Golf balls, tennis balls, softballs. All sound like the stuff of fun games — except when they are used to describe the size of the hailstones that often accompany severe thunderstorms.
Those hailstones can cause significant damage to homes and cars, a growing worry as warming temperatures fuel more destructive storms. This month, baseball-size hail, sometimes called “gorilla hail” because of its heft, was reported in Kansas and Missouri.
The insurance industry reported $60 billion in losses from “severe convective storms” — a catchall name for thunderstorms that may spawn hail, heavy rain, lightning, high winds and tornadoes — last year, said Mark Friedlander, a spokesman for the Insurance Information Institute, a trade group. In 2022, the industry reported $31 billion in losses.
Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Prediction Center show 5,879 reports of hailstones of one inch or larger in 2022, up 17 percent from 5,020 in 2021. Preliminary data for 2023 show 6,962 reports, including a significant increase in reports of very large hailstones of two inches or more.
Illinois has ALREADY crushed their state record for the number of tornadoes in one year. The old record was 142 (2024) and this year we are approaching 200 tornadoes after this weekends spinners. Illinois has seen more tornadoes than any other state since 2015 according to an article from
@nbcchicago late last week. It’s the third time in the last four years Illinois has led the country in tornadoes. TX holds the record for the most tornadoes in a single year with 244 back in 2015. That data set goes back to 1950. Phones and a sprawling population certainly allow us to miss very little these days. No one knows where the rest of the year goes in IL After a very low tornado count in May, June has brought us back above average for 2026 nationally.
Below, phenomenal reporting and graphs from NBC Chicago station WMAQ.
You elect the world’s most notorious and well documented liar to be President. What could possibly go wrong?
Hormuz closed again despite “deal” announced this week.
Put yourself in the position of a shipper, or someone that insures shippers, and ask what’s going to happen. Interview above with Oil markets expert Dan Dicker is a must watch.
Shipping numbers in the Strait of Hormuz have been on a slow climb since the United States and Iran agreed to a preliminary deal this week to end the war and reopen the vital waterway. But traffic was suddenly jeopardized on Saturday, when Iran’s military said it was shutting the strait once again.
The closure came as U.S. Central Command announced a milestone, saying 55 commercial ships transited the strait on Saturday. That would be the largest number of ships to cross in a day since Iran effectively closed the strait early in the war — though it’s still far below the 130 daily prewar average.
It was not clear whether traffic had changed after Iran announced the new closure.
The confusion compounded as the United States and Iran offered conflicting assessments. The naval arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said if ships approached the strait, their security would be at risk.
But Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, denied in a text message on Saturday that Iran had closed the waterway, saying, “The strait is open and the U.S. blockade against Iran has ceased.” He wrote that traffic was “continuing to flow” and U.S. forces were monitoring the situation to ensure that continues.
Just finished doing a series of sessions educating Michigan Rural Democrats on data center facts and fictions. This news report just illustrates vividly one of the key points I made.
Fact: Some data centers make noise that drives neighbors nuts.
Clarification: These projects are those that have chosen to skip connecting to the power grid, and built their own “behind the meter” power supplies, generally with giant gas turbines. These kinds of facilities are responsible for many of the horror stories that arise out of Data center development, and the concerns about blowing up climate goals. Fortunately for us, this solution is one that is simply not going to work for a large number of locations, for reasons that are economic, social, and plain physics.
Dark surfaces absorb more light, and heat up faster. In “improving” Washington DC’s fabled reflecting pond, Trump hired flunkies that painted the bottom a dark shade of blue, and covered it with a coating meant for pick up truck beds. I’m not joking. It’s basic high school physics, but a key factor in climate science, especially related to “feedback” effects that amplify the warming influence of carbon dioxide. It was the whole rationale behind the Dark Snow Project, the international science effort that brought me to Greenland the first time with Glaciologist Jason Box some 13 years ago this week. Jason’s idea was that, since darker surfaces absorb more heat – dark materials like soot from wildfires must be having an effect on the Greenland Ice sheet, where particles from far flung forest fires in the Northern Hemisphere gather in and darken large areas of otherwise dazzling white ice. White ice reflects 90 percent of all incoming light. Dark ice absorbs much more.
The same effect is a powerful factor as Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice disappears, revealing dark sea water underneath, which absorbs heat rapidly.
This has to be one of the wildest time lapses I have ever filmed. The Effingham, Illinois-area EF3 tornado was as picturesque and textbook as it was deleterious.
Watch the parent thunderstorm's rotating updraft rapidly organize. At the cloud's base, a bowl-shaped lowering… pic.twitter.com/5gQnWsFmWh
Illinois has led the nation in preliminary tornado reports for most of 2026, and after five were tallied during a severe weather outbreak on Wednesday, the state has surpassed its record for the most in a year. And it’s only June.
Article explains that a large fire involved rooftop panels on a large warehouse, the facility contained a lot of Ammonia, leading to some chemical concerns, but be sure that this will be spun to advance the “toxic solar” myth.
LOS ANGELES — L.A. fire officials said Wednesday evening that crews had gained the upper hand on a massive warehouse fire in Boyle Heights, halting the fire’s spread by 5:30 p.m.
Shelter-in-place orders were issued in the community in the afternoon as firefighters worked to combat the blaze, which involved an ammonia gas leak inside the cold storage facility.
The Los Angeles Fire Department responded shortly after 2:30 p.m. to the conflagration at 1400 S. Los Palos St. that burned through solar panels on the roof of the nearly 500,000 square-foot warehouse and sent a thick black plume of smoke into the air that could be seen for miles.
The flames reached an ammonia line, causing the chemical to begin off-gassing and prompting the LAFD to order all firefighters out of the building. Ammonia is commonly used as a refrigerant in large-scale commercial and industrial settings.
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