|
February 2021 North American Cold Wave
The February 2021 North American cold wave was an extreme weather event that brought record low temperatures to a significant portion of Canada, the United States and parts of northern Mexico during the first half of February 2021. The cold was caused by a southern migration of the polar vortex, likely caused by a sudden stratospheric warming event that occurred the prior month. Temperatures fell as much as 25–50 °F (14-28 °C) below average as far south as the Gulf Coast. Severe winter storms also were associated with the bitter cold, which allowed for heavy snowfall and ice accumulations to places as far south as Houston, Texas, and contributing to one of the snowiest winters ever in some areas in the Deep South. With the record cold advancing so far south, effects were crippling and widespread. Many regions within the Southern Plains such as Oklahoma, Arkansas and Texas broke or nearly reached record-low temperatures not seen in decades or even a century. In the latter s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea, and to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean. Because it is on the North American Tectonic Plate, Greenland is included as a part of North America geographically. North America covers an area of about , about 16.5% of Earth's land area and about 4.8% of its total surface. North America is the third-largest continent by area, following Asia and Africa, and the fourth by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. In 2013, its population was estimated at nearly 579 million people in 23 independent states, or about 7.5% of the world's population. In human geography and in the English-speaking world outside the United States, particularly in Canada, "North America" and "North American" can refer to just Canada and the Uni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Houston, Texas
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in 2020. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the seat and largest city of Harris County and the principal city of the Greater Houston metropolitan area, which is the fifth-most populous metropolitan statistical area in the United States and the second-most populous in Texas after Dallas–Fort Worth. Houston is the southeast anchor of the greater megaregion known as the Texas Triangle. Comprising a land area of , Houston is the ninth-most expansive city in the United States (including consolidated city-counties). It is the largest city in the United States by total area whose government is not consolidated with a county, parish, or borough. Though primarily in Harris County, small portions of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uranium City, Saskatchewan
Uranium City is a northern settlement in Saskatchewan, Canada. Located on the northern shores of Lake Athabasca near the border of the Northwest Territories, it is above sea level. The settlement is northwest of Prince Albert, northeast of Edmonton and south of the Northwest Territories-Saskatchewan boundary. For census purposes, it is located within the province's Division No. 18 territory. History In 1949, athabascaite was discovered by S. Kaiman while he was researching radioactive materials around Lake Athabasca near Uranium City. In 1952, the provincial government decided to establish a community to service the mines in the Beaverlodge uranium area developed by Eldorado Mining and Refining, a federal crown corporation. In 1954, the local newspaper, ''The Uranium Times'', noted that 52 mines were operating and 12 open-pit mines were next to Beaverlodge Lake. Initially, most of the residences in Uranium City were simply tents. Some of the mines operating in the ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arctic Front
The Arctic front is the semipermanent, semi-continuous weather front between the cold arctic air mass and the warmer air of the polar cell. It can also be defined as the southern boundary of the Arctic air mass. Mesoscale cyclones known as polar lows can form along the arctic front in the wake of extratropical cyclones. Arctic air masses in their wake are shallow with a deep layer of stable air above the shallow cold cool. Appearance in satellite images Arctic Fronts form in the Arctic region, and move southwards in southerly flows. When they reach Northern Europe, they have usually travelled over an open sea, and convective cloudiness has developed. The appearance of an Arctic Cold Fronts is then, essentially, that of a shallow Cold Front. Arctic Cold Fronts are usually so far north that Meteosat images alone are inadequate to recognize them. Also, the following conceptual models may look like Arctic Cold Fronts: polar Cold Front, Polar Low and Comma. The final check is best ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Plains
The Great Plains (french: Grandes Plaines), sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. It is located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, and grassland. It is the southern and main part of the Interior Plains, which also include the tallgrass prairie between the Great Lakes and Appalachian Plateau, and the Taiga Plains and Boreal Plains ecozones in Northern Canada. The term Western Plains is used to describe the ecoregion of the Great Plains, or alternatively the western portion of the Great Plains. The Great Plains lies across both Central United States and Western Canada, encompassing: * The entirety of the U.S. states of Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota; * Parts of the U.S. states of Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming; * The southern portions of the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Man ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Upper Midwest
The Upper Midwest is a region in the northern portion of the U.S. Census Bureau's Midwestern United States. It is largely a sub-region of the Midwest. Although the exact boundaries are not uniformly agreed-upon, the region is defined as referring to the states of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin; some definitions include Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota as well. Definitions The National Weather Service defines its Upper Midwest as the states of Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. The United States Geological Survey uses two different Upper Midwest regions: *The USGS Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center considers it to be the six states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, which comprise the watersheds of the Upper Mississippi River and upper Great Lakes. *The USGS Mineral Resources Program considers the area to contain Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. The Association for Institutional Res ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jet Stream
Jet streams are fast flowing, narrow, meandering air currents in the atmospheres of some planets, including Earth. On Earth, the main jet streams are located near the altitude of the tropopause and are westerly winds (flowing west to east). Jet streams may start, stop, split into two or more parts, combine into one stream, or flow in various directions including opposite to the direction of the remainder of the jet. Overview The strongest jet streams are the polar jets around the polar vortices, at above sea level, and the higher altitude and somewhat weaker subtropical jets at . The Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere each have a polar jet and a subtropical jet. The northern hemisphere polar jet flows over the middle to northern latitudes of North America, Europe, and Asia and their intervening oceans, while the southern hemisphere polar jet mostly circles Antarctica, both all year round. Jet streams are the product of two factors: the atmospheric heating b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NOAA
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditions, charts the seas, conducts deep sea exploration, and manages fishing and protection of marine mammals and endangered species in the U.S. exclusive economic zone. Purpose and function NOAA's specific roles include: * ''Supplying Environmental Information Products''. NOAA supplies to its customers and partners information pertaining to the state of the oceans and the atmosphere, such as weather warnings and forecasts via the National Weather Service. NOAA's information services extend as well to climate, ecosystems, and commerce. * ''Providing Environmental Stewardship Services''. NOAA is a steward of U.S. coastal and marine environments. In coordination with federal, state, local, tribal and international authorities, NOAA manages the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aon (company)
Aon PLC () is a British-American multinational financial services firm that sells a range of risk-mitigation products, including Commercial Risk, Investment, Wealth and Reinsurance solutions, as well as boutique strategy consulting through Aon Inpoint. Aon has approximately 50,000 employees in 120 countries. Aon was created in 1982 when the Ryan Insurance Group merged with the Combined Insurance Company of America. In 1987, that company was renamed Aon from ''aon'', a Gaelic word meaning "one". The company is headquartered in the UK and incorporated in Ireland, with its listing based in the US. History W. Clement Stone's mother bought a small Detroit insurance agency, and in 1918 brought her son into the business. Mr. Stone sold low-cost, low-benefit accident insurance, underwriting and issuing policies on-site. The next year he founded his own agency, the Combined Registry Co. As the Great Depression began, Stone reduced his workforce and improved training. Forced by his s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Weather Company
The Weather Company is a weather forecasting and information technology company that owns and operates weather.com and Weather Underground. The Weather Company has been a subsidiary of the Watson & Cloud Platform business unit of IBM since 2016. History and operations The Weather Company started as the Weather Channel in 1980, and launched two years later. In 2012, the company created a broader holding company and replaced the word "Channel" with "Company" to better reflect their growing lineup of digital products. The Weather Company was previously owned by a consortium made up of the Blackstone Group, Bain Capital, and NBCUniversal. That consortium sold the Weather Company's product and technology assets to IBM on January 29, 2016, but retained possession of The Weather Channel cable network until March 2018, when it was sold to Entertainment Studios. As part of the 2016 spin-off, the consortium entered into a long-term licensing agreement with IBM for use of its weather data ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2021 Texas Power Crisis
In February 2021, the state of Texas suffered a major power crisis, which came about during three severe winter storms sweeping across the United States on February 10–11, 13–17, and 15–20. The storms triggered the worst energy infrastructure failure in Texas state history, leading to shortages of water, food, and heat. More than 4.5 million homes and businesses were left without power, some for several days. At least 246 people were killed directly or indirectly, with some estimates as high as 702 killed as a result of the crisis. State officials including Republican governor Greg Abbott initially blamed the outages on frozen wind turbines and solar panels. However, data showed that failure to winterize power sources, like wind turbines and natural gas infrastructure, had caused the grid failure. Texas's power grid has long been separate from the two major national grids to avoid federal oversight, though it is still connected to the other national grids and Mexi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by both area (after Alaska) and population (after California). Texas shares borders with the states of Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the west, and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas to the south and southwest; and has a coastline with the Gulf of Mexico to the southeast. Houston is the most populous city in Texas and the fourth-largest in the U.S., while San Antonio is the second most populous in the state and seventh-largest in the U.S. Dallas–Fort Worth and Greater Houston are, respectively, the fourth- and fifth-largest metropolitan statistical areas in the country. Other major cities include Austin, the second most populous s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> North America")
.svg "Click for more on -> Houston, Texas")
.jpg "Click for more on -> Great Plains")
