The West is starting to feel the heat as summer jumps ahead of spring for control of the thermostat. Numerous record warm highs and lows are possible across the region early to midweek. Places like Portland, Seattle, Sacramento, Las Vegas and Phoenix will all be sweating it out in the week ahead. But rain and storms will roll in late Wednesday, bringing a cooldown for much of the region. Time it out here.

A severe weather threat is setting up for this weekend in portions of the South, with the potential for damaging winds and large hail, although an isolated tornado threat cannot be ruled out.

Winter is making one of its final stands in the Great Lakes and Northeast this week as a low pressure system is on track to bring gusty winds, rain and snow to the region. The rush of cold air could cause wind chills in the teens and twenties for cities like Boston, Chicago and Minneapolis. The transition between rain and snow will be pretty messy, so lots of areas could see some wintry mix, freezing rain and ice, but most of the snow will stay further inland and north of the I-90 corridor. Rainy, dreary weather will also stretch across much of the Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic to kick off the first week of astronomical spring.

High above Pumoyongcuo Lake on the Tibetan Plateau, astrophotographers Angel An and Shuchang Dong captured over 100 rare red sprites in a single night. These fleeting electrical discharges, triggered by high-peak current lightning, illuminated the sky above a massive thunderstorm stretching from the Ganges Plain to Tibet’s foothills. This rare and breathtaking event in 2022, now the focus of a groundbreaking study, showcases one of South Asia’s most spectacular sprite displays ever recorded.

An iceberg broke off of the Antarctic ice sheet, and as scientists studied the deep ocean where the ice once was, they found ecosystems teeming with sea spiders, corals, ice fish and possibly dozens of new species. The discovery could provide new information about how deep-sea life changes as the planet warms.