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Posts by Thea Sandmael

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TORP - PHI tornado plumes with the ongoing textbook-looking supercell in northern OK

1 month ago 8 0 0 0

Send me an email, and I’ll give you access!

5 months ago 2 0 1 0
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I’m sorry; fake damage reports are NOT funny

11 months ago 2 0 0 0
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Stand Up for NOAA Research – The Time to Act is Now The AMS is a global community committed to advancing weather, water, and climate science and service.

The 2026 budget passback plan calls for eliminating NOAA Research, the scientific backbone that keeps weather forecasts, alerts, and warnings accurate and effective. This would have disastrous consequences.

Read the AMS statement, in partnership w/ @nwas.org: bit.ly/4cz2RtC

1 year ago 848 491 25 33
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BalancedWx Special: Perspective on the NOAA budget passback A proposed sea change to the US meteorological science enterprise

Thanks to @edwardsanthonyb.bsky.social and SFChronicle for sharing the full NOAA FY26 budget passback. After a detailed reading, think it is important for people to really understand just what massive changes are planned for US weather forecasting and research.

open.substack.com/pub/balanced...

1 year ago 125 60 4 7
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NOAA NSSL/OU CIWRO TORP tornado probabilities have been maxing out for quite a while with this storm. Extreme AzShear values! #iawx

1 year ago 7 0 0 0

On today’s episode of “He’s Tearing This S**t Up”—Trump plans to dismantle NOAA, shutting down climate research and weather labs.​

In Texas, that means fewer hurricane warnings, less drought data, & more risk to our communities.​

This isn’t just a budget cut—it’s a threat to our safety.

1 year ago 3061 865 228 45
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BalancedWx Special: Reports that Trump Administration plans massive cuts to NOAA Intent to eliminate NOAA Research and move space weather prediction to DHS

I wrote a post with my perspectives on the reports today about NOAA's FY26 budget passback and the implications. I will admit this was really hard to write - it's almost inconceivable to me that we are really doing this.
open.substack.com/pub/balanced...

1 year ago 29 14 2 5
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TORP tornado probability tracks for the April 2 outbreak. Wonder how many tornadoes will be in the final count once damage surveying is complete.

1 year ago 63 5 1 0

And forecasters said that it still added value, even when it’s assigning low probabilities relative to storms in the rest of the country!

1 year ago 1 0 1 0

Love to hear that! We are currently limited to running 10 radars at a time in real time, and we base the domain on SPC outlooks, so the Plains is in focus today. In general and objectively, it’s not great in the west due to limited training data, but we did include a CA case in the testbed last year

1 year ago 1 0 1 0

In the last 5 years (2020-2024), the NWS Sacramento weather office has issued a total of 8 tornado warnings, with an average of 2 warnings per year.

1 year ago 1 0 0 0
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Rare California tornado warning! #cawx

1 year ago 6 0 2 0
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My friend in Amber, OK got some large hail today, one looks like over 3 inches. This was after about 20-30 min of melting! #okwx

1 year ago 3 0 0 0
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I don’t think they ended up with actual tornadoes, but they did have a couple of weakly rotating storms, which is also really uncommon up there!

1 year ago 1 0 0 0
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An interesting case where TORP tornado probabilities did not get noticeably impacted by a temporary decreasing trend in AzShear #txwx #lawx

1 year ago 5 0 0 0

It’s a very interesting setup!

I actually had a similar experience to yours back home in Norway a few years back after the weather service there issued a “tornado watch” for the first time.

1 year ago 1 0 0 0
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We have enough rotation to trigger the TORP algorithm! Probabilities are low #wawx

1 year ago 10 2 0 0

Yes! TORP’s skillful range goes out to 160 km. I believe Vancouver BC is about 125 km from KATX.

1 year ago 1 0 1 0
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Pretty sure this is the first time we have a real-time TORP tornado probability domain in this region of the country. Excited to see how TORP does for potential non-landspout cases in Western Region!

1 year ago 8 0 2 0
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TORP tornado probability tracks from select radars for the March 14-16 severe weather outbreak.

1 year ago 14 1 0 0

This is horrible to post, but I may as well post it. We are essentially shutting down research operations in my group, which is focused on treatments for pediatric brain cancer. I’m a well funded investigator, and there’s no choice. Science can’t function without the stability of NIH

1 year ago 26665 10726 712 804

A fire burned through our Lake Carl Blackwell Mesonet site around 3:41-3:45pm. One of our thermometers measured a 1-minute average temperature of 173 F at 3:42pm. The 2 meter anemometer is now reporting 0, which indicates that it likely was completely melted. #okwx #okmesonet

1 year ago 101 49 1 5
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Experimental CIWRO/NSSL TORP probabilities close to 100% as the storm moved through Saint Louis. Not good.

1 year ago 7 0 0 0
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Update: it’s blown about 15 ft and fence is broken. Neighbor’s gutter was halfway torn down and bent.

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Our shed just blew over in SW OKC 😳 #okwx

1 year ago 5 0 2 0
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SPC has issued an incredibly rare Day 2 High Risk for Mississippi and Alabama. Tornado outbreak appears likely.

www.stormscale.io/spc/convecti...

1 year ago 23 8 1 1
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I get some of my tornado and severe weather research data from this website. Does this also mean we get no new official tornado reports since Storm Data entry will be down..?

1 year ago 7 2 1 2