Nate Smith

This evening, President Trump is ordering 400 members of the Texas National Guard for deployments to Illinois, Oregon, and other locations within the United States. No officials from the federal government called me directly to discuss or coordinate.

The U.S. used to have 400-500 lightning fatalities a year. Globally, we see 24,000 fatalities a year from lightning - many of them occurring at sporting events.

Really shameful to see this on Big Noon Kickoff.

A free and democratic society cannot silence comedians because the President doesn’t like what they say.

This is an attack on free speech and cannot be allowed to stand.

All elected officials need to speak up and push back on this undemocratic act.

“awful people don’t deserve to be killed, but they don’t deserve to be praised, either” is apparently a thought too complex for the pundit mind

Newsom: “Wake up, America. If he rigs this election, you won’t have a country anymore.”

I don’t think anyone is prepared for what they just did w/ ICE.

This is not a simple budget increase. It is an explosion - making ICE bigger than the FBI, US Bureau of Prisons, DEA,& others combined.

It is setting up to make what’s happening now look like child’s play. And people are disappearing.

The situation in the weather world is bad right now.

-Large private sector company badgering NWS
-NWS under direct assault by current government
-GOP members of Congress in high weather risk areas believing AI and apps work better than NWS.

All of this makes us less safe. Full stop.

Weather doesn’t take the night off.

We need 24/7 operations at every office every day.

We shouldn’t be trying to find coverage at the last minute when severe weather is anticipated.

If every office is staffed, you don’t have impacts to services.

NOAA ends extreme weather database that tracked cost of disasters since 1980 | CNN Its discontinuation is another Trump-administration blow to the public’s view into how fossil fuel pollution is changing the world around them and making extreme weather more costly.

NEW: NOAA retires its widely cited billion-dollar weather and climate database amid staff cuts. Unique database had been tallying disaster costs for 45 years. www.cnn.com/2025/05/08/c...

I hate this timeline 🤦🏻‍♂️

US weather forecasting is more crippled than previously thought as hurricane season nears | CNN Several current and former agency meteorologists and staff told CNN they are concerned warnings won’t be issued in time as hurricane season nears.

NEW: US weather forecasting is in worse shape than previously known, with 30 NWS forecast offices missing meteorologists-in-charge and about a dozen offices at risk of no longer serving their communities 24/7. www.cnn.com/2025/05/02/w...

One of the wilder political things in recent history is that Project 2025 publicly released a 900 page document laying out their plans to roll back 100 years of human progress and then during the campaign Republicans just said "no we're not :)" and then they won and now they're doing it all.

NC Court of Appeals gives over 60,000 challenged voters 15 days to prove eligibility The majority wrote that, even though they have the authority to completely throw out the contested ballots, they decided to instead mandate a cure period for most of the challenged voters.

If you are an NC resident and voted in November, please check if your name or the names of any family areone of the 60K votes being challenged. If so, confirm ASAP with your Board of Elections. You only have two weeks.

The website to check linked in the reply.

www.newsobserver.com/news/politic...

The only relevant political point is that Republican members of Congress are all supporting these tariffs 100%. They could stop them at any moment. Each day is on them. Everyone with a messaging bullhorn needs to make that clear. They can pull the plug now or pay the price at the polls next year.

From 12 UTC on Tuesday, April 2 to 12 UTC on Wednesday, April 3, NWS Forecast Offices have issued 768 severe thunderstorm, tornado, and flash flood warnings

This is next highest total number of SVR+TOR+FF for an April calendar date since the April 26-27, 2011 Super Outbreak

NWS Little Rock has rated the tornado near Diaz, AR in Jackson County the night of 3/14/25 a high-end EF-4. This is the highest rated tornado since the EF-4 in Rolling Fork, MS on March 24, 2023.

Large tornado crossing 42 west of Sumrall

IEMBot Image TBD

The Storm Prediction Center issues Day 2 Convective Outlook (Max Risk: High) at Mar 14, 17:30z Link

Napkin math says there are 7 days in a week and weather is 24/7....so 7 meteorologists = not a lot of staff

Thanks to everyone who participated nationwide!

The MAGA Plan to End Free Weather Reports Project 2025 would all but dissolve the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Some people were pretty incredulous when we published this before the election www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...

It feels like no one should have to say this, and yet we are in a situation where it needs to be said, very loudly and clearly, before it’s too late to do anything about it: The United States is not a startup. If you run it like one, it will break.

🔗 www.wired.com/story/the-us...

Reminder that even AccuWeather opposes the plan to privatize NOAA. www.accuweather.com/en/press/acc...

DOGE is reportedly threatening NOAA with massive staff and budget cuts.

NOAA houses the National Weather Service and National Hurricane Center, which produce forecasts and warn people about storms.

This attack on public safety is ripped straight from the pages of Project 2025.

We were just told that they won’t let us in. They are denying entry to 2 dozen members of Congress. Elon Musk has all our private information & we have no idea what he’s doing with it. This is happening completely behind closed doors. HELL NO. It’s illegal. We demand oversight!

i love that in addition to everything else, elon musk is the dumbest asshole on the planet

Ah, the millennial experience of “every time you get some measure of financial and career stability, the world decides to do something extraordinarily stupid again”

That’s not something you see every day 😳

Living in NC is a love/hate relationship this time of year