Helfaut Weather Forecasts

ANNAPOLIS, Md. - So, how do you top setting a record as the first solo sailor to circumnavigate the Americas?

A Comparative Climatology Symposium held at NASA Headquarters on May 7 focused on new approaches to climate research by highlighting the similarities and contrasts between the environments of the rocky worlds Venus, Earth, Mars and Saturn’s smoggy moon Titan. 

Only rarely have people seen what happens when chimpanzees and leopards come into close quarters in the wilds of Africa. On these occasions, chimpanzees have made loud, fearful calls, or played the aggressor: In one case, chimps even surrounded a leopard den and killed a cub.

Of all the great and wondrous things that we can view in our sky, in my opinion the top four are (in descending order of merit) a total eclipse of the sun, a beautiful manifestation of the northern lights, a real "shower" of shooting stars and a great comet with a long tail. 

Slow earthquakes don't kill anyone, but they're certainly suspicious characters. Recent great earthquakes, such as massive temblors in Japan and Chile, were foreshadowed by slow quakes shuffling through the regions in the months before the deadly shaking struck.

As Memorial Day weekend sees people in the United States celebrating the opening of beach season, data from a European Environment Agency (EEA) report serves as a warning of how wild weather can affect water safety.

NEW YORK (AP) — Playful sea lions and trusty penguins are welcoming visitors back to the New York Aquarium for the first time since the Coney Island marine haven was damaged by Superstorm Sandy.

MOORE, Okla. (AP) — The people of the Oklahoma town where a deadly tornado struck could use just about everything — cleaning supplies, food, water, shelter.

Weather forecasters are predicting another busy Atlantic hurricane season. The storms will get their names from an alphabetical list of 21 names:

Get ready for a busy and possibly "extremely active" hurricane season, said forecasters who today (May 23) unveiled their predictions of the number and intensity of storms expected in the Atlantic Ocean basin during the 2013 hurricane season.

MOORE, Okla. (AP) — One loved the spotlight. Another was nicknamed "The Wall" because of the force he brought to the soccer field.

A satellite image available via Google Maps shows the path that a deadly tornado took as it tore through Moore, Okla., on Monday (May 20) and the scar it etched into the suburban landscape.

Few have explored the remote volcanic islands of the Galapagos archipelago, an otherworldly landscape inhabited by the world's largest tortoises and other fantastical creatures that inspired Charles Darwin's ...

On March 1, 2007, an EF4 tornado ripped through the southern Alabama town of Enterprise. In its wake, hundreds of homes and businesses were destroyed. But the single most tragic event was the destruction of Enterprise High School, where I was principal at the time, and the deaths of eight students.

MOORE, Okla. (AP) — A band of thunderstorms battered the Oklahoma City area Thursday, slowing cleanup operations in the suburb where a tornado killed 24 people and destroyed thousands of homes this week.

Heat-related deaths in New York City's borough of Manhattan may rise about 20 percent over the next decade, according to a new study.

The scenes of devastation in Moore, Okla., after a possibly 2-mile-wide tornado tore apart schools and homes on Monday (May 20) led to an inevitable question: Could anything have been done to save buildings and lives?

Monday's monster tornado in Moore, Okla., was a terrible reminder of nature's tremendous wrath for people in Joplin, Mo., a town also hit by one of the country's worst twisters.