Jacob Feuerstein

Weather of 2025 Every year since 2017, I’ve taken time in late December to curate a top ten list of the year’s significant US weather events, with “significance” loosely defined as a combination of met…

An annual tradition: my top ten list of the year's weather events, ranked for a combination of atmospheric exceptionality and human impact. Check it out at my blog!
jacobweatherblog.wordpress.com/2025/12/29/w...

Thanks, think I grabbed a screenshot of a different location of the same camp. Will fix!

Horrific Flood in Texas In the early morning hours of July 4th, a deluge above the headwaters of the Guadalupe River sent a wave of water crashing downstream. The river’s level rapidly increased by about 100x, overw…

I have finally put together my thoughts on the enormity of Friday morning's Texas flood. Mostly it is a meditation on the historical context of such a hyper-local flood killing 104 people, something that really hasn't happened in nearly 50 years.
jacobweatherblog.wordpress.com/2025/07/07/h...

Thanks for checking. I obviously think about historic flood events a lot. Looks like the next six days could have what it takes.

is Paducah really ahead of 1937? Or is that beyond POR?

And, of course, 1937- one of America's worst floods. Regionally similar but a degree more severe.

Comparing WPC's seven-day rain forecast to some significant regional flood events of the last thirty years. A major flood outbreak seems likely by mid-weekend from ArkLaTex to the OH Valley.

The High Risk’s Identity Crisis On Friday and Saturday, a remarkable multi-day tornado event swept the central US. The Storm Prediction Center, an arm of the National Weather Service tasked with forecasting convective weather, is…

A new blog on what yesterday's tornado outbreak means in the broader context of high risk verification.

jacobweatherblog.wordpress.com/2025/03/16/t...

Nope, am quite used to wildfire smell and this really didn’t have much of a smell at all. Otherwise would have presumed from controlled burns

Decreased visibility here in Madison with what I suspect is dust, lofted in west Texas and advected northeast. Very cool. Definitely doesn't have the typical wildfire smoke smell.

The Year of the Tornado A brief retrospective on 2011 A few days ago, I saw the following statistic in the Storm Prediction Center’s 2024 year-in-review post. It is, of course, very much true that 2024 was less dead…

A new blog about 2011's tornado season. I wrote it over the weekend, but I've seen a few people referencing the April 27 super-outbreak recently, so feels an appropriate time to post.
jacobweatherblog.wordpress.com/2025/03/11/t...

Top 20 tornado days, post-1950, by breadth of F3 tornado reports. This is defined as the size of a box drawn from the northwest to southeast that encompasses all intense tornadoes. This does not adjust for differences in longitude miles with latitude, sorry. Days with >3 F3 tornado reports included.

I’m so sorry, Zach. This is so horrible. I’m sorry for you and for our field. Words fail

I believe the number of fatalities in Kentucky crossed 20 with yesterday’s reporting from the Governor. This is a large death toll for a flood, probably the largest in winter in many decades.

100%. But even from a rain perspective, I don’t know of any events that repeated the epic rain footprint of 1913 or 1937 (not much data exists for the 1800s sadly)

The Ohio Valley really hasn’t had a flood like 1884/1913/1937 since. Feels like a weather event people have forgotten is possible

Seeing a couple flash flood emergencies already for the corner of WV/VA. Conditions should continue to worsen into the overnight, especially as convection strengthens and moves through hard-hit areas. This is a major ongoing cold-season flood event.

One of the largest D3 moderate risks I've ever seen now up for this threat. Suspect we could be seeing a high risk in E KY/WV tomorrow, we'll see.

Idk

This is probably the most concerning setup I've seen for locally catastrophic flooding anywhere in the US since hurricane season ended, assuming the training convective band impacts the saturated soil area.

It's rained up to 6+ inches in KY/WV over the last 14 days. Another 1-3 inches of rain and snow QPF expected over the work week. On Saturday, all of the snow melts, and 5-8+" of rain could fall locally with training storms somewhere in this region. Could be a good setup for substantial flooding.

Bad Analysis My rebuttal to a New York Times article The New York Times is one of two papers I personally subscribe to, alongside the WSJ. I think they have unparalleled reporting on politics and world events, …

I received a NYT alert earlier this afternoon with a push notification about Hurricane Helene and hurricane deaths in general. I thought the analysis was poor enough to warrant a blog with my thoughts.

[updated with correct link]
jacobweatherblog.wordpress.com/2025/02/08/b...

The blizzard happened on a Friday night, and we had six consecutive snowdays- Friday and then the entire following week. My street wasn't plowed until Tuesday!

One town to the my east was Hamden, which recorded the storm max of 40". Immediately to my west was Ansonia, where 36" fell in 24 hours, setting the official Connecticut state record.

Twelve years ago tonight, southern New England's worst snowstorm since 1888. I measured 38" in my backyard in south-central Connecticut. It isn't the whole story, but I blame this storm for really igniting my interest in weather.

This is really terrible news.

The Most Expensive Weather Event A meditation on the meaning behind a common statistic Over the second week of January, a handful of wildfires rapidly burned through urban corridors on the fringes of the Los Angeles metro area. A …

New blog post: a meditation on the most expensive weather events in US history
jacobweatherblog.wordpress.com/2025/02/04/t...

Given government-wide cuts to funding and staffing, I have contacted my elected federal officials imploring them to protect NOAA and the NWS. I encourage you to do the same, especially if you use weather data, and especially if you work outside of the government.

What am I Listening to? This will be a rare non-weather blog, but sometimes I like to talk about myself. Around the end of 2024, Pitchfork posted a survey for snobbish music fans to list their top albums and songs of the …

A second blog post today, this one more personal than weather

jacobweatherblog.wordpress.com/2025/02/01/w...

Thanks for reading! Agree, it was pretty exceptional. I remember watching it happen while I was stuck overnight at ORD- the rain late on the 20th was really notable, and then it happened again on the 21st.