More than 115 cases of eye damage reported in Ontario after solar eclipse
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
Communities in southwestern B.C. are bracing for more heavy rain forecast to hit the region on Tuesday, as a third atmospheric river moves in.
But what exactly is an atmospheric river?
Here’s a look at some commonly used extreme weather terms.
According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), atmospheric rivers are “relatively long, narrow regions in the atmosphere – like rivers in the sky – that transport most of the water vapours outside of the tropics.”
The NOAA said these vapour columns move with weather systems, and can carry water vapour equivalent to the average flow at the mouth of the Mississippi River.
When they make landfall, the vapour is released as rain or sometimes snow.
Though not always the case, the NOAA said atmospheric rivers can “disrupt travel, induce mudslides and cause catastrophic damage to life and property.”
What’s more, a 2018 study led by researchers with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory suggests that due to climate change, atmospheric rivers may become slightly less frequent, but will last longer, and become more intense.
According to Brittanica.com, thermal inversion -- also known as temperature inversion – occurs when warm air overlays cool air in the lowest atmospheric region, called the troposphere.
In a normal situation without inversion, warm air is closest to the earth’s surface, with cooler air on top.
The NOAA said temperature inversion occurs because air near the ground cools more quickly than air “aloft.”
“This is most likely when the sky is clear and the wind is light/calm,” the NOAA website reads. “Cooling will occur the most readily in low places (such as valleys sheltered from the wind.)”
The problem, the NOAA said, is that because warm air rises, cooler air under the inversion can’t escape, meaning pollution and smoke becomes trapped.
According to the American Meteorological Society (AMS), a heat dome is an “exceptionally hot air mass” which develops when high pressure in the air prevents warm air below from rising.
“Thus trapping the air as if it were in a dome,” the AMS said.
According to the NOAA, heat domes occur when high-pressure atmospheric conditions combine with “influences from La Nina, creating vast areas of sweltering heat that gets trapped under the high-pressure dome.”
As heat domes are pushed over land, they can cause heat waves.
A bomb cyclone, also known as bombogenesis, is a rapidly intensifying storm.
Meteorologists use millibars – units of air pressure in the metric system – to measure atmospheric pressure.
According to the NOAA, bombogenesis occurs when a “midlatitude cyclone” rapidly intensifies, dropping at least 24 millibars in the span of 24 hours.
The agency said this happens when a cold air mass collides with a warm air mass, “such as air over warm ocean waters.”
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
The B.C. NDP has asked the federal government to recriminalize public drug use, marking a major shift in the province's approach to addressing the deadly overdose crisis.
George Mallory is renowned for being one of the first British mountaineers to attempt to scale the dizzying heights of Mount Everest during the 1920s. Nearly a century later, newly digitized letters shed light on Mallory’s hopes and fears about ascending Everest.
An orca whale calf that has been stranded in a B.C. lagoon for weeks after her pregnant mother died swam out on her own early Friday morning.
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau says there is 'still so much love' between her and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as they navigate their post-separation relationship co-parenting their three children.
An Ontario man who took out a loan to pay for auto repairs said his car was repossessed after he missed two payments.
Devastating tornadoes tore across parts of eastern Nebraska and northeast Texas Friday as a multi-day severe thunderstorm event ramped up in the central United States.
A Sherwood Park family says their new house is uninhabitable. The McNaughton's say they were forced to leave the house after living there for only a week because contaminants inside made it difficult to breathe.
Donald Trump's defence team attacked the credibility Friday of the prosecution's first witness in his hush money case, seeking to discredit testimony detailing a scheme between Trump and a tabloid to bury negative stories to protect the Republican's 2016 presidential campaign.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.