Climate & Environment

In 1992, as Hurricane Andrew roared toward Miami, staff at Zoo Miami found an unlikely place to house the zoo’s 30 flamingos: the men’s bathroom. Ron Magill, then the assistant curator, was walking out the door after helping get the birds situated when he turned around to take one last look…

If you’ve ever lived in South Florida during hurricane season, chances are you’ve learned to read the various storm projection models like a fortuneteller scanning tarot cards. “I’m sorry, but the European model shows a far stronger eastern trend than the GFS,” you’ve probably said in a serious tone at…

As Hurricane Irma churns freakishly close to Florida, an estimated 650,000 Miami-Dade residents are now a part of Mayor Carlos Gimenez’s mandatory evacuation order. On barrier islands like Miami Beach, officials were warning people to get out of Dodge as early as Wednesday. But even now — as a…

The National Hurricane Center has now made official what everyone in Miami has feared since late last week: The entirety of South Florida is now under a hurricane warning and a storm surge warning as massive Hurricane Irma bears down on the state. In its 11 p.m. advisory, the Hurricane…

With roughly 72 hours before Hurricane Irma is projected to hit Miami as a Category Four or Five storm, weather forecasts continue to get worse for central Miami. In response, County Mayor Carlos Gimenez announced just after 2:15 today that he’s expanding the mandatory evacuation zones across the area: Those…

As Hurricane Irma closes in on Florida, Texas is still reeling from the effects of Harvey. But it’s now clear that the devastation from the storm has gone way beyond flooded homes and wind-damaged buildings:  In Houston, flood waters have damaged at least 13 Superfund sites, all heavily polluted areas…

Hurricane Irma is gigantic. And it’s coming to South Florida. As of 8 a.m. today, the only real debate among forecasters is how strong the storm will remain when it arrives in Miami this weekend and whether its über-destructive eye wall makes a direct hit on our urban corridor and the 6 million souls who live there.

Jamira Kennedy and her fiance were sitting with their one-month-old son Wednesday morning, talking about loading up on food for Hurricane Irma, when they were startled by two loud knocks at the door. It was the police. Just days before the largest Atlantic storm in history is set to arrive…

Hurricane Irma forecasts this morning seemed to give Miami a glimmer of hope. The world’s major storm-modeling programs showed Irma inching closer toward the Atlantic Ocean, and potentially missing South Florida entirely much like Hurricane Matthew did last year. The National Hurricane Center’s latest update offered no such respite. This…

Despite the panic of 185-mph Irma, a Category Five hurricane expected to hit South Florida, residents and businesses in the historic neighborhood Overtown seem unfazed, Having endured hurricanes Andrew and Wilma, many civilians seem prepared for whatever the storm may bring.

As of 8 a.m. today, Hurricane Irma is still a record-shattering monster in the Atlantic. As the storm churns 15 miles west of Saint Martin, Irma packs 185 mph sustained winds and frighteningly low central pressure of 918 mb. Irma is pounding the Leeward Islands, has Puerto Rico and the Bahamas in its sights, and — as of now — still looks like a very real threat for Florida.

Store shelves were running low across South Florida by Tuesday morning as locals hurried to prepare for Hurricane Irma, which is already one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes in history.

As of 11 a.m., Hurricane Irma drifted toward the Leeward Islands with winds churning at 180 mph, which makes the storm the strongest ever recorded outside the Caribbean or Gulf of Mexico, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Miami got lucky during last year’s hurricane season — the Category 5 Hurricane Matthew barely missed the city and wound up making landfall on the north end of Florida. But things don’t quite look as good right now: The Category 5 Hurricane Irma is rapidly approaching the Caribbean, and is…

There is an increasing chance of seeing some impacts from Irma in the Florida Peninsula and the Florida Keys later this week.

From giant African snails to tegus to peacocks, Florida is crawling with all kinds of things that aren’t supposed to be here. Probably none inspires as much fear as the Burmese python, which for years has been ravaging the Everglades and pretty much everything that lives there.

Carissa Kent was working at the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office in 2006 when she heard the news: While building a new outlet in Lake Park, Walmart had destroyed the homes of dozens of gopher tortoises, a threatened species that lives in burrows deep underground. Worst of all, the megacompany had done so legally. The State of Florida simply required Walmart to pay only $11,409 in extra costs to level the animals’ habitat.

Your next bike ride in Shark Valley, kayaking adventure through the mangroves, or overnight camping trip in Flamingo might cost a bit more, thanks in large part to the Trump administration’s huge budget cuts to national parks.

Earlier this summer, natural gas began flowing through a new, 515-mile long pipeline from Alabama to Florida, quashing the hopes of thousands of environmentalists and activists who had fought against it. Then, within weeks, the Sabal Trail pipeline began leaking a smelly odorant up in North Florida. On Tuesday, those…

With Environmental Protection Agency Director Scott Pruitt at the helm, the Trump administration has proposed cutting federal programs that monitor contaminant and fecal-mater levels in the Atlantic Ocean, keep tabs on phosphorous and mercury in the Everglades and Florida Keys, and clean up leaking underground tanks. Florida has the nation’s highest number of leaking, corroded storage tanks that leach carcinogens like benzene into the soil.

The National Hurricane Center says 92L has a 40 percent chance of becoming a tropical storm.