shamnadoes

Sundogs and sunsets at work

“If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain” -Dolly Parton

September 13, 1944:

USS Warrington, a Somers-class destroyer, sank east of the Bahamas. The culprit was the Great Atlantic Hurricane, a powerful Category 4 that peaked on the 13th. Nearly 250 members of the ship's crew were lost.

September 13, 1928:

Puerto Rico was slammed by a Category 5 hurricane. The storm was reported to have damaged or destroyed over 200,000 structures. Massive amounts of crops were destroyed, heavily damaging the island's export industry. Over 300 people were killed.

This radar loop of Hurricane #Katrina in 2005 spans August 28 at noon (CDT) through the morning of the 29th at 8:54am when communication with the radar was lost.

August 25th, 2017:
Hurricane Harvey made landfall at ~10 PM near Rockport, Texas. It was the strongest hurricane to impact America since Wilma in 2005. The Category 4 left behind a record $125 billion in damage (tied with Katrina) and killed 106 people in the United States.

1/2

Full rainbow at work this evening 🌈 #txwx

⛈️💨

August 4th, 1980:

A record forty-two consecutive days of 100° heat finally came to an end at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport on this day. July 1980 proved to be the hottest July on record with a mean temperature of 92 degrees.

Yesterday, Doha, Qatar, reported 90F, with a dew point of 90F, which gave a relative humidity of 100% and a heat index of 129F.

There’s something you don’t see every day — an MCV moving east to west into California towards the Death Valley region:

Another issue here is mismatch between public expectation & scientific reality re: what's possible in predicting localized convective extremes (i.e., severe/torrential t-storms). Days/environments supportive of such risk are predictable; exact timing/location/intensity of subsequent extremes is not.

The Texas floods over the last 2 days were predominantly associated with a long-lasting mesoscale convective vortex (MCV), but notice how there are multiple discrete rainfall maxima shown in the contours, each associated with different rainfall rates, duration, and phenomenon:

What a night working radar/warning ops for NWS Norman during their AWIPS upgrade ⛈️ I ended up issuing 17 svr tstorm warnings and 5 tornado warnings across Oklahoma 😮 Quite a fascinating supercell/QLCS event. Sorry to my Norman friends for setting off the sirens/phones and waking you up 🫤

Sorry for waking y’all up (that was my TOR)

Inside of an EF1-rated tornado and severe thunderstorm winds near Willard, CO on May 23. Watch the full video here: youtu.be/nRc38pZ0E5s

International Falls, MN hit 95 today. They hit 95 this year before Memphis, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Charlotte, Little Rock, and New Orleans. They now have as many 95 degree days through May 11 as San Antonio, Austin, and El Paso.

This is amazing!!

IEMBot Image TBD

FWD issues Summary Local Storm Report Link

The Sacramento weather service office just sent an email detailing product changes amid "critically reduced staffing"
Highlights:
Phone lines no longer answered
Reduced staffing from 6pm to 6am
Forecast discussions issued only 1x/day
Limited social media posting
Advisories mainly issued by day shift

Well today I got to issue my first #tornado warning since starting at @NWSFortWorth - and then I issued 7 more 😳 Crazy day with numerous supercells, several tornadoes and lots of damage across East Texas, but thankfully have not heard of any injuries yet #txwx

Cisco,TX (GZN) ASOS reports gust of 54 knots (62.1 mph) from WSW @ 1045Z -- KGZN 031045Z AUTO 25041G54KT 10SM VCTS BKN019 OVC024 13/09 A2978 RMK AO2

Wow...

And there you have it. At least a dozen tornadic supercells in an STP bullseye of 9, smack dab in the center of an SPC High Risk. We can stop complaining now, or rejoice, or just appreciate the NWS.

I’m debating making the trek north today

30 April 2025 is the last day for many colleagues I know.... Seems like the implosion of NWS will follow shortly after.

Nothing like a LP supercell out the window to keep you awake before the night shift at work

Relative Short-Range Forecast Impact from Aircraft, Profiler, Radiosonde, VAD, GPS-PW, METAR, and Mesonet Observations via the RUC Hourly Assimilation Cycle Abstract An assessment is presented on the relative forecast impact on the performance of a numerical weather prediction model from eight different observation data types: aircraft, profiler, radioson...

From knowledgeable scientists we’ve talked to, RAOBs have the second largest increase in error for upper air metrics when removed, behind aircraft data.

On average, losing RAOBs will decrease mesoscale NWP forecast skill.

doi.org/10.1175/2009...

doi.org/10.1175/MWR-...

doi.org/10.1175/BAMS...

#shamnado