The @dtc-community.bsky.social just released a new call for visitor program proposals targeted at early-career scientists and grad students. The focus is on advancing hierarchical system development principles for NOAA’s modeling systems (which can include MPAS)! dtcenter.org/visitor-prog...

“The storm hit rural Jamaica hardest – people who are poorest, least protected, and historically marginalised. The same communities shaped by slavery, colonial extraction, and racialised policies are now on the frontline of climate disaster.” www.theguardian.com/news/2025/no...

Echoing colleagues: Think before you (re)post. #Melissa is about to impact a relatively poor part of Jamaica. I doubt we will know the true extent of the devastation for days or weeks. Information vacuums fill with disinformation. Expect a lot of “breaking wind” on SM. Map source: World Bank

#Melissa's landfall intensity of 185 mph/892 mb ties it with the Florida Key's Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 as the record minimum pressure of any TC making landfall *anywhere* the NATL basin. I feel for the residents of #Jamaica 😞 Zoomed in G19 visible meso loop courtesy of @cyclonicwx.bsky.social

The western end of Jamaica where #Melissa is projected to make landfall has the least well-built structures of anyplace on the island. Graphic is from a 2021 paper, "Poverty and hurricane risk exposure in Jamaica": www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Hurricane #Melissa Advisory 24: Melissa Now a Category 5 Hurricane. Destructive Winds and Storm Surge and Catastrophic Flooding Will Worsen On Jamaica Through the Day and Into Tonight. http://hurricanes.gov

This is something we cover in week 1-2 of atmospheric thermo by exploring soundings from the tropics, midlats and poles. The tropical tropopause is higher and colder than it is in other locations. And this is a pretty iconic example!

*** JOB OPPORTUNITY AT UNIV OF FLORIDA IN GIS ***

While I’m at the UCAR Member’s meeting, I’m reminding everyone of the internships, workshops, and other student opportunities that they have available! www.ucar.edu/exhibit/stud...

MS position for Fall 2026 available to study Hurricane Ecology w/ me at #UCF and with @jefferybcannon.bsky.social from @thejonesctr.bsky.social! Funded half time as a TA and half as an RA. See web for details: tinyurl.com/9pm33ttt Please RT and share with your bright undergrads!!

Here is a 4-day track summary of Hurricanes #Humberto and #Imelda, showcasing an example of the #Fujiwhara Effect. They approached and interacted with each other, coming within 465 miles, but did not complete an orbit around a common center or merge before moving back away from each other. [1/4]

Please share with anyone who cares about NSF support for graduate students and take 30 seconds to sign and leave a comment. The deadline for the 2025 Graduate Research Fellowship Program is about one month away and literally no one can apply. #NSFGRFP jasonjwilliamsny.github.io/grfp2025/

STUDENTS! VT Geography is recruiting GTAs for Fall 2026. Come work with me, studying tropical cyclones and their precipitation. Students with undergraduate research and/or Python programming experience are highly encourage to apply.

The tide gauge at Duck NC, in the northern Outer Banks, is predicted to experience major flooding from Hurricane #Erin during the Thursday evening high tide. This would be the fifth-highest water level since records began in 1999, 0.82' below the record set during Cat 2 Hurricane Isabel of 2003.

A large portion of the Atlantic coastline will see the risk for high surf and rip currents this week due to #Erin. 🟥Risk of Rip Currents is High🟥 Life-threatening rip currents are likely. Swimming conditions are unsafe for all levels of swimmers. Stay out of the water. nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/grap...

NEW: i spoke to nine (!) scientists across several disciplines whose work was cited in the new Department of Energy report that downplays the severity of climate change. all of them say their work was misrepresented, cherry picked, and/or lacked context —

Right then... A quick review of the DOE's new 'critical review' of climate science. Whether it's worth a formal community response - I'm still not sure, but here's my first thoughts /thread/

Proposed NOAA cuts would destroy the basic infrastructure for weather research–including hurricane and flash flood forecasting–and take decades to recover from. “It’s like blowing up a dam and trying to rebuild it by gluing the pieces back together. It won’t work. You have to start from scratch.”

We don't have a NWS app thanks to the lobbying of Accuweather.

Flood forecasting being cut: “Promising NOAA research-to-operations efforts that would actually help with some of the challenges I discuss above, including Forecasting a Continuum of Environmental Threats, Warn-on-Forecast, and FLASH would be terminated under the current FY26 presidential budget.”

Predicting such storms is at the cutting edge of science right now, and the stakes are rising in a warming world in which they are intensifying. Yet this is precisely the kind of research that NOAA/NSF have funded in the U.S. over decades that is at imminent risk of disappearing.

The other day I posted a list of NOAA Research contributions to forecast operations at NHC. I decided to add a little flesh to that list with this Substack post. franklinjamesl.substack.com/p/hurricane-...

"With the proposed shuttering of AOML, HRD, and their sister cooperative institutes, we could lose all tools currently available to estimate and forecast hurricane intensity. It’s a seismic blow to the arsenal of tools forecasters rely on to confidently deliver timely and accurate predictions."

I sought comment from NOAA and the Department of Defense on this and received this reply today from NOAA's spokesperson. They suggest we use the surviving ATMS microwave that degrades significantly at the edges. You can see how much worse off we'd be with Erick last week if we only had ATMS.

A comparison of what we see from geostationary infrared imagery vs. what we get when passive microwave imagery like what SSMIS provides is available. This is Hurricane Otis in 2023 as it was gearing up for extremely rapid intensification prior to impacting Acapulco as a category 5 storm.

A huge blow was dealt to hurricane forecasters this week as a critical tool was abruptly terminated by the Department of Defense and NOAA. The immediate discontinuation of data from three weather satellites will severely impact hurricane forecasts this season and beyond. More ⬇️

When job announcements are released, I’ll be most happy to share them. Additionally, if interested, I recommend updating your resumes and ensuring they’re more detailed to demonstrate your alignment with the expected job functions depending upon the grade level you’re interested in. More later…

If anyone is looking for a podcast guest to explain how science funding works, hit me up

I worked at NOAA and FEMA. I've had long, exhaustive conversations in recent months with those inside at high levels. Staffing is depleted, resources are critically low, and morale is rock bottom. Our hurricane defenses are down, and it's only a matter of time before we take an uppercut to the chin.

Hi all, we're hiring an early career catastrophe research role in our group! Master's or PhD, flexible on area of specialization, experience in cat modeling not required. US only but remote is available, we've got a hybrid team in Boston, London, and scattered across US and UK.

Contrary to some narratives out there, the NWS office in Jackson, KY was fully staffed Friday (May 16th) to deal with the forecast #SevereWeather/#tornado outbreak. www.wkyufm.org/2025-05-17/k...

9 people were killed in a tornado last night in KY. The NWS office responsible for that area has faced some of the most extreme cuts by the Trump administration, including the loss of overnight forecasting. Last night, they were rushing to find help for the office. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/16/w...

Under any other administration, this situation would have been a sundering scandal. 🎁 🔗:

Racist and sexist roots in the cancellation of NSF grants under Trump: Grants with female PIs canceled 2x more than men Grants with Black PIs canceled 4x over White PIs Grants with Hispanic PIs canceled 2x over White PIs Grants with PIs with disabilities canceled 2x more than without

"Women are PIs on 58% of the canceled grants, although they are PIs on only 34% of all active NSF grants. Similarly, Blacks are PIs on 17% of the terminated grants, although they make only 4% of the total pool. Hispanic PIs and those with disabilities were twice as likely to lose a grant."

Science isn’t like tap water, you can’t just turn it on and off. It’s like an oyster: it builds over time until it eventually creates pearls. This sort of senseless destruction is going to haunt us for a long time.

Gift article www.nytimes.com/2025/05/02/w...

Twitter. Did I do it right?? 🤪

UPDATE: We have data on >1000 terminated #NSF grants at grant-watch.us. Thanks to all who have been contributing data the past few days. We've also added a "Reports" section with some analyses. For NSF, we see that the STEM education directorate has been absolutely pummeled.

This week, nearly 27,000 years of experience is leaving NOAA as colleagues retire or take other incentives. It’s been emotional watching so many go, often in large groups. Thank you for your service, your work mattered deeply. I wish those who left the best in the next chapter. youtu.be/Si-RMlghXWQ

Wanted to advertise a 3-year postdoc fellowship offered by the Washington Research Foundation (the other WRF!) - if you're interested in applying and work broadly in severe wx, please reach out to me and we can see if my group @ UW is a good fit for you! www.wrfseattle.org/grants/wrf-p...

People think that a federal hiring freeze means no new hires. It does mean that, but the hiring freeze also means Omaha can't hire someone from Hastings. There is absolutely no external OR internal movement allowed according to the hiring freeze.

a good question for economists… about all these LLM companies…

A story of rebellion against an "oppressive, corrupt, genocidal power ... (complete with chilling real-life parallels)" - is exactly what I need right now !!!

Defunding research on a problem (like climate change) does not eliminate the problem. It creates an information vacuum in which lies can thrive. H/t @axios.com

Get ready for the 106th Annual Meeting by submitting session topic proposals! The theme for #AMS2026 is "Fast and Slow Thinking: The Human Factor in a Rapidly Changing World," taking place 25-29 January, 2026 in Houston, Texas & online. Submit your proposal by 29 April: bit.ly/42szeXv

Almost all NOAA Research websites that rely on cloud services - including Amazon, Google and WordPress - are poised to disappear at midnight ET Saturday after a contract was targeted for "early termination." Labs may also feel the effects. Story for @bloomberg.com (free link):

The NWS office in Paducah, which has to handle some of the most frequent and impactful weather in America and was nearly taken out by a tornado tonight ahead of a catastrophic flood event has to use a parking lot porta potty because they can’t fix plumbing due to the govt funding freeze.

4/2/25: A Tornado Outbreak is expected across parts of the Mid MS and Lower OH Valleys into the eastern Ozarks today. Numerous tornadoes, including multiple long-track EF3+ are likely. Severe storms are also possible from north TX to the Great Lakes. www.spc.noaa.gov