The Watchers team and our contributors bring the latest on extreme weather, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, space weather, and all things science. We're all about making sense of the natural world and keeping you informed on what’s happening. Got a tip or a question? Hit us up using the form at newstips!
A team of scientists based at the University of Oklahoma (OU) is using supercomputers to learn and predict how the biggest, most severe tornadoes and large hail form. When a hail storm moved through Fort Worth, Texas on May 5, 1995, it battered the highly populated…
Observers located in the extreme eastern Asia, eastern Australia, the Pacific Ocean and the west coast of North America including Alaska will get to see a penumbral lunar eclipse on March 23, 2016, the first of three lunar eclipses in 2016. The eclipse will reach…
A large landslide was captured on camera on March 18, 2016, as it buried a highway in Anhua County of China’s Hunan Province. Two days later, egg-sized hailstones hit Hunan's Chenzhou city. Footage shot by a driver shows a landslide took place at 09:10 and…
A tornado formed in Fort Lauderdale, southeastern Florida on March 19, 2016, and soon turned into a large multiple-vortex waterspout. The rare event was filmed by several observers. The wind picked up boats, tossed garbage cans and left several cars damaged….
A new map of Mars' gravity was released this month, providing a glimpse into the hidden interior of the planet. The map, most detailed to date, was derived using Doppler and range tracking data collected by NASA's Deep Space Network from three NASA…
Scientists using archived NASA data have discovered a strange new kind of galactic beast in the cosmic wilderness. Dubbed "super spirals," these unprecedented galaxies dwarf our own spiral galaxy, the Milky Way, and compete in size and brightness with the…
Evgeny Tishkovets, a leading specialist from the Fobos weather monitoring center, said a rare natural phenomenon might have been the cause of FlyDubai FZ981 crash on March 19, 2016, that killed all 62 people on board. "In the vicinity of the landing field,…
According to a government statement published this week in a state-run newspaper, the entire Venezuela will be given a week off to cope with yet another crippling energy crisis. The measure is not new; the same happened in 2010 when the first electricity crisis hit….
A severe thunderstorm hit the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex area on Thursday, March 18, 2016. The storm first hit about 04:00 (local time) and then again just before 09:00, dropping surprisingly large hailstones that busted in windshields, damaged houses, killed…
The New Zealand southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) was particularly exploited in the nineteenth century when demand was high for oil extracted from its blubber. They were killed on the high seas and especially in sheltered bays where females were vulnerable…
