Just Another Weather Nerd

And not everyone’s voice is equal here. Knowledge matters. We must respect outside opinions but recognize when you are at the leading edge understanding what you disagree with is hard

Time-lapse video of last nights aurora from 0248–0526 UTC (1948–2226 MST) with peak sub-storm activity from 0430–0455 UTC (2130–2155MST).

Nikon D850, 12mm fish eye, f/4, ISO3200, 15 seconds per image.

#astrophotography #aurora #landscape 📷

Look up! The sky in Redmond, WA

Gorgeous red and green aurorae over a lighted city below.

Gorgeous picture of red and green aurorae over a lighted city below.

I am on my way home to Toronto and the aurorae are absolutely phenomenal.

If you are anywhere in the northern half of the continent, get outside and look up! Or better still, put your camera on a 10 second exposure and point it up.

Nights like this are the best. All the trouble of the world is momentarily set aside while we're collectively marveling at the pretty lights and nature together. This is how it's supposed to be. Life, I mean. Shared joy and all. 🙂

Even with the lights of Chicago those Northern lights are lighting!

A ~3 hour timelapse of this morning's plume of lake effect snow totally obscuring the city before blue skies appear. #chicago

As has been discussed in previous forecast discussions, the magnitude of lake instability available tonight into Monday is incredible and more typical of environments over Lake Erie. Forecast BUFKIT profiles over the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan tonight depict 850/700mb temperature differentials of 25/35C, lake-induced CAPE in excess of 1,500 J/kg, and effective equilibrium levels nearing 25,000 feet. As a result, the expectation is for the lake effect snow bands to be unusually intense with peak snow rates of 3 to locally 5 inches per hour, frequent lightning and thunder, and pockets of hail. Even with the expectation for the snow bands to be relatively transitory, the unusually intense snow rates will render snow clearing measures ineffective leading to dangerous travel conditions. If any band were to park over the same area for several hours (which may very well happen in Cook county at around daybreak Monday), travel may become impossible with the potential for stranded cars during the rush hour commute. Needless to say, this may become a very dangerous and life threatening situation beneath the most intense and stationary lake effect snow bands.Travel is not advised beneath the lake effect snow bands.

An update from the NWS on the potential snow event. Read it.

One key: “…As a result, the expectation is for the lake effect snow bands to be unusually intense with peak snow rates of 3 to locally 5 inches per hour, frequent lightning and thunder, and pockets of hail.”

#ILwx #Chicago #ChicagoWX

Check out our award-nominated weather tools: wisconet.wisc.edu

Unidata had issued a public notice regarding the change in bucket name in August 2025:
www.unidata.ucar.edu/blogs/news/e...

Stunning imagery!

The eyewall of Category 4 Hurricane #Melissa is about to exit Jamaica and re-emerge over very warm water (30-31°C) as it heads for eastern Cuba. How much rebuilding will it do?
I have a couple long radar loops from Pilon and Guantanamo at bmcnoldy.earth.miami.edu/tropics/radar/

#Melissa's landfall intensity of 185 mph/892 mb ties it with the Florida Key's Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 as the record minimum pressure of any TC making landfall *anywhere* the NATL basin. I feel for the residents of #Jamaica 😞

Zoomed in G19 visible meso loop courtesy of @cyclonicwx.bsky.social

Text summary of wind data from dropsonde released in northeast eyewall of Melissa, showing mean wind of 185 knots in lowest 150 m.

The most recent recon data suggests that Melissa continues to intensify. Central pressure now down to 907 mb and a dropsonde released in the northeast eyewall measured a mean wind in the lower 150m of 185 knots (213 mph). This hurricane is truly in rarefied air as far as Atlantic hurricanes.

From a crewmember on yesterday's Teal 74 mission into now-Category 5 Hurricane #Melissa. As clear of an eye as you will see in the Atlantic basin.

The real story in October is the very dramatic warming.

Two Wisconet talks at the AMS Annual Meeting. 1. Applying Machine Learning as a Tool for Predictive Maintenance on Wisconet Weather Station Batteries. 2. Developing user-informed soil moisture visualizations to meet the needs of Wisconsin industries.

Wisconet has two presentations at the @ametsoc.org Annual Meeting in January.

Stop by to see our instrumentation engineers talk about some of the work we're doing!

YouTube video by Guy Dupont The Slack-o-lantern says 👻 back to woooOOOoooOOOrk 👻 #spooky #slack #jackolantern

Perfect! #halloween www.youtube.com/shorts/Ouu0o...

Heads up Chicago. It's coming our way. Harvesting my remaining chillies and tomatoes today.

Map showing the location of a Frost Advisory for Thursday morning. All of southwestern Wisconsin is in the Frost Advisory.

Map showing forecast low temperatures for Friday morning. A freeze is possible for most of the state, except along the immediate lakeshore.

Could be a bit frosty tomorrow morning for southwestern parts of Wisconsin, as temperatures are expected to dip into the mid-30s. A Frost Advisory is in effect from 2 am until 9 am tomorrow.

Friday morning could be even colder, with a freeze looking possible for most of the state.

Map showing the U.S. 2025 Billion-Dollar Weather & Climate Disasters and highlights wildfires and severe weather so far through June 2025. Graphic is produced by Climate Central.

📣 The "U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters" data is back today through @climatecentral.org! And more soon!

➡️ Explore our new interactive website at www.climatecentral.org/climate-serv..., which is now updated through the first half of 2025 & totaling over $101 billion from 14 events.

EV Chargers at work are STILL out today due to follow on issues. the AWS outage is case in point why unfettered consolidation is a BAD idea. We need regulators to black hat possible national issues when companies become... to big to fail...

Who would have thought relying on one tech solution would have caused vulnerabilities?

THIS. Ev chargers at work are out today because of AWS. Over reliance on a single provider is making our technological society brittle.
#AWSOutage

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The No Kings March in Chicago is one of the largest gatherings I’ve seen here. Looking down from by the river, the crowd stretches for blocks down Michigan Ave and wraps around Wacker Dr. This video is from a few minutes ago and the end of the protest is nowhere in sight.
@blockclubchi.bsky.social

A woman dressed as a butterfly carries a sign that says "the only good orange monarch is a butterfly" with many beautiful monarch butterflies painted on the sign.

#NoKings Phoenix

Would love to have been at #NoKings but instead I am intellectualizing in this Chicago hellhole

Chicago - no kings