Another terrible idea from Washington (which is a font of terrible ideas these days)! Remember: Congress has already passed a law that every car sold in 2017 or after  will have to have an interlocking system so it will not start if the car believes you are drunk; or local or federal authorities don't want you to drive! What are we Americans giving up our freedoms without a even a protest?!  

Wall Street Journal Are you kidding?! This is insane. The mergers of Continental + United and Northwest + Delta never  should have been approved for antitrust/oligopoly reasons. Those mergers, along with U.S. Air + American have killed competition and have directly led to flying being the terrible experience it is today. The 'leaders' of the airlines can't manage what they have; what makes them believe they can manage a vastly bigger company?! Of course, these mergers never seem to bring the "synergy" that is promised so they end up cutting people and service.  When you combine these "too big to care" airlines with Congress being influenced by the airline lobby to make it practically impossible to hold the airlines accountable -- no matter how egregious their behavior -- it makes our airline experience worse than many "second world" airlines.  For our 50th wedding anniversary, we purchased first class tickets on American. Good thing we did! The...

In an unspeakable tragedy, the government's warning system failed in Joplin, MO  the evening of May 22, 2011 -- 15 years ago today.  The Result? 161 Perished. Ruskin Heights Tornado about the time it was damaging my future bride's home.   The tornadohad a 71-mile path and was F-5 intensity. Photo from Wikipedia. May 20, 1957, was the date of the Ruskin Heights Tornado and the date the federal government (finally) got into the tornado warning business. Those warnings have saved tens of thousands of lives. On that Monday evening, the Weather Bureau's tornado warning was accurate and their tornado watch -- which had been issued hours earlier -- was right on the money.*  Over time, both the science (our knowledge of how tornadoes function and how best to warn of them) and the technology (radar, weather satellites, then Doppler radar) helped weather science cut the tornado death rate (deaths per million population) by a stunning 95% . Then, shockingly, it all collaps...

Posted late this afternoon on X. This is an addition to the essay below.  The National Weather Service is falling apart.    That is the only reasonable conclusion to be drawn by informed observation of its cumulative output during the past, highly active, 30 days of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes.    Before proceeding, I want to stipulate that the Trump Administration’s handling of the cost cutting and downsizing of NOAA earlier this year was unhelpful. Yes, there was – and still is – fat in the NWS and NOAA. Cutting the deficit should be a high priority but those cuts need to be well thought out and well executed.    I also want to state there are exhausted people in the NWS who are suffering from vast amounts of overwork due to manpower shortages that existed before President Trump took office -- that were made worse by President Trump’s layoffs and then rehiring, in some cases,  people with little to no experience. The quality of work of bu...

Thursday, the New York Times published a story (headline above) last week regarding the potential for more layoffs at FEMA. The problem with the story is that is does not describe the future mission of FEMA and that is likely because Homeland Security Secretary Noem has not fully defined it. There is a lot of talk about giving more power and responsibilities to the states (which I support). I also support a slimmed down FEMA that primarily works as a logistics facilitator combined with channeling federal assistance. The current "boots on the ground" mission of FEMA has failed almost every time it has been needed for the past 30+ years .  There are concerns , for example, that states will not have the money or expertise to handle major disasters. While valid, a number of FEMA programs to mitigate future disaster costs have been little more than political slush funds . Clearly, these have to be fixed in any reorganization or re-mission.  One of the things that has been almost ...

"Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?" From the Wall Street Journal : " ST LOUIS -  Minutes after a mile-wide tornado struck this city on an otherwise beautiful day this spring...." Funny how a large EF-3 tornado can ruin a "beautiful day."  City of St. Louis photo The Wall Street Journal is based in New York City. FEMA is based in Washington, DC. Perhaps one of the problems with national responses to major disasters is that inside the Beltway and on the Island of Manhattan, these disasters seem far away...almost remote. When FEMA recently fixed an important bit of Florida infrastructure, another NYC-based organization called Pro Publica was upset that Trump fixed it after 2.5 years of neglect under President Biden .  So, it is not surprising the WSJ  and FEMA often miss the point: thousands of people have suffered from the Maui wildfires, Hurricane Helene, the Los Angeles wildfires, the St. Louis Tornado and others because a clerk in a large Wa...

Yesterday, a bill was introduced in the House of Representatives by Oklahoma's Rep. Ralph Lucas regarding amendments and additions to the 2017 weather bill that passed Congress. Per the above graphic, it was already passed out of committee. You can find the bill here .  The bill is extremely long and so "I went through it so you don't have to." 😏  Below, you will find brief summaries of the bill's features and my comments about each. Unfortunately, there is nothing about a National Disaster Review Board.  The usual people were writing that this bill would prevent the public from getting public forecasts and storm warnings. Of course, it does the opposite . The very first item is to emphasize the NWS's public safety mission with the emphasis on "public." Agree 100%. The NWS sometimes strays too far from its core mission and I was glad to see that emphasized.  With regard to the above, here are some specific items: There will be research money into ge...

Headline at PJ Media today: We know at least some Los Angeles officials have not been completely honest about the fires. For instance, they were telling us the death toll was 31 when it was actually 440 .  Now, with regard to the cause(s) of the fires: The natives are getting restless, however. Angelenos want to know what officially caused these fires, which led to homelessness and despair and contributed to a corrosive and abiding distrust of local and state government competence. If we had a National Disaster Review Board , this wouldn't be an issue. As with the NTSB and aircraft accidents, we would know the cause(s) and we would know how to prevent future fires in similar situations. We -- especially the people of Los Angeles -- would not have to tolerate the games local officials are playing.  It is vital to learn the cause of the fires as soon as possible. Congress, please hold hearings and move quickly on a National Disaster Review Board. 

These were posted on LinkedIn yesterday. Mr. Fugate is the former head of FEMA: And Ms. Sutherlin, Los Angeles Area Emergency Manager "WEA (the FCC/FEMA/NOAA "Wireless Emergency Alerts) is extremely problematic when used alone. Which what many of us have said since it went online in 2012.  If we had a National Disaster Review Board these issues would not exist. Experts would be asking these (highly appropriate) questions after major disasters and we would learn and improve as opposed to Mr. Fugate's correct observation, ...after 40+ years in emergency management, I still see us making the same mistakes." Congress?

I'm pleased to report the House of Representatives has introduced a bi-partisan bill to completely reform FEMA. The details of the changes are  here . On the its logo you see the words, "Department of Homeland Security." That will change if the bill becomes law. FEMA will become an independent, Cabinet-level agency reporting to the President. One item in the bill is money for new headquarters. As I wrote months ago about my reform ideas: I want to thank the team at Rep. Sharice Davids' (D-KS) office for a dialog on the disaster-related issues in our nation and for bringing the proposed FEMA changes to my attention.  As you know, I believe major changes are necessary at the National Weather Service. One of which is cleaving the NWS from NOAA. The new NWS would become an independent agency. Details of my NWS reform plan are  here .  Finally -- and maybe most important -- we  must  have a  National Disaster Review Board  to keep FEMA (old and new), ...

2024's Hurricane Helene For reasons that are not at all clear, the Department of Defense (DoD) has ceased providing microwave meteorological data from its polar orbiting satellites. I realize that is a mouthful, so an explanation is here.   This loss of data will be critical in a situation like Hurricane Otis which struck Acapulco with Cat 5 winds in 2023 and intensified after dark. We are losing half of the data -- the three NOAA polar orbiting satellites will still produce the microwave data.  The article at the link and other articles on this topic surmise that DoD has stopped the flow of that data for national security reasons but I cannot imagine the significance of microwave data pertaining to hurricanes-- this technology is not new. I suspect there is more going on such as a misguided attempt to decrease spending.  If I can get more information, I will let you know. Congress?

From the Department of Irony: Is there nothing upon which Congress won't waste our money?!

We are losing daily weather balloon launches at two more weather stations, these in the Northeast.  These are balloon stations #5 and #6 from which we have lost scheduled twice daily -- and essential -- upper air data.  If I am correct this is not absolutely necessary, the  NWS is playing a dangerous game. Some DOGE person or legislator X months from now might say, "If you have still made forecasts without this data, we can save money by permanently shutting the launches down." And, because we have not done the "data starvation" studies that we should have been doing all along, we don't have solid scientific proof to demonstrate the effects on forecasts of losing all of this data.  You don't have to be a meteorologist to launch weather balloons. There is a fine meteorology program at the University at Albany. Perhaps students could be paid a small amount of money to launch the balloons on an ongoing basis, thus saving the NWS dollars on a net basis. 

In the past 24 hours: I have received a note from one of my friends who took part in the protest at NOAA headquarters. Ironically , the former head of NOAA was there whose tenure regarding the National Weather Service was questionable -- at best.  and, another friend forwarded the piece below from Dr. Cliff Mass of the University of Washington's meteorology department. I recommend reading it.  Subject:   Reality and Opportunity We are all scientists and we are trained to deal with reality. To propose hypotheses and to test them. We need to do the same in the current situation. There are lots of worries about NOAA being terminated by the administration.   Reality : this  can not happen  because NOAA is enabled and tasked by legislation....lots of legislation. NOAA is not going anywhere. The observational systems overseen by NOAA are not going anywhere. There are all kinds of diabolical suggestions on this list of the private sector secretly rubbing the...

The amount of garbage being written the last 36 hours regarding the National Weather Service (NWS) would overflow 50 landfills. I would like to clarify all of this so that reasonable decisions, consistent with the public good, can be made. Mr. Ramsey is entitled to his opinion but nothing that has occurred, so far, will prevent the NWS from issuing tornado (and other) warnings of the quality (not very good) that they were issuing last week and last year.  When I've been around Al, he seems like a nice guy but isn't a  meteorologist nor an expert as to how all of this works.  NOAA? Lots to Cut                          Before going further: the parent agency of the NWS, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), is loaded with fat and with money being spent on things outside of its mission.  Example from this week: The grants to Ocean Conservancy came from NOAA.  In additio...