Deadly tornados are striking more frequently this year, forecasters say, but there's no one particular reason for it.

The country’s confirmed death toll this year from tornadoes is 98, more than double the average of 44 deaths annually from Jan. 1 through May 11, according to the National Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla. The country averages 60 tornado deaths a year. “It’s been one storm after another, it seems like,” said Greg Carbin, warning coordination meteorologist for the Storm Prediction Center.

This winter into spring, the jet stream has maintained a persistent storm pattern that has especially pummeled southern Missouri and Arkansas. But there’s no explanation for the pattern other than random atmospheric forces, said Andy Bailey, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Pleasant Hill. “There’s nothing that we can state that is causing it,” Bailey said. » read more

WASHINGTON — Despite a painful budget squeeze, the United States will undertake a jampacked array of new astronomy missions over the next 12 months.

The goals range from counting tiny specks of carbon in Earth's atmosphere to surveying the outer boundary of the solar system and studying the farthest corners of the universe.

NASA asked for $4.44 billion to pay for these and more than 40 existing and future science projects in the next fiscal year. But astronomers complain that the budget is still too tight. » read more