The Latest Breaking News from Daniel Swain

Torrential downpours claimed the lives of more than 1,000 in Pakistan, where almost half a million people are in relief camps. A massive deluge crashed across Mississippi in the past week, leaving the roughly 150,000 residents of capital city Jackson without reliable access to clean drinking water. Cascades of rain…

LOS ANGELES — The extreme temperatures that will bear down on California over the next week are the result of a “heat dome,” a phenomenon that typically brings broiling conditions to the state as summer fades into fall. But climate change is worsening the dome’s effects and making it more…

LOS ANGELES — A brush fire in Mariposa County showed extreme behavior as it exploded in size to 6,555 acres overnight, threatening thousands of homes and quickly becoming one of California’s largest wildfires of the year.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Blazes have burned thousands of acres, cued mandatory evacuations and threatened some of the state’s oldest and most impressive trees, but far fewer acres have burned in California wildfires through the first few weeks of summer than at the same point last year.

Treatments conducted well ahead of time may help limit damage from Washburn fire

A culmination of unique events led to the recent extensive flooding in the Yellowstone region

LOS ANGELES — After losing dozens of oak trees, a guest house and a garage filled with mementos of her late husband in the 2018 Woolsey fire, Nicole Radoumis dreads the arrival of extreme fire weather amid a punishing California drought.

La Nina, the flip side of the better known El Nino weather condition, keeps popping up

The sight of fountains, swimming pools, gardens and golf courses in Western cities like Phoenix, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Diego and Albuquerque can seem jarring as drought and climate change tightening their grip on the region