Super Typhoon Maria became a Category 5 storm for the second time in its history on Sunday, with maximum sustained winds of 160 miles per hour. The storm is over the warm waters of the Western Pacific — on a collision course with northern Taiwan, the Ryukyu Islands of Japan and coastal China early this week.
What this means: The storm is close to its maximum intensity now, but it is still projected to be a formidable Category 3 or 4 typhoon when it passes near or to the north of Taipei on July 10, before making landfall in coastal China south of Shanghai the next day.
In 2013, scientists announced that they had observed the coldest temperature on Earth near the South Pole at -135°F, but a new study re-analyzing that data found the temperature was really -144°F.
The big picture: Researchers scanning dips and hollows in the Antarctic ice sheet found that, over the last 14 years, there were many places where temperatures dropped to exactly -144°Fbut never colder,prompting them to postulate that this is the lowest possible temperature on Earth's surface.
