Hurricane Otis made landfall near Acapulco, Mexico, early Wednesday with maximum sustained winds of 165 mph with and higher gusts, after rapidly intensifying from a tropical storm into a ferocious Category 5 storm in under 24 hours.
Threat level: Forecasters warned ahead of landfall that "catastrophic damage" was likely from Otis, which has since dropped to a tropical storm as it moves inland and weakens amid high terrain.
The big picture: The storm's leap from a tropical storm on early Tuesday to a Category 5 storm near midnight highlighted what climate change, combined with weather and climate variability, can do to a storm if conditions are right.
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has found a never-before-seen jet stream in Jupiter's atmosphere.
Why it matters: The new discovery shows off the power of the telescope to transform our understanding of not just extremely distant objects but worlds in our own solar system.
A comprehensive look at ocean temperatures along West Antarctic coast shows that a faster melt of the region's ice shelves is all but "unavoidable" this century and implies a quicker rate of sea level rise.
Why it matters: The future of millions of coastal residents worldwide depends on the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. A more rapid loss of this ice threatens to send sea levels above existing projections of a one-to-three-foot rise by 2100.
