Gary Szatkowski

Official map from NOAA depicting the relative rank of winter 2025-2026 temperatures at a county level across the contiguous U.S. Many counties in the western and central U.S. are depicted in dark red color, signifying record-warmest winter. All other counties in the west and central U.S. are depicted in dark orange colors, signifying a "near record warm" rank.

The official NOAA stats out this week confirm that winter 2025-26 was the warmest on record across a huge portion of the western and central U.S., which has contributed to extremely low mountain snowpack & worsened the CO River crisis. Meanwhile, record March heat is in forecast.

Back east in and around the Delaware Valley, potentially major impacts with this upcoming storm over the holiday weekend.

I missed the memo where this was the weekend the NFL was going to show off by blocking field goals.

Meteorologists Say the National Weather Service Did Its Job in Texas DOGE cut hundreds of jobs at the NWS, but experts who spoke to WIRED say the agency accurately predicted the flood risk in Texas.

DOGE cut hundreds of jobs at the National Weather Service, but experts who spoke to WIRED say the agency accurately predicted the state's weekend flood risk. What’s more, they say it underscores the need to sustain funding to the crucial agency.

Based on some of the reactions and comments I am absorbing by average people and elected officials, I think there needs to be a serious explanation and lesson on what the limits of predictability are for floods like the one in Texas.

Tropical Storm Barry will soon move inland in Mexico, while the northeast Gulf gets an area to watch next week In brief: Tropical Storm Barry is a disorganized mess that will be inland over Mexico later today as a heavy rain producer. Another area to watch has now been formally identified in the NE Gulf or …

It's a busy Sunday afternoon: Tropical Storm Barry is...well, it's a thing, I guess. The NE Gulf area has been formally identified as an area to watch. TS Flossie in the Pacific is going to bring heavy rain to Mexico. And we have important new perspective on the loss of critical satellite data.

Isolated to scattered thunderstorms *were* in the forecast for SoCal, but it looks like it's one of those days where the atmosphere has other plans: Widespread #thunderstorms are now developing across much of SoCal, including LA Metro & Inland Empire! #CAwx #LArain

US weather forecasting is more crippled than previously thought as hurricane season nears | CNN Several current and former agency meteorologists and staff told CNN they are concerned warnings won’t be issued in time as hurricane season nears.

NEW: US weather forecasting is in worse shape than previously known, with 30 NWS forecast offices missing meteorologists-in-charge and about a dozen offices at risk of no longer serving their communities 24/7. www.cnn.com/2025/05/02/w...

Weather Balloon Cuts Announced This Week Could Harm Weather Forecasts This week the National Weather Service announced reductions in weather balloon launches. Experts warn that could harm weather forecast accuracy, the economy and safety.

My thoughts on why announced cuts to weather balloon launches are bad for weather forecasting. I tried to do some meteorology 101 too
www.forbes.com/sites/marsha...

What the National Weather Service cuts may mean for forecasting on the verge of severe-storm season The cuts could have immediate effects around the country as the severe-storm season is about to ramp up.

Contributed to a news article in Philadelphia Inquirer about the impact of staffing cuts on the National Weather Service.

www.inquirer.com/news/noaa-la...

🚨 This is important as this is some of the foundational weather data for initialization of all weather models, not just NOAA ones. In other words, even the ECMWF (Euro) models could see degraded performance over time if this becomes a regular issue. Very troubling stuff here.

Devastating doesn’t even begin to describe the damage this will do to scientific progress, real-time alerting, real-time monitoring, and forecasting too.

Relevant to the AMS Annual Meeting...

A lapse of funding forces all federally sponsored travel to become unauthorized. Should the lapse of funding continue into mid-January, federal scientists will be unable to travel to attend. 2019 was the most recent example of this.

The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season ends Saturday .This year the Atlantic basin saw:

-18 named storms in 2024 (winds of 39 mph or greater)

-11 of those were hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or greater)

-5 intensified to major hurricanes (winds of 111 mph or greater)

My family near Scranton, PA picked up about 12" of snow today.

Matt, Congratulations!!