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Misc Cold Season Complaining

Lovely, lovely: just what we all want soon after 40 folks were killed by severe wx 🤦

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center facility among planned DOGE cuts

The "building lease issue is in flux," a NOAA spokesperson said.

Republican Rep. Tom Cole claims that he intervened and that the center in Norman will not lose its lease.

But the building is still listed, along with hundreds of others, as a target of DOGE's cuts.

abcnews.go.com

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center facility among planned DOGE cuts

A core government facility tracking severe thunderstorms and tornadoes is listed on the DOGE website as a planned office closure.
abcnews.go.com abcnews.go.com
 
GaWx said:
Lovely, lovely: just what we all want soon after 40 folks were killed by severe wx 🤦

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center facility among planned DOGE cuts

The "building lease issue is in flux," a NOAA spokesperson said.

Republican Rep. Tom Cole claims that he intervened and that the center in Norman will not lose its lease.

But the building is still listed, along with hundreds of others, as a target of DOGE's cuts.

abcnews.go.com

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center facility among planned DOGE cuts

A core government facility tracking severe thunderstorms and tornadoes is listed on the DOGE website as a planned office closure.
abcnews.go.com abcnews.go.com
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Followup:

I have what appears to be good news regarding The National Weather Center (thanks to Republican Rep. Tom Cole) that actually predates the Mar 17th ABC article that I posted yesterday by 10 days!

www.oudaily.com

Rep. Tom Cole announces National Weather Center, other Oklahoma federal offices safe from termination

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) announced that three federal offices in Oklahoma, including the National Weather Center, will not be terminated after conversations with President Donald Trump’s administration.
www.oudaily.com www.oudaily.com



Rep. Tom Cole announces National Weather Center, other Oklahoma federal offices safe from termination




“In a statement released Friday afternoon, Cole said that after speaking with the Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency, the National Weather Center in Norman, the Social Security Administration office in Lawton and the Indian Health Service office in Oklahoma City will remain operational in Oklahoma.”

However, this article also has this:

“According to DOGE’s list of terminated property leases, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s office in Norman, Social Security Administration’s office in Lawton and Indian Health Service’s office in Oklahoma City are still listed as having canceled leases.”

That bothered me. So, I decided to go right to the DOGE website, itself, for the first time:


It’s a hard site to go through, but I did it/was worth the time. It said this: “Last updated March 11th, 2025. This will initially be updated weekly”.

I scrolled down to “Contracts”, where it says “Displaying 5356 contract terminations totaling ~$20B in savings”. In there I clicked “View All Contracts”. Under that I scrolled and scrolled and scrolled. I finally found “Dept of Commerce” entries. There are 102 of them. I clicked on all 102 twice to make sure I didn’t miss any. I couldn’t find “The National Weather Center”. So, assuming I did this correctly, it appears it was removed by March 11th.

So, based on my own DOGE website check, I’m concluding that both ABC and the OU Daily didn’t research the DOGE site, itself. Doing what I just did was a bit time consuming and not easy to navigate.

So, combined with what Rep. Cole said, I’m now assuming The National Weather Center has been saved. That’s great news in a sea of a lot of bad news from my perspective.
 
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Blizzard warning touching my county! 12” plus 50mph winds 20 miles away! Sums up my winter!IMG_9887.png
 
Just saw the NHC released their final report on Hurricane Helene. It's about 100 pages long. I remember a few months ago someone citing parts of Western NC getting "1000 year flooding," which I understand is accurate. It got me thinking, "what would a 1000 year tornado outbreak look like?" Supposedly, and April 27, 2011 type outbreak happens about once every 30-40 years. What would an outbreak look like that happened once every 1000 years. Absolutely terrifying to consider the possibilities.
 
NWTENN said:
Just saw the NHC released their final report on Hurricane Helene. It's about 100 pages long. I remember a few months ago someone citing parts of Western NC getting "1000 year flooding," which I understand is accurate. It got me thinking, "what would a 1000 year tornado outbreak look like?" Supposedly, and April 27, 2011 type outbreak happens about once every 30-40 years. What would an outbreak look like that happened once every 1000 years. Absolutely terrifying to consider the possibilities.
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Well tornado outbreaks are harder to quantify. for instance let's take April 27 and say like you said, it's a once every 30-40 year outbreak. Now let's say that the Hackleburg tornado hit Tuscaloosa and then plowed into downtown Birmingham. The Smithville tornado hit downtown Huntsville at peak strength and the Shoal Creek monster turned right quicker along I20 and caught Leeds, Pell City, Oxford/Anniston. If the death toll stands at 2000+, is it still *only* a 30-40 year event?

As bad as Aprl 27th was, the tornadoes largely missed the main population centers and stayed largely over rural areas.
 
Drizzle Snizzle said:
If it only slightly decreases accuracy I guess it's not a big deal ?
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I think we should let our buddy Mack decide as he’s in the N US, and thus this would likely affect him more than just about all others here. What seems like just a slight accuracy decrease to some may actually be a huge accuracy decrease for Mack. His chair snow pics are a vital part of this board, and thus I feel we should show our respect for Mack’s and the chair’s needs for as much accuracy as possible.
 
GaWx said:
I think we should let our buddy Mack decide as he’s in the N US, and thus this would likely affect him more than just about all others here. What seems like just a slight accuracy decrease to some may actually be a huge accuracy decrease for Mack. His chair snow pics are a vital part of this board, and thus I feel we should show our respect for Mack’s and the chair’s needs for as much accuracy as possible.
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I didn't realize launching a balloon was such a labor-intensive process. Granted, I've never seen it, so maybe it is. That said, I wonder if there's an opportunity to make the process better and more efficient, so it doesn't depend so heavily on so much staff labor?
 
Rain Cold said:
I didn't realize launching a balloon was such a labor-intensive process. Granted, I've never seen it, so maybe it is. That said, I wonder if there's an opportunity to make the process better and more efficient, so it doesn't depend so heavily on so much staff labor?
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I think that’s a valid thought to consider. Determining and then implementing a less labor intensive process would make much more sense imho vs the knee-jerk reaction of rushing to make significant cuts by Musk and his very young subordinates who know little or nothing about the intricacies of NWS jobs.
 
GaWx said:
I think that’s a valid thought to consider. Determining and then implementing a less labor intensive process would make much more sense imho vs the knee-jerk reaction of rushing to make significant cuts by Musk and his very young subordinates who know little or nothing about the intricacies of NWS jobs.
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Crazy , millions of Americans who rag on young people now follow the orders of a pre pubescent 19 year old named big balls
 
RBR71 said:
I bet a guy who is able to launch rockets in outer space and safely retrieve stranded astronauts might know a thing or 2 about the weather 🤷‍♂️
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I assume he knows a good amount about wx in general like we do. But does he know the details about the large number of jobs being cut so quickly and what things depend on them? For example, did he have any idea that certain NWS offices would have to reduce the # of daily balloon launches from 2 to 1 due to cuts?
 
Does anyone here have an opinion about Continental tires in general?
 
Continental tires are "OK", they were installed OEM from Mitsubishi, on My outlander, got 50K outta'em with tire rotations Care & Maint.. They **STILL* had decent thread, too the Wear Bars.. Soo..
 
NorthDFWwx said:
Michelin is the gold standard, provided you're willling to splurge for them.

But Continental isn't bad.

It's really Firestone/Bridgestone and the Japanese brands that should be avoided.
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Yeah if money is an issue Continental is acceptable

I had them when I was driving way more than I should have all day and they lasted. I was never gonna buy Michelin then
 
Per ILM.....

1742863649230.png
"Forecast rainfall and drought unfortunately suggest the risk of wildfire will remain higher than normal through the remainder of the spring across eastern portions of North and South Carolina. Wildland Fire Potential Outlooks from the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) state "longer term precipitation deficits are extremely concerning" and additional lightning started fires could become an issue later in the spring."
 
For those of us in the coastal plains of NC/SC this is just another bad outlook. We've been dry since the winter of 2020-2021 only broken by catastrophic floods courtesy of the tropics. The April 7th USDA progress report for wheat is going to be nasty. The wheat crop never really got going due to drought and once it did the snow and cold stunted it further. There's a particularly noteworthy phrase from the March report talking about cattle weights being the lowest in living memory due to slow or no growth of winter graze.

Kinda feels like we're teetering and it won't take much to cause a real problem in the insurance industry with Federal funding questionable.
 
NorthDFWwx said:
Michelin is the gold standard, provided you're willling to splurge for them.

But Continental isn't bad.

It's really Firestone/Bridgestone and the Japanese brands that should be avoided.
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Michelin and their sub-brand General Tire are good. Their lower cost labels BF Goodrich and Uniroyal should be avoided unless they're the offroad oriented BFGs.

Contis are fine. So are most Goodyears. Goodyear still makes the old SRAs and even though they're a compelling price for a name brand stay away. Very loud and wear poorly.

Bridgestone/Firestone is a fine manufacturer. I'd actually put them in between Michelin and Goodyear at the top. Not sure why they would be avoided. They're the largest OE supplier in the world.

Korean/Chinese/Vietnamese brands should be avoided unless you have no other choice. Many of those tires are outright dangerous in poor weather.
 
ChrisAMB said:
For those of us in the coastal plains of NC/SC this is just another bad outlook. We've been dry since the winter of 2020-2021 only broken by catastrophic floods courtesy of the tropics. The April 7th USDA progress report for wheat is going to be nasty. The wheat crop never really got going due to drought and once it did the snow and cold stunted it further. There's a particularly noteworthy phrase from the March report talking about cattle weights being the lowest in living memory due to slow or no growth of winter graze.

Kinda feels like we're teetering and it won't take much to cause a real problem in the insurance industry with Federal funding questionable.
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Maybe a 1986 repeat incoming. The drought was the top national story for a while that summer.
 
JHS said:
Maybe a 1986 repeat incoming. The drought was the top national story for a while that summer.
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This is being compared locally to 2010-2012 but feels more like the "millennium" drought a decade before that. Reality is we're starting with a warmer background state and a huge population increase since then. Groundwater levels are also lower.

Both the Myrtle Beach metro and city of Florence are in tough shape here. MYR because they're already stretched until a surface water treatment facility gets expanded/comes online and Florence has had off and on problems with their surface water plant going all the way back to Hurricane Matthew. They're also highly dependent on water being released from the dams in NC.

From an agricultural standpoint it takes a long time to dry out the soil column like we have and a long time to replenish it. The topsoil is okay at the moment with recent rain but the sub-soils are DRY. Won't take many warm, windy days and spring evapo-transpiration to flash drought us into tears.
 
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