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What you need to know:Tracking Hurricane Laura After It Barreled Over U.S. Gulf Coast
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Climate Adaptation

Hurricane Laura and the California Fires Are Part of the Same Crisis

Human-caused climate change has made the world warmer than it used to be, and the consequences have started to show.

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Hurricane Laura Makes Landfall With Catastrophic Surge
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As Hurricane Laura pounded the U.S. Gulf Coast with nearly 150 mile-per-hour winds, causing water levels to rise almost 10 feet above normal in the wee hours of the morning, wildfires in California were still raging across more than a million acres, the result of a heatwave that spiked as high as 130° Fahrenheit (54.4° Celsius)—possibly the hottest temperature ever sustained on Earth. In the middle of the country, an inland hurricane flattened a large part of Iowa and darkened Chicago homes.  And a tropical storm left thousands in New York without electricity for a week or more.

That was just some of the extreme weather the U.S. suffered this month.