Vertical wind shear is present nearly everywhere on Earth, since winds typically move faster at higher altitudes than at the surface. It can be stronger or weaker than normal, and that’s ...

Vertical wind shear can keep tropical storms in check, particularly during El Niño years. When El Niño is gone, it’s a different story.

Since Tuesday night, this cluster of thunderstorms never had more than a 10% chance of developing. It was dealing with some ...

Shear measures the variation in the velocity and direction of wind flow at various levels of the atmosphere. The more shear there is, the more turbulent the atmosphere.

For a tropical system to become powerful, wind shear needs to be weak or non-existent, as the stronger winds aloft will blow the upper-level circulation away from the low-level center of the storm.

2 key tornado ingredients, on steroids The hyperactive season has been due to an abundance of two key ingredients for tornadoes: wind shear and instability.