Smart homes are gaining in popularity, with 32% of households in the U.S. using smart home technology and that number expected to jump to 57% by 2025.  However, the term is often used to mean that instead of having to walk across the room to flip a switch to turn on a light,  you replace that task with a voice command.  

Lights are on, tablets and smartphones are charging, online school is in session for most kids, and in the US, work from home has become the new norm for many of us. We're home more, which means we're using more energy than usual, and have probably seen that reflected in our energy bill. Now, more than ever, people are looking for better ways to regulate their energy consumption.

While a lot of focus rests on global climates these days, local weather reports require microclimate consideration to improve accuracy for every person living in a specific geographic region. Both natural and engineered conditions affect both the formation and weather forecasting ability in these microclimates. When you understand what causes them, you can adopt hyper- local methods to more accurately plan your outdoor activities and prepare for severe weather.

If firefighters could predict how a wildfire was going to spread, they would be better able to contain it. But despite great strides in the computer modeling used to forecast wildfires, they’re difficult to predict because of unexpected wind shifts or spontaneous acceleration. They remain a catastrophic force that takes lives and decimates communities.

Wondering what to get your dad when he already owns all of the latest tech devices? We’ve scoured the internet for some fabulous Father’s Day gifts for your gadget-loving dad, and these are some of our favorites:  

Hurricane season is upon us, with four named storms already.  According to NOAA, the Atlantic hurricane season started on June 1st and will end on November 30th, with the Eastern Pacific hurricane season beginning May 15th. The strength of a hurricane’s winds determines its intensity, and hurricanes can have different intensities and levels of damage. The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale categorizes hurricane severity on a scale from 1 (weakest) to Category 5 (most intense). Regardless of whether an impending hurricane is Cat 1 or Cat 5, if you live in affected areas, you will need to prepare for hurricane season in order to weather the storm.

Igor, Otto, Dolly, and Fifi are just a few memorable hurricane names. While they may seem arbitrary, the World Meteorological Organization is responsible for carefully selecting names for all major storms around the world. The WMO keeps six lists of 21 male and female names that are rotated and recycled every six years.  There are separate lists in place for storms forming in the North Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, and Indian Ocean.  Because the names are recycled, it’s possible to have two storms with the same name in just one decade. When a storm causes signifigant damage or loss of life, the WMO may deem it inappropriate to be used again, in which case it is retired, as was the case with names Harvey and Katrina. The selected names are intentionally concise, with only a very small number with more than two or three syllables. No Q, U, X, Y or Z names are used to label storms anymore, though in 1958 the names Udele, Virgy, Xrae, Yurith, and Zorna somehow made the the cut. According to NOAA, “Experience shows that the use of short, distinctive names in written as well as spoken communications is quicker and less subject to error than the older, more cumbersome latitude-longitude identification methods".

Of the many weather-related disasters that occur in the United States, floods remain the leading cause of death, with most flood fatalities attributed to flash flooding. The number of flash floods in the United States peaks from late spring through summer, when melting snow, warmer temperatures, humid air, and frequent thunderstorms are common.

A home weather station (also referred to as a personal or residential weather station) is a weather measurement tool operated by a private individual. The home weather station isn’t a new idea, but recent innovations have resulted in more feature-stuffed models compared to what was available even just a few years ago. If you are completely content looking out the window, or checking the weather app that came with your phone, that's wonderful! You may not need to invest in a home weather system. However, if you think that home weather stations are just for weather geeks, think again. Even casual weather observers can benefit from this handy piece of technology.

The world is full of strange and unusual weather events that bring many questions to mind. Can showering during a thunderstorm kill you if lightning strikes your home? It probably won't, but The National Weather Service advises against it. Is it true that lightning doesn't strike the same place twice? No. Just ask The Empire State Building, which gets struck by lightning an average of 23 times per year. Here are some other weird weather questions, answered: