Enderlin, ND tor #1 from 20 June 2025 upgraded to EF-5. A good reminder that 1) post-event analyses take time & 2) external expert opinion is invaluable. Having been on EF-5 surveys, seemingly small details can make big difference (i.e. tree damage) mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/wx/afos/p.ph...

Winter is coming (but taking a hiatus for the next week according to the ensembles). Snow on the Front Range peaks, but not on the Flatirons. #cowx #snowseason (full disclosure; Apple AI helped remove cars on US 36; stop & go traffic on Davidson Mesa brought you this pic)

First dusting of snow on the Front Range? Or hail from the storms last night? Either way, winter is coming and I’m ready for it! #cowx

Folks around McCook, Nebraska are going to have a free ice cold swimming pool; storm and occasional supercell parked just north of the surface frontal boundary dropping 3” hail and radar estimates pushing 4” of rain… #newx

It’s hard to see but that is an Extreme Forecast Index of 0.5 off the coast of SoCal late week. The black lines are Shift of Tails…of over 8 (contour maxes out at 8). NWS EFI/SoT (firewalled) shows greater than 10 SoT! 😳 Chance for extreme precip is medium but could be extreme w/ high SoT values!

Interesting sky this morning heading into work. We’re almost to the right time of year when I’ll be heading out when there will be more colors (you know, to avoid the morning CU BOU student rush hour to get there just in time for their first class). #cowx

Great morning to make the bike ride on Big Dry Creek trail from City Park to Standley Lake. Some spots felt in the 40s along creek drainage which was great until I climbed out the last 1.5 miles up to the lake. That was a bit warm in full sun & out of the cold air drainage. 12.72 mi round trip

Xcel Energy is changing TOU rate structure in October. Gone is Mid-Peak 1-3pm and Peak moves from 3-7pm to 5-9pm. So as a good data scientist does, spent the last 2 hours in Python with my 2024 hourly net metering data & found out that my change in cost would have been...$2.18. For the year.

Post-frontal airmass pushing up against the Flatirons and 68°. So nice… #cowx

Yeah, it’s the 95th Percentile from NBM V5.0 and 10 days out…but it is still a chance for snow! #winteriscoming #wishcasting

Numerical weather prediction models (ECMWF IFS) still outperform AI weather models in forecasting record-breaking hot and cold extremes and unseen wind extremes Preprint arxiv.org/abs/2508.15724 with Zhongwei Zhang @erichfischer.bsky.social @zscheischlerjak.bsky.social and Sebastian Engelke

The HRRR smoke forecasts were bad on the 00Z and 12Z runs; smoke settled into Vail Valley so we “cheated” and drove up to the Shrine Pass lot. Made it up to 11.9 kft today and it was worth it; smoke was not bad above the inversion, it was cool, & the last of the wildflowers were in bloom. #colorado

Much needed nature therapy today. Gore Creek Trail… #colorado

Once again, my #ADSB station showing why it's risk flying into DEN on a summer afternoon. Ground stop for departing flights, multiple racetrack hold patterns, & several diverts likely due to fuel or unable to wait to get into DEN. #avgeek #cowx

So many takes (good & bad) on the TX Hill Country flooding. Having spent a large part of my life in the heart of Hill Country, difference of 5 miles or less can mean soaking rain or flash flood. Look at hydromet.lcra.org precip & stream flow; you can see what I mean (basins are shaded in these maps)

"Questioning is the way of learning," Encourage your children to ask questions, not to accept existing answers.

Nice being able to watch a storm from multiple sources while enjoying the cool outflow and almost constant slow rumble of thunder #cowx

A 300x timelapse from my neighbor; “You study clouds, what is this stuff before sunrise? We saw it when we went to let (dog’s name) out…” Sure looks like noctilucent clouds to me! #cowx #noctilucent

Another good case for why Composite Reflectivity is useful out here up against the Front Range. Could hear grit hitting windows & rattling in the frame as microburst from ample virga is taking place. Mesa Lab showing gusts to 30 mph but wouldn’t be surprised if higher gusts possible in other areas.

Once again, right conditions come together to result in catastrophic flash flooding across portions of the wrn Texas Hill Country. I'm 6th gen from down there; the "old timers" would talk about floods that would come out of nowhere uprooting trees along normally dry banks. This is no exception...

Been busy with some things & slacking on food posts from #Vietnam. Today was the best donuts I’ve had here, always delightful Bạc Xỉu coffee, and Bún Chả - bacon, pork patties in a sweet fish sauce with rice noodles and veggies. So stuffed!!

This is how some restaurants make the best phở in Vietnam; broth that has been simmering for months and in one place supposedly years. I'm still around after first having it in 2019 with no ill effects...and it was delicious.

First intense downpour (luckily while under cover) in #Vietnam where it’s 55-60 dBZ. Second pic you can just make outline of a building 2 blocks away. Been dumping for 15 minutes & just now heard 1st rumble of thunder. Meteorology in SE Asia is so fascinating, wish I had a rain gage here!

You know dinner in #Vietnam will be amazing when you turn down a side alley in old town Hoi An and your knees are higher than the table when you sit down in your chair. Lan Thai; yes, we had Thai to see if it was worthy of the 4.9 ⭐️ rating. It is!

TIL that #vietnam is a top 10 producer of avocados in the world (#8 as of 2022). We sampled a Dak Lak variety yesterday right off the tree & it has a hint of sweetness. So good on a toasted bánh mì baguette by itself. Would be interesting to make guac with the sweet component…

Welp, guess I'll have to dust off #typhoon forecasting skills in the W Pacific now that there is an invest & KWAJEX was ages ago. Relying on tropicaltidbits.com , JTWC, & eventually #Tropycal to work on my own scripts in #python. For now looks like no impacts to #Vietnam but will have to watch!

Kinda glad we don’t have our house in #Lubbock any longer. Track of the storm would have put us in the large hail again but I do feel for all my friends. Insurance will only go up again after this. Also glad this one didn’t have the tor come through town…

Vietnamese white coffee; like a coffee milkshake but not as thick and not as sweet but better. Plus fresh watermelon and rambutan; a gift after visiting with the owner of a local mom & pop breakfast spot a couple blocks from our apartment. On our third visit. Yes, it’s that good! #vietnam #AnBang

First “summer” thunderstorm since we’ve been in #Vietnam. Even though the CG was almost 10km away & relatively not all that powerful, thunder was deep enough it shook the couch I’m on & easily lasted 20 seconds. Also interesting because it is a warm rain, only cooled us down to 82°/77°F…

Another great meal in An Bàng this evening courtesy of SERENA restaurant. These (grilled turmeric pork, sautéed morning glory, fried spring rolls), two other main dishes, a bottled water, and two Cokes: 585,000 Vietnamese Đồng. That’s $22.82, it’s all fresh cooked, and the flavors are so amazing.

Tonight’s view from An Bàng Beach looking somewhere south or southwest of Đà Nẵng. Nice iridescence over the developing storm which looks like a lion with a cape roaring towards the north. #vietnamwx #worldschool

When that one CG hits on top of the SGN Terminal 3 and you still keep boarding the plane 😳 It was bright, loud, and school the jetbridge…

Getting nervous because we haven’t had a bad meal so far; tonight may have been the best grilled pork chop I’ve ever had w/ a fried egg, egg loaf, cucumber salad, and jasmine rice. Followed by iced Thạch Cổ Trà (Vietnamese fermented tea). So far, #worldschool has been food-focused I guess…

Love that @radarscope.app has worldwide METARs. Would be nice to get Himawari imagery in as I’ve had so-so luck creating my own imagery in Python. Don’t love that it is 95°F over 77°F; feels every bit of 110° heat index out there 🥵

The humidity is taking some time to adjust to along with the occasional smoggy day. But, sitting in a District 1 open air seafood market with all the local foods/beverages, getting the glimpse of sunset between storms, & feeling fortunate to experience this with the fam is priceless.

Learning the intricacies of weather data in Viet Nam. Lots of thunder so go to check radar and looked kinda off; the Ho Chi Minh City radar is C-band. S-bands are up at Hanoi with spattering of X & C band around rest of the country. NCHMF does plot lightning data though!

Happiness can be found in a good bowl of Phơ in the heart of HCMC…

The tor struggle is real; we’re deep in post-frontal airmass but strong NNE flow could be enough to overcome stability. Other storms to SW are closer to the boundary and could be next potential threat. Time will tell and with my luck, one will develop as I’m driving home from work…

This is where spotters are key & the WFO has access to that I don’t. Chasing experience says we’re in critical phase for tornado or not; ground reports can tip the scale yea/nay for tor warn. Still leaning yes as low level cyclonic convergence is tightening up but could be in cool/stable air.

While typing the last skeet up, this is also concerning; much more balanced cyclonic convergence signature in base velocity over Post. I bet there is a big wall cloud developing. Plus the storm is off the Caprock with a NE surface wind…definitely concerning, I’d lean towards TOR warn now…

Aaand there is the bear’s cage. Been in one once and that was enough. Likely large hail and strong wind wrapping around the meso and with few road options, better get off the Caprock and into Post before the road gets waterlogged and windows spiderwebbed.

Ooof…messy, messy. Will the cell merger help or hurt tornadogenesis chances. Meso aloft is getting stronger but low level flow all over the place. And if you are chasing, the road network falls apart off edge of Caprock so you gotta be strategic and think 15-30 minutes ahead. #armchairchaser

And 10 minutes later as it gets closer to the edge of the Caprock, it is getting more interesting. Bounded Weak Echo Region aloft indicative of strong meso and increasing low-level inflow with increasing cyclonic convergence. Could be moving towards tornado genesis soon…

Great example of no, that isn’t a Tornado Vortex Signature (TVS) ; more careful look at CC and vertical structure shows that’s a Three-Body Scatter Spike (TBSS) with noisy outbound/red gates next to it. Should be interesting to see what happens when it gets to the edge of the Caprock. #txwx

Always fun watching the ants move around in GR2A or RadarScope & seeing friends/familiar names, then guessing what their next move will be. I miss chasing but not on days where there is practically a bullseye sending anyone everyone “there”… #stormchasing

Even though this is just one radar in this outbreak, I wonder if this is what April 3-4, 1974 would have looked like in the era of digital radars, composites, etc. Still early to know if we’ll hit those kind of tornado numbers but the amount of supercells is impressive… #outbreak #severeweather

Always something new for my Colorado Bingo Card; soft conical graupel that is accumulating with thunder overhead. #cowx #graupel

So much going on in environmental news but looking like we just hit X-class flare on the sun, and still increasing… #spaceweather

Don’t think I’ve ever seen multiple waves of bats coming out from Round Rock before; dual pol characteristics would indicate biologicals so perhaps birds? #txwx #radar

That is about as textbook of a TVS one can get; EXTREMELY close call for Birmingham NWS once again…