While all eyes have been on the two hurricanes, the wildfire smoke is still impacting many areas. It is quite visible today on the GOES images. The fires in the NW Territories of Canada this summer have released around 277 times the amount of carbon that area of Canada emitted in 2021! I’ve been a synoptic meteorologist for 43 years, and I’ve never...

An atmospheric river is a plume of moisture that often shows up well on Satellite images over large oceans. If I see one associated with a storm, I know that it will likely be a very wet one with increased rainfall. There are a few famous ones as well, like the Pineapple Connection which will sometimes bring tropical air from the Equatorial Pacific...

NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center issued a Severe Thunderstorm Watch Wednesday afternoon, but this one was special. Severe Thunderstorm Watch #33 for parts of Oklahoma and North Texas was issued by NOAA’s Elizabeth Leitman. It was the FIRST NOAA watch issued by a woman at the SPC. Elizabeth Leitman has wanted to have this job since she was in middle school....

Last week I saw the news about this balloon from China passing over Montana, and when the Defense Department said it was from China, I thought, let’s see if it was! Turns out NOAA has a numerical weather model called the NOAA-HYSPLIT which will backward forecast (based on what the winds aloft were) to show you where the air over you now was a few days...

In case you were wondering… IF Bonnie has a recognizable circulation (Tropical Depression), into the Pacific, and then regenerates, the name Bonnie will continue to be used by the National Hurricane Center. If it falls apart to a disturbance, and then regenerates, then a Pacific cyclone name will be assigned. I must say, this makes scientific sense...

Good piece here at NASA. It’s a widespread myth that climate models are not very good. In fact, they do an amazing job, and it is fairly straightforward to test them. The bad news is what they predict if our CO2 levels go to 800 ppm: Whole different planet. https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/