I think we have a new winner for dumbest road sign. Below, from 2023, is the previous winner. It drops to #2.

FEMA desperately needs reform. My earlier thoughts are here but there are a number of solutions floating around Washington that would be an improvement.  The status quo is fiercely defended by public sector meteorologists, emergency managers and FEMA employees, in spite of the overwhelming evidence that FEMA could stand for "Failing Emergency Matters, Always." It would be extremely difficult to find a genuine FEMA success story (the way normal people measure success) in the past four decades. I am presenting this analysis because the situation gets more and more urgent. Reform can no longer wait. I detail some of its historical failures here , but there is nothing better than your own eyes.  Lahaina Wildfires of 2023 This is an aerial photo of the town of Lahaina, Maui in 2022-2023. It was a charming, bustling area full of great restaurants, shops and other commerce. Kathleen and I enjoyed visiting many times.  On August 8, 2023, Lahaina was ravaged by well forecast (by...

It is the story of how private property rights are being destroyed in our nation .

More information is here . The British "Met Office" is their equivalent to the USA's National Weather Service. They run the second most accurate meteorological forecasting model in the world.  It is unknown the effects of the strike, if it occurs. If they stop making airport weather observations, it could bring much of aviation to a halt in the United Kingdom. If they stop launching weather balloons and running the UKMET model, then the effects could be farther reaching.  Stay tuned. 

Before I go further, I am a supporter of vaccines, including the COVID vaccines. I have been vaccinated three times against the disease. (More advice at the end of this piece.) That said, day by day, something increasingly seems wrong with the COVID vaccines. Notice the emphasis on the word, "seems." I am not a physician and I don't know how seriously to take the information below. But, I do have a number of questions.  Monday, Sept 27 Tuesday, Sept 28 I personally know two nurses who refuse the get vaccinated. Why are health care workers -- the very people who should want the vaccine most -- refusing the jab? Late Monday morning [Sept 20], I had to go to a local emergency room due to a reaction to a new medicine. The place was packed. I had an exceptionally long wait. While chatting with the ER physician who treated me, he told me that he was "in the process of admitting six COVID patients who are really sick. And, they are all fully vaccinated." What?? Dr. Fau...

We being told there are more virulent versions of the coronavirus threatening to spread across the United States. The best way to damp them down is with vaccinations but the effort continues to badly stumble. Per NBC News : Pharmacists at Inova Health, one of the largest hospital systems in the Washington, D.C., area, say they started noticing significant amounts of leftover vaccine in almost every vial, even after they used the additional  sixth doses in Pfizer's vials . But because of the FDA's regulations, they are being forced to throw out any extra vaccine. "It's heartbreaking for us," Massiah-White said. "We've had multiple team members that rotate through here, and at least daily somebody says, 'Why can't we pool the waste?' The Inova pharmacists did an experiment, taking 100 vials that had residual vaccine. Eighty of them had significant amounts left over. The pharmacists found that with the vaccine left in the 80 vials, they could mak...

Required Reading It is important that everyone read this piece . It describes the true problem we have: government is far too powerful. I know that seems, to some, unlikely. Read it and then make up your own mind.

With our nice break from the tornadoes typical of May, I wanted to write this before we start covering the resumption of widespread severe storms this week. As you know, I have been critical of both global warming and COVID-19 extremism. You'll see a number of my pieces on the latter topic simply by scrolling down. Leo deplaning from a luxury private jet before boarding his limo. Photo: "The Daily Mail" Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio are responsible for much of the global warming nonsense that gets published today. Yet both have giant carbon footprints: multiple homes, private jets, and yachts. The private jets are especially galling because, of all of the methods in the world, they are the most carbon intensive. Those with gigantic carbon footprints thumb their noses at those of us who, by comparison, have tiny carbon footprints. But, it isn't just global warming. If we had to locate the single person most responsible for the recent COVID-19 lockdowns, it w...

It is simply astounding how often the 'experts' in environmental issues ( like Dr. Paul Krugman) are wrong almost all of the time on almost all environmental issues . Krugman, in 2006, told us (above) that prices were only going to rise because the world was starting to run out of oil ("peak oil"). Here is a closeup of his graph: Oil peaked at around $100/bbl in 2006. Due to inflation, that $100 is now $128 per barrel. Instead of the price of a barrel of oil rising -- as Dr. Krugman predicted -- the world is awash in oil. So much so, there is no place to store it. Yesterday, the West Texas Intermediate futures contract closed at a negative value for the first time, ever, at -$13.10. If you would take a barrel of oil off their hands, they would pay you  $13.10! By contrast, you would have to pay $70.40 for a barrel of water (in the form of Aquafina). Yet again, Big Environment (and Dr. Krugman is a charter member) couldn't be more wrong. Speaking of st...

This photo is at the top of the "Scientific American" article. With the Easter Weekend severe weather outbreak, the fear of some in the disaster management (DM) community materialized: a major tornado outbreak overlaid on the coronavirus (CV) social distancing strategy. The combination is a genuine concern: It was the primary reason I made my special forecasts (see, here ) two and one day before the tornadoes began. I am told those forecasts were valuable. The NWS SPC did a great job, too. So far, it seems the recovery from the tornadoes seems to be coming along reasonably well, given the circumstances. But, I'd like more information from those involved. So, this afternoon, when it was brought to my attention Scientific American  had just published an article about emergency managers and the challenges of tornadoes (or other disasters) overlaid on CV social distancing, I stopped what I was going and read it immediately. I was disappointed. I wish to discuss the...

The story is here . I have two comments: As Ronald Reagan said, "A government bureau is the closet thing we will see to eternal life on this earth." So, if there is a government panel set up to make energy saving suggestions, it will continue offering them (even if all of the good ones have previously been suggested), no matter how inane. The fact that almost no one can sleep with an 82° bedroom temperature is irrelevant. They've done their -- paid by our tax dollars -- appointed job even if it is useless. Second, if we let the people in government who believe it is their job to micromanage our lives to have even more power, things will morph from merely annoying to actually becoming dangerous.

I have, with more than ample justification, been highly critical of FEMA on this blog and in my book Warnings . You'll find recent articles here and here . If you go to Twitter and enter #FEMA as a search you'll find complaint after complaint after complaint. I have been candid in in that I don't a solid suggestion(s) as to how to fix it. There is a case to be made that there is a need for federal coordination in a mega-disaster (huge hurricane affecting multiple states) or a huge earthquake. However, if your home was just blown away, your focus is on your family and your home and you don't directly care much about people 75 miles away. You need help at your location. A friend of mine has made a highly innovative suggestion I want to pass along. This is a wonderful idea. As I said in the article at the red link, the #1 problem with FEMA is it tried to deal with 600+ disasters last year. That is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. A surprisingly large number ...

Can you imagine the outcry if an oil company  killed bald eagles?! Four dozen bald eagles?! Apparently, it is OK for "green" energy (wind power) to violate environmental law and for the government to selectively enforce the law. From the Associated Press : "What it boils down to is this: If you electrocute an eagle, that is bad, but if you chop it to pieces, that is OK," said Tim Eicher, a former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service enforcement agent based in Cody. Unbelievable.

The Al Gore Effect strikes again! Full story here .

But, who protects us from the government? The video is of a Chinese official who is, shall we say, perturbed that he missed his flight. The fun begins after the 1:00 mark. \ Note that no police or anyone else stops him. When you are with the government, I guess you can get away with this type of thing.

The excellent forecasts for the Blizzard of '13, Blizzard of Oz, Hattiesburg Tornado, and (hopefully excellent) the pending Plains Blizzard and all of the other storms we have deal with rely, in no small part, on weather satellite data. As we have discussed on a number of occasions, there may be gaps in our weather satellite coverage. The U.S. Government Accountability Office has a brand new, and comprehensive, report here . There is a tremendous amount of nonsense coming out of Washington where it appears they are going to hold the nation hostage (i.e., because the F.A.A. is going to lose 2% of its budget, it will furlough air traffic controllers rather than pencil pushers) rather than do things in an intelligent manner. If you believe accurate weather forecasts and storm warnings are important, it is time to let Congress and the Administration know you support state-of-the-art infrastructure for the nation's weather enterprise. Had a bad link to GAO, now fixed. Thank y...

...is a relatively recent one. A couple of economists proposed abolishing the National Weather Service. Terrible idea! I explain why in Should the National Weather Service Be Abolished ?

...for linking to my post about the National Weather Service in its material for teachers section. The posting they are linking to, which discusses whether the U.S. should have a national meteorological service funded by government, is here . If you do not wish to read the entire post, the short answer is "yes."

Earlier today, I posted again on the subject of the inordinate amount of money and effort spent on the TSA (and its parent agency, the hapless Department of Homeland Security) while other far more important threats are left unaddressed. The "creator" of the TSA, Rep. John Mica of Florida says, As for keeping the American public safe, Mica says, “They’ve failed to actually detect any threat in 10 years.”...  “The whole program has been hijacked by bureaucrats,” “They need to get out of the screening business and back into security.  Most of the screening they do should be abandoned,” Mica said.  "I just don’t have a lot of faith at this point,” Mica said. Entire article here . I agree with Rep. Mica, but I am very pessimistic that the TSA will be dialed back and the money diverted to much more important threats. I'd like to explain why I believe this. There are two reasons, both tied to politics. No politician wants a plane hijacked on their "watch...