Last night was just … wow. Historic wind event here in western SD. The office got hit by a 91 mph gust that made my ears pop. Luckily my apartment didn’t lose any power and the only damage I had was a lost garbage can.
Trees down and damage all over town.
A two frame meme from Seinfeld. The top frame is a picture of Jerry basking in a red glow. "Good lord! Whats happening in there?" The bottom frame is Kramer in his doorway, also basked in a red glow. "Aurora borealis."
My entire timeline rn.
An aurora with pillars of red and green
An aurora with pillars of red and green
Aurora that looks more like a green blob
Aurora that’s winding it’s way across the night sky
I suppose I’ll join the aurora posting party.
Alrighty, ready to see something really cool? (and maybe a little nauseating)
The evolution of Hurricane Melissa's mesovortices at peak strength.
The National Weather Service has received permission to hire 450 meteorologists, hydrologists and radar technicians just months after being hit hard by Department of Government Efficiency-related cuts and early retirement incentives. cnn.it/4odQIjc
And a timelapse of the storm (lots of flashing lights because lightning - be aware)
A thunderstorm at night seen from tens of miles away. Lightning illuminates the clouds.
A lightning bolt in the clouds.
A thunderstorm at night seen from tens of miles away. Lightning illuminates the clouds.
A close up of a lightning strike coming out of the side of a thunderhead. It looks kind of like a sideways tree.
Storm rolled through town last night - gave a good light show as it left.
CYS and RIW are both actually down - some kind of comms outage. Other offices in the region are backing them up.
The media needs to learn the job roles of NWS offices before reporting on them.
And the back up office system has existed long before this whole mess of a year.
I don’t know - it may depend on the office, really. There are some offices that cover pretty rural areas and could get by with larger staff cuts. Other “back up” offices can and have stepped in to help share some of the workload in busy times like severe weather.
And here’s it in slow mo.
Had a rather … electrifying shift the other night. 🌩️
Literally had just propped my phone up against the window to film the storm and caught a very very close strike.
K
Headphone warning.
As well as the fact that it was such an extreme rainfall event in a very flash flood prone area.
This was going to be a disaster even with the adequate warnings.
Can imagine it being a busy summer holiday weekend, a lot of out of town visitors (who may not know about how dangerous the river is), and it happening in the middle of the night all played a big role in this.
Yeah the warnings would have gone out on NOAA weather radio. I’m sure there’s going to be extensive analysis into what went wrong and it’s likely going to be a very long list of things because there’s rarely ever one reason things like these happen.
A lot of staffing shortages (including MIC, WCM, and hydrologist vacancies) were around before January 2025. It’s definitely gotten worse but it was never really great to begin with.
Those are important jobs and they should be filled, don’t get me wrong, the cuts that are happening are terrible. But a forecast office isn’t completely crippled and unable to do its job because they don’t have those slots filled.
They also have to know how to communicate effectively with the public and emergency managers. Because the WCM and hydrologist can’t be in the office and on shift 24/7.
Let me just put it this way: there is a TON of overlap of roles in an NWS office. It’s very much a team effort to run an office. When I say “an NWS Met wears a lot of hats” I mean they have to be an expert on flash floods, severe storms, winter storms, fire weather, etc.
The course goes over tornadoes and severe storms but it also extensively covers both flash flood forecasting and warnings since radar plays a huge role in flash flood warning operations. The workshop is basically simulating forecasting and warning for these things for like four days straight.
However, every NWS meteorologist is extensively trained in flash flood forecasting and warnings as it’s considered “severe weather”. Every meteorologist goes through something called the Radar Applications Course which is a 6 month long course that ends in a week long in-person workshop.
The hydrologist handles a lot of the routine forecasts for rivers, drought, etc.
I won’t say there haven’t been a few times on shift where I’ve called our hydrologist to ask for their opinion on issuing a river flood warning. Mainly because we don’t deal with a lot of flooding out here.
Yeah - the MIC is the boss of the office. They handle a lot of the administrative stuff (managing staff, verifying time sheets, etc) and they’re important to the office but honestly they don’t play a huge role in warning operations (unless they’re on shift).
So while NWS San Antonio may not have had a WCM … they *definitely* would have had someone working in operations that night who had the task of calling up the emergency managers and letting them know of the danger. Because it’s one of the many job duties of an NWS meteorologist.
And so during severe weather operations - there would most certainly be someone on duty whose task would be contacting emergency managers in the areas being impacted by dangerous weather. It’s not just the job of the Warning Coordination Meteorologist.
A meteorologist at a forecast office wears A LOT of hats. They don’t just issue warnings and make a forecast. On a typical shift an NWS meteorologist monitors social media, answers phones, takes weather observations, and yeah - they do the forecast too.
While a WCM is the liaison between an office and emergency management officials. Their job is a lot of shaking hands and making these connections *before* the disaster hits. They’re not the ones solely in charge of warning partner agencies in the event of severe weather.
I’d like to add some context to the “NWS lost staffers who would typically communicate with local authorities”. The San Antonio office doesn’t have a “Warning Coordination Meteorologist” (WCM) - but that’s not the reason there may have been a breakdown in communications.
Disclaimer: I’m not endorsing a specific weather app or anything, StormShield is just what I personally use
And also I do highly recommend a NOAA weather radio because having multiple ways to get warnings is just good safety practice in general.
