Earth Day 2014 Wunderphoto Selections

Today is Earth Day, a day to celebrate the beauty of the atmosphere, oceans, and biosphere of the planet that sustains us. As is my tradition on Earth Day, I present my favorite wunderphotos uploaded to our web site over the past year. I want to thank everyone who has participated in making this the largest (1.7 million!) and best weather photo gallery on the Internet--your photos are truly an inspiration! Many of my choices were taken from our Worldview Gallery, updated weekly with the top wunderphotos of the week.


Figure 1. My favorite wunderphoto of the past year, "The Green Heaven", was taken on October 31, 2013 in Senja, northern Norway, by wunderphotographer Altred. It's the background image on my laptop.

Wunderground's new Billion-Dollar Weather Disasters of 2013 Infographic
Earth set a new record for billion-dollar weather disasters in 2013 with 41, as I detailed in a January blog post. For Earth Day this year, Weather Underground's superb graphic artist Jerimiah Brown has created a new Billion-Dollar Weather Disasters of 2013 Infographic that helps put last year's extraordinary weather events in perspective.


Figure 2. My favorite lightning of the past year, "Bahama Blast!", was taken on July 11, 2013 in Freeport, Bahama, by wunderphotographer AsylumRat.

Wunderground's Awesome Lightning Infographic
If you want to learn more about lightning, Jerimiah has also created an awesome new interactive lightning infographic.

I'll be part of a live Earth Day Google+ hangout at 1:15 pm EDT Tuesday with Huffington Post. The topic is, "Where Will The Next Natural Disaster Hit?"

Jeff Masters