questions. The one everybody quotes assumes you are standing in the shade.

Shelters are filling and the ports are shut as a Category 5-equivalent storm bears down on Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, with landfall due Monday.

More than 165 million Americans face major or extreme heat risk this week as a record-threatening heat dome settles over the East Coast and Midwest through the July Fourth weekend — and complicates World Cup matches.