This video is a view south from Hawaii. If you believe the global warming hype, this picturesque, pacific scene represents yet another mortal threat. The problem is that El Ninos (see below) have different effects on the weather -- no two are exactly alike. So enjoy a few seconds of tranquility and read the rest of this posting if you would like. We have no way of knowing accurately the intensity of El Ninos 150 years ago, as we just have just scattered measurements of ocean temperatures from ships. This is pure hype about global warming...err...cooling...err...warming or whatever Gore is pushing this week.  NOAA is only forecasting a 61% chance of an El Nino, let alone an extreme event. Their mean temperature forecast shows nothing extraordinary. You can see NOAA's forecast here . 

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...

You have often heard about the issues facing the NWS and NOAA from this blog. As frequent readers know, I am a political conservative.  So, I wanted to bring you the perspective of a former NWS and NOAA employee who is a political liberal. You can read his entire piece here . In addition to the items he cited, for a period a few hours after Alan posted his piece, a number of NOAA web sites were down -- and the problem continues this (Wednesday) morning.  Further, Alan Gerard writes about an NWS office with no way to communicate with the outside world during a severe thunderstorm event earlier this spring: There are definitely increasing concerns about the reliability of the aging NEXRAD fleet, in this case the issues were not with the radar themselves, but apparently with communications lines. The office at Wilmington was without communication for several hours, forcing the NWS office in Cleveland to provide backup services for the incommunicado Wilmington. Cleveland issued se...

Yesterday, I wrote about some of the considerations applicable to this year's "Vortex 2026" storm research program sponsored by NOAA.  At the same time The Wall Street Journal posted a video pertaining to drone research as it applies to tornado forecasting and warning. The screen capture above correctly points out the great distances between weather balloon stations is a significant impediment to having data on the scale needed to forecast tornadoes with more accuracy.  The video explains that NOAA is experimenting with drones (that cost up to $100,000+ per drone!) to measure the atmosphere up to 5,000 feet above the ground with a goal of getting measurements up to 10,000 feet in the future.  What is the problem? We had a perfectly good method of of taking these measurements -- at much less cost -- as recently as a dozen years ago! The map above displays (red) the location of NWS weather balloon sites as shown in the video (there are about 90 more in the U.S.A.). It also...

One of the three new radar trucks NOAA is putting into the field for the 2026 Vortex Project.  Please note NOAA's photo caption.  So far in 2026, the meteorological community has been roiled by proposed cuts in atmospheric research as well as a proposal by the Trump Administration to disband the National Center for Atmospheric Research. We've written about these several times, the most recent article is here .  Yesterday, a new research program ("Vortex 2026") was announced by the National Severe Storms Laboratory. They are going to put three trucks with multiple mobile radars in the field. They plan to study, in real-time, tornadoes and severe thunderstorms and ... Beyond tornadoes and thunderstorms, the new radars will also support research into other high-impact hazards. In wildfire situations, mobile radars can help monitor smoke plumes, fire-induced winds, and changing weather conditions that affect fire behavior and firefighter safety. During flash-flooding even...

Courtesy of one of our alert readers, Canada is ending its weather radio network as of March 16. Canada's network has been patterned after NOAA Weather Radio network in the United States. After more than 60 years, the NOAA network has never achieved market penetration of more than 3% (percent of households actually using it). The reasons are many but the number one reason is that it triggers its loud tone in the middle of the night for storms the users don't care about. I know that's the reason we discontinued using it.  Grok agrees: The advantage of weather radios is that they will let you know (without you doing anything) when a dangerous condition approaches. But they are -- at best -- countywide and they cannot separate hazards (e.g., they alert for a severe thunderstorm warning regardless of whether it is one inch hail or whether it is 90 mph winds).  One would think that NOAA would be moving on to satellite or newer technology with more geographic precision but they s...

Climate Central, a Big Climate advocacy organization, has released its version of the discredited NOAA "Billion Dollar Disasters" product. It purports to catalog disasters that have caused a billion or more of disasters. Except it doesn't. Their map is below.  Look closely at these "disasters." All but three are multi-day and multi-region mashups of different types of storms to create "disasters." I have added arrows to several items in the West to help illustrate my point. To compare: The Joplin Tornado was a billion dollar disaster. Hurricane Helene was a billion dollar disaster. "North Central & Central Severe Storms" over a six day  period aren't even close. In their fine print, Climate Central acknowledges that some of the rising cost are due to "socioeconomic" trends (example: expensive mansions built in the path of Florida hurricanes).  Plus, all of these are weather , not climate, disasters. This especially true of ...

Important note (11:45a Tuesday): A counter-argument for PAR, not based on tornado warnings or weather, is here . It is worth your time. That said, the essay below is still valid.  The protective dome being placed over the Phased Array Radar at the National Severe Storms Laboratory.   Behind the scenes to much of the public, the weather science community has been furious with the Trump Administration's proposed and actual cuts in meteorological research. One of the institutions affected is NOAA's National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL). Surprising, to many, I agree with some of those cuts. The reason is that some of this research has simply not been paying off after years and years of experimentation.  For a quarter-century,  NSSL has been experimenting with Phased Array Radar (PAR) which allows the atmosphere to be scanned more quickly than using a conventional radar. Work began in 2000 and the first real-time data was collected in 2004. One of the selling poi...

Yesterday was "Global Search-and-Rescue Day," which celebrates NOAA's huge success finding and rescuing people in extreme difficulty, worldwide. NOAA's achievement is tied to its innovative concept in the 1970's to put a search-and-rescue function into its polar orbiting weather satellites. So, if a distress beacon is activated anywhere in the world due to a plane crash, a ship off course, or other emergency the people involved can be rescued. The first rescue was in 1982 in British Columbia.  So far in 2025, 215 have been rescued in the United States. Since 1982, more than 63,000 people have been rescued worldwide.  Congratulations and well done, NOAA!!

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...

The NOAA/NWS computer modeling used to be #1 in the world. Now, we are distant #4. NOAA is focused on its marine responsibilities and not weather. We would be far better off with the NWS as an independent agency. My recommendations are here . 

Turns out, everything is solved and there will be no adverse effect to hurricane forecasting. 

[This is an update of a Post that appeared in December, 2024] Investigating the 2011 Joplin Tornado An Outline of the National Disaster Review Board Regardless of whether there is an attempt to fix NOAA through incremental improvement  or whether there is a “divorce” of the NWS from NOAA, neither has much of a chance to be successful without a National Disaster Review Board (NDRB) modeled after the hugely successful National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Last week's independent report on the NWS's failing tornado warning program only confirms this near certainty.  Accountability is not a natural part of the culture inside the Beltway. The NDRB will be an essential step in that direction.  Regardless of our political preferences and affiliations, I believe most of us can agree on the following: Mega-disasters (i.e., July 4 Texas Hill Country flash flood [likely worst since 1886], Los Angeles wildfire, southern Appalachians floods after Helene, Maui Wildfire, etc.)...

The National Weather Service's Issues With Tornado Warnings Have Reached the Crisis Level. Inadequate North Dakota Warning While the National Weather Service's  forecast for tornadoes in North Dakota yesterday was excellent, the tornado warning for the Bismarck area last night left a great deal to be desired. People could easily have been killed by the late tornado warning. The National Weather Service (NWS) radar showed both a hook echo by 10:19 (left) and strong rotation on the Doppler wind display (right) by 10:20. There is no question a tornado warning should have been issued by this time. The hook had characteristics of a debris ball -- making a tornado quite likely.  Unfortunately, the tornado warning wasn't issued for another six minutes.  Meanwhile, chasers and static cameras (see below) were capturing and transmitting images of the tornado. This static camera shows the tornado in the right side of the image. We don't know the exact starting time of the tornad...