Yeah, microbursts/cold pools/etc

Rain Bombs A deadly—and growing—global weather phenomenon mystifies scientists.

👀 www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/vi...

we have long known the superior Alabama university is in Huntsville

I’m more bullish on GPU availability as specialized TPUs etc continue to advance. On the other hand the fractured GPU coding situation is also bad and doesn’t help. There was a push 5(?) years ago for domain specific languages that transpiled into CUDA, SYCL, etc, but lots of issues there too

Yes, agreed, but the other problem is the awful (non-existent?) automatic test suites for models. Migrating autonomously (and continuously maintaining two codebases) is a lot harder without one. If I had this project, that would be my first step. Bring models into 2010s code development

The other problem is a structural one: not many good options for using the same code across GPU + CPU means you end up with a lot of duplication or near-duplication. Add to that that most models are written in Fortran (and the CUDA Fortran documentation is Bad), leads to a nasty situation

A very small data point to emphasize this point: I wrote a mesoscale model in CUDA for a grad class project; the CUDA version was about 16x faster than the multicore CPU version for the same results. Models should have been rewritten for GPUs a long time ago, but that expertise costs $$$$ and time

Of course, Unidata has many more projects. This selection are just some of the lesser-known ones. I’m privileged to serve on the Unidata Users Committee, and I cherish getting to interact with the staff and am heartbroken.

This funding gap hurts the full weather enterprise, hurting our ability to forecast weather, improve models, and hurts AI competitiveness.

The Unidata Science Gateway is critical for education, providing resources for faculty and students.

science-gateway.unidata.ucar.edu

THREDDS and the LDM are a critically important part of our weather data distribution pipeline. These data are critical for forecasting.

www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/tds/

UDUNITS makes up the backbone of so much software that touches science and engineering

www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/udu...

Unidata builds AWIPS/CAVE for education, enabling universities to train future forecasters on the software NWS uses.

www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/awi...

The AWS Radar Level II repository? That is Unidata. Millions of $$ rely on this feed, including many in the AI space.

registry.opendata.aws/noaa-nexrad/

Unidata facing an indefinite funding gap is devastating. The people that work there are passionate and amazing, and I am heartbroken.

Unidata manages critical infrastructure in the weather enterprise. Everyone knows NetCDF (a Unidata project), but I want to highlight some lesser known contributions

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

You were right, SatPy has gotten really easy to use! Thanks for sharing this.

Funny thing about climate data. AI companies *need* this data to train their models. Gutting climate data hurts AI competitiveness.

Thank goodness, but this kind of uncertainty is not great, and is going to cause a lot of people (me included!) to reconsider how we access data. I know I’ll be looking to buy more disks the next time I can…

It is hard to know what data are actually affected, but in particular, if the AWS NOAA data are degraded or removed, that is Extremely Bad for forecasters, researchers, and the public. Hurts private industry, especially given the amazing recent development of private sector weather startups.

Every private sector entity dealing with natural catastrophe / weather / climate risk is hugely dependent on the freely available data from NOAA / NASA / USGS / FEMA.

It's quality controlled. It's robust. It's essential.

The private weather / climate enterprise cannot function without it either.

URGENT - IMMEDIATE BROADCAST REQUESTED Tornado Watch Number 46 NWS Storm Prediction Center Norman OK 1225 PM CDT Sat Mar 15 2025 The NWS Storm Prediction Center has issued a * Tornado Watch for portions of Western, Central, and Northern Alabama Southeast Mississippi * Effective this Saturday afternoon and evening from 1225 PM until 800 PM CDT. ...THIS IS A PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION... * Primary threats include... Numerous tornadoes and several intense tornadoes expected Scattered damaging winds and isolated significant gusts to 75 mph likely Scattered large hail and isolated very large hail events to 2.5 inches in diameter likely SUMMARY...Intense supercells capable of producing numerous tornadoes will spread eastward from Mississippi into Alabama this afternoon and evening. Given the very favorable environment, multiple intense to potentially violent tornadoes (EF-3/EF-4+) appear possible. Clusters of thunderstorms and embedded supercells will also pose a threat for severe/damaging winds of 60-75 mph, and large hail around 1.5-2.5 inches in diameter. The tornado watch area is approximately along and 65 statute miles east and west of a line from 20 miles north northeast of Huntsville AL to 55 miles west southwest of Evergreen AL. For a complete depiction of the watch see the associated watch outline update (WOUS64 KWNS WOU6). PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... REMEMBER...A Tornado Watch means conditions are favorable for tornadoes and severe thunderstorms in and close to the watch area. Persons in these areas should be on the lookout for threatening weather conditions and listen for later statements and possible warnings. && OTHER WATCH INFORMATION...CONTINUE...WW 44...WW 45... AVIATION...Tornadoes and a few severe thunderstorms with hail surface and aloft to 2.5 inches. Extreme turbulence and surface wind gusts to 65 knots. A few cumulonimbi with maximum tops to 500. Mean storm motion vector 23040. ...Gleason

WW 0046 Image

SPC PDS Tornado Watch 46
⛈️THIS IS A PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION🌪️
Additional Details Here.

Many different resources and info lists are popping up for federal employees losing or at risk of losing their jobs. This one put a lot of those in one place: git-sci.github.io

It is obvious to anyone who lives somewhere that is impacted by weather that getting rid of the people improving the US’s weather models is bad. We have made much progress over the last 20+ years, and allowing that to stop puts lives and property at risk.

This is fantastic and is exactly the kind of thing that our professional societies should be doing. Well done, AMS.

The official AMS logo.

The AMS is temporarily opening its career services to all who need them, regardless of membership status, and offering dues waivers and meeting registration fee reductions for those impacted by job loss due to changes in the government.

Read more: bit.ly/4gRiHAk

Oh no. Someone tagged all owners of conda-forge packages. It’s a reply-all chain fueled by GitHub.