Today's Dallas Morning News  has a scathing column criticizing Texas' officials for failure to protect the state against the "predictable" harsh winter storm. They are correct: ERCOT and Texas officials deserve all of the blame that can be reasonably laid at their boots.  But, the newspaper curiously doesn't accept any of the blame. Should they? I think so.  This blog has covered the superb forecasts of an extreme weather event and even warned Texas the effects would be like a hurricane. Yet, here is the front page of the Dallas Morning News  Sunday, which was hours before all hell broke loose. See anything missing? Me, too .  Obviously, the Morning News'  editors underestimated the impending extreme weather in spite of the excellent forecasts and storm warnings. Below is a screenshot from this blog from 10am Saturday. Most all of Texas was under a winter storm warning and the rest was under a winter storm watch (all the way to the Gulf coast) but the warn...

While sometimes Zerohedge's articles are sometimes ridiculous, this one is important . Yes, at least for the time being, Texas is a third-world country.  And, as usual, FEMA is clueless. Posted Wednesday afternoon. By the time Washington's "preparing" is finished, the giant generators needed now  will be unnecessary because the power will be back on. My over/under is Saturday 4pm.  Remember the great respirator fiasco of 2020 ? Washington went crazy, forcing (via the Defense Supply Act) manufacturers to build respirators for COVID treatment that were, in many cases, actually harmful to patients. I suspect Washington has shipped these millions of respirators off to a giant warehouse where "top men" will make plans to eventually give them away at McDonalds ("buy a burger, get a respirator").  FEMA is operating in its usual precision mode : The spokesperson could not say where the generators had been sent.  Based on weather forecasts and storm warning...

Big Environment is striving mightily to convince us the catastrophic failure of wind energy in Texas during the Cold Wave of 2021 was trivial or even a good thing. Really. It is a clever, sophisticated effort to deflect from the significant role wind energy had in the crisis. In order to understand the public relations blitz, please consider this analogy: Suppose you had an unreliable car that only started two days in winter.  You would hate it.   But, suppose a shady organization wanted to sell more of those unreliable cars. They would say, "We only expected the car to start one day a week in winter. The fact it started two days is great. Twice as good as we thought!" The above analogy is exactly applicable to wind energy's failure in Texas. Consider this quote from The New Republic's  reporting on the wind power failure in Texas. Less important than whether a certain generation source is running at any given point is whether the grid managers   expect   ...

Rush was a self-made man who loved America and the American dream.  May he rest in peace.  I stumbled onto the Rush Limbaugh Show by accident.   I was driving through western Kansas to give a speech in August, 1988, and was listening to our client radio station out of Garden City, KS. The brand new Rush Limbaugh Show (it was his first week) came on. While I’d never heard of him, I was instantly charmed. He was giving voice to conservative -- as opposed to traditional Republican — ideas. Other than Ronald Reagan, most conservatives of the era were rather dour. The Rush Limbaugh Show was upbeat and highly entertaining. I became an instant fan.  We were both Missouri boys born in the early 1950's and even worked for the same radio station in Kansas City at different times.   Rush was the quintessential American success story and the embodiment of the American dream. He will never be replaced. 

This is an index of drought/wetness conditions across the United States for the period ending this past Saturday (13th). You can compared it to the January 25 data, here . 

There is a significant risk of tornadoes in the yellow area. It includes New Orleans. Please monitor the weather in this area throughout the day.  With regard to the winter storm, here is a summary of National Weather Service warnings and watches: Color code: Purple = ice storm warning Pink = winter storm warning Dark green (New England) = winter storm watch Blue = winter weather advisory (lesser condition than a warning) Green = freezing fog advisory Here is where the freezing rain and subsequent icing will be worst. And, here is a forecast of snow amounts. The pinks start at six inches.  To focus in on the Northeast, here is a more specific snow forecast: To help you time the arrival of the storm, here is a very useful tool from AccuWeather. Here is the radar as of 11:38am. Blues are falling snow with darker shades indicating heavier snow. Salmon colors are freezing rain. Greens are ordinary rain. 

Governor Abbott received the award for being a booster of wind energy.  I wonder if anyone has taken it out of his trophy case?