On Feb. 9, 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant, who learned that weather information was extremely valuable for operations during the Civil War, signed a law creating what is now known as the National Weather Service.
Photos: Megadrought in US West hits worst-case scenario
A kayaker paddles in Lake Oroville as water levels remain low due to continuing drought conditions in Oroville, Calif., on Aug. 22, 2021. The American West's megadrought deepened so much last year that it is now the driest it has been in at least 1,200 years and a worst-case scenario playing out live, a new study finds.
AP Photo/Ethan Swope
Matt Lisignoli walks through an irrigation canal that ran dry in early August after the North Unit Irrigation District exhausted its allocated water on Sept. 1, 2021, near Madras, Ore.
AP Photo/Nathan Howard
A buoy once used to warn of a submerged rock rests on the ground along the waterline near a closed boat ramp on Lake Mead at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Aug. 13, 2021, near Boulder City, Nev.
AP Photo/John Locher
A car crosses Enterprise Bridge over Lake Oroville's dry banks on May 23, 2021, in Oroville, Calif.
AP Photo/Noah Berger
"Weather Guys" Steve Ackerman and Jonathan Martin are professors in the University of Wisconsin-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.
On Feb. 9, 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant, who learned that weather information was extremely valuable for operations during the Civil War, signed a law creating what is now known as the National Weather Service.
