A longform report on the serendipitous development of the mPING smartphone app which tens of thousands of weather geeks are using to report real-time storm conditions — from thunderstorms to tornadoes to blizzards. Those reports, now nearly a million of them, help fine-tune the forecasts of meteorologists at NOAA's Severe Storm Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma. Not to get too geeky, but it's all about building a better "hydrometeor classification algorithm."
LADEE Heads for the Moon
In the fall of 2013, for the first time ever, a spacecraft bound for the Moon took off from Wallop's Island, Virginia. The launch of the unmanned LADDEE probe — it's short for the LUNAR ATMOSPHERE AND DUST ENVIRONMENT EXPLORER — was seen in Washington and up and down most of the east coast. These four reports explain what LADDEE was and outline its fascinating mission.
NOAA Recaps the Hurricane Season
At the end of the 2012 hurricane season, NOAA created a mesmerizing video tracking the storms of an above-average storm season that ended with a bang. Two reports, on the season's tropical storms and hurricanes and on NOAA's popular YouTube release.
Snow in March?
In early March of 2013, the Washington area was getting ready for what some meteorologists predicted would be a big storm. These two segments looked back at previous March snowstorms in the Nation's Capitol.
No Pie for Thanksgiving! There's a Pumpkin Shortage
There were not a lot of pumpkin pies enjoyed on Thanksgiving Day that year: The nation's largest pumpkin grower and processor fell victim to bad weather and bakers, searching for a seasonal favorite, found only bare shelves at the grocery store.
Fixing the Casselman River Bridge
A historic arched bridge in western Maryland, one of the nation's oldest, is being repaired after the discovery of structural deterioration. The Casselman River Bridge near Grantsville is now part of a state park and these days carries only foot-traffic, but the bridge and the road it’s on have seen a lot of history.