Kevin Bowley

Quick comparison of Melissa's structure from TDR now vs. 12 hours ago - while the inner core has barely changed with a similar peak wind speed & RMW, its hurricane-force wind field has slightly expanded. This is not a good development as it approaches Jamaica.

Hurricane Melissa has a strong poleward outflow channel ahead of an approaching trough. Possible there’s some added dynamical forcing from the trough helping to evacuate air in the outflow layer, but the trough is distant enough to not impart enough vertical wind shear to disrupt the system yet.

Tail Doppler Radar (TDR) data from the current recon mission into Melissa shows that the vortex is vertically stacked up to 15 km w/ the upshear/NW quad being the strongest.

This is about as favorable of a vortex structure as you’ll see for rapid intensification

Plots from @cyclonicwx.bsky.social

NWS key messages graphic showing high probability of excessive heat across central and eastern US this weekend into next week

First NWS key messages graphic about the coming eastern US heatwave I discussed in today's newsletter

balancedweather.substack.com/p/more-damag...

New study finds that using ChatGPT to write essays led to reduced brain activity & memory compared to writing without tools or using a search engine. While ChatGPT made writing easier, it also caused cognitive offloading, weakening learning and engagement over time.
arxiv.org/pdf/2506.08872

Unsplash image of the Earth, mostly the nightside with a tracery of city lights on every continent.

OK, this is wild.

In September 2023, geophysicists across the world started monitoring a very odd signal coming from the ground under them.

It was picked up in the Arctic. And Antarctica. It was detected everywhere, every 90 seconds, as regular as a metronome, for *nine days*.

What the HELL?

1/

There's been lots of talk lately about the "lost decade" in Canada under the Liberal government. It revolves around this chart:

Let's dig into it with a quick thread. 🧵

Illustration of Maddox et al.’s (1979) synoptic flash flood. (a) Environmental conditions at the onset of deep convection. Schematic representations of low-level atmospheric moisture are shown in green and potential temperature in dashed orange. The light gray arrow indicates the location of an upper-level trough, the dark gray arrow indicates the low-level jet, and the area of red shading indicates where forcing for ascent (including both differential cyclonic vorticity advection and warm-air advection) is maximized. (b) As in (a), except at a later time, when an MCS has formed along the stationary boundary. In many synoptic flash floods, multiple MCSs develop in a similar location over multiple days. From Schumacher (2017), https://oxfordre.com/naturalhazardscience/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199389407.001.0001/acrefore-9780199389407-e-132

schematic depiction of Maddox et al. (1979)'s "synoptic" pattern for flash floods, redrawn by John Peters for a review article several years ago. (a) is at onset, (b) at a later time. This pattern is going to be in place for like the next four days in the mid-south, with major flooding expected.

NSF Unidata is looking for creative people to help set the priorities and direction for our program. We need insights, ideas, and a better understanding of the science data challenges you're facing. Nominate someone (yourself?) to help us serve our community! www.unidata.ucar.edu/blogs/news/e...

NOAA firings hit the birthplace of weather and climate forecasting Dismissed researchers were improving severe weather predictions

This is really sad news. NOAA GFDL is one of the world's leading climate modeling centers, home to exceptional scientists. If anyone directly affected needs support, I’m happy to help. www.science.org/content/arti...

Screenshot of the webpage linked in the post. The top banner is a NOAA GeoColor image from GOES-East. The list of NOAA units shown includes NOAA itself; the National Weather Service; the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service; the National Data Buoy Center; the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research; the Chemical Sciences Laboratory; the Global Monitoring Laboratory; the Global Systems Laboratory; the Physical Sciences Laboratory; and the Office of Marine and Aviation Operations.

Inspired by talk of how we can better educate our students & those around us on what NOAA is and does, I've begun crafting an online resource here:
kouya.has.arizona.edu/NOAA-overvie...

Partial screenshot below. I'm likely missing content, so ping me if you notice something that should be included!

Time to kick Drumph in the croque!

A serene image of a vast ocean under a colorful sky, with calm waters reflecting the light hues of the sky and a small boat visible in the distance. Photo credit: 2024 Weather Band Photo Contest submission "Sunrise at Suva Point" by Viniana Bau.

The AMS stands in support of federal employees impacted by layoffs across agencies including NOAA. Many are vital members of our community who do invaluable work.

As we work to respond, here are a few AMS resources available to everyone who needs them: bit.ly/4kgQvK5

To everyone at NOAA fired today:

You are an incredible human being. You signed up to serve the public. I deeply appreciate what you've given to your team, to NOAA, to our country as a whole.

Your firing is unconscionable. It runs counter to the values we stand for. And we will stand up for you.

The official AMS logo.

The AMS is temporarily opening its career services to all who need them, regardless of membership status, and offering dues waivers and meeting registration fee reductions for those impacted by job loss due to changes in the government.

Read more: bit.ly/4gRiHAk

🧵The combination of icing and strong winds tonight/tomorrow will likely produce outages - and *possibly* a significant outage event if ice remains on the trees when the winds pick up tonight.

First, here's the amount of <32F precip observed by the
NYS Mesonet over the last 24h. #nywx

Those that were laid off, here is a resource for you.

I’m so so sorry Clark.

If you’re an NWS met who will find themselves unfairly and unjustly looking for work, first let me say it’s terrible and wrong. And I hope you end up back helping keep us all safer and informed again sooner than later. This too shall pass (I hope).

The official AMS logo.

AMS joins numerous professional societies in a commitment to champion scientific integrity--including academic freedom, inclusion of diverse perspectives, and policies grounded in scientific evidence--and support scientists, scientific data, and science funding.

Read more: unitedsciencealliance.org

The official AMS logo.

The AMS joins over 230 organizations and 2,600 individuals in submitting the following letter to Congress, expressing concern and strong opposition to the selective removal of public data from federal websites: bit.ly/42RqXwR

I know a guy who can photoshop this onto a MAP for you

8. It is difficult to overstate what a catastrophe this will be for the US research and education systems, particular in biomedical fields.

It is deliberate and wanton devastation entirely out of scale with any concern about DEI activities on campuses.

The goal is destroy US universities.

Cap indirect costs at universities. Currently, the federal government pays a portion of the overhead expenses associated with university-based research. Known as “indirect costs,” these reimbursements cross-subsidize leftist agendas and the research of billion-dollar organizations such as Google and the Ford Foundation. Universities also use this influx of cash to pay for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) e!orts. To correct course, l Congress should cap the indirect cost rate paid to universities so that it does not exceed the lowest rate a university accepts from a private organization to fund research e"orts. This marketbased reform would help reduce federal taxpayer subsidization of leftist agendas.

7. This order did not come out of nowhere. It was a core component of Lindsey Burke's Dept. of Education chapter in the Project 2025 report.

(Private foundations typically pay 10-15% overhead rates, and the logic of this comparison is made explicit in today's Supplemental Guidance from NIH.)

6. The policy does not just affect funding going forward. All existing NIH grants will have their indirect rates cut to 15% as of today, the date of issuance.

For a large university, this creates a sudden and catastrophic shortfall of hundreds of millions of dollars against already budgeted funds.

5. Other schools may have even higher overhead rates. Harvard's is around 69%.

This new order slashes that percentage to a maximum of 15%. This means cutting one of the most important sources of university funding nationwide by 75% or more.

Universities cannot function with this scale of cut.

1. Today the NIH director issued a new directive slashing overhead rates to 15%.

I want to provide some context on what that means and why it matters.

grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Most of the classic -NAO precursor signals are in place going into the 2nd half of Feb

Pacific MJO orbit ✅
Large Scandinavian ridge anomaly ✅
Equatorward shift & negatively tilted N Atlantic storm track ✅
-PNA ✅

Also the Pacific MJO to -NAO teleconnection is stronger in Niña winters like this yr

Time for some quasi-groundhogostrophic theory.