US Weather 2025

[tgsnoopy]

Next year (2025) the National Storm Chasers Summit (NSCS) is in Overland Park Kansas, this is part of the greater Kansas City, Kansas City is Largely in the North West of Missouri & a smaller part in the North East of Kansas. It's not the easiest to get to, but flying American or United to LAX then Southwest direct flights from there will do it.

Venue is Marriot Kansas City Overland Park. Starts 10am Friday 14th February and concludes at 10am on Sunday 16th February. The night before it starts (Thursday 13th Feb) a charity bowling event is being organised nearby.

There are still King sized rooms available in the NSCS allocation at the venue & AA flights to LAX were still on sale when I last looked.

https://www.chasersummit.org/

After 5 weeks in the US this year, I'm now going to be low on leave for next year. Nothing decided for sure, but I'm hoping I can do a late season Canadian Prairies chase this year. A casual mention some time back about the possibility of joining another kiwi for a couple of US weeks too, so I might be facing some hard decisions.

[Orion]

The night the Eaton fire started, Edgar McGregor stood on a darkened Altadena street, held up his cellphone and started recording as the sky glowed orange behind him.

His voice calm, the 24-year-old amateur climate scientist urged people living between the Eaton Wash and Allen Avenue to immediately pack their bags and get ready to evacuate.

Then the wind picked up. It muffled his audio. So he started shouting.

“This is imminent!” McGregor said. “Do not wait for an official evacuation notice. If you think you should leave, get out! Get out!”

At 7:17 p.m., he uploaded the 31-second video to his Facebook page, where he has thousands of followers.

At 10:22 p.m., he posted: “You should not go to sleep tonight. If you are anywhere in the foothills, it’s time [to] pull an all-nighter. The fire danger is sky high. Everyone in Altadena, even the western side, should prepare to evacuate.”

People took his advice. Now, they say he saved a lot of lives.

McGregor, who lives in his boyhood Altadena home with his parents, turned his passion for weather three years ago into the Altadena Weather and Climate Facebook page, where he writes handy micro-forecasts for mostly neighbors. Given the popularity of the San Gabriel Mountains and its hiking trails, the ranks of his followers grew. And on the night of Jan. 7, his warnings that persuaded people to evacuate elevated him to hero status in Altadena.

Tori Silverman, 37, of Altadena wrote on his page: “Edgar McGregor is an actual American hero.”

“Thank you Edgar McGregor! I didn’t sleep like you told me and I lived,” another follower wrote.

And another: “Edgar absolutely saved my life.”

McGregor studied climate science at San José State University and started his page while in college. He interned at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and has a day job working for the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation as a recreation services leader.

On his Facebook page, he is known for dispassionate detail rather than alarmist hype. So when he said the Eaton fire was life-threatening, his thousands of followers knew he was not exaggerating.

“I’m very careful with my word choice,” McGregor said in an interview. “It’s not just about warning people that conditions are right. Anyone can go online and fearmonger and create scare tactics. I’d never hype up a storm unless it needed to be hyped up.”

The deadly Eaton fire — fueled by wind gusts up to to 100 mph near Altadena — needed to be hyped.

“I knew this was serious because usually Edgar’s posts are so steady, so when he said be ready, we were,” wrote one follower, among the hundreds who expressed gratitude for his neighborhood forecasts.

Silverman told the Times she has been following McGregor’s page since summer 2023, when the post-tropical cyclone formerly known as Hurricane Hilary hit Southern California. McGregor, she said, “prepared us for that too, and also kept things factual instead of sensational.”

Last week, when McGregor said that anyone north of Altadena Drive should leave immediately, Silverman said, “that was good enough for me to get gone.”
....

More, and photos, at link:

https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... aved-lives

[spwill]

Meanwhile the LA mayor still went on holiday to Africa. LA fire fighters had issues with water and water pressure from fire hydrants so houses burned, the Maui fire disaster all over again.

[tgsnoopy]

Meanwhile the LA mayor still went on holiday to Africa. LA fire fighters had issues with water and water pressure from fire hydrants so houses burned, the Maui fire disaster all over again.

I'm still confused by this. I've seen photo's & video where several neighbourhood garden hoses were used to slowly fill the small tanks on fire engines - cause the hydrants were dry! Also, helo's filling monsoon buckets in swimming pools, again with several neighbours garden hoses topping up the swimming pool. Here in NZ, Hydrants are a direct connection to the main supply and can't be restricted, it seems this is not the case, at least in the LA area where this happened.

[tgsnoopy]

{Abridged!} he posted: “You should not go to sleep tonight. If you are anywhere in the foothills, it’s time [to] pull an all-nighter. The fire danger is sky high. Everyone in Altadena, even the western side, should prepare to evacuate.”

People took his advice. Now, they say he saved a lot of lives.

“I’m very careful with my word choice,” McGregor said in an interview. “It’s not just about warning people that conditions are right. Anyone can go online and fearmonger and create scare tactics. I’d never hype up a storm unless it needed to be hyped up.”

The deadly Eaton fire — fueled by wind gusts up to to 100 mph near Altadena — needed to be hyped.

Silverman told the Times she has been following McGregor’s page since summer 2023, when the post-tropical cyclone formerly known as Hurricane Hilary hit Southern California. McGregor, she said, “prepared us for that too, and also kept things factual instead of sensational.”

Last week, when McGregor said that anyone north of Altadena Drive should leave immediately, Silverman said, “that was good enough for me to get gone.”
....

Please choose those you follow(/maybe share) carefully. Someone who has a factual, not hyped or alarmist type feel may saves lives down the track should a severe event require urgent action. Also consider calling out an alarmist or hyping it up person should it be necessary, you yourself might help someone make a life changing or life saving decision in the future.

[spwill]

My understanding is electricity companies can turn the power off to protect themselves from being sued for causing a fire, this cuts power supply to the water pumps, fire hydrants go dry. Insurance companies pulled out of LA last year, I think many people there have little or no insurance for loss caused by a wild fire.

[Simon Culling]

New Orleans experienced a very heavy snowfall on Tuesday, with the Airport reporting snow all day at a temeprature of around -2°C or -3°C with snow depth reported in and around the city as between 8" to 11". This is an unprecedented fall for this nornmally 'tropical' city - the average maximum for January is 17°C.

Picture attached is copied fromn this tweet:

https://x.com/marcorasi1960/status/1881969154942718266

[Orion]

CNN: Unprecedented winter storm paralyzes Gulf Coast with record-breaking snow even in Florida

[Nev]

Sat pic this morning reveals the 'unprecedented' snowfalls along the southern US states...

NOAA GOES-East GeoColor - 2025 Jan 22 1441z.jpg

Current global temp anomaly map...

GFS 2m Global Temp Anomaly - 2025 Jan 22.jpg

[tich]

Exceptional for places where even a few flurries would be a rarity. Imagine such a heavy dumping in NZ cities like Nelson, Whanganui, New Plymouth, Gisborne or Rotorua.

[spwill]

Exceptional for places where even a few flurries would be a rarity. Imagine such a heavy dumping in NZ cities like Nelson, Whanganui, New Plymouth, Gisborne or Rotorua.

For latitude the snow would be as far north as coastal northern NSW, perhaps as far north as Byron Bay. "Subtropical US" will see snow every year, but usually not as far south as what occurred with this storm. I think Atlanta which is a similar latitude to Sydney will see snow most years.
New Zealand has a particularly temperate climate for it's latitude, a cool Summer and very little low level snow in Winter.

[Richard]

The fact that Australia has a large ocean between it and the polar region is not comparable in any way to mainland US

[tornado]

https://abcnews.go.com/US/live-updates/ ... =119832914

https://www.foxweather.com/weather-news ... east-coast

a active start to their season so far.

[Simon Culling]

The map of events on this tweet is, I think, from NOAA, but I am not sure about the 47 fatalities. The strongest tornadoes seem to have occurred early in the period on Friday night and into Saturday morning. Map (which covers 14th to 16th March) copied from this tweet:

https://x.com/MaxVelocityWX/status/1901649661057757347

[tornado]

Rolling fork hit by tornado nearly 2 years from deadly ef4. damage as bad this time though.



https://www.accuweather.com/en/severe-w ... f4/1758268

[Simon Culling]

A somewhat rare slight risk of large hail and a few tornadoes for the Pacific Northwest has been issued for today (26th March) by NOAA.

Map is from a very expressive Reed Timmer tweet, but similar can also be found on the NOAA site on the Day 1 severe weather page.

https://x.com/ReedTimmerUSA/status/1904911916595634194

[Simon Culling]

The forecast for the Pacific Northwest was a bit of a long shot and it appears that a mid-level cap + too much cloud (and not enough solar heating) prevented the worst case scenario from occurring. A lot of lightning was reported all the way to the border with Canada, but no large hail or TN's.


https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2025/03/ ... oblem.html

[03Stormchaser]

Heading over 27th May - 3rd june. Quick trip but that's all I can get away with this year. TG joining me which will be good

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

There has been a pattern of storms moving SE over the SE corner of the USA lately from good mixtures of cold and warm air clashing so you may be in luck for some good chases.
Good luck and stay safe.