What's Up With Weather in the West?

**Kiki Sanford** (0:00)
This is TWIS. This Week in Science, episode number 1073, recorded on Wednesday, August 26, 2026
What's up with weather in the West? Hey everyone, I'm Dr. Kiki, and tonight we will fill your head with weather, climate, and maybe some brains, because you know I like baby brains and other brains and all sorts of brains. But first, thanks to our amazing Patreon sponsors for their generous support of TWIS. You can become a part of the Patreon community at patreon.com/thisweek in Science. Disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer. When I leave this mortal coil, I hope it is said that I gave instead of took, that I taught instead of told, that I shared instead of stole, that I laughed and loved and inspired the same in others. The world is a little less today with the passing of Dolly and Tim. But I hope you prefer, as I do, to think of the richness that they brought to the world while they were in it. We are all better because of their kindness, determination and spirit. Let's all do the time warp because we're working nine to five again on tonight's episode of This Week in Science coming up next.
Good science, everyone. Welcome to another episode of This Week in Science. I'm back again. No Blair tonight. Justin's still not here, but I am joined by the amazing Dr. Daniel Swain, and we are going to have a great conversation about weather, climate, specifically El Ninos. I also have stories tonight related to the shingles vaccine, maybe some bad antibodies for science, a pulsating mass that isn't quite right for you yet, and baby brains.
But before we jump into the show, I do want to remind everyone that if you are interested in listening to This Week in Science, we are live on Facebook, YouTube, Twitch on every Wednesday night, 8 p.m. Pacific time-ish, and you can find those recordings on those networks, on those platforms. After the fact, we also podcast. You can find us, look for This Week in Science on Favorite Podcast Platform. Our website is twis.org, T-W-I-S-O-R-G. Go there if you're interested in show notes, information about our stories, our guests, etc. We also have a link to our Patreon and also to our Zazzle store there. Please help us grow, get other people to subscribe.
And it's time for the science. Thank you everyone for joining me tonight. And I am going to take this opportunity to introduce our guest for the evening, Dr. Daniel Swain. Daniel is a weather and climate scientist focused on the dynamics and impacts of extreme events. These are droughts, floods, storms, wildfires on a warming planet, which not just a warming planet, I would say our warming planet.

**Daniel Swain** (3:48)
This one.

**Kiki Sanford** (3:49)
Yeah, this one. Daniel's point primary appointment is as a climate scientist, associate researcher at the California Institute for Water Resources within the University of California, Agriculture and Natural Resources, and has also been a research partner at the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research. I feel a connection even though we haven't met in person as a fellow UC Davis alum.
Daniel also got his PhD at Stanford University in Earth System Science and his postdoc work was at UCLA. He authors the WeatherWest blog at weatherwest.com, and is also on Blue Sky and YouTube at WeatherWest. Welcome to the show, Daniel. Thank you so much for joining me.

**Daniel Swain** (4:39)
Thanks for having me. I'm glad we were able to squeeze this in, in between all of the geophysical excitement these days.

**Kiki Sanford** (4:47)
Yeah. I mean, this hot northern hemisphere summer in the West Coast, we've got fires.
There was a massive, they call it a flash flood, but it was a glacial event, apparently, in Nepal. We've got extra hot in Southern California. We've got the El Nino. And Arthur, is there more? Am I missing more?

**Daniel Swain** (5:14)
Well, you know, that's a pretty good list of today's events, I guess. But there's just been such a laundry list of things going on recently between the backward shattering heat events in Europe and North America and South Asia, and extreme precipitate. You know, if the list goes on and on, which is kind of the point that you can pick up a month these days and find a lot of unprecedented extreme heat events, not finding too many unprecedented extreme cold events these days.

**Kiki Sanford** (5:45)
Yeah. So that is one of the interesting things, right? With the way that the increasing temperatures are shifting. And people talk about in the summers, you have hotter nights so that there isn't as much cooling at night. And in the winters, you maybe don't have the extreme cold as much. Is that generally the trend?