The September birthstone is the sapphire. Although it comes in many colors, the traditional blue sapphire is always a popular choice and sometimes used in engagement rings. Image via Marcy Curran.
September birthstone
September’s birthstone, the sapphire, is a relative of July’s birthstone, the ruby. That’s because both are forms of the mineral corundum, a crystalline form of aluminum oxide. But the red corundum is ruby. And all other gem-quality forms of corundum are sapphires.
All corundum, including sapphire, has a hardness of 9 on the Mohs scale. In fact, sapphires are second in hardness only to diamonds.
The September birthstone is sapphire. Although it’s traditionally thought of as blue, it comes in many colors such as this pink sapphire ring. Image via Charles Sharp/ Wikipedia.
Source of sapphires
Typically, sapphires appear as blue stones. They range from very pale blue to deep indigo. In fact, the exact shade depends on how much titanium and iron lies within the crystal structure. The most valued shade of blue is the medium-deep cornflower blue. However, sapphires also occur in other natural colors and tints – colorless, gray, yellow, pale pink, orange, green, violet and brown – called fancy sapphires. Different kinds of impurities within the crystal cause the various gemstone colors. For example, yellow sapphires get their color from ferric iron, and colorless gems have no contaminants.
Primarily, the biggest source of sapphires world-wide is Australia, especially New South Wales and Queensland. They are found in alluvial deposits of weathered basalt. Australian sapphires typically are blue stones with a dark and inky appearance. On the other hand, Kashmir, in India, used to be a well-known source of the cornflower-blue stones. And in the United States, a major source is the Yogo Gulch Mine in Montana. It mostly yields small stones for industrial use.
Sapphire lore about the September birthstone
The word sapphire has its roots in ancient languages: from the Latin sapphirus (meaning blue) and from the Greek word sappheiros for the island of Sappherine in the Arabian Sea, the name being derived from the Arabic word safir. Sappherine was the source for sapphire in ancient Grecian times. Ancient Persians called sapphire the “Celestial Stone.” It was the gem of Apollo, Greek God of prophecy. Worshipers visiting his shrine in Delphi to seek his help wore sapphires. Ancient Etruscans used sapphires as far back as the 7th century BCE.
Besides being the September birthstone, the sapphire represented the purity of the soul. Before and during the Middle Ages, priests wore it as protection from impure thoughts and temptations of the flesh. Medieval kings of Europe valued these stones for rings and brooches, believing that it protected them from harm and envy. Warriors presented their young wives with sapphire necklaces so they would remain faithful. A common belief was that the stone’s color would darken if worn by an adulterer or adulteress, or by an unworthy person.
Some believed sapphires protected people from snakes. People believed that by placing poisonous reptiles and spiders in a jar containing the stone, the creatures would immediately die. The French of the 13th century believed that sapphire transformed stupidity to wisdom, and irritability to good temper.
Of course, probably the best-known color of sapphire is blue. Image via gemrockauctions.com. Used with permission.
Some famous sapphires
One of the most famous sapphires rests on the Imperial State Crown worn by Queen Victoria in 1838. It resides with the British Crown Jewels in the Tower of London. In fact, this gem once belonged to Edward the Confessor. He wore the stone on a ring during his coronation in 1042, and it became known as St. Edward’s Sapphire.
The Logan Sapphire Brooch, the second largest sapphire known (at 422.99 carats), is on display at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Image via Andrew Bossi/ Wikipedia.
Bottom line: The September birthstone is the sapphire. It is generally known as a blue gemstone, but it comes in many colors.
Find out about the birthstones for the other months of the year:
The September birthstone is the sapphire. Although it comes in many colors, the traditional blue sapphire is always a popular choice and sometimes used in engagement rings. Image via Marcy Curran.
September birthstone
September’s birthstone, the sapphire, is a relative of July’s birthstone, the ruby. That’s because both are forms of the mineral corundum, a crystalline form of aluminum oxide. But the red corundum is ruby. And all other gem-quality forms of corundum are sapphires.
All corundum, including sapphire, has a hardness of 9 on the Mohs scale. In fact, sapphires are second in hardness only to diamonds.
The September birthstone is sapphire. Although it’s traditionally thought of as blue, it comes in many colors such as this pink sapphire ring. Image via Charles Sharp/ Wikipedia.
Source of sapphires
Typically, sapphires appear as blue stones. They range from very pale blue to deep indigo. In fact, the exact shade depends on how much titanium and iron lies within the crystal structure. The most valued shade of blue is the medium-deep cornflower blue. However, sapphires also occur in other natural colors and tints – colorless, gray, yellow, pale pink, orange, green, violet and brown – called fancy sapphires. Different kinds of impurities within the crystal cause the various gemstone colors. For example, yellow sapphires get their color from ferric iron, and colorless gems have no contaminants.
Primarily, the biggest source of sapphires world-wide is Australia, especially New South Wales and Queensland. They are found in alluvial deposits of weathered basalt. Australian sapphires typically are blue stones with a dark and inky appearance. On the other hand, Kashmir, in India, used to be a well-known source of the cornflower-blue stones. And in the United States, a major source is the Yogo Gulch Mine in Montana. It mostly yields small stones for industrial use.
Sapphire lore about the September birthstone
The word sapphire has its roots in ancient languages: from the Latin sapphirus (meaning blue) and from the Greek word sappheiros for the island of Sappherine in the Arabian Sea, the name being derived from the Arabic word safir. Sappherine was the source for sapphire in ancient Grecian times. Ancient Persians called sapphire the “Celestial Stone.” It was the gem of Apollo, Greek God of prophecy. Worshipers visiting his shrine in Delphi to seek his help wore sapphires. Ancient Etruscans used sapphires as far back as the 7th century BCE.
Besides being the September birthstone, the sapphire represented the purity of the soul. Before and during the Middle Ages, priests wore it as protection from impure thoughts and temptations of the flesh. Medieval kings of Europe valued these stones for rings and brooches, believing that it protected them from harm and envy. Warriors presented their young wives with sapphire necklaces so they would remain faithful. A common belief was that the stone’s color would darken if worn by an adulterer or adulteress, or by an unworthy person.
Some believed sapphires protected people from snakes. People believed that by placing poisonous reptiles and spiders in a jar containing the stone, the creatures would immediately die. The French of the 13th century believed that sapphire transformed stupidity to wisdom, and irritability to good temper.
Of course, probably the best-known color of sapphire is blue. Image via gemrockauctions.com. Used with permission.
Some famous sapphires
One of the most famous sapphires rests on the Imperial State Crown worn by Queen Victoria in 1838. It resides with the British Crown Jewels in the Tower of London. In fact, this gem once belonged to Edward the Confessor. He wore the stone on a ring during his coronation in 1042, and it became known as St. Edward’s Sapphire.
The Logan Sapphire Brooch, the second largest sapphire known (at 422.99 carats), is on display at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Image via Andrew Bossi/ Wikipedia.
Bottom line: The September birthstone is the sapphire. It is generally known as a blue gemstone, but it comes in many colors.
Find out about the birthstones for the other months of the year:
Pioneer 11 captured this image in September, 1979, from a distance of 248,500 miles (400,000 km). The edge of Saturn’s disk can clearly be seen through a wide gap in the rings called the Cassini Division. The Keeler Gap can also be seen faintly silhouetted against the planet. Image via NASA/ Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Pioneer 11 was the first earthly craft ever to fly past the planet Saturn. Its closest approach to the ringed planet was on September 1, 1979. And Patty Winter was at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California – where the Pioneer project was managed – watching the Saturn watchers on that historic day. In the story below, Patty shares her memories. Here’s Watching the Saturn Watchers, by Patty Winter …
The scientists at Pioneer Saturn Mission Control are glued to their computer screens like Las Vegas tourists in front of one-armed bandits. What they don’t want to see is a field of dollar signs: The computer’s ironic way of saying they’ve just lost a multimillion-dollar spacecraft. Pioneer 11 is about to dart past the rings of Saturn. Theoretically, it will pass well outside them. But no one on Earth knows quite how far out the rings extend. And at 70,000 miles an hour (112 km/hr), a piece of ice and rock no bigger than a snowball could destroy Pioneer.
In an alcove-cum-TV studio at one side of the room, NASA’s Larry King is describing the scene for a worldwide audience. It’s Saturn-day, September 1, 1979, a few minutes before nine in the morning. The expected ring-crossing time is 9:02 a.m. PDT. The scientists here at Ames are giving the event a two-minute leeway on either side. They won’t consider the crossing successful until 9:04 has passed safely.
Watching Pioneer 11
Over at the Space Sciences Building, nearly a hundred journalists are equally attentive to their screens. The TV monitors allow them to peek over the shoulders of the mission controllers and see the data streaming in from Pioneer. At 9:00, Pioneer’s normal output of letters and numbers is still on the screen. In reality, we’re awaiting an event that has already happened. Pioneer crossed Saturn’s ring plane at 7:36 a.m. PDT. But it’s taken almost an hour and a half for the bits of information to make their way through a billion miles (1.6 billion km) of emptiness to the waiting antenna in Spain.
This graphic shows the paths of the Pioneer and Voyager spacecrafts through and out of our solar system. Image via NASA.
Awaiting Pioneer’s signal
Just after 9:01 now, and Larry King is counting down the seconds to the predicted crossing time. He reaches zero, and the usual data are still on the screen. But the scientists and press people remain silent.
It’s impossible not to wish Pioneer well. Originally built only to explore Jupiter before tumbling its way to infinity, scientists redirected Pioneer 11 toward Saturn a few years later. It’s now giving us our first close-up look at the beautiful ringed planet before joining Pioneer 10 as one of the first artificial objects to leave our solar system.
The tiny Pioneers: only 9 by 9.5 feet (2.7 by 2.9 meters) big, alone in space except for radio contact with their small home planet, listening to instructions and beeping back their responses. Pioneer 10 is out past the orbit of Uranus. In 1987, it will cross the hypothetical boundary of our solar system and continue toward the constellation Taurus. Pioneer 11 is going in almost the opposite direction.
A message to the stars
Each of them carries a small gold plaque with a message from the people of the 3rd planet from Sol, just in case somebody out there finds one of the little travelers. It probably won’t happen, but it seems only polite to introduce ourselves, just in case.
The Pioneer plaque, which Carl Sagan helped design and place aboard the 1st 2 spacecraft ever to leave Earth for interstellar space, via Wikipedia.View larger. | The plaque on the Pioneer spacecraft was inconspicuous among the dish and struts of the spacecraft. Image via NASA.
Pioneer’s extended journey
But back to Saturn, and back to the blue-and-white planet across the sun from it. The screens at Ames are still giving out good news, but has Pioneer actually gone past the rings yet? We don’t know for certain, since we’re not exactly sure where the rings are. And there have been some problems receiving the data. The people who designed Pioneer 11 never expected it to have to send back data for all these years and across all these miles. And who knew that the sun would send out a violent electromagnetic storm just a few days before the Saturn encounter?
Amazingly, we can still hear Pioneer’s tiny transmitter through the hash, and the instruments are working beautifully. Charlie Hall and the Pioneer team have been happy to be getting anything, so they’re overjoyed at the wealth of data they’ve been receiving. They have data on Saturn’s magnetic field and radiation belts, on its atmosphere and on its mysterious moon Iapetus.
Images from deep space
And the photographs! Black-and-white ones taken at various wavelengths to bring out different details of Saturn’s disk; color shots of the planet with the rings almost edge-on; and breathtaking color photos of the rings themselves: Those razor-thin rings, thousands of times as wide as they are thick, so ethereal and fragile looking. But it would take only one little pebble to cripple Pioneer.
This image from Pioneer 11 shows Saturn and its moon Titan. The irregularities in ring silhouette and shadow are due to technical anomalies in the preliminary data, which was later corrected. At the time this image was taken, Pioneer was 1,768,422 miles (2,846,000 km) from Saturn. But Pioneer 11’s path through Saturn’s outer rings ultimately took it within 13,000 miles (21,000 km) of the planet, where it discovered two new moons (almost smacking into one of them in September 1979) and a new “F” ring. Image via NASA Ames.
Pioneer phones home
We’re coming up on 9:03, and there’s a growing feeling at Ames that it’s going to be all right. An accident could happen at any time, of course, but Saturn’s gravitational field has attracted virtually all nearby material into the constantly shifting bands around its middle, so the rest of the vicinity is almost empty, or so the scientists hope. Now Larry King is telling us it’s 9:04, and the computer screens haven’t changed. Still that same reassuring mixture of letters and numbers, and no dollar signs.
Someone in Mission Control says loudly:
We made it.
Applause and a few whoops fill the press room. It isn’t a wild reaction. It’s not like watching Apollo 17 blaze into the Florida night and inwardly chanting, Go! Go! Go! After all, we can’t actually see this milestone. Pioneer can only take still photographs. The human reaction this time is more a sigh of relief, a happy feeling that a small emissary from Earth has been given a warm welcome by a neighbor as it heads for the stars.
Pioneer 11 took this image of Saturn on September 1, 1979. Image via Wikimedia Commons.
Bottom line: Patty Winter of Menlo Park, California, recalls the day that Pioneer 11 passed the rings of Saturn. The Pioneer mission was managed by NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, which today maintains the Pioneer mission’s historical archive.
Pioneer 11 captured this image in September, 1979, from a distance of 248,500 miles (400,000 km). The edge of Saturn’s disk can clearly be seen through a wide gap in the rings called the Cassini Division. The Keeler Gap can also be seen faintly silhouetted against the planet. Image via NASA/ Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Pioneer 11 was the first earthly craft ever to fly past the planet Saturn. Its closest approach to the ringed planet was on September 1, 1979. And Patty Winter was at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California – where the Pioneer project was managed – watching the Saturn watchers on that historic day. In the story below, Patty shares her memories. Here’s Watching the Saturn Watchers, by Patty Winter …
The scientists at Pioneer Saturn Mission Control are glued to their computer screens like Las Vegas tourists in front of one-armed bandits. What they don’t want to see is a field of dollar signs: The computer’s ironic way of saying they’ve just lost a multimillion-dollar spacecraft. Pioneer 11 is about to dart past the rings of Saturn. Theoretically, it will pass well outside them. But no one on Earth knows quite how far out the rings extend. And at 70,000 miles an hour (112 km/hr), a piece of ice and rock no bigger than a snowball could destroy Pioneer.
In an alcove-cum-TV studio at one side of the room, NASA’s Larry King is describing the scene for a worldwide audience. It’s Saturn-day, September 1, 1979, a few minutes before nine in the morning. The expected ring-crossing time is 9:02 a.m. PDT. The scientists here at Ames are giving the event a two-minute leeway on either side. They won’t consider the crossing successful until 9:04 has passed safely.
Watching Pioneer 11
Over at the Space Sciences Building, nearly a hundred journalists are equally attentive to their screens. The TV monitors allow them to peek over the shoulders of the mission controllers and see the data streaming in from Pioneer. At 9:00, Pioneer’s normal output of letters and numbers is still on the screen. In reality, we’re awaiting an event that has already happened. Pioneer crossed Saturn’s ring plane at 7:36 a.m. PDT. But it’s taken almost an hour and a half for the bits of information to make their way through a billion miles (1.6 billion km) of emptiness to the waiting antenna in Spain.
This graphic shows the paths of the Pioneer and Voyager spacecrafts through and out of our solar system. Image via NASA.
Awaiting Pioneer’s signal
Just after 9:01 now, and Larry King is counting down the seconds to the predicted crossing time. He reaches zero, and the usual data are still on the screen. But the scientists and press people remain silent.
It’s impossible not to wish Pioneer well. Originally built only to explore Jupiter before tumbling its way to infinity, scientists redirected Pioneer 11 toward Saturn a few years later. It’s now giving us our first close-up look at the beautiful ringed planet before joining Pioneer 10 as one of the first artificial objects to leave our solar system.
The tiny Pioneers: only 9 by 9.5 feet (2.7 by 2.9 meters) big, alone in space except for radio contact with their small home planet, listening to instructions and beeping back their responses. Pioneer 10 is out past the orbit of Uranus. In 1987, it will cross the hypothetical boundary of our solar system and continue toward the constellation Taurus. Pioneer 11 is going in almost the opposite direction.
A message to the stars
Each of them carries a small gold plaque with a message from the people of the 3rd planet from Sol, just in case somebody out there finds one of the little travelers. It probably won’t happen, but it seems only polite to introduce ourselves, just in case.
The Pioneer plaque, which Carl Sagan helped design and place aboard the 1st 2 spacecraft ever to leave Earth for interstellar space, via Wikipedia.View larger. | The plaque on the Pioneer spacecraft was inconspicuous among the dish and struts of the spacecraft. Image via NASA.
Pioneer’s extended journey
But back to Saturn, and back to the blue-and-white planet across the sun from it. The screens at Ames are still giving out good news, but has Pioneer actually gone past the rings yet? We don’t know for certain, since we’re not exactly sure where the rings are. And there have been some problems receiving the data. The people who designed Pioneer 11 never expected it to have to send back data for all these years and across all these miles. And who knew that the sun would send out a violent electromagnetic storm just a few days before the Saturn encounter?
Amazingly, we can still hear Pioneer’s tiny transmitter through the hash, and the instruments are working beautifully. Charlie Hall and the Pioneer team have been happy to be getting anything, so they’re overjoyed at the wealth of data they’ve been receiving. They have data on Saturn’s magnetic field and radiation belts, on its atmosphere and on its mysterious moon Iapetus.
Images from deep space
And the photographs! Black-and-white ones taken at various wavelengths to bring out different details of Saturn’s disk; color shots of the planet with the rings almost edge-on; and breathtaking color photos of the rings themselves: Those razor-thin rings, thousands of times as wide as they are thick, so ethereal and fragile looking. But it would take only one little pebble to cripple Pioneer.
This image from Pioneer 11 shows Saturn and its moon Titan. The irregularities in ring silhouette and shadow are due to technical anomalies in the preliminary data, which was later corrected. At the time this image was taken, Pioneer was 1,768,422 miles (2,846,000 km) from Saturn. But Pioneer 11’s path through Saturn’s outer rings ultimately took it within 13,000 miles (21,000 km) of the planet, where it discovered two new moons (almost smacking into one of them in September 1979) and a new “F” ring. Image via NASA Ames.
Pioneer phones home
We’re coming up on 9:03, and there’s a growing feeling at Ames that it’s going to be all right. An accident could happen at any time, of course, but Saturn’s gravitational field has attracted virtually all nearby material into the constantly shifting bands around its middle, so the rest of the vicinity is almost empty, or so the scientists hope. Now Larry King is telling us it’s 9:04, and the computer screens haven’t changed. Still that same reassuring mixture of letters and numbers, and no dollar signs.
Someone in Mission Control says loudly:
We made it.
Applause and a few whoops fill the press room. It isn’t a wild reaction. It’s not like watching Apollo 17 blaze into the Florida night and inwardly chanting, Go! Go! Go! After all, we can’t actually see this milestone. Pioneer can only take still photographs. The human reaction this time is more a sigh of relief, a happy feeling that a small emissary from Earth has been given a warm welcome by a neighbor as it heads for the stars.
Pioneer 11 took this image of Saturn on September 1, 1979. Image via Wikimedia Commons.
Bottom line: Patty Winter of Menlo Park, California, recalls the day that Pioneer 11 passed the rings of Saturn. The Pioneer mission was managed by NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, which today maintains the Pioneer mission’s historical archive.
This is the sea surface temperature anomaly map for August 30, 2026. An El Niño is when sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean become unusually warm, with a 0.5° Celsius (0.9° Fahrenheit) above the long-term average. Image via University of Maine.
El Niño is officially here, NOAA’s National Weather Service said in June. The conditions were met after the sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean rose 0.5°C above average for several months. And now NOAA says there’s a 90% or greater chance we see a very strong El Niño between September 2026 and January 2027.
Climate scientist Daniel Swain of the University of California said there is a:
high likelihood (~70%) that the 2026 event will become the strongest on record (since at least 1950) later this year, likely peaking in intensity between October and December.
The Columbia Climate School agrees. It said on August 19:
Despite some uncertainty in the projected peak intensity, the forecast consensus is clear: a strong El Niño is highly likely to develop and persist through late 2026.
Swain also discussed what the global effects of this supersized El Niño could be:
By increasing the total amount of heat and water vapor in the Earth’s atmosphere, and by shifting global storm tracks, this event will likely contribute to significant regional drought and flood events, as well as extreme heat. Additionally, the temporary effects from this very strong El Niño event will amplify the effect of long-term warming from climate change, greatly elevating the likelihood of record-breaking global temperatures and extreme weather events during 2026-2027.
A super El Niño
Some meteorologists have been calling the very strong conditions a super El Niño. El Niño is the warm phase of a weather pattern based on the sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific Ocean. This pattern drives weather, including temperatures and amounts of precipitation. El Niño conditions bring different weather to different places. You can see the overall trends in the charts below.
An El Niño increases the likelihood of wetter weather in the southern and eastern U.S., with dry conditions near the Great Lakes and warm conditions along the upper tier of the U.S. Image via NOAA/ National Ocean Service.El Niño conditions in the tropical Pacific are known to shift rainfall patterns in many different parts of the world. The regions and seasons shown on the map indicate typical but not guaranteed impacts of El Niño. Image via Columbia Climate School.
What to expect from El Niño
There are some overall patterns that weather follows when we are in El Niño conditions. But you’ll still want to stay weather aware. As Ken Graham, director of NOAA’s National Weather Service, said:
Every El Nino is not the same; each one is unique with its own imprint on our weather.
But here’s a look at some of the likely weather scenarios during El Niño.
An El Niño usually brings higher global temperatures. The excess heat in the Pacific Ocean eventually enters the atmosphere. This causes warmer global temperatures. However, the rise in temperatures often has a lag time of a few months.
As Northern Illinois University meteorology professor Victor Gensini told PBS:
A strong El Niño could plausibly push global temperatures to new record levels in late 2026 and into 2027.
In the summer, El Niño can dampen hurricane formation in the Atlantic. And so far, the hurricane in the Atlantic has indeed been relatively quiet. Colorado State University even revised its earlier, already-low hurricane forecast downward in July.
El Niño has officially arrived. Watch the sea surface temperatures change from January 1 to June 8, 2026. The red shows warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures pooling in the eastern Pacific Ocean near the equator. Image via NOAA.
Winter this season
It’s in winter that we feel El Niño the strongest. Often the jet stream will drop south, steering storms into California and Arizona and bringing much-needed rain. If the jet stream swings southward, then the southern and eastern U.S. can expect wetter and cooler weather. Meanwhile, drier weather could prevail in the northern U.S. and Great Lakes region.
Across the globe, El Niño brings drought conditions to places such as Australia, India and central Africa. And it can bring heavy rains to southern South America and eastern Africa.
World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said on June 2, 2026:
We need to prepare for a potentially strong El Niño event, which will exacerbate drought and heavy rainfall and increase the risk of heatwaves both on land and in the ocean. The most recent El Niño, in 2023-24, was one of the five strongest on record and it played a role in the record global temperatures we saw in 2024.
Just like any weather event, preparation is key. The WMO said that nearly everywhere can expect above average temperatures for June to August.
WMO urges people to prepare
On Tuesday, June 2, 2026, the WMO, based in Geneva, Switzerland, urged people to prepare for El Niño. The WMO, a specialized agency of the United Nations that focuses on weather, climate and water resources, said:
Fueled by unusually warm ocean waters in the tropical Pacific, El Niño conditions are developing and are set to influence global temperature and rainfall patterns, increasing the risk of extreme weather over the coming months.
El Niño conditions will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world. Impacts will hit even harder, travel even farther, and cross borders with devastating speed. The only effective response is climate action equal to the crisis: ending the addiction to fossil fuels, accelerating the shift to renewables, protecting the most vulnerable, and delivering early warning systems for all.
So what is a super El Niño compared to an El Niño? Let’s start by looking closer at a typical El Niño. There are three types of conditions that can guide global weather: El Niño, La Niña and neutral. These three conditions make up ENSO, or the El Niño–Southern Oscillation. ENSO is a natural climate pattern in the tropical Pacific Ocean that shifts between warm and cool phases. El Niño is the warm phase and La Niña is the cool phase. And these phases influence weather around the world, including rainfall, droughts and storms.
So an average El Niño occurs when warm water pools up in the eastern Pacific Ocean around the equator. Once the temperatures reach 0.5 degrees Celsius (0.9 F) warmer than normal in the sea surface, an El Niño has formed. El Niño conditions can last for up to a year.
A super El Niño is a stronger event. Meteorologists often call it a super El Niño when the sea surface temperature anomalies peak at about 2.0° C (3.6 F) above normal. And currently, some models are calling for the coming El Niño to exceed 2.5° C (4.5 F) above the seasonal average by October.
Staying safe in extreme heat
From EarthSky’s weather author, meteorologist Rachel Duensing:
Staying safe in extreme heat can vary a bit depending on your situation. But the main idea is to avoid the heat as much as possible. If you are able to stay inside, ideally in air-conditioning (A/C), this is your best option. But if you cannot avoid the hot weather, there are things you can do. Take frequent breaks in the shade. Make sure you’re staying hydrated. Wear light-colored, loose-fitting clothing. And pay close attention to how you’re feeling as the day goes on.
If you, or someone you are with, is sweating heavily, feeling weak, tired, dizzy or nauseated, these could be signs of heat exhaustion. Immediately move yourself or the other person into A/C. Loosen their clothing, give them sips of cool water and put cold compresses on their body.
If someone is acting confused and slurring their speech, has red and hot skin or passes out, this is likely a heat stroke. They need medical attention immediately! Call 911. While you wait for help to arrive, move the person to A/C, add cool compresses to lower their body temperature, but do not give them anything to drink.
The heat can also be more dangerous to the very young, the very old, people with chronic medical conditions and pregnant women. In addition, the unhoused and lower income communities, who may not be able to afford to run their air-conditioning, are also at risk. Check on your friends, family and neighbors before, during and after extreme heat.
Bottom line: El Niño is here. But will it become supersized? NOAA says there’s a 90% or greater chance for El Niño to become “very strong” between September and January.
This is the sea surface temperature anomaly map for August 30, 2026. An El Niño is when sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean become unusually warm, with a 0.5° Celsius (0.9° Fahrenheit) above the long-term average. Image via University of Maine.
El Niño is officially here, NOAA’s National Weather Service said in June. The conditions were met after the sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean rose 0.5°C above average for several months. And now NOAA says there’s a 90% or greater chance we see a very strong El Niño between September 2026 and January 2027.
Climate scientist Daniel Swain of the University of California said there is a:
high likelihood (~70%) that the 2026 event will become the strongest on record (since at least 1950) later this year, likely peaking in intensity between October and December.
The Columbia Climate School agrees. It said on August 19:
Despite some uncertainty in the projected peak intensity, the forecast consensus is clear: a strong El Niño is highly likely to develop and persist through late 2026.
Swain also discussed what the global effects of this supersized El Niño could be:
By increasing the total amount of heat and water vapor in the Earth’s atmosphere, and by shifting global storm tracks, this event will likely contribute to significant regional drought and flood events, as well as extreme heat. Additionally, the temporary effects from this very strong El Niño event will amplify the effect of long-term warming from climate change, greatly elevating the likelihood of record-breaking global temperatures and extreme weather events during 2026-2027.
A super El Niño
Some meteorologists have been calling the very strong conditions a super El Niño. El Niño is the warm phase of a weather pattern based on the sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific Ocean. This pattern drives weather, including temperatures and amounts of precipitation. El Niño conditions bring different weather to different places. You can see the overall trends in the charts below.
An El Niño increases the likelihood of wetter weather in the southern and eastern U.S., with dry conditions near the Great Lakes and warm conditions along the upper tier of the U.S. Image via NOAA/ National Ocean Service.El Niño conditions in the tropical Pacific are known to shift rainfall patterns in many different parts of the world. The regions and seasons shown on the map indicate typical but not guaranteed impacts of El Niño. Image via Columbia Climate School.
What to expect from El Niño
There are some overall patterns that weather follows when we are in El Niño conditions. But you’ll still want to stay weather aware. As Ken Graham, director of NOAA’s National Weather Service, said:
Every El Nino is not the same; each one is unique with its own imprint on our weather.
But here’s a look at some of the likely weather scenarios during El Niño.
An El Niño usually brings higher global temperatures. The excess heat in the Pacific Ocean eventually enters the atmosphere. This causes warmer global temperatures. However, the rise in temperatures often has a lag time of a few months.
As Northern Illinois University meteorology professor Victor Gensini told PBS:
A strong El Niño could plausibly push global temperatures to new record levels in late 2026 and into 2027.
In the summer, El Niño can dampen hurricane formation in the Atlantic. And so far, the hurricane in the Atlantic has indeed been relatively quiet. Colorado State University even revised its earlier, already-low hurricane forecast downward in July.
El Niño has officially arrived. Watch the sea surface temperatures change from January 1 to June 8, 2026. The red shows warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures pooling in the eastern Pacific Ocean near the equator. Image via NOAA.
Winter this season
It’s in winter that we feel El Niño the strongest. Often the jet stream will drop south, steering storms into California and Arizona and bringing much-needed rain. If the jet stream swings southward, then the southern and eastern U.S. can expect wetter and cooler weather. Meanwhile, drier weather could prevail in the northern U.S. and Great Lakes region.
Across the globe, El Niño brings drought conditions to places such as Australia, India and central Africa. And it can bring heavy rains to southern South America and eastern Africa.
World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said on June 2, 2026:
We need to prepare for a potentially strong El Niño event, which will exacerbate drought and heavy rainfall and increase the risk of heatwaves both on land and in the ocean. The most recent El Niño, in 2023-24, was one of the five strongest on record and it played a role in the record global temperatures we saw in 2024.
Just like any weather event, preparation is key. The WMO said that nearly everywhere can expect above average temperatures for June to August.
WMO urges people to prepare
On Tuesday, June 2, 2026, the WMO, based in Geneva, Switzerland, urged people to prepare for El Niño. The WMO, a specialized agency of the United Nations that focuses on weather, climate and water resources, said:
Fueled by unusually warm ocean waters in the tropical Pacific, El Niño conditions are developing and are set to influence global temperature and rainfall patterns, increasing the risk of extreme weather over the coming months.
El Niño conditions will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world. Impacts will hit even harder, travel even farther, and cross borders with devastating speed. The only effective response is climate action equal to the crisis: ending the addiction to fossil fuels, accelerating the shift to renewables, protecting the most vulnerable, and delivering early warning systems for all.
So what is a super El Niño compared to an El Niño? Let’s start by looking closer at a typical El Niño. There are three types of conditions that can guide global weather: El Niño, La Niña and neutral. These three conditions make up ENSO, or the El Niño–Southern Oscillation. ENSO is a natural climate pattern in the tropical Pacific Ocean that shifts between warm and cool phases. El Niño is the warm phase and La Niña is the cool phase. And these phases influence weather around the world, including rainfall, droughts and storms.
So an average El Niño occurs when warm water pools up in the eastern Pacific Ocean around the equator. Once the temperatures reach 0.5 degrees Celsius (0.9 F) warmer than normal in the sea surface, an El Niño has formed. El Niño conditions can last for up to a year.
A super El Niño is a stronger event. Meteorologists often call it a super El Niño when the sea surface temperature anomalies peak at about 2.0° C (3.6 F) above normal. And currently, some models are calling for the coming El Niño to exceed 2.5° C (4.5 F) above the seasonal average by October.
Staying safe in extreme heat
From EarthSky’s weather author, meteorologist Rachel Duensing:
Staying safe in extreme heat can vary a bit depending on your situation. But the main idea is to avoid the heat as much as possible. If you are able to stay inside, ideally in air-conditioning (A/C), this is your best option. But if you cannot avoid the hot weather, there are things you can do. Take frequent breaks in the shade. Make sure you’re staying hydrated. Wear light-colored, loose-fitting clothing. And pay close attention to how you’re feeling as the day goes on.
If you, or someone you are with, is sweating heavily, feeling weak, tired, dizzy or nauseated, these could be signs of heat exhaustion. Immediately move yourself or the other person into A/C. Loosen their clothing, give them sips of cool water and put cold compresses on their body.
If someone is acting confused and slurring their speech, has red and hot skin or passes out, this is likely a heat stroke. They need medical attention immediately! Call 911. While you wait for help to arrive, move the person to A/C, add cool compresses to lower their body temperature, but do not give them anything to drink.
The heat can also be more dangerous to the very young, the very old, people with chronic medical conditions and pregnant women. In addition, the unhoused and lower income communities, who may not be able to afford to run their air-conditioning, are also at risk. Check on your friends, family and neighbors before, during and after extreme heat.
Bottom line: El Niño is here. But will it become supersized? NOAA says there’s a 90% or greater chance for El Niño to become “very strong” between September and January.
Artist’s concept from NASA. Lava-world exoplanets like this one might be expected to be airless. But some have air. How?
Lava worlds are rocky exoplanets that orbit so close to their stars that intense heat can melt rock on their surfaces. Scientists had expected that they would lose their atmospheres due to the intense radiation from their stars.
But it turns out some lava-worlds do have atmospheres, even thick ones! How is that possible?
A new model from researchers at Stanford University shows that gases slowly escaping from below the planets’ surfaces can keep their atmospheres sustained.
Exoplanets that orbit very close to their stars are always in danger of losing their atmospheres. That’s because the radiation and stellar winds from the stars can erode the atmospheres until there’s little to nothing left. Some of these planets are rocky lava-worlds; the intense heat from the nearby star has melted rock on their surfaces. Scientists expect such planets to be airless. But some of them do still have their atmospheres, even thick atmospheres.
How is that possible? A new study, led by researchers at Stanford University in California, suggests an explanation. The researchers said on August 25, 2026, that gases slowly escaping from below the planets’ surfaces might replenish the gases that have been lost. The researchers published their peer-reviewed results in The Astrophysical Journal Letters on August 25, 2026.
That escape of gas into space is called outgassing. According to the new study, these atmospheres could last for billions of years.
View larger. | Here’s an artist’s concept of exoplanet TOI-561b. The planet lies in the newly proposed “cosmic sandbar,” where some lava-world exoplanets may retain atmospheres despite intense stellar radiation. Image via Image via NASA/ ESA/ CSA/ Ralf Crawford (STScI)/ Stanford University.
Sandbar, shoreline, valley
According to the new model, these lava worlds exist on a kinda of cosmic sandbar. What does that mean?
Prior to this new study, astronomers began speaking of a cosmic shoreline. They mean it to imply the boundary region in a distant solar system – at a particular distance from the central star – beyond which rocky exoplanets can retain atmospheres. Think of the shoreline as the dividing line between “has air” and “airless.”
Between this shoreline and the hotter sandbar, planets can lose their atmospheres and fail to replenish them. Astronomers refer that region of a distant solar system as an airless valley.
But now comes the cosmic sandbar: the unexpectedly hot region where some lava worlds can maintain atmospheres because gases released from their molten interiors replenish what stellar radiation strips away.
55 Cancri e is a good example. It’s a super-Earth almost eight times the mass of Earth. It orbits its star about 20 times closer than Mercury orbits the sun. Yet is has a thick atmosphere. The James Webb Space Telescope discovered that atmosphere – the first found on a rocky exoplanet – in 2024.
View larger. | This graphic shows the differences between the cosmic sandbar, the wireless valley and the cosmic shoreline. Image via Nguyen et al. 2026/ The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The research team has proposed a new region around stars called the “cosmic sandbar.” It is an extension of the “cosmic shoreline,” which is analogous to shorelines on Earth between land and water. For stars, it represents the boundary where a planet can keep or lose its atmosphere. In our solar system, Earth and Venus are on the cosmic shoreline. They remain cool enough that radiation from the sun doesn’t burn off their atmospheres.
But there’s a catch. Some lava-worlds are closer to their stars than that cosmic shoreline boundary. So how do they maintain their atmospheres?
The researchers have called this region the cosmic sandbar. It is analogous to the sandy ridges that form offshore in oceans. As lead author Barron Nguyen at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability explained it:
These lava-worlds have pointed to something being wrong with the cosmic shoreline boundary, but we’ve found a way for them to preserve their atmospheres by proposing a new regime beyond it.
Co-author Laura Schaefer added:
Where the shoreline boundary is between airless worlds and those capable of sustaining an atmosphere has been a major open question in planetary science. The new model expands our understanding of this boundary and the factors that go into determining where it lies for specific stars and planets.
View larger. | Artist’s concept of 55 Cancri e, a lava-world exoplanet 41 light-years from Earth. Image via NASA.
The ‘airless valley’
There’s also another region called the “airless valley.” That’s between the shoreline and the sandbar. The planets are close enough to their stars for their atmospheres to be stripped away, but then they cool off too quickly after formation for those atmospheres to be replenished.
Barron Nguyen at Stanford University led the new study about lava-worlds and their atmospheres. Image via Barron Nguyen.
Follow the atmospheres
One of the major – and most exciting – aspects of studying exoplanets is the search for life. To do this, scientists “follow the atmospheres.” As a first step, they need to find rocky planets that have atmospheres. Then they can analyze those atmospheres for possible biosignatures, chemical fingerprints of living organisms. Nguyen said:
Scientists have been interested in figuring out which planets have atmospheres and which do not, because that’s the first step of looking at planetary habitability.
That’s why planets that do have atmospheres, despite being so close to their stars, is so interesting. It expands the range of planets that could be potentially habitable. Although in the case of lava-worlds, they are likely simply too hot for life. At least on the surface.
The cosmic shoreline might not be as definitive as previously thought when determining which exoplanets could be habitable. It’s not completely a lost cause though, either. Nguyen said:
A major takeaway from our study is that the cosmic shoreline isn’t a lost cause. There had been some pessimism about it because of these lava worlds, but now we know there’s a broader set of parameters that can enable a planet to generate and maintain an atmosphere.
Scientists also reported finding a atmosphere on another lava-world, TOI-561 b, earlier this year. It is a super-Earth 560 light-years away.
Bottom line: A new study from researchers at Stanford University helps explain how hot lava-world exoplanets orbiting close to their stars can maintain their atmospheres.
Artist’s concept from NASA. Lava-world exoplanets like this one might be expected to be airless. But some have air. How?
Lava worlds are rocky exoplanets that orbit so close to their stars that intense heat can melt rock on their surfaces. Scientists had expected that they would lose their atmospheres due to the intense radiation from their stars.
But it turns out some lava-worlds do have atmospheres, even thick ones! How is that possible?
A new model from researchers at Stanford University shows that gases slowly escaping from below the planets’ surfaces can keep their atmospheres sustained.
Exoplanets that orbit very close to their stars are always in danger of losing their atmospheres. That’s because the radiation and stellar winds from the stars can erode the atmospheres until there’s little to nothing left. Some of these planets are rocky lava-worlds; the intense heat from the nearby star has melted rock on their surfaces. Scientists expect such planets to be airless. But some of them do still have their atmospheres, even thick atmospheres.
How is that possible? A new study, led by researchers at Stanford University in California, suggests an explanation. The researchers said on August 25, 2026, that gases slowly escaping from below the planets’ surfaces might replenish the gases that have been lost. The researchers published their peer-reviewed results in The Astrophysical Journal Letters on August 25, 2026.
That escape of gas into space is called outgassing. According to the new study, these atmospheres could last for billions of years.
View larger. | Here’s an artist’s concept of exoplanet TOI-561b. The planet lies in the newly proposed “cosmic sandbar,” where some lava-world exoplanets may retain atmospheres despite intense stellar radiation. Image via Image via NASA/ ESA/ CSA/ Ralf Crawford (STScI)/ Stanford University.
Sandbar, shoreline, valley
According to the new model, these lava worlds exist on a kinda of cosmic sandbar. What does that mean?
Prior to this new study, astronomers began speaking of a cosmic shoreline. They mean it to imply the boundary region in a distant solar system – at a particular distance from the central star – beyond which rocky exoplanets can retain atmospheres. Think of the shoreline as the dividing line between “has air” and “airless.”
Between this shoreline and the hotter sandbar, planets can lose their atmospheres and fail to replenish them. Astronomers refer that region of a distant solar system as an airless valley.
But now comes the cosmic sandbar: the unexpectedly hot region where some lava worlds can maintain atmospheres because gases released from their molten interiors replenish what stellar radiation strips away.
55 Cancri e is a good example. It’s a super-Earth almost eight times the mass of Earth. It orbits its star about 20 times closer than Mercury orbits the sun. Yet is has a thick atmosphere. The James Webb Space Telescope discovered that atmosphere – the first found on a rocky exoplanet – in 2024.
View larger. | This graphic shows the differences between the cosmic sandbar, the wireless valley and the cosmic shoreline. Image via Nguyen et al. 2026/ The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The research team has proposed a new region around stars called the “cosmic sandbar.” It is an extension of the “cosmic shoreline,” which is analogous to shorelines on Earth between land and water. For stars, it represents the boundary where a planet can keep or lose its atmosphere. In our solar system, Earth and Venus are on the cosmic shoreline. They remain cool enough that radiation from the sun doesn’t burn off their atmospheres.
But there’s a catch. Some lava-worlds are closer to their stars than that cosmic shoreline boundary. So how do they maintain their atmospheres?
The researchers have called this region the cosmic sandbar. It is analogous to the sandy ridges that form offshore in oceans. As lead author Barron Nguyen at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability explained it:
These lava-worlds have pointed to something being wrong with the cosmic shoreline boundary, but we’ve found a way for them to preserve their atmospheres by proposing a new regime beyond it.
Co-author Laura Schaefer added:
Where the shoreline boundary is between airless worlds and those capable of sustaining an atmosphere has been a major open question in planetary science. The new model expands our understanding of this boundary and the factors that go into determining where it lies for specific stars and planets.
View larger. | Artist’s concept of 55 Cancri e, a lava-world exoplanet 41 light-years from Earth. Image via NASA.
The ‘airless valley’
There’s also another region called the “airless valley.” That’s between the shoreline and the sandbar. The planets are close enough to their stars for their atmospheres to be stripped away, but then they cool off too quickly after formation for those atmospheres to be replenished.
Barron Nguyen at Stanford University led the new study about lava-worlds and their atmospheres. Image via Barron Nguyen.
Follow the atmospheres
One of the major – and most exciting – aspects of studying exoplanets is the search for life. To do this, scientists “follow the atmospheres.” As a first step, they need to find rocky planets that have atmospheres. Then they can analyze those atmospheres for possible biosignatures, chemical fingerprints of living organisms. Nguyen said:
Scientists have been interested in figuring out which planets have atmospheres and which do not, because that’s the first step of looking at planetary habitability.
That’s why planets that do have atmospheres, despite being so close to their stars, is so interesting. It expands the range of planets that could be potentially habitable. Although in the case of lava-worlds, they are likely simply too hot for life. At least on the surface.
The cosmic shoreline might not be as definitive as previously thought when determining which exoplanets could be habitable. It’s not completely a lost cause though, either. Nguyen said:
A major takeaway from our study is that the cosmic shoreline isn’t a lost cause. There had been some pessimism about it because of these lava worlds, but now we know there’s a broader set of parameters that can enable a planet to generate and maintain an atmosphere.
Scientists also reported finding a atmosphere on another lava-world, TOI-561 b, earlier this year. It is a super-Earth 560 light-years away.
Bottom line: A new study from researchers at Stanford University helps explain how hot lava-world exoplanets orbiting close to their stars can maintain their atmospheres.
In late July, we told you Lake Powell in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area of Utah was shrinking. On July 29, the lake level was at 3,522.78 feet. The record for the lowest level on Lake Powell is 3,519.92 feet, which it reached on April 13, 2023. But in August, Lake Powell broke the record low. Now, as of August 31, 2026, it’s at 3,517.97 feet and still dropping.
At full capacity, the lake holds more than 23 million acre-feet of water (28 billion cubic meters).
Could Lake Powell hit dead pool? Dead pool is when water in a reservoir drops so low that it can’t flow downstream from the dam. It would have serious consequences for the people and farmland downstream. There is also a turbine at the base of Glen Canyon Dam. If the water level were to drop low enough, the turbine would lose capacity to produce power. As of August 31, Lake Powell is 147.97 ft above dead pool. That’s a steady drop from late July, when it was 152.78 ft above dead pool. But it’s still a ways from dead pool. A July report from the Bureau of Reclamation said Lake Powell could hit dead pool in spring 2027.
It’s not a natural lake
Lake Powell is a human-made reservoir on the Colorado River that runs from Arizona into Utah. The completion of Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River in 1963 created Lake Powell. When full, it’s the 2nd-largest reservoir in the United States, behind Lake Mead. But drought over the past decades has caused Lake Powell to shrink. As of late summer 2026, it had reached its lowest summer level ever, at only about 22% capacity.
This was the view from the visitor center at Glen Canyon Dam in August of 2024. This dam created the reservoir known as Lake Powell, which extends from Arizona into Utah. Image via Lucy Whitt. Used with permission.
Is there hope for rain and snow?
We are currently in the middle of monsoon season in the American Southwest. And there has been rain. But, unfortunately, that rain often comes in one big outburst, creating dangerous flash flooding conditions. Heavy rainfall fell in the Grand Canyon area on Saturday, August 29, 2026, destroying small bridges in the Phantom Ranch area of the park and washing away a worker’s bunkhouse. Currently, one person has been killed and 15 are still unaccounted for. Some 50 people were airlifted out of the canyon by helicopter and numerous areas of the park are closed.
So far, halfway through monsoon season, the rains haven’t made much of a dent in the drought. We are also entering not only an El Niño year, but very likely a supercharged one. So there is some hope that El Niño could lead to increased snowfall this winter. But at this point we still must wait to see how the season unfolds.
This is the U.S. Drought Monitor map with data through August 25, 2026. Many areas of the western US are in short- and long-term drought conditions. Overall, the Mountain West is particularly dry. Image via NOAA.
Why are Lakes Powell and Mead and the Colorado River shrinking?
There are a number of factors putting stress on these bodies of water. One is the increased demand as our population grows. The water downstream is used for drinking, but the majority of it is used in farming. And climate change has also been another big factor, leading to hotter weather, more evaporation, less precipitation and smaller snowpack. Plus, one major factor for the low water level this year is the incredibly dry winter this region of the country experienced in 2025-2026.
A water supply crisis
Lake Mead and Lake Powell hold nearly 60% of the Colorado River Basin’s water. Some 40 million people rely on this water. But currently, those lakes are at their lowest level in about 70 years. As the July report said:
Lake Powell and Lake Mead essentially comprise one gigantic reservoir, separated into two parts by the Grand Canyon.
Every day going forward, until runoff from the 2026-2027 winter snowpack begins next spring, a new record low will likely be set. This is a significant moment in the evolving Colorado River water supply crisis.
Recreation on Lake Powell is also dwindling
Mid-summer, there were still people boating in Lake Powell. But that’s getting more difficult as the majority of boat launches are now closed. The boat ramp at Bullfrog Marina has been extended so much that at this point, an observer noted, it’s long enough for a small plane to land on it.
If you want to visit and bring your own boat, make sure you check this page to be sure a launch site is open for your needs.
Bottom line: Lake Powell has now hit its lowest level ever. Despite the monsoonal rains, like the flash floods that hit the Grand Canyon over the weekend, the water level continues to drop.
In late July, we told you Lake Powell in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area of Utah was shrinking. On July 29, the lake level was at 3,522.78 feet. The record for the lowest level on Lake Powell is 3,519.92 feet, which it reached on April 13, 2023. But in August, Lake Powell broke the record low. Now, as of August 31, 2026, it’s at 3,517.97 feet and still dropping.
At full capacity, the lake holds more than 23 million acre-feet of water (28 billion cubic meters).
Could Lake Powell hit dead pool? Dead pool is when water in a reservoir drops so low that it can’t flow downstream from the dam. It would have serious consequences for the people and farmland downstream. There is also a turbine at the base of Glen Canyon Dam. If the water level were to drop low enough, the turbine would lose capacity to produce power. As of August 31, Lake Powell is 147.97 ft above dead pool. That’s a steady drop from late July, when it was 152.78 ft above dead pool. But it’s still a ways from dead pool. A July report from the Bureau of Reclamation said Lake Powell could hit dead pool in spring 2027.
It’s not a natural lake
Lake Powell is a human-made reservoir on the Colorado River that runs from Arizona into Utah. The completion of Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River in 1963 created Lake Powell. When full, it’s the 2nd-largest reservoir in the United States, behind Lake Mead. But drought over the past decades has caused Lake Powell to shrink. As of late summer 2026, it had reached its lowest summer level ever, at only about 22% capacity.
This was the view from the visitor center at Glen Canyon Dam in August of 2024. This dam created the reservoir known as Lake Powell, which extends from Arizona into Utah. Image via Lucy Whitt. Used with permission.
Is there hope for rain and snow?
We are currently in the middle of monsoon season in the American Southwest. And there has been rain. But, unfortunately, that rain often comes in one big outburst, creating dangerous flash flooding conditions. Heavy rainfall fell in the Grand Canyon area on Saturday, August 29, 2026, destroying small bridges in the Phantom Ranch area of the park and washing away a worker’s bunkhouse. Currently, one person has been killed and 15 are still unaccounted for. Some 50 people were airlifted out of the canyon by helicopter and numerous areas of the park are closed.
So far, halfway through monsoon season, the rains haven’t made much of a dent in the drought. We are also entering not only an El Niño year, but very likely a supercharged one. So there is some hope that El Niño could lead to increased snowfall this winter. But at this point we still must wait to see how the season unfolds.
This is the U.S. Drought Monitor map with data through August 25, 2026. Many areas of the western US are in short- and long-term drought conditions. Overall, the Mountain West is particularly dry. Image via NOAA.
Why are Lakes Powell and Mead and the Colorado River shrinking?
There are a number of factors putting stress on these bodies of water. One is the increased demand as our population grows. The water downstream is used for drinking, but the majority of it is used in farming. And climate change has also been another big factor, leading to hotter weather, more evaporation, less precipitation and smaller snowpack. Plus, one major factor for the low water level this year is the incredibly dry winter this region of the country experienced in 2025-2026.
A water supply crisis
Lake Mead and Lake Powell hold nearly 60% of the Colorado River Basin’s water. Some 40 million people rely on this water. But currently, those lakes are at their lowest level in about 70 years. As the July report said:
Lake Powell and Lake Mead essentially comprise one gigantic reservoir, separated into two parts by the Grand Canyon.
Every day going forward, until runoff from the 2026-2027 winter snowpack begins next spring, a new record low will likely be set. This is a significant moment in the evolving Colorado River water supply crisis.
Recreation on Lake Powell is also dwindling
Mid-summer, there were still people boating in Lake Powell. But that’s getting more difficult as the majority of boat launches are now closed. The boat ramp at Bullfrog Marina has been extended so much that at this point, an observer noted, it’s long enough for a small plane to land on it.
If you want to visit and bring your own boat, make sure you check this page to be sure a launch site is open for your needs.
Bottom line: Lake Powell has now hit its lowest level ever. Despite the monsoonal rains, like the flash floods that hit the Grand Canyon over the weekend, the water level continues to drop.
Here’s a 187-foot-tall (57-meter-tall) dipterocarp tree. It’s one of the tallest flowering trees in the world, found mostly in Southeast Asia. How do giant trees like this one transport water from their roots all the way up to their leaves? Image via Palasiah Jotan. Used with permission.
For decades, scientists thought height would eventually become a disadvantage for the world’s tallest trees. The farther water had to travel from roots to leaves, the harder it seemed to move it all the way to the canopy. But a team of researchers from the University of Exeter and Cardiff University now says it has the answer to this puzzle. The team described how giant tropical trees overcome this challenge, even when they grow taller than 230 feet (70 meters).
The researchers published their findings in the peer-reviewed journal Science on July 2, 2026.
When height seemed like a limit
Trees don’t have a heart or a pump to move water from their roots to their leaves. But they do have thousands of tiny vessels running through their trunks. As water evaporates from leaves, it creates a pulling force that draws water upwards from the roots.
For a tree several meters tall, this process already requires a remarkable transport system. For a giant tree reaching tens of meters high, into and above the forest canopy, it becomes hard to see how the water can travel efficiently so far up its trunk. And it becomes easy to see that even small disruptions to the water flow might affect the tree’s ability to function and grow.
This led scientists to think that height placed a natural limit on tree growth. According to this theory, the tallest trees should be struggling to transport water efficiently. Eventually, their height might reduce their ability to photosynthesize and grow. And what happens to very tall trees during droughts?
But the new research suggests the world’s tallest flowering trees (dipterocarp trees) have developed ways to overcome the disadvantage of their height. Professor Lucy Rowland from the University of Exeter explained:
Trees contain lots of thin, hollow vessels and they suck water upwards by creating low pressure at the top. These vessels have evolved intricate adaptations that can maintain the water in liquid form, even under the extreme low pressures required to move to the top of trees which can reach over 80 meters [262 feet].
The taller the tree, the greater the hydraulic challenge, or so scientists thought … Giant dipterocarps appear to have found a way around this supposed disadvantage. Image via Palasiah Jotan. Used with permission.
How giant trees overcome their height challenge
To understand how these trees manage their extraordinary sizes, researchers from the University of Exeter and Cardiff University studied dipterocarp trees in Malaysian Borneo. The trees they studied ranged from 23 to 233 feet (7 to 71 meters) tall.
The team measured different traits related to water transport at multiple points along each tree. They also examined trunk growth rates before, during and after the severe El Niño drought period of 2023–2024.
The researchers found that taller trees compensate for the challenges of their size in several ways.
Their water-conducting vessels become wider closer to the ground, helping move water more effectively through the trunk. Their leaves also adapt to tolerate greater levels of water stress before they begin to wilt.
Together, these adjustments allow giant dipterocarps to maintain an efficient water transport system. This works despite the enormous distance between their roots and their highest branches. Rowland said:
Our results challenge this by showing that the hydraulic systems of very tall dipterocarp trees are perfectly evolved for their height, and should not suffer more than small dipterocarp trees exposed to the same drought conditions.
In the Bornean rainforest, researchers studied trees ranging from 23 to 233 feet (7 to 71 meters) tall to uncover how their hydraulic systems adapt to extreme heights. Here’s a climber measuring the stem diameter at the upper trunk of a dipterocarp tree. Video via Masliadi bin Asri. Used with permission.
A drought tested an old prediction
The researchers also investigated whether extreme height actually made these trees less resilient when water became scarce.
If the traditional theory was correct, the tallest trees should have experienced a greater decline in growth than smaller trees during the El Niño drought.
However, the team found no height-related loss in growth. The tallest trees did not show a greater disadvantage simply because they were larger.
The finding does not mean tropical forests are safe from climate change or that giant trees face no threats. Instead, it suggests that height alone does not make these trees more vulnerable to drought than smaller trees exposed to the same conditions.
Why giant trees matter for the climate
The importance of these findings goes far beyond understanding how trees move water.
Trees play a central role in the global carbon cycle. Through photosynthesis, they absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and use that carbon to build their trunks, branches, leaves and roots.
Beyond adding new growth, trees continue to store carbon inside their living tissues throughout their lives. A giant tree can therefore act as a long-term carbon reservoir, keeping carbon locked away for decades or even centuries.
When a large tree dies, burns or decomposes, some of that stored carbon can return to the atmosphere as CO2, contributing to the greenhouse effect. This is why protecting the world’s largest trees matters not only for biodiversity, but also for the climate. Paulo Bittencourt from Cardiff University said:
Understanding tall trees is vital because the tallest 1% of trees store more than half of above-ground carbon in forests.
The tallest trees are especially important because their size allows them to store enormous amounts of carbon. Losing these giants would not only affect forest ecosystems but could also reduce one of nature’s most effective ways of keeping carbon out of the atmosphere.
Researchers found that extreme height did not make giant trees more vulnerable to drought. Their enormous size also makes them important long-term carbon stores in tropical forests. Here, a tree climber works in the canopy of a dipterocarp tree during sample collection. Video via Palasiah Jotan. Used with permission.
Protecting the giants of Borneo
Dipterocarp species dominate the rainforests of Southeast Asia and include some of the tallest flowering trees on Earth. These forests are not only home to remarkable giants but also support some of the planet’s richest ecosystems.
The study shows that extreme height does not make these trees as vulnerable to drought as scientists once thought. However, this resilience does not reduce the need to protect them. Protecting these forests matters because they store vast amounts of carbon and provide habitat for countless species.
Palasiah Jotan, a Malaysian PhD researcher and co-author of the study, hopes these findings will strengthen efforts to protect Borneo’s rainforests. The researchers also say more work is needed to understand whether other tall tree species have evolved similar adaptations.
For now, the study challenges a decades-old assumption: reaching extreme heights does not necessarily make trees weaker. Instead, these forest giants appear to have evolved sophisticated ways to thrive at the limits of plant growth.
Co-author Palasiah Jotan climbing a dipterocarp tree. Borneo’s giant dipterocarps are more than the tallest trees in the forest: they are vital carbon stores and provide habitat for countless species. Their loss would be felt far beyond the forest where they grow. Image via Arne Scheire. Used with permission.
Bottom line: Giant trees have evolved remarkable adaptations that allow them to reach extreme heights while maintaining efficient water transport.
Here’s a 187-foot-tall (57-meter-tall) dipterocarp tree. It’s one of the tallest flowering trees in the world, found mostly in Southeast Asia. How do giant trees like this one transport water from their roots all the way up to their leaves? Image via Palasiah Jotan. Used with permission.
For decades, scientists thought height would eventually become a disadvantage for the world’s tallest trees. The farther water had to travel from roots to leaves, the harder it seemed to move it all the way to the canopy. But a team of researchers from the University of Exeter and Cardiff University now says it has the answer to this puzzle. The team described how giant tropical trees overcome this challenge, even when they grow taller than 230 feet (70 meters).
The researchers published their findings in the peer-reviewed journal Science on July 2, 2026.
When height seemed like a limit
Trees don’t have a heart or a pump to move water from their roots to their leaves. But they do have thousands of tiny vessels running through their trunks. As water evaporates from leaves, it creates a pulling force that draws water upwards from the roots.
For a tree several meters tall, this process already requires a remarkable transport system. For a giant tree reaching tens of meters high, into and above the forest canopy, it becomes hard to see how the water can travel efficiently so far up its trunk. And it becomes easy to see that even small disruptions to the water flow might affect the tree’s ability to function and grow.
This led scientists to think that height placed a natural limit on tree growth. According to this theory, the tallest trees should be struggling to transport water efficiently. Eventually, their height might reduce their ability to photosynthesize and grow. And what happens to very tall trees during droughts?
But the new research suggests the world’s tallest flowering trees (dipterocarp trees) have developed ways to overcome the disadvantage of their height. Professor Lucy Rowland from the University of Exeter explained:
Trees contain lots of thin, hollow vessels and they suck water upwards by creating low pressure at the top. These vessels have evolved intricate adaptations that can maintain the water in liquid form, even under the extreme low pressures required to move to the top of trees which can reach over 80 meters [262 feet].
The taller the tree, the greater the hydraulic challenge, or so scientists thought … Giant dipterocarps appear to have found a way around this supposed disadvantage. Image via Palasiah Jotan. Used with permission.
How giant trees overcome their height challenge
To understand how these trees manage their extraordinary sizes, researchers from the University of Exeter and Cardiff University studied dipterocarp trees in Malaysian Borneo. The trees they studied ranged from 23 to 233 feet (7 to 71 meters) tall.
The team measured different traits related to water transport at multiple points along each tree. They also examined trunk growth rates before, during and after the severe El Niño drought period of 2023–2024.
The researchers found that taller trees compensate for the challenges of their size in several ways.
Their water-conducting vessels become wider closer to the ground, helping move water more effectively through the trunk. Their leaves also adapt to tolerate greater levels of water stress before they begin to wilt.
Together, these adjustments allow giant dipterocarps to maintain an efficient water transport system. This works despite the enormous distance between their roots and their highest branches. Rowland said:
Our results challenge this by showing that the hydraulic systems of very tall dipterocarp trees are perfectly evolved for their height, and should not suffer more than small dipterocarp trees exposed to the same drought conditions.
In the Bornean rainforest, researchers studied trees ranging from 23 to 233 feet (7 to 71 meters) tall to uncover how their hydraulic systems adapt to extreme heights. Here’s a climber measuring the stem diameter at the upper trunk of a dipterocarp tree. Video via Masliadi bin Asri. Used with permission.
A drought tested an old prediction
The researchers also investigated whether extreme height actually made these trees less resilient when water became scarce.
If the traditional theory was correct, the tallest trees should have experienced a greater decline in growth than smaller trees during the El Niño drought.
However, the team found no height-related loss in growth. The tallest trees did not show a greater disadvantage simply because they were larger.
The finding does not mean tropical forests are safe from climate change or that giant trees face no threats. Instead, it suggests that height alone does not make these trees more vulnerable to drought than smaller trees exposed to the same conditions.
Why giant trees matter for the climate
The importance of these findings goes far beyond understanding how trees move water.
Trees play a central role in the global carbon cycle. Through photosynthesis, they absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and use that carbon to build their trunks, branches, leaves and roots.
Beyond adding new growth, trees continue to store carbon inside their living tissues throughout their lives. A giant tree can therefore act as a long-term carbon reservoir, keeping carbon locked away for decades or even centuries.
When a large tree dies, burns or decomposes, some of that stored carbon can return to the atmosphere as CO2, contributing to the greenhouse effect. This is why protecting the world’s largest trees matters not only for biodiversity, but also for the climate. Paulo Bittencourt from Cardiff University said:
Understanding tall trees is vital because the tallest 1% of trees store more than half of above-ground carbon in forests.
The tallest trees are especially important because their size allows them to store enormous amounts of carbon. Losing these giants would not only affect forest ecosystems but could also reduce one of nature’s most effective ways of keeping carbon out of the atmosphere.
Researchers found that extreme height did not make giant trees more vulnerable to drought. Their enormous size also makes them important long-term carbon stores in tropical forests. Here, a tree climber works in the canopy of a dipterocarp tree during sample collection. Video via Palasiah Jotan. Used with permission.
Protecting the giants of Borneo
Dipterocarp species dominate the rainforests of Southeast Asia and include some of the tallest flowering trees on Earth. These forests are not only home to remarkable giants but also support some of the planet’s richest ecosystems.
The study shows that extreme height does not make these trees as vulnerable to drought as scientists once thought. However, this resilience does not reduce the need to protect them. Protecting these forests matters because they store vast amounts of carbon and provide habitat for countless species.
Palasiah Jotan, a Malaysian PhD researcher and co-author of the study, hopes these findings will strengthen efforts to protect Borneo’s rainforests. The researchers also say more work is needed to understand whether other tall tree species have evolved similar adaptations.
For now, the study challenges a decades-old assumption: reaching extreme heights does not necessarily make trees weaker. Instead, these forest giants appear to have evolved sophisticated ways to thrive at the limits of plant growth.
Co-author Palasiah Jotan climbing a dipterocarp tree. Borneo’s giant dipterocarps are more than the tallest trees in the forest: they are vital carbon stores and provide habitat for countless species. Their loss would be felt far beyond the forest where they grow. Image via Arne Scheire. Used with permission.
Bottom line: Giant trees have evolved remarkable adaptations that allow them to reach extreme heights while maintaining efficient water transport.
Do the planets revolve around the sun? Sort of. Our solar system moves around a common center of mass, called a barycenter. And right now, that barycenter isn’t even inside the sun! The barycenter of the solar system will return to being inside the sun in early 2027. Image via NASA.
Do the planets revolve around the sun?
What if I told you that the planets don’t revolve around the sun? At least, not exactly. You were probably taught in grade school that Earth and the other planets do revolve around the sun. And generally speaking, it’s true, or not far from being true. But, strictly speaking, the physics of the situation is slightly different. The planets and the sun revolve around a common center of mass. This location or point is called the barycenter. Because the sun is so much more massive than the planets, the center of mass between them is often a point inside the sun’s giant ball of gas. But not always!
Right now, the solar system’s barycenter is outside the sun’s surface. And, because of the constantly changing location of the planets, the barycenter won’t return to being inside the sun until late January or early February 2027.
And most of that shifting is thanks to Jupiter. The sun contains about 99.86% of the solar system’s mass. Jupiter contains about 0.1%. That might sound tiny. But Jupiter is massive enough – and at just the right distance from the sun – to tug the solar system’s center of mass substantially outside the sun’s surface.
But this isn’t unusual. In fact, the solar system’s barycenter (or common center of mass) spends roughly 60% (or more) of its time outside the sun and only about 40% (or less) of its time inside!
The laws of physics dictate that the planets and sun revolve around a common center of mass, called barycenter. Archimedes in ancient Greece was the first to formalize this idea. The word barycenter comes from a combination of two Ancient Greek roots: barys meaning “heavy” or “weight” and kentron meaning “center.” Literally translated, barycenter means the “center of weight” or “center of gravity.” Image via NASA.
So, where are the planets currently in relation to the sun? In the two diagrams below, we’ve zoomed out so you can see the location of where the largest gas giant planets are currently orbiting. The first diagram is the location of the planets in late August 2026. The second diagram shows where the planets will be in relation to each other and the sun on February 7, 2027.
At the moment (late August 2026), the largest, outer planets are mostly clustered to one side of the sun. This is what moves the common center of mass for the solar system – the barycenter – to the outside of the sun. The barycenter will move to be inside the sun in early 2027. Image via InTheSky.org. Used with permission.By February 7, 2027, you can start to see how Jupiter is separating from the other giant planets. It’s moving toward the opposite side of the sun. Jupiter’s movement is what’s pulling the barycenter back within the sun’s surface. Image via InTheSky.org. Used with permission.
Other planetary systems
Not just our sun and planets, but all stars and their planets move around a barycenter … a common center of mass for that system as a whole. If you looked from afar, you’d see a distant star with planets appear to “wobble” for this reason. Detecting that wobble is one of the tried-and-true way astronomers look for and find planets orbiting around farflung stars.
The wobble method is also called the radial velocity method. Radial velocity refers to the speed at which a star moves directly toward or away from an observer on Earth along our line of sight.
The wobble that astronomers see in systems like this is revealed through an analysis of the star’s spectrum, the rainbow array of its light broken into colors. As the star – orbiting with its companion planet – slightly moves toward us, we see its light waves compress toward shorter, bluer wavelengths. As the star slightly moves away, its light waves stretch toward longer, redder wavelengths.
This is the classic Doppler shift that also occurs with sound. It’s what causes the siren of an approaching ambulance to sound higher in pitch than when the same ambulance is moving away. And, clearly, with stars, it works best for systems that are aligned edge-on to us! If we’re looking at a system face-on, we can’t detect the shift.
Plus, the wobble method works best for massive planets close to their stars. Earth-mass planets are much harder to detect because their weaker gravitational tug produces a much smaller wobble in the star.
This is an exaggerated demonstration of how a star and planet orbit a common center of mass, or barycenter, which causes the star to appear to wobble. This is a technique astronomers use to find exoplanets, that is, planets around distant stars. Image via NASA.This shows the side view of how a star can wobble when it and its planet orbit a common center of mass. Image via NASA.
Bottom line: Do the planets revolve around the sun? Not exactly. The sun and planets orbit a common center of mass (or barycenter), which, right now, is outside the sun. This will change in 2027, when Jupiter’s gravity will pull the barycenter back within the sun.
Do the planets revolve around the sun? Sort of. Our solar system moves around a common center of mass, called a barycenter. And right now, that barycenter isn’t even inside the sun! The barycenter of the solar system will return to being inside the sun in early 2027. Image via NASA.
Do the planets revolve around the sun?
What if I told you that the planets don’t revolve around the sun? At least, not exactly. You were probably taught in grade school that Earth and the other planets do revolve around the sun. And generally speaking, it’s true, or not far from being true. But, strictly speaking, the physics of the situation is slightly different. The planets and the sun revolve around a common center of mass. This location or point is called the barycenter. Because the sun is so much more massive than the planets, the center of mass between them is often a point inside the sun’s giant ball of gas. But not always!
Right now, the solar system’s barycenter is outside the sun’s surface. And, because of the constantly changing location of the planets, the barycenter won’t return to being inside the sun until late January or early February 2027.
And most of that shifting is thanks to Jupiter. The sun contains about 99.86% of the solar system’s mass. Jupiter contains about 0.1%. That might sound tiny. But Jupiter is massive enough – and at just the right distance from the sun – to tug the solar system’s center of mass substantially outside the sun’s surface.
But this isn’t unusual. In fact, the solar system’s barycenter (or common center of mass) spends roughly 60% (or more) of its time outside the sun and only about 40% (or less) of its time inside!
The laws of physics dictate that the planets and sun revolve around a common center of mass, called barycenter. Archimedes in ancient Greece was the first to formalize this idea. The word barycenter comes from a combination of two Ancient Greek roots: barys meaning “heavy” or “weight” and kentron meaning “center.” Literally translated, barycenter means the “center of weight” or “center of gravity.” Image via NASA.
So, where are the planets currently in relation to the sun? In the two diagrams below, we’ve zoomed out so you can see the location of where the largest gas giant planets are currently orbiting. The first diagram is the location of the planets in late August 2026. The second diagram shows where the planets will be in relation to each other and the sun on February 7, 2027.
At the moment (late August 2026), the largest, outer planets are mostly clustered to one side of the sun. This is what moves the common center of mass for the solar system – the barycenter – to the outside of the sun. The barycenter will move to be inside the sun in early 2027. Image via InTheSky.org. Used with permission.By February 7, 2027, you can start to see how Jupiter is separating from the other giant planets. It’s moving toward the opposite side of the sun. Jupiter’s movement is what’s pulling the barycenter back within the sun’s surface. Image via InTheSky.org. Used with permission.
Other planetary systems
Not just our sun and planets, but all stars and their planets move around a barycenter … a common center of mass for that system as a whole. If you looked from afar, you’d see a distant star with planets appear to “wobble” for this reason. Detecting that wobble is one of the tried-and-true way astronomers look for and find planets orbiting around farflung stars.
The wobble method is also called the radial velocity method. Radial velocity refers to the speed at which a star moves directly toward or away from an observer on Earth along our line of sight.
The wobble that astronomers see in systems like this is revealed through an analysis of the star’s spectrum, the rainbow array of its light broken into colors. As the star – orbiting with its companion planet – slightly moves toward us, we see its light waves compress toward shorter, bluer wavelengths. As the star slightly moves away, its light waves stretch toward longer, redder wavelengths.
This is the classic Doppler shift that also occurs with sound. It’s what causes the siren of an approaching ambulance to sound higher in pitch than when the same ambulance is moving away. And, clearly, with stars, it works best for systems that are aligned edge-on to us! If we’re looking at a system face-on, we can’t detect the shift.
Plus, the wobble method works best for massive planets close to their stars. Earth-mass planets are much harder to detect because their weaker gravitational tug produces a much smaller wobble in the star.
This is an exaggerated demonstration of how a star and planet orbit a common center of mass, or barycenter, which causes the star to appear to wobble. This is a technique astronomers use to find exoplanets, that is, planets around distant stars. Image via NASA.This shows the side view of how a star can wobble when it and its planet orbit a common center of mass. Image via NASA.
Bottom line: Do the planets revolve around the sun? Not exactly. The sun and planets orbit a common center of mass (or barycenter), which, right now, is outside the sun. This will change in 2027, when Jupiter’s gravity will pull the barycenter back within the sun.
