I'm a dedicated researcher, journalist, and editor at The Watchers. With over 20 years of experience in the media industry, I specialize in hard science news, focusing on extreme weather, seismic and volcanic activity, space weather, and astronomy, including near-Earth objects and planetary defense strategies. You can reach me at teo /at/ watchers.news.
The Storm Prediction Center (SPC) placed 80 780 km² (31 190 mi²) of the southern High Plains under an Extremely Critical fire-weather outlook for Sunday, May 17, 2026, warning that dangerous wildfire spread conditions are expected across extreme eastern New Mexico, the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles, extreme southeastern Colorado, and far southwestern Kansas.
The Storm Prediction Center (SPC) placed parts of the Central Plains under an Enhanced Risk of severe thunderstorms on Saturday, May 16, 2026, and parts of the Central Plains and Upper Midwest under Enhanced Risk on Sunday, with large to very large hail, damaging winds, and tornadoes forecast across the two-day period.
A moderately strong solar flare measuring M1.9 erupted from geoeffective Active Region 4436 at 16:12 UTC on May 16, 2026. A coronal mass ejection (CME) was produced, but analysis remains incomplete pending coronagraph imagery.
New activity/unrest was reported for 5 volcanoes from May 7 to 13, 2026. During the same period, ongoing activity was reported for 17 volcanoes.
A strong earthquake registered by the USGS as M6.0 struck the Antigua and Barbuda region at 14:50 UTC on May 16, 2026. The agency is reporting a depth of 30 km (18.6 miles). EMSC is reporting M6.1 at a depth of 48 km (29.8 miles). According to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC), there is no tsunami threat from this event.
A small asteroid designated 2026 JN4 entered Earth’s atmosphere between Australia and Papua New Guinea at 13:44 UTC on May 15, 2026, after ESA’s Meerkat and JPL’s Scout systems identified a high Earth-impact probability from a short observation arc. This is now the 12th predicted Earth impactor and the first since December 3, 2024. Meter-scale asteroids of this size and velocity usually disintegrate high in the atmosphere.
Asteroid 2026 JV3 passed Earth at a distance of 0.130 lunar distances (0.00034 AU / 50 900 km / 31 600 miles) from the center of our planet at 22:59 UTC on May 14, 2026, becoming the 6th closest known asteroid flyby within 1 LD recorded so far this year. Its closest point was about 44 500 km (27 700 miles) above Earth’s surface.
Dry lightning, severe outflow winds, single-digit to teen relative humidity, and receptive fuels created Critical fire weather conditions across parts of the Plains and southern High Plains on May 15, 2026.
The Storm Prediction Center (SPC) placed Iowa under an Enhanced Risk for severe thunderstorms late May 15, 2026, with severe/damaging winds and large to very large hail forecast late this afternoon and evening. Initial supercells may produce hail of 5 cm (2 inches) or larger before storms organize into clusters capable of localized wind gusts above 120 km/h (75 mph).
Episode 47 of the ongoing Halemaʻumaʻu eruption at the summit of Kīlauea ended at 00:27 HST (10:27 UTC) on May 15, 2026, after 9 hours of continuous lava fountaining from the north vent. The U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) said the eruption is paused and lowered Kīlauea to Volcano Alert Level Advisory and Aviation Color Code Yellow.
