Wow! Check Out These Cool Pictures From Hampton Beach NH

This is the weekend so many people wait for. It's the 21st Annual Hampton Beach Sand Sculpting Classic!

These works of art are in progress right now on Hampton Beach. Check out these pictures that I got from the Hampton Beach Sand Sculpting Classic Facebook page:

This event is by invitation only from the Hampton Beach Village District in cooperation with the Hampton Area Chamber of Commerce and the NH Division of Parks, according to Hamptonbeach.org. It's a marvelous thing to witness and highly recommended if you haven't had a chance to see these incredible sculptures in real life.

The competitors are all striving for the first place cash prize of $6,000. In total, there are $25,000 worth of prizes to be handed out. Usually, there is a fireworks display at the end of the competition, but that won't be happening this year because of the piping plovers, according to a report from WMUR.

LOOK: Here are the 50 best beach towns in America

Every beach town has its share of pluses and minuses, which got us thinking about what makes a beach town the best one to live in. To find out, Stacker consulted data from WalletHub, released June 17, 2020, that compares U.S. beach towns. Ratings are based on six categories: affordability, weather, safety, economy, education and health, and quality of life. The cities ranged in population from 10,000 to 150,000, but they had to have at least one local beach listed on TripAdvisor. Read the full methodology here. From those rankings, we selected the top 50. Readers who live in California and Florida will be unsurprised to learn that many of towns featured here are in one of those two states.

Keep reading to see if your favorite beach town made the cut.

LOOK: The most expensive weather and climate disasters in recent decades

Stacker ranked the most expensive climate disasters by the billions since 1980 by the total cost of all damages, adjusted for inflation, based on 2021 data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The list starts with Hurricane Sally, which caused $7.3 billion in damages in 2020, and ends with a devastating 2005 hurricane that caused $170 billion in damage and killed at least 1,833 people. Keep reading to discover the 50 of the most expensive climate disasters in recent decades in the U.S.