Times Record

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Florida, the most storm-battered state in the nation, now is home to groundbreaking research that allows scientists to dissect the raw power of hurricanes.

PHOTO GALLERY : For more of this week’s photos, click here .

WASHINGTON — If you thought last winter was a horror show, with cold blasts from the polar vortex and a lack of California rain, here’s some good news: No sequel is expected this year, federal forecasters say.

Rachel Rodemann • Times Record

A surge of severe weather rolled through northeast Oklahoma and western Arkansas on Thursday, bringing small hail, downed tree limbs and power lines, gusty winds and other minor damage.

EAST PORTERVILLE, Calif. — The grandmother sat outside in her Sunday best next to a house with peeling paint, her canned iced tea resting on top of a washing machine that didn’t work. She’d been without running water for four months.

TRENTON, N.J. — When Superstorm Sandy slammed into the Northeast nearly two years ago, hospitals found themselves dealing with surges in patients, lost power supplies and employees who couldn’t get to work — problems that a new federal report finds they were not prepared to handle.

Residents in Fort Smith and Sebastian County will get an abrupt taste of autumn this week, but a return to warmer weather is on the horizon.

GRAND HAVEN, Mich. — With climate change still a political minefield across the nation despite the strong scientific consensus that it’s happening, some community leaders have hit upon a way of preparing for the potentially severe local consequences without triggering explosions of partisan warfare: Just change the subject.

FRIENDSHIP, Maine — Imagine Cape Cod without cod. Maine without lobster. The region’s famous rocky beaches invisible, obscured by constant high waters.

LEWISTON, Maine — The folks at the Farmers’ Almanac can be forgiven for feeling smug: The 198-year-old publication correctly predicted the past nasty winter while federal forecasters blew it.

MARIPOSA, Calif. — Firefighters from throughout California were being dispatched Tuesday to protect homes threatened by an out-of-control wildfire burning in the foothills near Yosemite National Park, the second fire around the park in recent weeks.

July was the eighth-coolest on record for Fort Smith since 1882, according to the National Weather Service in Tulsa .

NORTH BABYLON, N.Y. — Communities across the U.S. are drying out after unusually heavy rains swamped highways, flooded basements and were blamed for at least four deaths.

HONOLULU — Iselle was supposed to weaken as it slowly trudged west across the Pacific. It didn’t — and now Hawaii is poised to take its first direct hurricane hit in 22 years. Tracking close behind it was Hurricane Julio, which strengthened early Thursday into a Category 2 storm.

PHOTO GALLERY : For more of this week’s photos, click here .