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...

Good Friday morning. I have bumped yesterday's post (below) about cuts to the NWS to the top of the blog and am adding the information in blue pertaining to yesterday's cuts. These points are in no order. Please note: if you scroll down, you find that the reference to cuts was in the context of public safety.  No public safety cuts have been made.  I am aware of cuts made to the NWS during the Obama Administration. I have been sounding the alarm about increasingly serious issues in the NWS for 14 years!  Where was everyone who is complaining now when all of this began? Or, is this merely politics to the critics? The USA is $38 trillion  in debt which is going to sink us all unless stopped! Cuts must be made, even to things we like.  No cuts affecting public safety were made yesterday. Yes, provisionary jobs at the tsunami warning centers (TWC) were cut. However, TWCs are a mess. The Pacific tsunami warning center is in Honolulu and the Atlantic center is located...

In the middle is a parachute and, at lower left, the instrument package that measures temperature, humidity and GPS location. It's location is measured to  derive wind speed and direction.  We have discussed that the NWS is so under-resourced that it cannot perform its core mission. Another domino fell today.  You might say, "Who cares, Alaska is a long way away." The problem is that the weather moves throughout the world.  Below is a current weather satellite image showing a storm moving into southeast Alaska and western Canada.  That storm is forecast to be over the middle of the nation in five days. Already, the NWS's Storm  Prediction Center is flagging the potential for significant tornadoes in the gold area for Tuesday and Tuesday night. I believe this is the 4th weather balloon station in the United States we have lost due to resource issues.  If we want to have any kind of accuracy in forecasts beyond about 2 days, we must have quality worldwi...

I didn't realize Great Britain ate a lot of kebabs. Learn something new every day. 

Another well-known and respected meteorologist has written an essay (not going to name him) expressing concerns about the future of the National Weather Service and that is just fine.  Among other things, he wrote: I would encourage them and all of you to support my colleagues at the National Weather Service during this time. Their service is absolutely invaluable.  I agree. However, as far as I can tell -- and I did a web search just before writing this -- there are no proposals to cut the National Weather Service.  President Trump has publicly said he doesn't support making cuts in this area.  That said, there are plenty of reasons to cut or redirect how parent agency NOAA spends its money. While the NWS field offices are understaffed and the entire organization has so little money that it cannot perform its mission successfully, NOAA is busy handing out eight-figure "grants" for climate "education" and other projects with, as far as I can tell, no accountab...

“Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends,” says Jesus (John 15:13). We just learned that Father Emil Kapaun's cause for sainthood has just taken another step. He is now "Venerable" which is the second of the four-step path to being named an official saint. Fr. Kapaun was a Kansan from the little town of Pilsen (north of Wichita) who became the parish priest at St. John Nepomucene in Pilsen. After a few years he felt called to serve in the U.S. military. During the Korean War, as a POW, he gave his life to save his fellow prisoners. The story of his life is here .  In March 2021, his body was found -- in remarkably good condition -- and identified. A genuine Catholic funeral mass could finally be held -- in a full 5,000 seat arena and to a national television audience on EWTN. I mention that because of the priest's incredible story of self-sacrifice has been recognized nationally due to the work of the survivors of that inhumane ...

With a National Disaster Review Board to hold agencies related to disaster forecasting and response accountable, this likely doesn't happen. 

Dr. Richard Spinrad Just-departed NOAA administrator Dr. Richard Spinrad has posted a piece on his LinkedIn account pertaining to NOAA and the Trump Administration’s ongoing efforts to tackle America’s $37 trillion-dollar deficit. His comments are reproduced in their entirety below. To my knowledge, so far, no cuts to weather forecasting or NOAA have been proposed by Elon Musk's DOGE or President Trump nor has the "elimination" of NOAA been proposed.    Dr. Spinrad writes:  Before modern NOAA existed … an unforecasted hurricane hit Galveston in 1900 destroying the city and killing about 8,000 people.  He went on to write -- with remarkable chutzpah --  So go ahead Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump, fire those NOAA employees and cut the agency’s budget, but have the guts to stand up and take the hit for the deaths and destruction that result…”   My reply: In 2011, 41 years after NOAA was created, a wrongly-forecast EF-5 tornado struck the city of Joplin, Missouri, kil...

It isn't your imagination they are often/always broken at many locations. Here are the details . 

Wall Street Journal Sheesh.  In order to make this type of calculation, one would have to be able to forecast the weather 50 years from now, which is impossible. The Journal  is showing the remains of the Los Angeles wildfires which had nothing to do with global warming . 

The NWS forecast for the Northwest shows a wet week ahead. The rain/snow is needed in many areas. 

Yesterday, we talked about Dr. Ryan Maue's proposals to reform the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Please scroll down for his thoughts.  Today, I'd like to bring to your attention  Dr. Cliff Mass's thoughts on reforming NOAA . He talks about the numerous issues facing the agency: I've looked at dozens of NOAA's grants involving DEI and climate change. Many millions  are spent on grants to third-party contractors on ill-defined projects that do nothing to improve our knowledge of the oceans or atmosphere and nothing to do with forecasting the same. Meanwhile the NWS is starved of resources -- with offices that have been well below prescribed staffing for more than a year. Weather balloons are not getting launched and other vital observations of the atmosphere are not being made.  Cliff also discusses why forecast quality has seriously diminished, both on the national level and in the local forecast offices. As he puts it:  And  NOAA i...

Please read Ryan's concise message: Ryan is absolutely correct. As we have said, over and over, NOAA is a mess and, possibly, corrupt. Under Biden, NOAA treated the National Weather Service (NWS) as if it was a bothersome and unimportant brother.  My advice to President Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is that NOAA is not salvageable and that the NWS and weather-related parts of NOAA should be spun into a stand-alone agency. The details of how this would work are here . The additional monies desperately needed by NWS can come by drastically cutting FEMA. Details on my proposal for FEMA are here . Questions? Just post them in the comments. 

There is so much speculation regarding the weather conditions present for the Delta/Endeavor Airlines crash in Toronto, I would like to provide some perspective.  Please take a look at this from earlier this morning: I don't care about the sex of the pilots, I care about their qualifications and abilities.  Ever since the crash, there has been speculation as to the role of wind or crosswinds -- if any -- and the accident. That's why I posted the wind data (below) in my initial report, here .  The three above reports are aviation weather observations called METAR's. While it was a little less at the time the special METAR was taken because of the accident (middle report), there were peak gusts of 37 knots = 42 mph before and after. Some have called these "40 mph" or "extreme" crosswinds (the latter comment from the airport director). Not exactly.  Below is the runway diagram (red) of Toronto - Pearson Airport.  The plane was landing to the southwest (runw...

The pink is a winter storm warning and the purple is a winter weather advisory. Greens are flood warnings. 

The 1:30pm regional radar shows freezing rain moving into Arkansas south of I-40. The ice has caused terrible road conditions when it was in Oklahoma. There is a second oval over eastern Oklahoma and central Arkansas. While there is ice in that area, it is forecast to turn to snow as the afternoon progresses.  The darker blue shades of radar correspond to heavier falling snow. The area outlined in blue (red arrows) is where the heaviest snow is expected to fall between now and 6pm CST. This corresponds well to ongoing forecasts.  I apologize for not having a forecast up. A number of unexpected things have occurred today and I do not believe I will be able to update the forecast this afternoon. Thank you for understanding. 

I hate this!! RealFeel temperature of -27°F with snow falling.  Question answered: In the U.S.A., it can't get "too cold to snow."  Let's warm things up with a little Santana salsa by the great Lexington Lab Band.  I will update the forecast as soon as I can get it done. 

The forecast is essentially the same: a dry, blowable snow that will drift during extremely cold weather  The map above shows the snowfall from now until 7pm EST Wednesday. Heavy snow of a foot or more likely from southeast Kansas into the Ozarks. From southeast Kansas into northern Oklahoma, near blizzard conditions are possible.  Below are forecast temperatures for 8am Tuesday.  Wind chills in the area of the heavier snows will run from -12°F to -25°F.  Below is the snow as of 10:20pm Monday. 

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,...

Dangerous Cold + Heavy Snow, Drifting in Places, Make for a  Terrible Travel Combination This forecast still looks good as of  3:40pm CST.  The combination of fluffy, dry snow (which can blow around more than usual) and extreme cold will make today through Friday extremely dangerous, especially for activities like shoveling snow. Above are the total snow amounts with the latest weather system. There could be an area of as much as 12 to 14 inches  Forecast Radar at 8am Tuesday The snow may begin as sleet in Oklahoma but the sleet should end quickly. From southeast Kansas into western Oklahoma, there will be wind gusts as high as 25 mph which -- given the fluffy character of the snow -- will cause drifting.  Forecast Radar at 5pm Tuesday Forecast Radar at 8am Wednesday Forecast Wind Chill at 6pm Wednesday There is also the potential for power outages. Please prepare for this combination of snow and extreme cold. 

The 2025 National Storm Chaser Summit ended earlier today in Overland Park, a suburb of Kansas City. It was a huge success with educational sessions, interesting company sponsors (yes, that's is a full-size tornado siren below) and -- for the first time -- a session for students and their parents for kids interested in meteorology. I met students from as far away as Tennessee.   TV news story chase vehicle. Behind it is a mobile Doppler radar.  Not only did we learn a lot, we got to meet the next generation of meteorologists and storm chasers.  I'm with Alex, a brilliant young man who will do great things in our field. Over my right shoulder is "the legend," Dave Hoadley. Dave was the very first scientific storm chaser, even before our 1972 meeting at the University of Oklahoma. The range in storm chasing captured in a single photo.  For readers of this blog and my Tweets/X messages ( @usweatherexpert) , I learned several bits of new science which will allow me to do...

Extreme cold is moving into the Lower 48 states. In addition to travel and  logistics issues, I am concerned about power outages.  No change in this forecast indicated as of 3:30pm CST. The NWS watch/warning maps have been updated.  Above is a forecast of below normal temperatures (i.e., -40.0 = 40°F below normal) for Tuesday night. The extreme cold will move south and east. As of 3:30pm Sunday, here's a depiction of National Weather Service watches/warnings: Color code: Orange = blizzard warning Pink = winter storm warning Light brown = high wind warning  Bright green = flood warning  Dark blue = winter storm watch  Purple = winter weather advisory  Dark brown = high wind advisory  Here is a map of current power failures (3:30pm): There are more than a million people  without power.  Let's focus on the central U.S. as the snow and cold event will cause major  disruptions.  Starting Monday, heavy snow will begin with plummeting...