Ryan J Hollister

Strong winds caused the Ranger Road and Stevens fires to experience rapid growth across the Oklahoma panhandle and into southern Kansas, seen this afternoon by the JPSS weather satellites.

The Ranger Road Fire, the larger of the two wildfires, burned over 15,000 acres today.

Yet again, this administration promoting policies to make women chattel again, with no standing unless a cis man grants it.

Snapshot from NOAA's experimental Wildfire Fire Data Portal depicting an ongoing wind-driven wildfire outbreak across the Southern Plains, including eastern Colorado and New Mexico, western Oklahoma and Kansas, and north Texas. One especially large fire now appears to have an active fire front near or over 100 miles in length extending from Oklahoma into Kansas.

East of Rocky Mountains, however, this pattern is generating very strong winds & low humidity across Southern Plains, where a major wildfire outbreak is now ongoing (including at least one 100 mile long active fire front in OK/KS featuring pyroCu/pyroCb). #COwx #KSwx #OKwx #TXwx

Trump's Climate Supercomputer Plans Threaten US Insurance Market: Actuaries A new letter from the American Academy of Actuaries draws a direct line between the planned dismantling of NCAR and higher homeowners insurance costs for US consumers.

The American Academy of Actuaries warns that dismantling NCAR would degrade the catastrophe models insurers depend on to price climate risk—driving up premiums and threatening coverage availability nationwide.
"Uncertainty carries a positive cost."
www.riskmarketnews.com/trumps-clima...

Quite! But the Valley in snow is a great way to experience it!

A very snowy scene with small trains and evergreens waited down with a lot of snow. In the background is the Merced River and one of the river gauges shed at the center left of the photo. It looks like the boulders have 5 to 8 inches of snow sticking on top of them if not more.

Yosemite Valley is getting its first big snow of the season (finally). The Happy Isles webcam showing a looooot of snow on the river boulders along the Merced River, LOL.

www.nps.gov/media/webcam...

Oooooh!

They changed the headline. Yay! So much better.

A brilliantly red sunset with orange red cloud streaking across the sky, black mountains against the horizon, all reflected in a salt flat lake, that has some weird patterns on the surface as the salt is forming cracks under the shallow water. The entire photo is really orange and red, except for the black Mountains. Death Valley national Park.

Death Valley sunset.

Fiery wispy cirrus cloud at sunset over a slotted range of mountains in bottom third of frame.

It was a banger last night by Daylight Pass rd! I also had a few from Saturday night on my good camera I’ll dive into tomorrow.

Let me just make a few little adjustments to that title…

“How a scientist with a PhD in Geology and 25 years of experience is helping lead California’s earthquake work”

Way to devalue my experience.

Might be a sledding weekend!

About 6 inches of snow on a deck and railing. Snow covered trees in the background.

Things have escalated - and much more to come tonight and tomorrow. ❄️❄️❄️🪏

I think the vast majority of Californians dislike that dude for one reason or another. No waaaay he makes it past primary.

On a related note, I uploaded 33 species of flowers to @inaturalist.bsky.social this weekend! I really loved this Golden Desert Snapdragon. I’d never heard of it before this weekend and I don’t recall ever seeing one either.

The superbloom is just getting started. I'm seeing flowers sprouting in places I've never seen or noticed before in Death Valley in my 35 years of travels here. And Lake Manly still persists! #deathvalley

My quick google showed that maybe seems to be the case. Just got home and will look into it

Oh bummer

Fields seemed to be intact:

The network of White crystals that look kind of like wavy or almost cottony. Taking death Valley.

Salt crystals, delicate and looking like frost, kind of with some brown spots and some of them have weird thread like tendrils sticking up

Salt crystals that look like weirdly shaped long hairs they’re bending, but not smoothly and ragged irregular shapes

More salt hair. This was by Devils Golf Course.

Just had a sec to google, and it looks like they built a new one?

Trona High School is in the process of being bulldozed and ripped out! That was a shock. Also the Ridgecrest Arby’s (which was pretty new) is also dead. Sign of the times.

Fiery orange cirrus clouds streak diagonally to the right of the frame with some shadowed desert foliage in the foreground and a mountain range silhouette it in the background

Peachy linear clouds to the south of Kamp this morning

Large bunch of brown eye wildflowers on a mound with some puffy cumulus clouds in the background

Close-up of brown eye, wild flowers, just chalk full of pollen that is yellow inside of their white dish petals

Sunset, sunrise and some pollen-loaded brown eyes. Thanks again Death Valley for being such a great classroom for our students.

Communicators also need significant subject matter expertise. Simplifying complex concepts is hard, especially if you don’t understand them well. As Einstein said “If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.” It’s also easy to introduce damaging misconceptions.

Science communication is a skill that can be learned and improves with practice. To effectively communicate you need to be able to translate complex information into clear language, understand different audiences and adapt messaging appropriately, use storytelling, and more.

This seems like a great moment to talk about the importance of science communication!

Science communication matters because it connects scientific research with people, giving folks information they need to make informed decisions about everything from health to hazards.

A tall pillar of lichen covered rock on a hiking trail in a sagebrush landscape. The sky is completely clears.

A growth of white spiny phlox flowers. From Wikipedia: It is a plant of western North America, where it is a common flower in sagebrush country, mostly growing in dry lithosol habitats. It is among the first plants to bloom in spring, after the snow has melted. This perennial herb is variable in morphology, but usually forms a tight mat or loose clump on the ground. The short stems emerge from a woody taproot and caudex unit and the plant form is no more than 13 centimetres (5 in) tall. The abundant tiny, sharp-pointed leaves are oppositely arranged and barely exceed one centimetre (1/3 in) long. The herbage is hairy in texture, the hairs short to long, woolly to cobwebby. The appearance of the plant is almost mosslike until blooming. The inflorescence is a solitary flower in shades of white, pink, or blue. It has a tubular throat about one centimetre (1/3 in) long spreading into a flat five-lobed corolla.

Spiny Phlox & Pointy Rocks from yesterday’s hike in the sagebrush hills.

Photo of volcanic rocks at the shore along a beach

One of my favorite spots in Iceland (photo from 2024) - alas, I'm hearing that ‎⁨Reynisfjara Beach⁩ is no more? Never underestimate the spatial/temporal scales of erosion at the shore... ⚒️

Two dogs on my lap vying for pets

Me petting one dog while the other tries to grab my arm away

Two dogs laying cheek to cheek while I pet them both

Olympic athletes. Sport: competitive pet-getting. Very competitive.

China's Xinhua news agency has just published this editorial cartoon in response to Trump's rejection of climate policies.

It is pretty clear that China views this as a HUGE geopolitical fumble by the US leaving the field clear for China's to win the global race to clean-tech hegemony