Seth Borenstein | Associated Press

FILE - Ricky Leath, an outreach specialist with the City of Miami, talks with Bei Zhao, right, as he works with the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust to distribute bottles of water and other supplies to the homeless population, helping them manage high temperatures, May 15, 2024, in Miami. The Miami-Dade government and the local National Weather Service office team up to treat heat like hurricanes and emphasize advanced preparations. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)

Health

Here's what seems to work in Miami to keep deaths down as temperatures soar

Despite a record 46-day streak of triple digit feels-like temperatures, Miami’s unprecented brutal summer last year wasn’t that deadly, contrasting with the rest of the nation. This is how they did it.

FILE - Residents wade down a street through receding floodwaters, two days after Hurricane Patricia, in the village of Rebalse, Jalisco State, Mexico, Oct. 25, 2015. A handful of powerful tropical storms in the last decade and the prospect of more to come has some experts proposing a new category of hurricanes: Category 6, which would be for storms with wind speeds of 192 miles per hour or more. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)

Environment

Dial it up to Category 6? As warming stokes storms, some want a bigger hurricane category

Seth Borenstein | Associated Press

Studies have shown that the strongest tropical cyclones are getting more intense because of climate change. So two climate scientists suggest that the traditional five-category scale developed more than 50 years ago may not do enough to show the true power of the most potent storms.

FILE - People stand along a waterfront as huge waves crash against a seawall in the wake of Hurricane Ian in Havana, Cuba, Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2022.

Environment

How busy will hurricane season be? It depends, NOAA says

Seth Borenstein | Associated Press

Two clashing climatic behemoths, El Niño and climate change, will square off this summer to determine how quiet or chaotic the Atlantic hurricane season will be.

FILE - Mike Brennan, then-branch chief at the National Hurricane Center, gives an update on Hurricane Harvey as it moves toward the Texas coast, Aug. 25, 2017, in Miami.

Weather

National Hurricane Center in Miami names new director

Seth Borenstein | Associated Press

The new director of the National Hurricane Center is a man with plenty of experience calling big storms. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Mike Brennan will take over immediately.