Currently in Miami — August 16, 2023: Easterly wave brings rain

The weather, currently.

A tropical wave will deliver more moisture to South Florida overnight into Wednesday. It will be something of a washout on Wednesday, with numerous to widespread showers and thunderstorms throughout the region. Some thunderstorms will be strong, producing gusty winds and heavy rainfall, and given that prevailing winds will be relatively light and these storms will not move too quickly, localized flooding will be possible. This is especially true in metro areas where drainage is poor. All this rain will cut temperatures down several degrees, but the added humidity will still allow apparent temperatures to stay high. A Heat Advisory is still in the cards.

El tiempo, actualmente.

Una onda tropical traerá más humedad al sur de Florida durante la noche y el miércoles. Será un día lluvioso el miércoles, con aguaceros y tormentas eléctricas numerosas a generalizadas en toda la región. Algunas tormentas eléctricas serán fuertes, produciendo ráfagas de viento y fuertes lluvias, y dado que los vientos predominantes serán relativamente suaves, estas tormentas no se moverán demasiado rápido y será posible que se produzcan inundaciones localizadas. Esto es especialmente cierto en áreas metropolitanas donde el drenaje es deficiente. Toda esta lluvia reducirá las temperaturas varios grados, pero la humedad adicional aún permitirá que las temperaturas aparentes se mantengan altas. Todavía es posible una Advertencia de Calor.

—John Morales

What you need to know, currently.

So far, 2023 has been a year of climate extremes — especially heat.

Global oceans are record-warm, especially those near Florida. All-time records temperatures have been broken in China. We’ve experienced the hottest day on Earth in 125,000 years.

NOAA, NASA, and other global monitoring organizations have crunched the numbers for July and found that we’re now on track for this to be the hottest year in history.

"We now estimate a 99% likelihood that 2023 will set a new record for the warmest annual average," wrote Robert Rohde of Berkeley Earth. That’s a huge boost from their estimate back in January, before El Niño formed, of just a 14% chance of a record warm year.

There’s also now a 20% chance we reach 1.5°C this year — the line-in-the-sand limit agreed to by the world in 2015 in Paris — the point above which widespread climate change could become irreversible on civilization timescales. Though these changes, especially in coral reefs and other critical ecological systems, are already beginning to occur.

Due to a strengthening El Niño, 2024 will be warmer than 2023. Earlier this year, the World Meteorological Organization gave a 66% chance that the world will hit the 1.5°C mark by 2027.

—Eric Holthaus

What you can do, currently.

The fires in Maui have struck at the heart of Hawaiian heritage, and if you’d like to support survivors, here are good places to start:

The fires burned through the capital town of the Kingdom of Hawaii, the ancestral and present home to native Hawaiians on their original unceded lands. One of the buildings destroyed was the Na ‘Aikane o Maui cultural center, a gathering place for the Hawaiian community to organize and celebrate.

If you’d like to help the community rebuild and restore the cultural center, a fund has been established that is accepting donations — specify “donation for Na ‘Aikane” on this Venmo link.