National Weather Forecast

Snow showers will be the main story across the nation on Thursday, with this snow possible from the Rockies across the northern tier of states into the Great Lakes and New England. Heavy lake-effect snow will be possible downwind of the Great Lakes. Meanwhile, a few rain shower chances exist in southern Florida and southern Texas.

While some areas in the Rockies could see several inches of snow in the next few days, the heaviest is likely to fall downwind of the Great Lakes. Note that these snow totals are only through Friday evening. Heavy lake-effect snow will continue into the weekend, especially downwind of Lakes Erie and Ontario, with multiple feet of snow possible through Sunday in the Buffalo and Watertown areas.

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NASA launches Artemis 1 moon mission on its most powerful rocket ever

More from Space.com: “NASA’s new era of deep space exploration has begun. With a mighty roar, the most powerful NASA rocket ever built — the Space Launch System (SLS) — soared into the Florida early morning sky on the Artemis 1 mission, a risky and long-delayed test flight to send a next-generation space capsule to the moon and back. Liftoff occurred today (Nov. 16) at 1:47 a.m. EST (0647 GMT) from NASA’s Pad 39B here at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. Artemis 1 is sending NASA’s new Orion spacecraft on an uncrewed test flight around the moon. This shakedown mission, NASA’s first flight of a crew-capable moon ship in nearly 50 years, serves as the proving ground to see if SLS and Orion are ready to help return astronauts to the lunar surface by 2025 under NASA’s Artemis program.

9 in 10 US counties have experienced a climate disaster in the last decade, report finds

More from Grist: “Ninety percent of all counties in the United States have experienced a weather disaster over the past decade, and these climate-fueled events have caused more than $740 billion in damages, according to a new report from the climate adaptation group Rebuild by Design. The “Atlas of Disaster,” a first-of-its-kind study published on Wednesday, analyzes a decade of federal disaster spending to reveal which parts of the country have been hit hardest by climate change, and which are most vulnerable to future catastrophes. The report finds that the federal disaster relief system is both underfunded and inefficient: The government lacks the authority and resources to help communities fully recover after disasters, and it also spends too much money on rebuilding in risky areas.

Rich countries are trying to hit pause on climate summit’s key issue

More from CNN: “The past week has given the world a glimpse of what climate-vulnerable countries have long known: while rich countries bend over backwards to pledge their support for climate action, they are far less enthusiastic when it comes to forking over the cash. At the UN’s COP27 climate summit, the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom are united against establishing a new fund this year to help the world’s developing nations – which have contributed little to the climate crisis – recover from climate disasters. Developing a so-called loss and damage fund is a key issue at COP27, and “the litmus test for success” of the summit, said Erin Roberts, a climate policy researcher and founder of the Loss and Damage Collaboration.

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– D.J. Kayser