For environmental journalists covering this summer’s record-high temperatures, finding accurate data on local temperature extremes is key. Our latest Reporter’s Toolbox helps you locate the source of local data via the National Weather Service, then walks you through how to pinpoint your area’s numbers for high temperatures and for heat-related extremes.
"About half a million acres of land in the rural Yazoo backwater area in Mississippi is underwater, a devastating blow for a poor region where agriculture is the economy’s lifeblood".
"Nestled in the foothills of Washington’s Cascade Mountains, the bustling Seattle suburb of Issaquah seems an unlikely candidate for anxiety over wildfires."
"The lab assistant reached into the freezer and lifted out a football-size object in a tattered plastic grocery bag, unwrapping its muddy covering and placing it on a wooden table. It was the severed head of a wolf."
"Ricardo Galvao, the sacked head of Brazil’s space research agency, said on Saturday the trend of sharply rising deforestation was undeniable, a day after he was fired following a public spat with President Jair Bolsonaro over data published by the agency."
"When election time comes next year, Will Galloway, a student and Republican youth leader at Clemson University, will look for candidates who are strong on the mainstream conservative causes he cares about most, including gun rights and opposing abortion. But there is another issue high on his list of urgent concerns that is not on his party’s agenda: climate change."
"A dozen states led by California and New York sued the Trump administration over its plan to roll back auto-industry regulations put in place by former President Barack Obama to improve fuel-efficiency."
"Last week, Sen. Mazie K. Hirono (D-Hawai‘i) and 21 of her US Senate colleagues sent a letter to Dr. James Reilly, the director of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), to express their concern over recent reports that USGS will only utilize climate models that project the effects of climate change through 2040."
"A study promised a rare positive development from global warming for Maryland’s favorite crustacean. But the bad news wasn’t far behind."
"After months of record temperatures, scientists say Greenland's ice sheet experienced its biggest melt of the summer on Thursday, losing 11 billion tons of surface ice to the ocean -- equivalent to 4.4 million Olympic swimming pools."
Advertisement 
