A large outage linked to Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) US-EAST-1 region in northern Virginia caused significant global disruptions across major websites, apps, and business operations on Monday morning. The incident, rooted in DNS resolution failures within AWS’s DynamoDB application programming interfaces, temporarily rendered numerous cloud-reliant platforms unavailable and highlighted the sensitivity of internet infrastructure to failures in centralized systems.

The event began around 3 a.m. ET, when DNS resolution problems affected the ability of systems to correctly identify the appropriate server endpoints. This triggered cascading failures among services that depend on AWS for data connectivity and operational continuity. By 5:22 a.m., AWS began applying mitigation efforts, and by 6:35 a.m., the company reported that the technical issues had been addressed, although some services continued processing backlogged requests.

Amazon’s own platforms, including its e-commerce site, Ring, and Alexa, experienced interruptions. Additional services impacted included WhatsApp, ChatGPT, Venmo, Epic Games platforms such as Fortnite, several British government sites, and Meta-owned communication tools. Banks, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, and airlines such as Delta and United reported related operational issues. U.S. consumers faced delays in financial transactions, digital purchases, and routine internet-based tasks, while workers in multiple sectors were unable to access necessary tools and systems.

The outage also contributed to delayed flights, disruptions to factory and business workflows, and challenges for employees reliant on internet-based platforms to perform their jobs. Analysts reported a significant hit to productivity, with essential operations across industries temporarily halted or slowed.

Industry experts assessed the financial toll of the disruption as potentially reaching billions of dollars, with some estimates projecting losses extending into the hundreds of billions when factoring in widespread operational downtime and halted productivity. Observers noted that failures such as DNS misrouting — in which domain names do not correctly resolve to their respective IP addresses — can rapidly affect downstream dependencies due to the interconnected nature of modern cloud architecture.

The incident renewed discussions around the vulnerability of centralized cloud platforms operated by a few dominant providers, including AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. While centralized infrastructure has standardized cybersecurity measures and improved baseline digital reliability for many organizations, reliance on single cloud regions creates a critical point of failure when outages occur.

AWS has experienced large-scale outages in the past, including a notable service disruption in 2023. Monday’s incident has drawn attention to the role of data integrity and name resolution accuracy in maintaining uptime, as even foundational services such as DNS can cause widespread operational breakdowns when they fail.

The outage has served as a reminder of the fragility of internet-dependent systems and the extent to which key industries, consumer applications, and business operations rely on uninterrupted cloud service availability.

As reported in The New York Times, the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season has been marked by a recurring pattern: multiple storms that initially appeared to be heading toward the United States ultimately shifted eastward and moved out to sea. With six weeks remaining in the season, 12 named storms have formed so far — four of which reached hurricane strength. Despite this activity, only one storm, Tropical Storm Chantal, made landfall in the United States, coming ashore in South Carolina in early July. Another system, Tropical Storm Barry, made landfall in Mexico in late June.

Meteorologists attribute this unusual pattern to two primary factors: the location where storms form and the atmospheric forces that steer them. According to John Cangialosi, a senior hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center, the dominant steering influence in the Atlantic is the Bermuda high, a large high-pressure system that typically pushes storms westward across the ocean before curving them north. When this system is strong, it can guide storms toward regions such as Florida and the Gulf of Mexico. However, when the Bermuda high is weak — as it has been during portions of this season — storms tend to turn northward earlier and veer eastward, avoiding U.S. landfall.

This weaker Bermuda high played a notable role in directing Hurricanes Erin, Gabrielle and Humberto, as well as Tropical Storm Jerry, away from land. In some cases, other atmospheric dynamics also contributed. Dr. Phil Klotzbach, a senior research scientist at Colorado State University, noted that Tropical Storm Dexter was already positioned within the jet stream, a high-altitude, fast-moving band of air flowing west to east across the North Atlantic. Being embedded in the jet stream caused Dexter to move away from the United States shortly after forming.

In another example, the interaction between multiple systems influenced storm movement. During Hurricane Humberto’s development, its position east of Tropical Storm Imelda weakened the western edge of the Bermuda high. The storms also interacted through a phenomenon known as the Fujiwhara effect, slowly rotating around a shared center point, which helped pull Imelda eastward and away from the U.S.

The point of origin is also significant in determining whether a storm makes landfall. Systems that form farther east in the Atlantic are more likely to encounter pressure systems that guide them north and out to sea, while storms that develop farther west, such as in the Gulf of Mexico or western Caribbean, may have fewer opportunities to avoid land. As the season transitions into late October and November, forecasters expect storm formation to shift farther west, increasing the likelihood of U.S. impacts. However, late-season landfalls are relatively uncommon due to stronger vertical wind shear near the United States, which can disrupt storm intensity.

The National Hurricane Center is currently monitoring a developing system that could become the next named storm, though its path and development remain uncertain.