a.s.

Snowpack off to a terrible start across the Western U.S. with no relief in sight.

CPC’s newly updated analog guidance has some notable periods of record warmth and high-end severe weather for the week two period. With a still very warm Gulf, this pattern could also bring outbreaks of severe weather to parts of the Gulf Coast and Mississippi Valley around the holidays.

A time series showing the Pacific North American teleconnection since August, forecasted out through late December in the dashed black line on the top image. A negative PNA is associated with western North American troughing and ridging in the Southeast, which foretells a very warm period over the southern U.S. and parts of the East leading up to the holidays and likely into early January.

The ECMWF extreme forecast index forecasts widespread unusual warmth in the orange and red shading for the 10-15 day period, which includes Christmas. Record warmth may be likely from the Southern Rockies and Plains to parts of the Southeast between Dec 21-26.

A map from the Texas A&M Forest Service and Oklahoma Forestry Services showing shades of green that indicate the level of grass loading, or in other words, the amount of fuel for wildfires. Dark green areas in the Hill Country and central Texas are a byproduct of the historic July flooding and otherwise wet growing season. Most of the grass-dominant regions have above normal grass loading. Northwest Oklahoma is also showing exceptionally high grass loads.

A CPC forecast based on the 00Z GEFS for burning index anomalies during the 8-14 day period across the U.S. Dark red areas show high confidence in above normal burning indices, which is a fire danger index that is associated with fuel dryness and dry/windy conditions. Elevated to critical fire weather could affect some parts of the Southwest, central and southern Great Plains and Southeast before and around the holiday weekend.

December’s cold start in the South and East looks to come to an end next week. The deepening -PNA will result in Western troughs ejecting into the balmy Southern Plains, bringing episodes of critical fire weather to parts of OK and TX that have an absurd amount of fuel. See alt text for more.

Also: the number of y’all who apparently learned how to measure snow from people on Grindr still astonishes me to this day.

Global weirding. We have blooming elderberry in Atlanta now.

Trump admin is ‘trying to put out a fire they started’ at Weather Service as a cold, snowy winter looms | CNN The National Weather Service is working to hire back hundreds of positions laid off or otherwise cut by the Trump administration, but it’s progressing at a snail’s pace, forcing many offices to contin...

The National Weather Service is hiring again, but very slowly, causing many forecast offices to continue to cope with staff shortages. www.cnn.com/2025/12/09/w...

What America Can Learn from Its Largest Wildfire of the Year When Dragon Bravo ignited, in Grand Canyon National Park, officials decided to let it burn. Then the fire spread out of control.

O'Connor is among the best journalists writing about fire. And the New Yorker? Who would have predicted it would regularly publish pieces on fire? Amazing fire, insightful essay.
www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

TRY EVERY COOKIE ✊🏻

for no reason, here is an animation from a direct numerical simulation of a share-free atmospheric boundary layer. this is vertical velocity, with narrow bright areas being upward motion, and broad dark areas being downward motion. this is near-surface in the x-y plane (you're superman looking down)

Just in from NOAA, 7 states had their record warmest "meteorological fall" dating to 1895.

It was also America's third warmest "fall" in 131 years, just behind 2024 and 2016.

Voting precinct results in Indiana from the 2008 presidential election. Obama carried the blue areas and narrowly won the state’s 11 electoral votes.

Indiana republicans preliminary gerrymander of their 9 districts.

Wild that Obama won my home state in 2008 and we’re where we are now. Pretty easy to see how and where they’re trying to break up the blue islands in a sea of red. It’s not just Indy.

obama didnt deserve that nobel. but i take joy in the fact that trump is filled with envy of him for it.

Metro Atlanta Traffic Deaths Outpace Homicides—New, Five-County Report Maps the Human Cost of Mobility and Calls for Change “The Human Cost of Mobility: 2024,” a new story map from Propel ATL, reveals that, across five core Metro Atlanta counties in 2024, traffic crashes (425*) took more lives than homicides (410+), yet ho...

@letspropelatl.bsky.social: traffic deaths outpaced homicides in ‘24. “These grim findings mirror national trends, which find that Black and Native Americans, older adults, and people walking in low-income communities die at higher rates and face higher levels of risk compared to all Americans.”

Kristi Noem: "Sir, you made it through hurricane season without a hurricane. You kept the hurricanes away. We appreciate that."

But every shutdown is different

Fire-funded positions have historically continued to get paid during shutdowns.

🔥Let's check in and see how much December temperatures have changed (trend) over the last 75 years. 🔥

NPS is hiring GS-12 fire meteorologists in the Southwest and Rocky Mountain GACCs. Benefits include:

•bipartisan support for fire
•pay during shutdowns
•overtime during fire season
•no midnight shifts, and more.

www.usajobs.gov/job/850741000

Oceanic and atmospheric variability in response to greenhouse warming.

A study published in Nature Communications shows that global warming may trigger an abrupt shift in the tropical climate system towards stronger and more predictable El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycles, intensifying climate impacts across the globe.
go.nature.com/3JZGdku 🧪

Opinion | I’m a Marine Biologist. This Is How I Talk to Whales.

Mind-blowingly cool use of AI
“Altogether, these findings are leading us to an extraordinary conclusion: Whales may possess a communication system more intricate than our own, one that possibly predates human language by tens of millions of years.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/23/o...

Last sentence in the NPR article on "As the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season ends, the future of forecasting is AI" URL: https://www.npr.org/2025/11/29/nx-s1-5604290/atlantic-hurricane-season-forecast-ai-google

The last sentence resonated with me most. We now have a TC ensemble, in addition to hurricane regional models, capable of forecasting high-end TC intensity.

In Melissa's case, combo of HAFS-A/B & Google DeepMind increased confidence in a Category 5 forecast.

Human interpretation & NWP still vital.

NPS is hiring GS-12 fire meteorologists in the Southwest and Rocky Mountain GACCs. Benefits include:

•bipartisan support for fire
•pay during shutdowns
•overtime during fire season
•no midnight shifts, and more.

www.usajobs.gov/job/850741000

⚠️ BREAKING:

Scientists Warn H5N1 Bird Flu Is Mutating Faster Than Ever

The virus is spreading across the world and mutating into an expanding family of viral strains unlike anything seen before.

11/30: Today is the last day of the 2025 hurricane season. The month of November has proven to be very quiet this year, with no named storms during the month. There weren't even any disturbances mentioned in the Tropical Weather Outlook the en... https://x.com/NHC_Atlantic/status/1995096242884358356

Among Native Americans and First Nations peoples, the planting combination of corn, squash, and beans is known as "Three Sisters."

In Central America and Mexico, the practice is known as milpa, and it dates back thousands of years. 🧵⬇️

AIFS Ensemble plots are now available on PolarWx for a limited number of map projections: polarwx.com/models/?mode...

Not the takeaway here but the message is lost on a lot of folks when he’s crisscrossing the globe in private jets to talk about human-caused climate change.

Cal Fire approach to SoCal's wildfire crisis could make things worse, court says A statewide Cal Fire program risks making fires worse by removing native chaparral and allowing the spread of more flammable grasses, a court ruled.

Important new legal ruling in CA -- "A court ruled a statewide Cal Fire program risks making fires worse by removing native chaparral and allowing the spread of more flammable grasses." www.latimes.com/environment/... 🌎🔥

One of the realities of climate change in the Yukon is that the clear skies and deep cold of 30 years ago are gone - winters are much warmer and the skies are often cloudy. That makes a full-spectrum SAD light an important self-care tool for some of us to deal with the darkness.