THE WEATHER BEAT · SEP 20
The rain is over in eastern Iowa. The Mississippi crest arrives Wednesday.
Heavy rain ended Saturday night in eastern Iowa. The water it left is now scheduled: six Mississippi River towns are forecast to flood from Wednesday.
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The Weather Beat
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Heavy rain ended Saturday night in eastern Iowa. The water it left is now scheduled: six Mississippi River towns are forecast to flood from Wednesday.
SEP 20 · By the Weather Rock
THE WEATHER BEAT
Water rescues reported at Denison, seventeen minutes after the rain was called beneficial.
Emergency management reported flooded roads and possible water rescues at Denison, Texas on Sunday evening. The same rain was called beneficial at 6 p.m.
SEP 20 · By the Weather Rock
THE WEATHER BEAT
The wettest day on record for four Texas coast towns fell on this date in 1984.
Port Isabel, Texas and three neighboring towns measured their wettest day on record, 12.0 inches of rain, on September 19, 1984.
SEP 19 · By the Weather Rock
THE WEATHER BEAT
Wildfire burn scars trigger flash flood warnings across Idaho and Montana.
Thunderstorms over five 2026 wildfire burn scars in Idaho and Montana prompted flash flood warnings and watches for debris flows on Friday.
SEP 18 · By the Weather Rock
THE WEATHER BEAT
River flood warnings span seven states, from a near-record Wabash to a weed-dammed Florida river.
Flood Warnings covered 16plus counties Thursday, led by an Indiana river near its flood of record and a Florida river dammed by weeds, not rain.
SEP 17 · By the Weather Rock
THE WEATHER BEAT
Santa Barbara's hottest day on record is a September day in 1913.
On September 17, 1913 the Santa Barbara gauge read 108.0 degrees. In a record running 1893 to 2026, nothing has topped it.
SEP 17 · By the Weather Rock
THE WEATHER BEAT
Three Puerto Rico rain gauges peaked on the same day, in 1975.
La Parguera, Lajas and Guánica, three gauges on Puerto Rico's southwest coast, each show their wettest day on record on the same date: September 17, 1975.
SEP 17 · By the Weather Rock
THE WEATHER BEAT
Iowa ran out of room for the rain, and canyon country had its own flood evening.
Adair County reported closed roads on 2 to 4 inches of rain Tuesday evening, while 14 flash flood warnings ran from Utah slot canyons to the Texas South.
SEP 16 · By the Weather Rock
THE WEATHER BEAT
Where to get help: the Iowa and Southwest floods.
Federal aid, 211, and the state emergency agencies for Iowa, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas after this week's flooding.
SEP 16 · By the Weather Rock
THE WEATHER BEAT
Hurricane Lowell passes west of Kauai.
Hurricane Lowell passed 110 miles northwest of Lihue with 105 mph winds; Kauai gusted to 75 mph while hurricane warnings held into Tuesday morning.
SEP 8 · By the Weather Rock
THE WEATHER BEAT
Hurricane Warning for Kauai and Niihau as Lowell makes its closest pass tonight.
Kauai and Niihau are under a Hurricane Warning. Category 3 Lowell, 415 miles out at 2 a.m., passes just west of the islands tonight into Tuesday morning.
SEP 7 · By the Weather Rock
THE WEATHER BEAT
Tropical Storm Warning issued for Kauai and Niihau as Lowell begins its turn.
A Tropical Storm Warning covers Kauai and Niihau. Category 3 Lowell, 580 miles out, is forecast to pass 100 to 200 miles west of Kauai Monday night.
SEP 6 · By the Weather Rock
THE WEATHER BEAT
Why Saturday's Showers Crossed New England From North to South.
On September 5 the showers over Connecticut moved north to south, the wrong way for this sky. The setup that did it, from NOAA analyses and our own radar.
SEP 6 · By the Weather Rock
THE WEATHER BEAT
Category 4 Lowell slows south of Hawaii ahead of its forecast turn.
Category 4 Lowell is 610 miles from Honolulu; CPHC says watches could be required Saturday, with closest approach near Kauai forecast Monday night.
SEP 5 · By the Weather Rock
THE WEATHER BEAT
Wind on both ends of the map: 384 reports from Pennsylvania to Montana.
384 preliminary wind reports from Pennsylvania to Montana on Thursday; in southeast Texas, rivers under flood warnings after Edouard.
SEP 4 · By the Weather Rock
THE WEATHER BEAT
A Wind Day on Two Fronts, and Edouard's Last Advisory.
Storms logged 334 preliminary wind reports from New York to Montana, and Edouard's remnants signed off near Dallas after 17 inches of Texas rain.
SEP 3 · By the Weather Rock
THE WEATHER BEAT
Edouard Comes Ashore at Johnson Bayou.
Edouard came ashore at Johnson Bayou at 60 mph, short of hurricane strength, and now crawls over east Texas where flash flooding is the day's story.
SEP 2 · By the Weather Rock
THE WEATHER BEAT
Edouard Strengthens Toward the Gulf Coast.
Tropical Storm Edouard is forecast near hurricane strength at the northwest Gulf Coast, with a Hurricane Watch and Storm Surge Warning for Texas and.
SEP 1 · By the Weather Rock
THE WEATHER BEAT
The Wind Crossed the Shortgrass.
A 100 mph gust at Buffalo, South Dakota led a 112-report wind day on the northern Plains, and Tropical Depression Five has the Gulf watching.
AUG 31 · By the Weather Rock
Explainers
All 26
EXPLAINERS
Why Is the Sky Blue?
The sun sends white light. The sky hands you blue. Something in between is picking favorites.
EXPLAINERS
Lake-Effect Snow: How a Lake Builds a Blizzard.
One town digs out of three feet. Ten miles away, sunshine. The lake decides.
EXPLAINERS
The Jet Stream: The River That Runs the Weather.
Five miles over your head, a river of wind is deciding what next week feels like.
EXPLAINERS
Morning Frost: Ice That Was Never Dew.
Frost is not frozen dew. It skipped the liquid step entirely, which is why it sparkles.
EXPLAINERS
Why the World Goes Quiet When It Snows.
The hush is not your imagination. It is acoustics, falling out of the sky.
EXPLAINERS
Warm Fronts, Cold Fronts, and How to Read the Map.
The triangles and half circles on the map are tomorrow's weather, drawn in advance.
EXPLAINERS
The Thunderstorm Recipe: Moisture, Lift, and Instability.
Every thunderstorm is the same recipe cooked at different temperatures.
EXPLAINERS
From Clear to Overcast: How Sky Cover Is Measured.
The sky is graded in eighths, like a pie nobody gets to eat.
EXPLAINERS
Feels Like: Where Heat Index and Wind Chill Come From.
Your skin runs its own weather station. Feels like is its forecast.
EXPLAINERS
Watch, Warning, Advisory: What the Weather Service Is Telling You.
One of these means get ready. One means go. People die confusing them.
EXPLAINERS
The Layers of the Atmosphere.
Four of the five layers will never rain on you. The bottom one does all the work.
EXPLAINERS
Why the Wind Blows.
Air is not going anywhere in particular. It is being pushed, bent, and dragged, in that order.
EXPLAINERS
Why the Hottest Part of the Day Is Not Noon.
The sun does its best work at noon. The ground takes a while to pass it along.
EXPLAINERS
Wind Speed and Gusts: What Those Numbers Feel Like.
One number is an average. The other is the worst instant. Only one of them takes your umbrella.
EXPLAINERS
Dew Point: The Number That Tells You How It Feels.
Relative humidity is a percentage with commitment issues. Dew point tells the truth.
EXPLAINERS
What a 60 Percent Chance of Rain Actually Means.
It is not the portion of your day, and it is not how hard it will rain.
EXPLAINERS
How Weather Radar Works, and When It Lies.
The beam looks up, not down. That single fact explains most of radar's lies.
The Receipts
All 1Field Reports
All 1Tales
All 1
Five cousins, one festival, and a stage crew that decided moving us was somebody else's job. The photographic evidence has been questioned by everyone but us.
AUG 6 · By the Weather Rock
What's New
All 8
ABOUT THE EDITOR
The Weather Journal.
A weather education publication, kept by a rock. Real reporting and plain-English explainers carry receipts; the family stories carry none. Every entry is labeled so you can tell, and the What's New column writes down the work instead of shipping it in silence.