NOAA GOES 18 weather satellite’s Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) instrument detected the atmospheric re-entry of NASA’s Artemis II Orion capsule over the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and southern California just before 23:56 GMT — too cool! #ArtemisII #NASA #NOAA
Science is good. We should fund it.
Reminder
A full disc image of Earth, as seen from the Orion Crew Module. The planet is a pale blue, swirling with white clouds and glowing slightly lighter blue in place from reflected light. At lower left, a large brown landmass is Africa, with Spain and Portugal with twinkling lights where the planet curves. At top right, auroras glow in a thin green glow, just barely separated from the planet's surface. Earth is set against the black of space (pic: NASA/R.Wiseman)
More context on this #Artemis II image:
* This is the night side, lit by moonlight. You can see city lights in Spain & Portugal, & a sliver of day at lower right
* The Sun is entirely behind Earth, which makes it a kind of solar eclipse, but w/ Earth doing the eclipsing instead of the Moon:
☀️🌍🚀🌕
GOES-19 and GOES-18 captured the prominent exhaust plume left behind by Artemis II when it launched from Florida today.
Atmospheric winds dissipated the plume as sunset approached.
Tonight marks 5 years since the Newnan, GA EF4 tornado. I'm so thankful that the tornado missed my brother's home (by less than a mile). I'm keeping the family of the one person who passed in my thoughts.
Obligatory excited gardener post, since these are the first blooms in my yard this year!
It looks a lot like friction-based shoreline convergence you get in lake-effect snow events. The water-air temperature difference looks large enough to support this, too.
The Gulf of St. Lawrence is beautiful from on the ground, too - in both winter and summer. Photos are from the north shore of PEI, near where my husband grew up.
The full complaint is worth a read. There are several additional overreaches in there that I wasn't previously aware of.
JUST IN: A consortium of universities filed a lawsuit Monday to stop the Trump administration’s planned dismantling of Boulder’s NCAR, alleging that the planned reorganization violates the Constitution and federal law.
For those short on time, I had Claude do an executive summary of the entire lawsuit and I thought it did a good job (though, if you do have time, the source material is better).
Today's cold and damp weather motivated me to get my St. Patrick's Day cooking done early. Guinness beef stew and two loaves of Irish soda bread. ☘️🇮🇪
On the good news side for #saveNCAR, last week the Senate science committee reported the Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Reauthorization Act of 2026 (S. 3923) with a @rosen.senate.gov amendment to block NSF from breaking up NCAR for at least 60 days.
The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is a cornerstone of U.S. weather science. AMS urges a transparent, community-driven review before restructuring such critical infrastructure.
Read our response to NSF's "Dear Colleague Letter": https://bit.ly/4bglx16
News: Congressman Neguse of Boulder CO region says whistleblower reported to him that OMB is already negotiating specific transfers of pieces of NCAR to private companies, raising legal/ethical issues and undermining NSF process of requesting input on NCAR reorganization. tinyurl.com/2s4jftv3
We might be talking about a different hail record than just the Illinois state record…
Reminder for everyone to submit your response to the NSF DCL about NCAR by this Friday! Tell your friends. Also call your representatives while you’re at it 😅 agu.quorum.us/campaign/154...
70s on Monday and freezing rain today. Yep, it's spring in the Midwest.
An impressive view of the tornadic supercell that produced massive hail in Illinois earlier today.
Quote by Dr. Carlos Martinez, Senior Scientist at UCS:“UCS strongly urges NSF to preserve NCAR as an intact national research center...recognizing that dismantling or fragmenting this proven model would undermine one of the nation’s most important scientific institutions."
The NSF has provided no evidence to justify dismantling the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Doing so would undermine one of the nation’s most vital scientific institutions. @ncar-ucar.bsky.social
Read the letter UCS submitted today:
🔗 act.ucsusa.org/3NeWZh1
First 70 degree day of the year! I celebrated by wearing shorts and going for a long walk.
Weather Analysis and Forecasting / Numerical Weather Prediction Conference Student Travel Grant Awards Student presentations selected as part of the 34WAF/30NWP conferences have the option of being judged, with a $50 award going to the top 3 oral and poster presentations in each conference (12 awards total). Also, once abstracts have been submitted, the WAF/NWP committee will offer three $375 travel grants to students whose abstracts have been accepted. Students who wish to be considered for a travel grant must send the following documents to the program chairs (austin.coleman@noaa.gov, john.lind@noaa.gov, jbravo2@stevens.edu, and tomer@windbornesystems.com) no later than Friday, April 3rd, 2026: Statement of why they wish to attend the WAF/NWP conferences - Statement of commitment to attend if they receive the travel grant - Letter of support from their advisor - Ensure that you have submitted an abstract to the WAF or NWP conferences before the abstract submission deadline
Hi everyone! With the abstract submission deadlines for the 2026 AMS Madison Joint Summit coming up, wanted to advertise these student award and travel opportunities available via the AMS WAF/NWP conferences. Feel free to spread the word to any interested students!
This was a wonderfully nerdy way to spend the evening! My husband and I saw this performed live at Midland Center for the Arts.
svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14341/
Satellite imagery captured the storm that produced a destructive tornado in southern Michigan this afternoon.
Page 2 of letter by Daniel Swain. It begins: constructive suggestions regarding how the already remarkable institutional efficiency and societal impact of NCAR could be further enhanced through increased (not decreased) federal support in the years to come. Please note: To ensure the highest level of technical rigor, this response focuses exclusively on the core atmospheric and natural hazard science topics within the author’s primary domain of expertise; for this reason, I have omitted a response to Topic 4 (Space Weather)." NCAR weather modeling and atmospheric observing capabilities a) Management and operations of weather-related observational platforms, modeling and science as a stand-alone activity. The proposed management of weather-related research as a stand-alone activity is a scientifically regressive path that ignores the fundamental physical reality of the Earth system. Modern atmospheric science has demonstrated (largely, it is worth noting, due to groundbreaking researc
Page 3 of letter by Daniel Swain. It begins: b) Management and operations of weather-related observational platforms, modeling and science as combined with other NSF investments/facilities. The highly specialized nature of the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center (NWSC) infrastructure represents an extraordinary value proposition that cannot be replicated by combining it with more generalized NSF programs. The NWSC is not a generic high-performance computing (HPC) facility; it is a laboratory uniquely optimized for atmospheric science workflows, with a hardware and storage architecture specifically designed to handle the massive, high-bandwidth data demands of Earth system modeling. Furthermore, its model of providing an excellent, free-at-point-of-use technical support team ensures that the focus remains on the science rather than the overhead of systems administration. This centralized expertise allows individual researchers, smaller labs, and even entire universities—who would otherwi
Page 4 of letter by Daniel Swain. It begins: NCAR Mesa Lab (located in Boulder, Colorado) a/b) Ownership of the NSF NCAR Mesa Lab building for public and private use. Far more than just an office building, NSF NCAR Mesa Lab is an iconic and purpose-built facility designed specifically for the study of atmospheric science. Its position at the physical interface of the Rocky Mountain foothills and the Great Plains is a deliberate reflection of its mission, serving as a visible symbol—in an iconically American setting—of the federal government's enduring commitment to science in service of society. For many in the field, including myself, the Mesa Lab holds singular importance as a focal gathering point for the global atmospheric science community. My own early career exposure to weather and Earth system modeling, in fact, occurred within these walls, and I have long felt that the facility’s architecture and location inspire a necessary sense of awe regarding the atmosphere’s complexity a
Page 1 of letter by Daniel Swain. It begins: Dear Acting Director Stone and the NSF NCAR restructuring team: I am writing to provide a formal response to the Request for Information (RFI) regarding the proposed restructuring of the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and its critical weather science infrastructure contained within the January 23, 2026 Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) entitled “NSF Intent to Restructure Critical Weather Infrastructure.” I submit these comments in my professional capacity as an atmospheric research scientist within the University of California, where my research focuses on the physics and dynamics of atmospheric processes related to extreme weather events and their role in shifting natural hazard and disaster risk. My perspective is informed by a public-sector career dedicated to bridging the gap between fundamental atmospheric research and real-world application in an academic context, with a particular focus on understanding and mitigating
I just submitted my letter to NSF responding to its proposal to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). I argue that doing so would be an astonishing and avoidable misstep, and that federal support for the institution should in fact be *increased.* [1/4]
KH and some turbulence on this sunny first day of meteorological spring.
The Trump administration plans to dismantle NSF’s National Center for Atmospheric Research, potentially closing its main lab in Boulder.
UCS's @carlonimbus.bsky.social explains how NCAR keeps us safe and how you can help protect it.
Take action: act.ucsusa.org/4ceWei9
I'm easily entertained by patterns in melting snow.
It's an interesting subject! My husband is also a professor, and his research is in differential geometry and topology.
