Off the Radar

Off the Radar

Join National Weather Desk Meteorologist Emily Gracey every week as she leads listeners on an exciting voyage exploring a diverse range of topics related to weather, climate, space, and beyond. The podcast offers exclusive interviews with leading experts on topics that you wouldn't usually come across in a typical weather broadcast. It’ll enlighten, entertain, and educate, whether you’re a novice weather follower to the most passionate weather geek.

Episodes

The Man Who Killed Pluto

March 17, 2026 • 36 mins
For seventy-six years, Pluto was a planet. Then, in 2005, astronomer Dr. Mike Brown discovered Eris - a distant icy world roughly the same size as Pluto - forcing astronomers to confront a question they had quietly avoided for decades: what actually counts as a planet? The answer led to the 2006 vote that redefined the solar system and stripped Pluto of its status, turning Brown into the unlikely public face of a controversial dec...
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Aircraft Icing: Lessons Written in Tragedy

March 10, 2026 • 47 mins
Every winter, aircraft depart in snow and freezing rain under a simple but unforgiving rule: a clean aircraft flies. That rule was shaped by tragedy. In this episode, we revisit the 1982 crash of Air Florida Flight 90 - a disaster that exposed the deadly consequences of ice contamination and inadequate thrust on takeoff, and helped transform winter flight standards. The lessons from that day reshaped deicing procedures, crew train...
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The Blizzard of 2026: Behind the Forecast

March 3, 2026 • 54 mins
One week after the Blizzard of 2026 buried parts of the Northeast under more than three feet of snow, we’re going behind the forecast. On this episode of Off the Radar, Emily Gracey sits down with fellow meteorologists Joe Martucci and Chris Gloninger to break down the science and strategy behind one of the most impactful winter storms of the season. From the early model signals to the moment confidence surged, they walk through h...
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Alaska’s Climate Crisis Part 2: The Human Cost

February 24, 2026 • 16 mins
In Part One of this series, meteorologist Emily Gracey examined the science behind Alaska’s rapidly changing climate - the warming trends, disappearing sea ice, and extreme storms reshaping the state. In Part Two, we hear what those changes sound like on the ground. When the remnants of Typhoon Halong struck Western Alaska in October 2025, more than a thousand people were displaced. Entire villages flooded overnight. In Kwigillin...
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How Thirsty is Generative AI?

February 17, 2026 • 32 mins
Behind every chatbot response, AI-generated image, and large language model is a vast network of data centers consuming enormous amounts of electricity and water. In this episode, Emily talks with Dr. Amanda Smith of Project Drawdown about the hidden environmental footprint of generative AI and what it means for a warming, resource-constrained world. Dr. Smith explains how data centers operate, why they are often located where pow...
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Can the Winter Olympics Survive in a Warming World?

February 10, 2026 • 26 mins
For more than a century, the Winter Olympics have depended on cold, reliable conditions. But as the planet warms, that foundation is becoming harder to find. As the Games return to Northern Italy, this episode of Off the Radar examines how climate change is reshaping the future of winter sports. Meteorologist Emily Gracey speaks with Dr. Daniel Scott of the University of Waterloo, whose research shows a rapidly shrinking list of c...
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The Year Ahead: A Sit-down with NWS Director Ken Graham

February 3, 2026 • 17 mins
The future of weather forecasting is being built right now. Recorded on site at the annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society in Houston, this conversation with Ken Graham, Director of the National Weather Service, looks at where meteorology has been, where it is headed, and what it will take to get there. This year’s conference theme, “Fast and Slow Thinking: the Human Factor in a Rapidly Changing World,” took on add...
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Climate Melodies: Turning Data into Sound

January 27, 2026 • 31 mins
Climate science is most often communicated through charts, graphs, and visual models. But data does not have to be seen to be understood. In this episode, meteorologist Emily Gracey explores how climate data can be translated into sound. Emily is joined by mathematician and musician Harlan Brothers, who creates climate sonifications by converting real datasets into music and audio you can hear. Using measurements such as global t...
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Alaska's Climate Crisis Part 1: The Science

January 20, 2026 • 37 mins
Alaska is warming faster than any other U.S. state- nearly four times the global rate. Permafrost that's been frozen for thousands of years is thawing. Villages are sinking. Homes are floating away. And Indigenous communities are paying the highest price. In this episode, meteorologist Emily Gracey talks with Rick Thoman, one of the foremost experts on Alaskan climate and weather, about the extreme events reshaping the state. Fro...
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IVT: The Invisible Force Behind Deadly Floods

January 13, 2026 • 41 mins
When catastrophic flooding hits, we usually look at rainfall totals and records broken. But what if the most important number comes before the rain ever starts? In this episode, meteorologist Emily Gracey explores a groundbreaking Washington Post investigation that reveals how massive flows of atmospheric moisture are intensifying across the globe, creating hotspots that turn storms into deadly floods. Using a powerful metric call...
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Arctic Alarm: Inside NOAA's 2025 Report Card

January 6, 2026 • 25 mins
NOAA has just released its 2025 Arctic Report Card, and the findings are stark: the Arctic is warming more than twice as fast as the rest of the planet, with this year setting alarming new records. In this episode, meteorologist Emily Gracey sits down with Dr. Matt Druckenmiller, one of the report's editors, to unpack twenty years of tracking rapid Arctic change. From the lowest winter sea ice maximum ever recorded to "rusting rive...
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The Best of 2025: Off the Radar Year-End Special

December 30, 2025 • 49 mins
It's been a monumental year, both for weather and for Off the Radar. From Hurricane Melissa's record-breaking assault on Jamaica to devastating Texas floods, from NOAA layoffs to groundbreaking AI forecasting models, 2025 reminded us how powerful and vulnerable we are when it comes to our changing climate. In this special year-end episode, host Emily Gracey sits down with associate producer Brian Pietrus to count down their favori...
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'Twas the Week Before Christmas at Off the Radar

December 23, 2025 • 2 mins
Happy Holidays! Here's a special Christmas message from Off the Radar host, Meteorologist Emily Gracey.
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The Drake Passage: From Ship Graveyard to Influencer Destination

December 16, 2025 • 41 mins
The Drake Passage, a 600-mile stretch of ocean between South America and Antarctica, is one of the most dangerous bodies of water on Earth. With waves that can exceed 40 feet and a history littered with shipwrecks, it's claimed the lives of an estimated 10,000 sailors. Yet today, thousands of tourists willingly cross it every year on their way to Antarctica, documenting the experience with hashtags like #DrakeShake and #DrakeLake. ...
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The Science behind Red Light Therapy

December 9, 2025 • 37 mins
Red light therapy masks are everywhere on social media - glowing, slightly terrifying, and according to influencers, life-changing. But beyond the hype, there's legitimate science here: specific wavelengths of red and near-infrared light can penetrate skin tissue, boost cellular energy production, and potentially speed healing and reduce pain. In this episode, meteorologist Emily Gracey explores the physics behind red light therapy...
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The Dust Bowl

December 2, 2025 • 43 mins
In the 1930s, the Great Plains transformed from a land of promise into an apocalyptic landscape of suffocating dust storms. For nearly a decade, massive black clouds swept across 150,000 square miles of Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, Colorado, and New Mexico, turning day into night and forcing families to abandon their homes. Dust storms lasted for days at a time, reducing visibility to zero. People coughed up clumps of earth and develop...
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Happy Thanksgiving!

November 25, 2025 • 2 mins
Here's a special message from OTR host, Emily Gracey.
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The Forecast for your Lungs

November 18, 2025 • 27 mins
Dr. David Beuther, a pulmonologist, reveals how climate change is creating a quiet respiratory health crisis - one where patients with lung disease are increasingly trapped indoors by poor air quality. In this conversation, we explore the growing impact wildfire smoke, extended pollen seasons, and shifting weather patterns are having on our ability to breathe. Dr. Beuther shares practical strategies for protecting lung health, from...
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The Space Debris Dilemma

November 11, 2025 • 46 mins
In January 2025, astronomers mistook Elon Musk's space-launched Tesla Roadster for a asteroid. It took seventeen hours to realize the "near-Earth object" was actually a seven-year-old sports car orbiting the Sun. We're losing track of what we've sent into space. This week, Emily sits down with Dr. Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who has tracked every rocket and satellite la...
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iCyclone: Inside the World's Deadliest Storms with Josh Morgerman

November 4, 2025 • 28 mins
When Hurricane Melissa, a catastrophic Category 5 storm with 185 mph winds, slammed into Jamaica last week, the world's top hurricane chaser Josh Morgerman was there by choice. For 36 hours after the eyewall passed over him, he went silent, leaving his followers worried and waiting. In this episode, Emily sits down with Josh to explore his incredible three-decade career chasing more than 80 hurricanes and typhoons around the globe...
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