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 current issue of Flying  writes up a tragic weather-related aviation accident over the skies of Kentucky. A Piper aircraft, flying at night, encountered a severe thunderstorm near Whitesville which led to the plane breaking up in-flight. There is an important lesson here for all pilots regarding the use of ground-based radars.  The wreckage of the doomed flight.  The article links to the National Transportation Safety Board's report and probable cause finding. Knowing we have a number of pilots among our readers, I thought a few comments would be helpful in avoiding this type of accident in the future. The article about the accident is here .  The plane departed Bowling Green enroute to Owensboro. The pilot posted the screen capture below to his social media account. The radar was from 11:15pm, 34 minutes before the crash.  The airplane symbol was the then-current position of the aircraft. At the end of the purple line was the planned destination, the Owens...

Courtesy: Ft. Worth Star-Telegram Used with permission Today is the 40th anniversary of the crash at Delta 191 at DFW International Airport. The terrible crash killed 136. Twenty-five were injured; some of the injuries were horrific. The story begins with Dr. Ted Fujita examining the crashes of Ozark Flight 809 in St. Louis (1973) and Eastern Flight 66 at JFK in New York (1975). Ted published a paper in the journal Monthly Weather Review  (February, 1977) hypothesizing the existence of a "downburst" -- a previously undiscovered feature of thunderstorms -- that could cause extreme wind shear which in turn would cause planes to crash.  In the summer of 1978, Ted ran Project NIMROD and found a downburst via radar and measured its characteristics. A couple of weeks later, I was storm chasing with my friend meteorologist Steve Amburn and I was able to take a series of seven photos that -- for the first time -- showed what a downburst looked like and its life-cycle. One of the phot...

Tornado sirens, tornado shelters, wildfires, rural America, tornado damage, aviation navigation, agriculture, and photographs of a wide variety of other subjects are all available in my collection.  You will find my collection of weather and nature-related photographs, ready for licensing , here .  I hope you will take a look, regardless of whether you are shopping for stock photography.

Right now, the NWS and America's private-sector meteorologists are dealing with a major storm. Please scroll down for more info. But, I'm taking time out of my storm coverage because of this vital issue. Bill Nye (who else, 🙄) has come up with a theory that the cuts at NWS/NOAA are because Elon Musk is going to buy the National Weather Service.  Wish I was in Vegas so I could make a bet: it won't happen -- just like 500 "forecasters" were not laid off Friday in spite of what many news organizations would have you believe . Nevertheless, the layoffs were unfortunate and not well planned. Other cuts, discussed here , should not happen.  Let's get serious: The NWS is an essential federal service. Not to mention the thousands of lives it saves, scientific studies have shown that it returns $10 to the economy for every dollar of its budget (the American Meteorological Society explains, here ). It has virtually zero fat. NOAA, on the other hand, has quite a bi...

The blue dots are where blog readers were located about an hour after this afternoon's crash landing in Toronto.  And, three hours later: As with the tragedy of American 5342 that collided with a helicopter and crashed in Washington January 29, people from all over the world came to this site by the thousands.  It is always our goal to provide the finest information without hype. Thank you for reading and trusting us. 

"Delta Air Lines CRJ900 crash landed at Toronto Pearson Airport on Monday.  The flight, from Minneapolis-St. Paul, was listed as Endeavor 4819, a CRJ-900 (N932XJ). It appears to have landed upside down." Endeavor is a regional airline that paints its jets in Delta livery. It is the same situation as the American Eagle that crashed in Washington on January 29. The plane was painted in American Airlines livery but it was operated by PSA Airlines.  Update: "All passengers and crew have been accounted for." Reportedly, eight 15 are injured. News media reporting that three injuries are critical. Update: What it looked like escaping from the inside of the plane.   Winds were gusting to 37 mph from the west, the temperature was 18°F. There is a ridiculous speculation on one of the news networks the wind was gusting to 70 mph. The info I reported was from the official weather observation taken because of the crash. See below for the official Toronto-Pearson "METAR,...

President Trump a few moments ago addressed the families and friends of those affected by last night's horrible crash and offered words of condolences from himself and the First Lady. He assured families their loved ones were in "the embrace of a loving God." I would also like to offer my prayers and condolences to the loved ones of everyone aboard both the American Airlines jet and the Blackhawk helicopter. It is a terrible coincidence that so many aboard were from the U.S. and Russian figure skating community (the U.S. championships were held in Wichita this past weekend).  Finally, the courage and respect of the first responders (below) was something all Americans should be proud of. Having to fight the river's current with the water temperature 34° in a desperate quest to find survivors is far beyond the call of duty. The photo is from Rep. Ben Crenshaw's twitter account.  In addition, world champion Russian skaters (per the Kremlin) Evgenia Shishkova and Vadi...

Since April, there have been three Southwest Airlines (SWA) flights that have had serous drops in altitude that, at least as far as the media I have seen, no one seems to be tying the three together.  The first was off the Island of Kauai on April 11.  The plane was headed to the Lihue Airport. The radar shows solid thunderstorms in the area. According to news reports, in addition to the thunderstorm-caused turbulence, the flying pilot pushed the control column down and the plane dropped 400 feet. The thunderstorms are so widespread, one can question whether the plane should ever have taken off from Honolulu. It is against FAA regulations to fly into a thunderstorm , in addition to the thunderstorms appearing on the National Weather Service's radar (below), it would have clearly showed up on the pilot's own radar.  The second was under clear skies outside of Oklahoma City.  Air traffic control had to contact the SWA crew and ask them to check their altitude.  On...

You've probably heard about the Southwest (SWA) flight from Las Vegas to Oklahoma City that dropped to ~500 feet altitude over the suburb of Yukon Tuesday night. The plane landed safely at Will Rogers World Airport at 12:21am Wednesday (19th).  It came to my attention that there are some speculating that it was downburst or a "gust front" that caused the plane to drop. There was one comment that said it looked like the 1985 crash of Delta Flight 191 in Dallas.  As the meteorological expert in one of the trials involving Delta 191 , I can say with certainty that it was not a downburst or microburst that caused the loss of altitude. In fact, weather doesn't appear to have played any part in the incident. Here's my evidence: The Sky Was Non-Threatening  Above is a screen capture from a video showing the SWA flight (arrow) near Yukon. At left are a few cumulus clouds possibly associated with the 68°F dew point at Will Rogers (WR). There was a level jet stream as th...

As a subscriber for decades, I'm really sorry to report that The Wall Street Journal  is now all-in for climate alarmism stories in their news coverage. Recently, they've been printing alarmist stories about once a week. Yesterday's story was about derecho's  -- headline above -- and the one that affected Houston on May 16. One of claims made in the stories is that the airports only had just 60 to 90 minutes of advance notice -- which simply isn't true. Nor are derecho's connected to climate change.  The National Weather Service did a fine job with their forecasts of damaging winds in the Houston area May 16, the day of the derecho. Their 11:33am severe wind forecast had Houston in the "enhanced" area -- more than six hours before the wind arrived. A tornado watch was out at 2:40pm (above) -- more than 3.5 hours before the winds arrived -- plenty of notice to take mitigation actions. If the airport officials weren't paying attention, that is not th...

Please see:

On the Caribbean Island of Saba is the world's smallest commercial airport along with the world's shortest commercial runway. An article about it is at the link. The island is gorgeous and the people are friendly. You are likely to see a wild monkey when you are there. If you are visiting the Island of St. Martin or one of the other nearby islands, it is well worth the side trip. 

Cessna Caravan Residents of Wichita (The Aviation Capital of the World) take great pride in the innovations pertaining to the aircraft produced here. A new remote flight system has been been developed that allows the entire flight (taxi, takeoff, flight, landing) to be controlled by a pilot on the ground.  The Wichita Business Journal   has the story. 

Wow, what an afternoon in Wichita. Downbursts all over the city, including at my home. And, because two strong downbursts were near airports, we could have had a tragedy. McConnell Air Force Base The first of the downbursts occurred about 2:40pm. The peak gust from the northeast was 46 knots, which was 53 mph. "McC" points to the runway complex at the base. "D" is the center of the downburst and the arrows are the wind directions. These images are Doppler wind data from the Wichita Terminal Doppler Weather Radar, which was specifically designed to detect downbursts in time to prevent once-frequent crashes.  If you are a pilot or meteorologist, you may find the METARs of the event (KIAB) to be interesting (click to enlarge). Eisenhower National Airport Across town at Eisenhower (our commercial airline airport), they had a gust from the east southeast at 50 knots, which is 58 mph. I've circled the runway complex.  And, here are the METARs for KICT. In addition to ...

I'll be speaking at Love Field's Museum of Flight at 11am.  Bring your copy of Warnings  and I'll be happy to autograph it for you. 

I'll be appearing at Love Field's  Frontier's of Flight Museum  on Saturday, May 6.  I'll be speaking about downbursts at 11am. If you have a copy of one of my books, I'd be happy to autograph it for you. I'll also have copies of  Warnings  for sale. The price will be $20, including tax. More here: The list of speakers is below. Note the great prizes.  Really looking forward to seeing everyone Saturday!

There is so much wrong with this story .  Note the headline calls clear-air turbulence (CAT) "hard-to-detect." It is, even with today's high-resolution weather forecasting models. There is no way to accurately forecast it with climate models which have 1/50th the resolution.  There often isn't even agreement as to what CAT is. I've been an expert witness in court cases involving serious CAT injuries when it wasn't clear air turbulence at all. The pilots had flown through the top of a thunderstorm. This occurs more than you might think.  It is a myth that on-board weather radar can detect CAT. It cannot. There is some ability for ground based weather radar to detect CAT but it is not very good.  Want to make aviation safer and more comfortable? Stop spending money on studies like this and spend it on finding better ways to detect and nowcast CAT. 

Brittany Glish A new review of Warnings: The True Story of How Science Tamed the Weather  was posted at LinkedIn Saturday. Here are some excerpts: Wow! Absolutely blown away by  Mike Smith  book.  Mike wrote several chapters on Delta 191, while giving an informative, yet tactful explanation of what happened. He describes beautifully not just how impactful microbursts are on aircraft and all the research behind it, but just how understudied and misunderstood they were at the time. If you are interested in weather or meteorology, or maybe just an aviation nerd like myself, I highly recommend this book! Thanks for your research and time dedicated to this book, weather, and aviation, Mike. Thanks, Brittany! Warnings is a great book for spring break or as a graduation gift for a meteorology graduate. 

...to fly in a private jet all around the world to five-star resorts to 'fight' global warming. For the rest of us: Sierra Club argues   that “flying will have to get more expensive” through new taxes on fuel, new charges at airports, and a generalized restriction on supply. The anti-travelers often frame their arguments in terms of “environmental justice,” arguing that air travel is a luxury. If their preferences continue to shape global public policy, it will remain that way, precluding air travel entirely for the 80 percent of human beings who have yet to fly. Few might object to policy shaving off the marginal jaunt from a business executive’s itinerary, but what if that same policy keeps a middle-class American family from visiting grandma, or defers travel for a young Indonesian who wants to see the wider world? So, as global warming zealots like Kerry, Al Gore, Leo DiCaprio, etc., etc., crisscross the world in their private jets, you and I must not fly to "help the...