Parts of a nor’easter that buried portions of the Northeast under feet of snow and left hundreds of thousands without power will linger Wednesday over New England, where it is expected to bring limited snow but heavy winds that could cause more outages before shifting off the coast.

An additional 1 to 4 inches of snowfall is forecast over parts of upstate New York and New England on Wednesday, the National Weather Service says, after some parts of the region were pummeled with more than 2 feet of snow Tuesday.

Several communities reported snowfall of 36 inches by Tuesday night, including the towns of Moriah and Stony Creek in New York, and Marlboro, Vermont. In Beacon, New York, 43 inches of snow was reported but that number may be inaccurate based on totals in surrounding areas.

Though snowfall will taper off significantly overnight, strong winds with gusts of up to 50 mph were expected to blow through areas of the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast throughout the morning.

The nor’easter – a type of storm that travels along the Eastern Seaboard and brings winds from the northeast – disrupted daily life across swaths of the region, creating treacherous or impossible to navigate road conditions and creating hazards for those trying dig out of the snow.

In Derry, New Hampshire, a falling tree struck and trapped a child who’d been playing near a parent who was clearing snow Tuesday afternoon, the city fire department said. Firefighters and police officers used chainsaws and shovels to free the child, who was brought to a hospital with minor injuries.

“Please be mindful of the increased danger for injuries and heart attacks when shoveling heavy-wet snow,” the National Weather Service cautioned Tuesday.

The storm also caused a slew of school closures and class delays across the region on Tuesday. Some schools also will be impacted Wednesday, including Worcester Public Schools in Massachusetts, which announced a two-hour delayed start.

In New York, where about 40,000 residences and businesses remained without power early Wednesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced several warming centers available in hard-hit counties, including Albany, Ulster and Saratoga counties. The governor also implored residents to “continue to avoid unnecessary travel so plows and emergency personnel can do their jobs.”

Heavy snow hinders travel

More than 2,000 flights within, into or out of the United States were canceled Tuesday, and more than 6,000 additional flights were delayed, mostly connected to airports in the Northeast as the storm plowed through the region, according to tracking site FlightAware.

Airlines including Delta, American, United, Southwest, JetBlue and Spirit have issued travel waivers or flexible rebooking policies for passengers whose flights were impacted by the winter weather.

Officials throughout the affected region warned drivers to take extra precautions or avoid snow-covered or icy roads.

In New Hampshire, state troopers responded to more than 200 crashes and vehicles that had traveled off the road, New Hampshire State Police said in a tweet.

States deployed teams of plows and other emergency response vehicles, including the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, which said it sent 1,813 pieces of equipment to respond to the storm and treat roads. The department also issued a 40 mph speed restriction on Interstate 90, which stretches through the state.

Hurricane hunters collecting storm data on both coasts

As the nor’easter swept through the Northeast and a separate atmospheric river system hit the Pacific coast, hurricane hunters with the US Air Force Reserve collected data that could improve future forecasts for the regions.

We at it again flying another #AtmosphericRiver in the Pacific and the developing #snow storm in the Atlantic. The @53rdWRS is continuing to gather critical data from coast to coast to improve forecasts of these highly impactful late-season winter storms. pic.twitter.com/x0KSub68OT

— Jeremy DeHart (@JeremyDeHart53d) March 14, 2023

But now, the hurricane hunters can fly to the storms and deploy instruments that can relay pinpointed live weather data. The data can be immediately included in weather forecast models, which improves the accuracy of the forecast dramatically.

“We’re flying missions from sea to shining sea out here,” the hurricane hunters tweeted on Tuesday. “It’s just what we do.”

The storm system that’s hammered California this week is heading east – but not before dousing the state with more torrential rain and knocking out power with ferocious winds.

Daily rainfall records were shattered Tuesday in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Santa Maria. The deluge will keep hitting Southern California on Wednesday before moving east, threatening 25 million people in the central US.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom expanded a state of emergency to cover 43 of the state’s 58 counties Tuesday night as high winds and intense rain wrought havoc in the state.

Some cities endured hurricane-force winds. Top wind gusts of 97 mph were measured at Santa Clara County’s Loma Prieta, 93 mph at Alameda County’s Mines Tower and 74 mph at San Francisco Airport, according to the National Weather Service.

In San Francisco, firefighters believe fierce winds sent out glass falling from a downtown high-rise building, they said.

Across the state, more than 169,000 customers had no electricity Wednesday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.us.

All this severe weather is caused by the 11th atmospheric river to strike California this season. And it won’t be the last, with yet another set to pummel the state next week.

Atmospheric rivers are long, narrow bands of moisture that can carry saturated air thousands of miles like a fire hose.

“These atmospheric rivers are transporting a ton of moisture from the Pacific Ocean out to the West Coast of the US,” said Maj. Chris Dyke, a member of the Air Force Reserve’s “Hurricane Hunters” weather reconnaissance team.

The squadron has been flying planes into California’s storms to drop instruments called “dropsondes” inside atmospheric rivers to relay live weather data. The information is immediately put into weather forecast models, which dramatically improves the accuracy of forecasts.

Storms push east with tornado, flood risks

As the storm creeps east, parts of Arizona and Nevada are under flood alerts Wednesday.

In Arizona, several creeks and rivers in the Flagstaff area are expected to rise Wednesday and Thursday due to heavy rain and melting snow, the local National Weather Service office said. “Flooding is likely along Oak Creek and Wet Beaver Creek,” NWS Flagstaff tweeted.

And after this atmospheric river dies down, California will get walloped by yet another. The next one will likely pummel California between March 21 to 23 with more rain, snow, fierce winds and flooding, forecasters said.

Atmospheric rivers are typically 250 to 375 miles wide and can stretch more than a thousand miles, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says.

While they’re an important source of rainfall for the West, atmospheric rivers can create conditions similar to those of hurricanes when they pass over land, NOAA said.

And due to the effects of global warming, scientists believe atmospheric rivers can become more intense as the air temperatures increase.

Atmospheric rivers will be “significantly longer and wider than the ones we observe today, leading to more frequent atmospheric river conditions in affected areas,” a NASA-led study found.

‘I want to cry, but what’s crying going to do?’

More than 70,000 Californians were ordered to flee their homes during the latest atmospheric river that turned streets into lakes, caused a levee to breach and threatened mudslides.

In Placer County, a mudslide Tuesday evening caused major damage to a home in Colfax, prompting an evacuation warning for other homes, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s Nevada Yuba Placer Unit.

In Monterey County, crews have been racing to fix a breach in a river levee Friday that sent water gushing into the nearby community of Pajaro. More than 2,000 people were evacuated from the Pajaro area, Monterey County Sheriff Tina Nieto said.

Water from another breach eroded nearby bridges and inundated California’s famed Highway 1, which had to be closed, Monterey County officials said.

“I want to cry, but what’s crying going to do?” Michelle Keith said. “It’s just sad, so sad.”

Another Pajaro resident, Ruth Ruiz, hasn’t been able to return home since she left in hurry before dawn Saturday. Ruiz is worried about how long it’ll take to get back to normal life after she returns home, she said.

Polish pilot Lukasz Czepiela made aviation history on Tuesday, becoming the first person to land a plane on the helipad of the iconic Burj Al Arab Jumeirah hotel in Dubai.

Czepiela was able to bring his specially adapted light aircraft to a stop in just 21 meters (68 feet), landing on a platform only 27 meters (89 feet) wide, 212 meters (696 feet) above the ground on top of the 56-story building.

“The biggest challenge was the lack of any external points of reference, which is usually found at an airport where you have hundreds of meters of runway,” he told sponsors Red Bull.

The stunt had been in the planning since 2021 and required 650 test landings, according to Red Bull.

Czepiela’s day job is captaining an Airbus A320, but he has some impressive flying achievements under his belt, including winning the 2018 world championship challenger class title in the Red Bull Air Race, and landing an aircraft on a wooden pier in Sopot, Poland.

Czepiela joins an elite group of sporting legends who have graced the helipad of the sail-shaped hotel, including tennis champions Roger Federer and Andre Agassi, who played a match there in 2005, and former F1 Grand Prix winner David Coulthard, who performed donuts there in 2013.

A light-filled, green haven that brands itself as a “destination in itself,” Singapore’s Changi Airport has reclaimed its spot at the top of Skytrax’s annual ranking of the world’s best airports.

Skytrax, a UK-based airline and airport review and ranking site, compiles its list by surveying travelers from across the world and asking them to rate the entire airport experience – from check-in to departures and everything in between.

Singapore Changi Airport previously topped Skytrax’s list for eight years running, but in 2021 and 2022 dropped a couple of spots down the list as passenger numbers fell during the pandemic, with Hamad International Airport in Doha, Qatar, taking the top gong instead.

Miller says Changi airport “offers something for everyone,” and suggests that is a “key driver” of its continuing popularity.

Some of Changi’s charms include a spectacular 40-meter-tall (around 130 feet) indoor waterfall, a butterfly garden and an IMAX cinema – not to mention more than 280 retail and dining outlets, perfect for killing time during a layover.

“Singapore Changi is primarily a transit airport, and from the customer feedback, the airport performs well because it offers such a wide range of facilities and amenities for all types of customers – families, business and leisure travelers are all well catered for,” says Miller.

Hamad International Airport, which this year earned the second place in Skytrax’s list, also offers amenities designed for transiting travelers – including city tours for those spending more than eight hours waiting for their connecting flight.

This year, Skytrax’s 2023 top five was rounded out by Tokyo’s International Airport, known as Haneda, (number three), Incheon International Airport (number four) and Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport (number five).

From airport dining to airport art

Skytrax also hands out other awards, including regional prizes, with Changi Airport nabbing the gong for Best Airport in Asia, as well as winning World’s Best Airport Dining and World’s Best Airport Leisure Amenities.

Changi’s on-site hotel, the luxurious Crowne Plaza Changi Airport, was crowned world’s best airport hotel for the eighth consecutive year.

Meanwhile, second-place Hamad International Airport also won World’s Best Airport Shopping, Best Airport in the Middle East and Cleanest Airport in the Middle East, while third-place Tokyo Haneda Airport was crowned the overall cleanest airport.

Bahrain International Airport won World’s Best Airport Baggage Delivery and Incheon Airport is apparently the airport with the best staff and immigration processing.

Meanwhile the once-lambasted New York LaGuardia Airport continued its successful rehabilitation quest, with its new Terminal B awarded World’s Best New Airport Terminal.

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport is the highest rated US airport, coming in at number eighteen on Skytrax’s list and awarded Best Airport in North America.

Cape Town International Airport is the best airport in Africa, Delhi Airport is the best airport in India and South Asia and Bogota’s El Dorado International Airport won the Best Airport in South America award.

This year, the Skytrax team also premiered a new category celebrating airport art, judged by a separate panel rather than via the customer survey.

The Houston Airport System, which boasts one of the largest collections of public art in the state of Texas, won this award on behalf of William P. Hobby Airport and George Bush Intercontinental Houston Airport.

Skytrax World’s Top 20 Airports for 2023

1. Singapore Changi Airport

2. Hamad International Airport

3. Tokyo International Airport (Haneda)

4. Incheon International Airport

5. Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport

6. Istanbul Airport

7. Munich Airport

8. Zurich Airport

9. Narita International Airport

10. Madrid-Barajas Airport

11. Vienna International Airport

12. Helsinki-Vantaa Airport

13. Rome Fiumicino Airport

14. Copenhagen Airport

15. Kansai International Airport

16. Chubu Centrair International Airport

17. Dubai International Airport

18. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport

19. Melbourne Airport

20. Vancouver International Airport

At least 22 people, including three monks, were killed at a monastery in Myanmar’s Southern Shan State on Saturday as local insurgent groups and the military-backed junta accused each other of carrying out a massacre.

Myanmar has been mired in political violence since military leader Min Aung Hlaing seized power in a 2021 coup that upturned any hope the Southeast Asian nation of 55 million people would become a functioning democracy.

The coup was followed by a brutal military crackdown against pro-democracy protesters that saw civilians shot in the street, abducted in nighttime raids and allegedly tortured in detention.

Since the coup, at least 2,900 people in Myanmar have been killed by junta troops and over 17,500 arrested, the majority of whom are still in detention, according to advocacy group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP).

The coup has also resulted in a surge in fighting between the military and a raft of resistance groups allied with long-established ethnic militias in a country that has been plagued for decades by insurgencies.

Resistance groups have repeatedly accused Myanmar’s military of carrying out mass killings, air strikes and war crimes against civilians in the regions where fighting has raged, charges the junta repeatedly denies – despite a growing body of evidence.

The latest allegation of an atrocity emerged last week in Shan State, the remote and mountainous northeastern chunk of Myanmar that borders China, Laos and Thailand.

Many were seen wearing civilian clothes and had multiple gunshot wounds. Among them were also three bodies dressed in saffron orange robes, traditionally worn by Buddhist monks.

In the video provided by the group, visible bullet holes could be seen on the walls of the monastery.

The bodies were seen lined up and slumped against the monastery’s walls with pools of blood on the ground below.

‘Tortured and executed’

Both the KNDF and Myanmar’s military agree fighting took place in the area but two competing narratives have emerged in the aftermath of the killings at the monastery.

Fierce fighting had taken place between local insurgent groups and Myanmar’s military in an area near Nan Nein Village last week.

That fighting spilled over with the military shelling and launching airstrikes directly at the village forcing the civilians to take refuge in the nearby monastery, Soe Aung said.

Describing the carnage, Soe Aung said: “These civilians and monks were tortured and executed by the Burmese military.”

“The monks did not want to leave their monastery so civilians and monks stayed there together,” he continued.

Because of the way the bodies were discovered lined up in front of the monastery, Soe Aung suggested that they were killed by “a hit squad.”

The victims were all unarmed and many bodies showed signs of “torture and beatings” with “sustained bullet wounds to the head,” he added.

Blame game

Myanmar’s junta spokesperson Major General Zaw Min Tun dismissed accusations the military was responsible.

In comments carried by the state run newspaper Global Light of Myanmar on Tuesday, he blamed “terrorist groups” for the violence at the monastery, naming the Karen National Police Force (KNPF), the People’s Defence Force (PDF) and the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP), an administration uniting ethnic groups in the state.

Zaw Min Tun claimed fighters opened fire after “the Tatmadaw (cooperated) with the local people’s militia and took security measures for the region.”

“When the terrorist groups violently opened fire… some villagers were killed and injured. (Others) ran away.”

“It is not our policy to put fighters in the village because it could bring conflicts to the civilians,” he said.

The area has seen fighting for several weeks, he added – most of it concentrated in surrounding jungle and mountain areas.

The Myanmar military’s attack on the Nan Nein Village also included a “bombardment” involving air strikes, according to the KNDF.

‘Terror campaign’

The junta’s coup toppled the government of democratically elected civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was later sentenced to 33 years in jail following a string of secretive and highly-politicized proceedings.

Aung Myo Min, spokesman for the National Unity Government that represents the ousted civilian leadership, called the latest attack in Nan Nein village “a terror campaign” and said the country was in the “worst situation” right now.

“In the past three months, there has been an increasing number of civilians killed. The number of mass killings committed by the military has increased and… the military has been using more forms of violence against the people,” he said.

“The casualties in this massacre… it’s very clear that they are civilians (and) not involved in any kind of opposition movement against the military,” he added.

Myo Min described the killings as “cold blooded” and said they fit a pattern of the Myanmar military routinely attacking civilians.

Asia deputy director of Human Rights Watch Phil Robertson called for stern action.

“Every day across the country, Myanmar’s military and police are committing brutal acts that constitute crimes against humanity. Massacring civilians in a hail of bullets at a Buddhist monastery shows the desperate savagery of a regime wholly divorced from the Burmese people,” Robertson said.

“Governments around the world should recognize that Myanmar’s military junta government does not care about words,” he added.

“It must be hit by a global arms embargo imposed by the UN and the kind of decisive sanctions needed against the Tatmadaw and its business interests… that keep this atrocious, rights abusing military in the field – massacring civilians without remorse.”

A gargantuan mass of seaweed that formed in the Atlantic Ocean is headed for the shores of Florida and other coastlines throughout the Gulf of Mexico, threatening to dump smelly and potentially dangerous heaps across beaches and put a big damper on tourist season.

The seaweed, a variety called sargassum, has long formed large blooms in the Atlantic, and scientists have been tracking massive accumulations since 2011. But this year’s sargassum mass could be the largest on record — spanning more than 5,000 miles from the coast of Africa to the Gulf of Mexico.

The blob is currently pushing west and will pass through the Caribbean and up into the Gulf of Mexico during the summer, with the seaweed expected to become prevalent on beaches in Florida around July, according to Dr. Brian Lapointe, a researcher at Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute.

“This is an entirely new oceanographic phenomenon that is creating such a problem — really a catastrophic problem — for tourism in the Caribbean region where it piles up on beaches up to 5 or 6 feet deep,” Lapointe added.

He noted that in Barbados, locals were using “1,600 dump trucks a day to clean the beaches of this seaweed to make it suitable for tourists and recreation on the beaches.”

What is sargassum

Sargassum is a catch-all term that can be used to refer to more than 300 species of brown algae, although Sargassum natans and Sargassum fluitans are the two species most commonly found in the Atlantic.

The algae has its upsides when adrift at sea.

“This floating habitat provides food and protection for fishes, mammals, marine birds, crabs, and more,” according to the Sargassum Information Hub website, which is a joint project among various research institutions. “It serves as a critical habitat for threatened loggerhead sea turtles and as a nursery area for a variety of commercially important fishes such as mahi mahi, jacks, and amberjacks.”

The problems arise when sargassum hits the beaches, not only piling up in mounds that can be physically difficult to navigate but also emitting a gas that can smell like rotten eggs. And it can quickly turn from an asset to a threat to ocean life.

“It comes in in such a large quantities that it basically sucks the oxygen out of the water and creates what we refer to as dead zones,” Lapointe said. “These are normally nursery habitats for fisheries … and once they’re devoid of oxygen, we have lost that habitat.”

Sargassum can also be dangerous to human health, Lapointe noted. The gas that the rotting algae releases, hydrogen sulfide, is toxic, and it can cause respiratory problems. The seaweed itself also contains arsenic in its flesh, making it dangerous if ingested or used for fertilizer.

“You have to be very careful when you clean the beaches,” he warned.

Mounds of algae dumped on beaches also cost millions of dollars to clean up, notes the Sargassum Information Hub.

Why 2023 has a sargassum problem

Just like plants and crops on the ground, the proliferation of seaweed can shift year to year depending on ecological factors, affected by changes in nutrients, rainfall and wind conditions, said Dr. Gustavo Jorge Goni, the director of the Physical Oceanography Division at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory.

Likewise, currents at sea can alter sargassum’s annual growth and how much accumulates, Goni added. Phosphorus and nitrogen in the sea can also serve as food for the algae.

Those elements can be dumped into the ocean from rivers, which gain concentrations of phosphorus and nitrogen from human activities, such as agriculture and fossil fuel production, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

For now, researchers are looking into ways to thwart its impact on beaches, possibly by sinking the seaweed to the bottom of the ocean or harvesting it for use in commercial products such as soap, Goni said.

Goni also cautions that research into these sargassum accumulations is new, and it’s likely scientists’ understanding of how the algae grows will shift over time.

“Whatever we believe we know today, it may change tomorrow,” he said.

After the NFL scouting combine, the beginning of the free agency period is the next major milestone in the upcoming season’s checklist.

While it officially opens at 4 p.m. Eastern Time on March 15 when the new league year begins in earnest, teams are able to negotiate with the agents of upcoming unrestricted free agents during a two-day period before that point.

Upon the beginning of the new league year, players can officially sign with new teams, trades become official and contracts come to an end.

In recent years, spending has risen – the annual salary cap for each team has grown to $224.8 million per team in 2023 – and teams have been more aggressive with their willingness to part with draft stock for proven assets.

And this year looks to be no different with some massive deals reportedly completed.

All-Pro cornerback Jalen Ramsey has reportedly been traded from the Los Angeles Rams to the Miami Dolphins and numerous quarterbacks have agreed to deals already – Geno Smith at the Seattle Seahawks, Daniel Jones at the New York Giants and Derek Carr with the New Orleans Saints.

But there are some huge dominoes yet to fall, which could shape the fabric of the league.

Quarterback questions

As the most important position in the sport, it is only right that the biggest questions surround some of the highest profile quarterbacks in the league.

The majority of the interest surrounds two main names at very different points in their careers.

For Aaron Rodgers, he likely has one big decision left in his career at 39 years old.

Despite hinting at a divorce from the Green Bay Packers for multiple seasons, now seems to be the closest Rodgers has come to leaving, with the New York Jets pursuing the four-time NFL MVP with vigor.

With a young and talented team, the Jets seem just a quarterback away from serious contention and Rodgers could be that missing puzzle piece.

By contrast, Lamar Jackson has a lot more of his career to come but, like Rodgers, could also be heading for pastures new by leaving his longtime home with the Baltimore Ravens.

Having failed to come to terms on a long-term contract over the last two years, the Ravens applied the non-exclusive franchise tag on Jackson last Tuesday. That means that 26-year-old is free to negotiate with other franchises, but should he sign an offer sheet with another team, the Ravens will have five days to either match the deal or receive two first-round picks in return.

The Ravens have made it clear for a while that they want to have Jackson, an MVP winner in 2019, at the helm for many years to come, but the two sides haven’t been able to reach an agreement on a contract for a while now. The non-exclusive tag comes with a salary-cap cost of $32.4 million for the upcoming season.

While Rodgers’ decision appears to be remain in Green Bay or sign with the Jets, Jackson’s options seem wide open. Numerous teams across the league – Atlanta Falcons, Washington Commanders, Indianapolis Colts, Carolina Panthers, Las Vegas Raiders and San Francisco 49ers – are reportedly all interested.

Both Rodgers and Jackson could transform franchises from outsiders to title challengers. But with as many as four quarterbacks projected to be drafted high up in this year’s draft, it throws into question whether teams prefer a long-term project or a short-term fix.

Defensive stars on the move

Although offenses have been prioritized over recent years as scoring has gone through the roof, we could see defenses around the league bolstered with some big names on the move.

The biggest move set to happen is Ramsey’s return to Florida after being traded from the Rams to the Dolphins in exchange for a third-round pick and tight end Hunter Long.

The arrival of three-time first team All-Pro Ramsey transforms a Dolphins team from up-and-comer to title challenging outfit, whilst also continuing the Rams’ rebuild.

Elsewhere, there are a number of key defensive players who are available through free agency, including two from last season’s Super Bowl runners up.

Safety Chauncey Gardner-Johnson and cornerback James Bradberry would all make excellent additions to new teams with their contracts with the Philadelphia Eagles having expired, whilst also earning themselves a pretty penny.

Bobby Wagner, Lavonte David, Byron Murphy and Jordan Poyer could all be valid contributors too.

Offensive weapons at a premium

In terms of the offensive side of the ball, teams will have to be selective about the talent they decide to acquire.

Many of the offensive weapons who were scheduled to hit the open market were given the franchise tag by their teams.

That means a one-year tender offer of the average of the top five salaries at the player’s position for the current year, or 120 percent of his previous salary, whichever is greater.

Running back Saquon Barkley will return to the Giants, tight end Evan Engram to the Jacksonville Jaguars, Josh Jacobs to the Las Vegas Raiders and Tony Pollard to the Dallas Cowboys.

Elsewhere, firepower is in high demand and short supply. Odell Beckham did not play last season, Jackobi Myers is a solid No. 2 or No. 3 receiver and JuJu Smith-Schuster, coming off a Super Bowl ring, was quiet in the playoffs.

The tight-end market could prove a little more fruitful for teams, with Dalton Schultz, Mike Gesicki and Robert Tonyan all available.

Teams could also replenish offensive line needs with Orlando Brown, Kaleb McGary, Dalton Risner and Isaiah Wynn available.

Editor’s Note: Chris Wallace sits down with new NCAA President Charlie Baker in his first televised interview since taking over the organization. Watch “Inside the Madness: Basketball, Brackets and Business” tonight at 9 p.m.

It is one of the few things in sports which has never been achieved before.

March Madness is a few weeks which many sports fans have circled on their calendars. And one of the favorite activities associated with the climax of the college basketball season is being able to fill out one’s bracket.

Will X team continue its dominant form and romp through its competition? Or will there be an upset on the cards?

These are the kind of questions fans will be asking as they fill in their brackets, hoping to successfully predict each result in all 63 games up until a national champion is crowned.

However, the feat of correctly predicting every result in a March Madness has remained elusive.

And given the odds of correctly doing so, it might be a while until we see it done – if ever.

A really, really… really, long shot

Filling in your bracket can be a simple or a complicated process.

Once all teams are selected and given seeds, some choose to deliberate for hours over each game, flip-flopping between outcomes before finally settling on a winner. Others decide to blitz through the process, not deliberating too much over each choice as they plot the path of each team.

But they all have one thing in common: members of both camps have never been able to successfully predict every possible result.

A bracket is a way of referring to the 68-team format which plots the route of each team if they were win their matches. After teams are seeded, they are split into four regional groups and scheduled against teams at the other end of seeding scale. For example, the first seed faces the 16th seed and the second faces the 15th and so on.

Following the opening round – colloquially called the “First Four,” which sees four teams exit – the remaining 64 teams play in elimination games in neutral venues to eventually crown the national champion.

Due to the number of upsets and “Cinderella” stories March Madness tends to throw up, it has proven an impossible feat so far: the odds of getting every result correct are an extraordinary one to nine quintillion.

You might have not heard of a quintillion before. As explained by Tim Chartier – distinguished visiting professor at the US National Museum of Mathematics and Joseph R. Morton professor of mathematics and computer science at Davidson College – nine quintillion is a nine followed by 18 zeroes.

Or more simply put, according to Chartier, it is two to the power of 63. That’s two multiplied by two 63 times.

To put it into context: “I’m going to pick one second in 292 billion years, and your job is to tell me which second I pick,” Chartier explains.

If you’re struggling with the raw numbers, Chartier suggests a physical representation of the nine quintillion to help. He says that the height of nine quintillion dollar bills stacked on top of one another is equivalent to the distance of going from Earth to Pluto over 60 times.

Because of the unlikely nature of achieving the perfect bracket in March Madness, the usual comparisons of the probability of getting struck by lightning or winning the lottery seem incomparable.

Chartier outlines that after running some calculations himself, he came up with some probabilities which help better put it into perspective.

“So you have better odds of winning the Powerball with two consecutive tickets than getting a perfect bracket,” he said. “You’ve better odds that a family of four will all get hit by lightning in their lifetime than picking a perfect bracket.

“There is a stat out there that there’s a one in 10,000 chance that you get injured by a toilet. So there are better odds that that same family of four all get injured by the toilet than picking a perfect bracket.”

‘That’s why we watch sports’

Despite the long odds, fans come back every year to fill in their bracket in the hopes of becoming the first to successfully predict every correct result.

The longest streak of correct predictions came in 2019 by a neuropsychologist from Ohio who managed to pick the winner in the first 49 games of March Madness that year correctly.

Gregg Nigl became the first person to have a verified bracket which picked every game correctly through the tournament into the Sweet 16, only falling in the 50th game when No. 2 seed Tennessee lost to No. 3 seed Purdue in overtime.

But as daunting a task as it seems, Chartier believes it is a feat that will be achieved – he does admit that it may not be done in his lifetime.

And when it does happen, Chartier – who spends much of his time researching the art of bracketology and teaching people how to implement his research into March Madness brackets – believes it will be done by someone who knows “nothing about basketball.”

“They’re just going to, three minutes before some deadline, whip out teams that they like for their colors,” he said.

“And that’s because a lot of times you’re trying to predict literally the unpredictable, is that you’re trying to predict randomness, that there are certain games that that outcome is relatively random. Some of it isn’t. Sometimes, there’s something about a team that we just didn’t realize, it was the perfect match up for another team.”

But while some might be dismayed by the long odds, Chartier believes the joy of picking your perfect bracket goes back to why we love sports.

“A lot of times people will ask me: ‘Oh, you didn’t have the right pick.’ And ironically I’ll often say: ‘Yes, I did. I didn’t have the correct pick, but it was the right pick,” he explains. “And the reason I say that is because sometimes that team probably had a five or 10% chance of winning that game.

“It’s just that when you flipped that weighted coin, it happened to come up on their side. It’s kind of like ‘The Hunger Games.’ The odds were ever in their favor. If they had played 10 more times, they wouldn’t win any other time, but they did on that day.

“And I argue that’s why we watch sports. I think we know that inside. I think we know that things can fall down the wrong way. And I think that part of the reason we like sports is that’s kind of a microcosm of life is that you might have actually made a good choice, you just didn’t make the choice in the way things would fall down.”

The Ireland women’s rugby team has made a permanent switch from white to navy shorts in response to players’ concerns about period anxieties.

The navy shorts will be debuted in Ireland’s opening game of the Women’s Six Nations against Wales on March 25, the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) said on Tuesday.

“The top way to ensure we perform to our best on the field is by removing any unnecessary distractions,” said Ireland international Enya Breen.

“Wearing navy shorts instead of white is such a small thing, but for us it’s a big step from [kit supplier] Canterbury and the IRFU.

“Our hope is that it will help women at all levels of rugby feel more comfortable on the field so they can get on with performing at their best in the game that they love.”

Canterbury is offering teams and players – at all levels – who initially bought white Canterbury shorts the chance to swap them for a pair of a different color, the IRFU said.

Some soccer teams, including West Bromwich Albion Women, have similarly changed the color of their shorts to allay period anxieties, while Wimbledon announced last year that it will relax its white clothing rule to allow women to wear dark undershorts.

“It’s what you wear underneath that’s important for your menstrual period.”

The story of the underdog is one of life’s favorite fables.

David’s rock crashing into Goliath’s head, Cassius Clay, later Muhammad Ali, defeating heavy-favorite Sonny Liston, or Mike Eruzione firing team USA ahead during the Miracle on Ice – it is written into human nature to route for, and then remember, the unlikely hero.

When Harry Ford walked up to the plate in the bottom of the seventh at Chase Field, the Great Britain baseball team was already on the cusp of adding themselves to this list of longshots – with a World Baseball Classic win against Colombia in the team’s tournament debut.

Leading off the innings in Phoenix, Arizona the 20-year-old did not seem burdened by the potentially historic feat and, with a one and two count, Ford got the pitch he was waiting for.

The Seattle Mariners prospect crushed a home run into left-field and gave Great Britain some much-needed breathing space with a 6-3 lead.

Despite being born in America, Ford has quickly become one of the faces of British baseball during his young career.

Born in Atlanta, Georgia to British parents, the catcher was crucial to his side’s entry to the World Baseball Classic and has continued his good form on the big stage.

Speaking to MLB.com before joining up with his Great Britain teammates, Ford touched on his Britishness.

“My dad is the big one. My mom’s British, too. But my dad is like really, really British,” Ford explained.

“He still has his accent and everything. For him, [playing for Team GB] was one of the best things ever. Just because he’s always been at every single one of my baseball games since I started, and being able to just to represent his country and play and be the first Great Britain team to make it this far, too, has really meant the world to him.”

Like Ford, a lot of the players in the GB squad were not born in Britain, but the players have fully embraced their role of representing the nation.

With Britain trailing 3-1 in the bottom of the fourth, Bahamian born Chavez Young hit a single to left-field and enabled Nick Ward and Darnell Sweeney to score.

After an error from Colombia’s Harold Ramirez, Young advanced to second and celebrated by pretending to sip from a cup of tea – a celebration which has become a staple of the team’s repertoire.

After Young’s two-run single, Great Britain was now level at 3-3.

In the bottom of the fifth, and with runners waiting on second and third, youngster Jaden Rudd stepped up to the plate. The 20-year-old hit hard and low to left-field – sending Ward and Sweeney home for their second runs of the game.

Ford’s homer followed two innings later and for Great Britain it was now time to believe. After sending the ball to space, Ford was draped in a regal robe by his teammates and sported a crown fit for a king as he made his way back to the dugout.

With Ward capitalizing on a wild pitch for his third run of the game, Great Britain took a 7-3 lead.

Ian Gibaut was then tasked with seeing Great Britain home. The pitcher grew up on the much more traditionally British sport of cricket. His father, Russel, played professionally for Welsh team Glamorgan and English team Lancashire before emigrating to the US.

The 29-year-old must have inherited his dad’s ability in bat and ball sports and entered the game in the top of the eighth with Colombia looking to mount a comeback.

The Cincinnati Reds reliever survived the late scare and Great Britain won its inaugural World Baseball Classic game 7-5.

Speaking after the game to the MLB Network, Great Britain manager Drew Spencer exclaimed that this could be a turning point in the future of baseball on the island.

“I think there will be people who can use this moment as inspiration to come out and play the game and to believe that someone with [Great Britain] on the front of their chest can be successful,” he said.