A woman with long brown hair standing in front of a scientific poster.
I am immensely proud of my graduate student, @morgancrows.bsky.social, who successfully defended her M.S. thesis this afternoon! Congratulations, Morgan, and look out, world!
Screenshot of a Substack post by Dr Sam Illingworth: Training GPT-4 consumed roughly 150 million litres of water. Microsoft's carbon emissions have risen 23% since 2020, driven almost entirely by AI infrastructure. We are using the most energy-intensive technology ever created to summarise emails and write LinkedIn posts. Every prompt has an environmental cost. Who is asking whether the output was worth it?
Source: substack.com/@samillingwo...
Photo of a “Libman tornado mop” for sale at a store.
Picture of the mop, close up and reversed
Fujita diagram of a microburst, showing winds twisting downward in a helix, then spreading out upon reaching the surface.
The so-called “tornado mop” looks more like a “microburst mop” to me. (Diagram by Dr. Ted Fujita.)
I’m also not sure I would want a tornado to clean my house. They tend to spray debris and crud around.
Upside down tho
A group of people standing in front of a radar
Feeling immense gratitude for the staff of NWS Indianapolis, for letting my radar class visit their office on this cold, rainy Saturday!
Many students who participated in the NWC REU are now in positions of stature within atmospheric science. The costs accrued over the cancelled participants’ futures and the future of our discipline writ large are incalculable.
I enjoyed visiting Purdue this week, during which I gave a seminar on the great modeling work at GSL and had great discussions with students, postdocs, and faculty. Thanks to @meteodan.bsky.social for inviting me, to @tornatrix.bsky.social for the picture, and to everyone for their hospitality!
I have two colleagues who are often mistaken for one another. They fought back by leaning into it. They introduce themselves verbally as “Hi, I am not Person B, but Person A” and caption their intro slides “Person A (Not Person B)” etc. It seems to be working.
This is a nightmare radar setup for a meteorologist to warn for! The velocity field is so dirty; high velocity signatures don't necessarily line up with other fields in a way that suggest tornadoes. Some of it is probably sidelobe contamination; debris ball lookalikes popping up left and right! 😱
Is that a reflection off a nearby tower, KDVN, or are you just happy to see me?
Tornadoes were confirmed near Rochester as a wave of storms rolled through southeast Minnesota. www.startribune.com/tornadoes-co...
🎥 Minnesota Department of Transportation
Quick severe wx setup over C IL/W IN today:
CAMs persist storm cluster over C IL->NW IN 22Z
Moisture ✅ Warm sector dewpts > 60 F
Lift ✅ OFB reinforcing the warm front
Instability ✅ C IL mesoanalysis > 1000 J/kg, with ~ 4 hrs of ☀️ left to go
Shear ✅ 0-6 km shear > 70 kts approaching from the W
Typhoon Sinlaku reaches the Mariana Islands bringing destructive winds and heavy rain.
PGUA’s blockage patterns literally could not be worse for the Mariana Islands rn #TyphoonSinlaku
They flew 600,000+ miles around the Moon and they landed exactly when and where engineers expected them to land.
Every day we're bombarded with all the terrible things humans are capable of doing--following this mission from launch to landing proved that humans are still capable of wonder, too.
After having been stymied by the Congressional budgeting process last year, I wonder how Vought & Co. plan to make an end run around the legislative branch this year?
Waning gibbous moon against a black sky. From NASA’s Dial-A-Moon web site.
Walking the dog at 5:30 am, the clouds parted just long enough for me to get a clear view of the gibbous moon. 🌖 My thoughts wandered to the four humans out there in a metal container, truly representing the best of us. That’s pretty flippin’ cool. #ArtemisII
Image from NASA’s Dial-A-Moon.
MINUTE ORDER. The Court has reviewed the parties briefing related to plaintiffs Motion for Expedited Briefing Schedule and Limited Discovery (ECF Nos. 19, 21, 22). The Court finds that there is a good cause for an expedited briefing schedule but, assuming that the stewardship of the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center will not take place before the hearing, not as expedited as plaintiff requests. If that assumption is incorrect, please so indicate, and the Court with hold a Temporary Restraining Order hearing forthwith. The Court sets the following briefing schedule. Defendants response to the Motion for a Preliminary Injunction is due April 22nd. Plaintiffs reply is due April 30th. The Court will hold a preliminary injunction hearing, assuming one is necessary, on May 7th at 9:00 a.m. Plaintiff also requests the expedited discovery of two categories of communications from three individuals between December 1, 2025 and the present related to NSFs purported decision to transfer stewardship of NWSC. At this juncture, this portion of plaintiffs motion is DENIED. The discovery requests relate to the underlying agency rationale for the transfer. In other words, they pertain to plaintiffs claim that the action was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 USC 706(2)(A). However, as defendants point out, a reviewing court is ordinarily limited to evaluating the agencys contemporaneous explanation in light of the existing administrative record. Dept of Commerce v. New York, 588 U.S. 752, 780 (2019). The only narrow exception to the general rule against inquiring into the mental processes of administrative decisionmakers is upon a strong showing of bad faith or improper behavior. Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Presumably, the communications that plaintiff seeks are not part of the administrative record, and therefore, ordering defendants to produce them at this juncture would be inappropriate.
Update in the NCAR case: Hearing about a prelim injunction is scheduled for May 7, but the plaintiff's motion for discovery (i.e. rationale for NSF's actions) is denied for now. www.courtlistener.com/docket/72496...
#weatherpicofday
OTD 23 years ago, April 5, 2003,
Jim Bishop, Tom Santillo, and I chased a significant supercell and tornado near Aspermont, Texas. The storm produced an incredible swath of massive hail across North Texas causing nearly a billion dollars in damage to DFW Airport. #TXwx
Screenshot of a Substack post from Dr. Sam Illingworth that reads, “A child who grows up with AI answering every question will never learn the patience of not knowing. The discomfort of sitting with a question used to be developmental. You asked something. Nobody answered immediately. You sat with it. Sometimes the answer came. Sometimes it did not. Both were useful. Instant answers do not teach patience. They teach that all questions have solutions. Most of the important ones do not.”
I wish @samillingworth.com would post on BlueSky more. His Slow AI Substack is one of my favorites, and absolutely worth the time spent reading. open.substack.com/pub/theslowai
a cloud is tied to a chair while 3 people smirk
One for @ianlivingston.bsky.social (by Roland High)
Ah, this is nice.
Particularly since someone else is doing the driving. Driving in Japan is not for the faint of heart.
youtu.be/Ar2gh0E1csY
Filmmaker told me that verbally at dinner last night but didn’t give a specific date. I’ll ask and get back to you.
He’s all over the exhibit! My former boss looks so different with his glasses off. I suspect they made him remove them to avoid reflections / glare.
There will be additional screenings of this particular film in Champaign and Bloomington, IL later this spring: www.abriefhistory.online
Theatergoers looking toward a screen that reads, in part, “Science on Screen: Watching the Weather”
I was in Chicago to introduce a film called “A Brief History of Chasing Storms” to a nearly full theater at Northwestern U’s Block Museum. It was a fun evening. A new & completely unsuspecting audience did the VCP dance. More wx-related films to come: www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu/cinema/cinem...
ICYMI: along with massive cuts to wx/climate research in FY2027 proposed budget including again wanting to eliminate NOAA Research, WH is already reducing science through budget tactics like NOAA only executing 7 (yes, 7) new grants this year compared to 379 samt time last yr. tinyurl.com/5e3ptub2
A woman pointing at a funnel cloud in a large vortex chamber.
In other news, I poked a tornado today.
A projected video showing a radar image in the top half and a grimacing woman in a blue raincoat in the bottom half.
For almost two decades, friends have told me that I’m in a video in the storms exhibit at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Today, I finally saw it for the first time.
Of course, it HAD to be my RSF (ratchet strap face) clip.
I estimate it has played ~2 million times. 🤦♀️
