All posts by David Obelcz

Editorial, National, Shower Thoughts

Kevin Hassett leaving the White House

The Golfer-in-Chief’s top economic adviser is leaving the White House, per a tweet, with Twitter being the preferred communication tool for the most powerful nation in the world. The departure is very significant given the announcement of socialistic price controls tariffs on Mexico that will begin on June 10, and the widest inversion of the yield curve since 2007 on Friday.

Yield curve inversions have been a gold standard indicator of a looming recession in the last seven downturns. The yield curve has inverted three times since late 2018, with the latest and most dramatic inversion happening last week. A yield curve inversion is when long-term interest rates fall below short-term interest rates on bonds. Normally the yield on bonds should be better long term. The inversion happens when investors believe that the credit markets will get tighter, thus lowering returns on long term bonds.

Michael Schumacher, managing director and global head of rate strategy at Wells Fargo Securities stated on Friday that there was no need to be alarmed, and the inversion is no longer the gold standard of a looming recession. He did, however, in his next breath, he advise that investors should take a conservative stance.

It isn’t lost on the Malcontent on the timing of the departure, a weekend announcement via tweet, and the typical, “thank you for your amazing service,” praise. If prior experience is a good predictor of the future, it won’t be long before Kevin Hassett is low energy, stupid, and the worst economist on the planet.

The grim reality is if the taxes that get passed on to ordinary consumers tariffs imposed on China and Mexico are allowed to play out to their 25% maximum, it will have a significant impact on the US and global economies. With interest rates still low, and dear leader recently demanding they should be cut now to drive more growth, the fed has only a little runway to adjust rates to stimulate a stalled out economy before the fed rate goes back to zero. In an economic downturn the most powerful dial the federal reserve has is to lower rates, that and print more money with an IOU.

To an outside observer, it isn’t a big leap to speculate that Hassett disagreed with policy and was pushed out of the White House. Only the best people, you’ll see, only the greatest minds.

Oy.

Malcontent, out.

BIPOC, Editorial, National, Shower Thoughts

No, we aren’t better than this

I wanted to start this with the statement, “we are better than this,” but alas, we are not. At the El Paso Del Norte Border Patrol processing facility, 900 or more human beings have been stuffed into holding cells designed for 125 people. Regardless of if you want to call them non-resident aliens, refugees, asylum seekers, illegal aliens, criminals, or scum of the earth, they are human beings. They bleed red blood cells; they have frontal lobes, are bipedal, their liver is the lower right, they have two kidneys (mostly), two eyes, two ears, a mouth, they even have an anus.

The conditions are so bad that there is no space to sit or lie down. Some of the detainees (let’s call them detainees) end up standing on the open toilets to get some extra space from the overcrowding. But wait, there is more. Sixty-six percent of the detainees held have been in holding for more than 72 hours – that violates U.S. law.  Four percent have been held for two or more weeks, which spits on U.S. law. Who reported and documented this overcrowding? Fake news? The liberal left? George Soros? Russian trolls? No, it is documented by the Department of Homeland Security – our government – We the People.

This treatment of detainees isn’t the first time in our history as a country where we have treated human beings worse than farm animals. Let us remember, “free range” chickens are all the rage these days, and the people in these holding cells are packed like chickens in factory farms. Human beings are being treated by We the People worse than farm animals in an industrial setting. Sleep well tonight with that thought running through your head.

During the Gulf War, there was the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners of war. During World War II there was internment of Japanese nationals while members of the German-American Bund got a free pass. Those German-Americans were white, but those sneaky Japanese, well they were brown and easy to spot.

Both sides of the United States Civil War committed atrocities to prisoners of war, with the Confederacy providing particularly horrific treatment to Union prisoners. Then there were the indigenous peoples of North America, stuffed onto reservations with no resources; their children were taken away for cultural education, all under the banner of manifest destiny. If we go even further back, there was the gathering up of indigenous people living in New England praying towns and abandoned on Deer Island in Boston Harbor with no food, water, clothing or shelter. Over 300 froze to death in the name of colonial security.

The sad reality is, we’re not better than this. We as a nation have a long history of, “you look and act differently from me, so you must be bad.”

Ya, if you’re so smart, if they immigrated here legal as a real law-abiding person would, this wouldn’t be happening. These are mostly families, in the same watchdog report from Homeland Security, who are fleeing oppression, drug dealers, and dictators seeking asylum. United States policy helped put the leadership in place in Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. That is a whole different topic for another time – our amazing foreign policy that does a tremendous job of putting brutal dictators and feckless cowards into power all around the world.

The number of Mexican illegal aliens has been declining in the United States for years when you look at government numbers. The point of declining numbers of Mexican illegal aliens was a subject of an entire South Park episode in 2011. Up to 2018, the number of detained illegal aliens has been at near historic lows, and that carried through the entire Obama Administration. By the numbers, it sure looks like the crisis at the border is being manufactured to drive a narrative. Further, I say back to you, “Even if these were armed invaders in a conflict, their treatment would violate the Geneva Convention.”

“Ya, so what.”

So what? Look what happened to our prisoners of war in Vietnam when the United States refused to issue a formal declaration of war against North Vietnam. They were treated like – criminals. The brutality of Hanoi Hilton and other prison camps, and the hundreds of POWs that, ehem, “disappeared,” in custody that we don’t seem to be looking that hard for anymore. If you don’t think our treatment of foreign nationals has an impact on United States citizens in foreign custody, think again.

On the other hand, it is easy to make a snap judgment and go all Godwin Law, but our brutal history and treatment of detainees stand up as an exhibit that when it comes to We the People, this is who we are. In 2019 in the United States of America, detainees are crammed together for days in dirty clothes, no bedding, no room to lie down, limited access to facilities, not enough breathing space, and no privacy. If one person arrives with influenza, chicken pox, scabies, or norovirus, it spreads like wildfire in the close contact.

We haven’t been better than this. Maybe it’s time we stand up and say, “enough.”

Think about it.

Malcontent, out.

Terra Firma

2019 has been a historical year for tornadoes

The United States has gone through a relative lull in tornado activity for the last six years. Starting in 2012, the number of tornadoes compared to historical data has been below average, as well as the number of violent EF-4 and EF-5 tornadoes. The numbers have likely even dropped more because there were fewer people distributed in Dixie Alley and Tornado Alley to witness tornadoes. Additionally, tornadoes couldn’t be confirmed via Doppler radar like today, and it was harder to determine if a tornado was a single track storm (one tornado) that skipped up and down or multiple, discrete tornadoes that formed from the same cell, or different ones.

If you’ve been following the weather news, 2019 has been historical with the longest continuous tornado outbreak in US history. There have been more tornadoes in a shorter period. The April 2-3, 1974 Super Outbreak produced 143 tornadoes in 24 hours, including multiple EF-5 tornadoes. In one case several communities in Alabama were hit with multiple EF-5 tornadoes within 90 minutes. More recently was April 27, 2011, Super Outbreak that produced 173 tornadoes, in the same Dixie Alley region of the 1974 outbreak.

There have been more powerful tornadoes than the ones produced such as the 2013 El Reno tornado that killed Tim Samaras and his son and the 2011 Joplin EF-5 tornado that killed 161 people. This current outbreak has not produced any EF-5 storms (although the potential has been there) as of this writing.

What has been unique about 2019 is the duration of this outbreak, 13 days and counting as I type this, and the streak of “outbreak” will likely continue. During this period, the United States has averaged a bit more than 27 tornadoes a day. The distribution of these supercells has been wide, with tornadoes striking as far west as Oklahoma, as far south as Alabama, and as far north/east as Pennsylvania. Even New York City received a tornado warning for Doppler confirmed rotation (no touchdown apparent).

The weather is not climate, and the climate is not the weather. There are a lot of theories on “why” things were quiet for the last six years and to why things have been so violent this year, but nothing solid. As much as we understand about our world, deep scientific understanding of tornado development and strength remains a mystery. Why do some supercells produce monstrously destructive EF-5 twisters, while other cells with the same potential energy, the same mechanics, and the same development do not?

What has been unique this year is a deeply entrenched weather pattern of hot, humid air over the southeast, including historical heat, and cold, dry air to the north. This weather pattern is classic for severe weather development but usually appears for one to three days. The high pressure and low-pressure areas move along the frontal boundaries, and the pattern dissolves — June of 1953 provides a great example of how these weather patterns usual move. On June 8, 1953, an F-5 tornado tore through Flint, Michigan, killing 116 people. On June 9, 1953, the same weather system produced an F-4 tornado that ripped through Worcester, Massachusetts. That is a distance of about 800 miles over 24 hours. June 10, 1953, was a perfect day in Worcester as the cold front passed through, and brought drier, cooler air behind it.

In 1953 there was a lot of rumor and myth about why these massive tornadoes formed in areas where tornadoes of this strength haven’t been seen. Nuclear bomb testing, weather control tests gone awry, and that the Flint and Worcester tornado was the “same storm” that traveled 800 miles. None of this was true as the weather is not climate and the climate is not the weather.

For now, the current weather pattern that is creating an extended dry line with limited cap, strong shear, and some stunning MCAPE numbers (geek speak for the ingredients for tornado development) looks to linger over the United States for days – long range models are like throwing darts but for now it could be weeks. If you live east of the Rockies should keep your eyes on the sky and be prepared, oh, and calling in death threats to TV stations and weather reporters for providing breaking news on tornado warnings? What the fuck America?

Malcontent, out.

Non-Fiction

Dad has a broken heart

Non-fiction Friday

A lot was going through my mind. As a former EMT and someone who had planned a medical career just five years prior, I understood the implications of an aortic aneurysm rupturing. My father was incredibly lucky to have this medical emergency while in the hospital, and at a VA hospital that specialized in cardiac care. The grim reality was he had an 80% chance of dying before leaving the operating room, even under the ideal conditions.

One of my favorite movie lines is, “work the problem,” and I like to add, “don’t let the problem work you.” When I’ve gotten into crisis mode, I have found this mantra has an immediate calming effect. Work the problem, no need to drive like an idiot and put me in the hospital. Houston traffic was a ball of suck back then, and a worse ball of suck today. I had a cellphone, but it was impossible to work a manual transmission and an old school Motorola Startac at the same time. Calls to the family would have to wait.

I arrive at the hospital and find my way to the ICU. I sign in and identify myself as a relation to my father. They page the attending. It could be a shock when I see my father, I am told; I tell them I understand. Work the problem, don’t let the problem work me.

Dad survived the surgery. It turns out that when I talked to dad the night before, and he sounded tired, the bleed was already starting. The pain got worse, and when they couldn’t identify why the VA ordered a CAT scan. While in the scanner I was told, dad’s aneurysm ruptured. In another complete stroke of good luck, an entire cardiac surgical team had just finished a major procedure and was still in the hospital. Not only did the rupture happen while in imaging, but the resources to do immediate surgery were in place.

Dad may have survived, but his prognosis was grim. He was in a coma and likely had a hypoxic injury due to the length of time his aorta was clamped off to repair. He was on a respirator, and I stopped counting at 18 tubes entering or exiting his body. The list of complications that could follow was extensive; brain injury, loss of toes, fingers, or limbs, lethal blood clots, infection, pneumonia from being on the vent longterm. There was a good chance dad would never wake up, the attending put dad’s odds at ever leaving the hospital at 100,000:1. I had a lot of phone calls and decisions to make.

In another stroke of good luck, however, I still had power of attorney on dad’s affairs from doing the closing on his home. At least for this aspect, the basic issues of maintaining his house and paying related basic bills would not be a problem. My sister in California would be able to come out within a day. Another sister in Pennsylvania would not be able to get out.

Hours turned to days, and dad continued to hold his ground. His toes swelled and turned black. A surgeon was called in for a consult with growing concerns of gangrene. A decision was made to make a wait and see approach, but the doctors felt it was likely dad would lose at least his right foot. His coma continued, and he wasn’t doing much fighting of the vent. Medications flowed, and days turned into weeks.

Dad did start to improve gradually. The skin fell off of his toes, but the black turned to the blues of deep bruises, and the swelling went down. By day 37 he was starting to stir, kept under heavy sedation for the respirator.  On day 38, he started to communicate, although he was very confused. Using a pencil, he scribbled on a pad of paper held up for him to ask basic questions.  Already suffering from Parkinson’s, his handwriting was shaky. The good sign was the hypoxic injury was mild to moderate. On day 39, dad was taken off of the respirator and spoke his first creaky words. His road to recovery was just beginning, and he was still fighting 100,000:1 odds he would ever leave the hospital.

Editorial, Think About It

There is more than Achy Breaky Heart

Meandering thoughts as we approach Memorial Day weekend

Say the name Billy Ray Cyrus and two things probably pop into most people’s minds: Achy Breaky Heart and Miley Cyrus’s dad. For most people, the first one is a bad thing (I remind you, dear reader, the now maligned song was carpet-bombed on the airways when it was released in 1992 and was a top ten hit in eight countries) and the second one is questionable.

What you may not know, especially if you weren’t a country music listener in the early 90s, is that Billy Ray Cyrus is a prolific songwriter who has created, or co-created, many hits. Lost in over 20 years of musical history and stuck in the shadow of Achy Breaky Heart, the 1992 album Some Gave All produced four top ten hits; the aforementioned Achy Breaky Heart, Could’ve Been Me, and She’s Not Cryin’ Anymore. The title track, which was never released, made it to 52 on the Country Top 100, before fading into obscurity. Although Some Gave All now lives on numerous worst album lists, the songwriting ability of Cyrus is lost in his early 90s mullet on the cover picture and the painful earworm that was Achy Breaky Heart.

Love your country and live with pride
And don’t forget those who died
America can’t you see?

All gave some, some gave all
Some stood through for the red, white and blue
And some had to fall
And if you ever think of me
Think of all your liberties and recall
Some gave all

Billy Ray Cyrus

In our polarized post 9/11 world, these lyrics probably make some cringe. The implications of these words, for some, is my country, right or wrong no matter what, and I disagree if that is your view. You can love something but not like the actions of the entity.  Parents can deeply love their children but not like their actions, choices, or lifestyle. The same can certainly apply to the country. The United States may be a screwed up mess, but it still is one of the best functioning messes on the planet. Ya, ya, ya, Iceland is so amazing – and they went bankrupt. America, we are a great functioning mess (that has gotten awful dysfunctional – but I still love you).

On this Memorial Day weekend, a holiday born out of the bloody Civil War, the last war fought with any significant combat on in the lower 48; it is a weekend to remember the some who gave all. With an all-volunteer military and for at least Generation Z, a period raised under constant low-level combat in multiple locations around the world, it is very easy to get fatigued, forget, and shrug. When we become numb to endless conflict, and when multiple administrations have abused or ignored the Wars Power Act, while Congress continues to abdicate their responsibility, it is easy to forget what is going on over there. As of this writing, there have been over 65,000 causalities for Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. Of those, over 5,000 gave all.

So to Corporal Robert Hendricks, who died on April 8, 2019 in Afghanistan – I say thank you to you and your survivors. All gave some, but you gave all.

Think about it this weekend.

Malcontent, out.

Weather

Malcontent approved Memorial Day weekend forecast

The Memorial Day weekend forecast has been in flux as we get closer to our first three-day break of the year, and for some, the symbolic start of the outdoor summer season. I know you want to know so we’ll cut through the bull and get to the point.

For tonight if you’re thinking of leaving a day early to get over the passes or head to the coast, there isn’t anything that will slow you down. The passes might have some light showers, but that is about it.

A reminder if you’re new to the Tango, I focus on a hyperlocal forecast for Kirkland, Washington.

Friday: It will be a mostly cloudy day with light rain showers. It will cool down to normal late May temperatures of the mid-60s. I’m going to go against conventional forecasts which have showers in the morning tapering off in the afternoon and predict that rain showers will likely continue to 2 to 4 PM. It won’t be a lot of rain, but if you’re leaving town on Friday, bring patience because the FIPSI factor is going to be off the charts.

Friday Night: The rain showers will stop, but the clouds will linger. The clouds will act like a blanket and keep lows in the 50s.

Saturday: Sorry peeps, but looks like day one of our three-day weekend won’t be that great. It looks like rain showers will start around 10 AM to 11 AM and then increase through most of the daylight hours. Temperatures will get into the low 60s, and we could see up to 2/10 of an inch of rain. That is a borderline washout. Rain will taper off right around sunset because you know, Puget Sound.

Saturday Night: Cloud cover continues, but due to the cool start, temperatures will drop to around 49 degrees.

Sunday: I don’t see any rain in the forecast, but I don’t see much sun. The Euro model has Kirkland maybe getting to 70 degrees. There will be west, northwest wind pushing marine air into the region that will keep it on the grayer side. Maybe a chance for a little drizzle on Sunday morning. I see this being a similar weather scenario as Mothers’ Day. The best chance for the sun will be later in the day.

Sunday Night: As Sunday winds down the marine air flow will fizzle out and winds will shift to an onshore flow. Onshore flow means drier air and warmer temperatures. The stars will come out, and we’ll prepare for the best day of the weekend, temperatures in the low 50s.

Monday: Memorial Day will be the nicest of the three days, so you’ll be able to enjoy near 80-degree temperatures, bright sun, and clear skies while you sit in traffic coming back across the passes or from the coast. Congrats! To add to the fun, both the Euro and Global US Standard models point to the chance of rain showers on Monday in the late afternoon or early evening. Given the agreement on both, I’m going to buck the other forecasts and say that high clouds will roll in late in the day and we could see a light rain shower during traffic primetime, sending the FIPSI factor off the charts again.

Personally, we’re planning on Sunday for our outing – Monday will be OK for outdoor activity but I would definitely do it earlier in the day. I wouldn’t plan for a washout on Monday afternoon, but I would at least be prepared for the slim chance of a stray rain shower in the late afternoon or early evening.

Malcontent, out.

Terra Firma

Significant tornado slams Jefferson, Missouri

Update: Since this was written many photographs and videos of the damage in Jefferson have appeared. The storm appears to be a very strong EF-3 from the photos. This is my personal, unofficial evaluation using the Enhanced Fujita Scale information linked below.

The slow-motion weather system that has exacerbated historic levels of flooding on the Arkansas, Missouri, and Mississippi Rivers continues to produce devastating tornadoes. Although the initial outbreak earlier this week was surprisingly tepid for the conditions, tornadoes continue to be produced, including a storm near Joplin, Mississippi that killed three last night. It was Jefferson, Missouri in the bullseye last night.

As of this writing, the tornado that struck Jefferson has produced no fatalities, but rescue operations are still ongoing. Interestingly, our always-connected age likely saved many lives compared to 30 years ago, when the timing of this twister could have been catastrophic. Strong tornadoes during nighttime hours are not unprecedented, but they are rarer. Atmospheric and surface warming produced by the sun is a core ingredient to creating the lift needed to build supercells – but it does happen. The Jefferson tornado was around 11:30 PM with the first 911 calls coming in at 11:39 PM. Tornado sirens sounded, news broadcasters advised move to basements and cellphones alerted.

Thirty-four tornadoes touched down on 5/22/19 along the frontal boundary from Oklahoma to Illinois.

Tornadoes are dangerous, but nighttime tornadoes present special hazards. Tornadoes that tear through residential areas hit when most people are home, creating a higher risk for injury and death. Tornadoes can be hard to see when rain wrapped or shrouded in low clouds, but they are impossible to see at night. Sleeping people aren’t aware of warnings and can’t take early action. Warnings can be shorter because there is no physical observation and rely on radar detection. Outside of advanced warning, you won’t know a tornado is upon you until you hear the telltale roar, see the vivid near-continuous lightning, and the start of debris pelting your home. After the tornado passes, self-evaluation is fraught with hazard from debris and potentially downed live powerlines. In the most severe outbreaks, where storms “train” that is one cell follows one after another in the same path, another tornadic system can be following behind.

Many of the trapped received and heeded the warnings moving to the basements of their homes. When their homes collapsed, they became trapped required extraction. There is a lesson here in Puget Sound where the “big one” (e.g., earthquake) would hit without warning. If your survival kit is in the lowest part of your house, there should be at least some tools to get to your survival kit somewhere else and with your survival kit.

Tornadic activity will continue, along with flash flooding and historic water levels that are crushing records along three major rivers. The tornado activity is business as usual for this time of the year, and there have been much larger outbreaks. Given all of the energy in this system, it is a bit of a surprise that so far, no EF-4 or EF-5 storms have formed. Looking at the pictures from Jefferson, Missouri, this appears to be a strong EF-2 or middling EF-3 tornado that struck – but admitted the pictures taken in low light don’t show enough area-wide damage to make a proper armchair Enhanced Fujita Scale evaluation.

Editorial, National, Think About It

Industrial bleach in the misinformation age

In our era of misinformation, where we seem to be going backward, it is easy to laugh. It is easy to be amused by flat earthers, and their disastrous international conference where they proved the earth was round (whoops), or to gain pleasure in the irony of antivax leaders ending up in the hospital to get treatment for the disease they said was of no consequence. We can shake our heads at those who believe the lizard people run the planet (this is a real thing) and exhibit outrage at Alex Jones for insisting that the Sandy Hook shooting was a false flag to take away our guns (under a lawsuit, he now claims he was insane when he said it). The problem is, this era of misinformation has real consequences.

When the Internet became mainstream in the mid-90s, and the browser wars of Netscape versus Microsoft was detailed in the news and on people’s minds, there was a belief the world would become a better place. By giving everyone on the planet access to their own Guttenberg printing press, the ability to share knowledge and grow would bring an era of better understanding, faster research, and the democratization of knowledge. We would understand each other better, discover we aren’t so different, lift the undereducated, and there would be greater equality.

Something awful and sinister has happened on the way to global enlightenment. The part that so many missed is that anyone has access to a Guttenberg printing press, meaning any idiot with a conspiracy theory, or any entity that wants to push misinformation can do so with near impunity. Combine that with two-and-a-half generations that don’t give a crap about online personal privacy, the vast amount of third-party data available on us, and the willingness and desire to sell that data to anyone with cash – it is a recipe for disaster.

Russia state news to the living rooms of America

Today we have the Putin News Network (RT) pushing that 5G will kill you. Why? Because Russia and China are behind in deploying 5G and they want to slow down the roll out in the west to catch up. You have the Austrian government in collapse. You have an ongoing and near-forgotten civil war (of sorts) in Ukraine. You have the UK in complete chaos over Brexit, and then we have our shit show in the United States with interference in the 2016 election – but at least there wasn’t any collusion so let’s not figure out how deep the interference was. We have measle epidemics when we shouldn’t have any, and growing cases of whooping cough. Oh, and we have 12 million Americans who believe that lizard people run the planet. I refuse to link to these things and add to the legitimacy storm, look it up yourself.

How bad is it? There are multiple Guttenberg printing presses, some on social media platforms which should have a moral obligation to stop misinformation, advocating the use of industrial bleach to cure autism. Parents are forcing their children to drink it, bathe in it, and have enemas with it. Is the image of a two-year-old being forced to drink industrial bleach as a cure for autism amusing? It’s horrifying. I want to punch Jenny McCarthy in her face, but in the age of everyone gets a Guttenberg printing press, she knows more than doctors and researchers. No, she doesn’t advocate bleach as a cure, but she advocated that vaccinations cause autism and some of these parents forcing industrial bleach on their children. Desperate parents following the false belief that industrial bleach will flush the heavy metals out of their children, and cure the disease.

I certainly am not advocating, as much as it may seem, to twist the First Amendment and allow free speech for only things scientifically proven. I see this as a crisis of our time and the rapid rise of misinformation. Ironically, the Internet has made us more tribal. It is easier for me to find a group of people that believe what I believe, alternative views are damned. So I can sit in my echo chamber and go deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole until I believe Sandy Hook was a false flag. I can be in my world until I believe that Obama is the anti-Christ who wants to create a gay Muslim state in Texas, or until I believe that pouring industrial bleach down a helpless child’s throat, will “cure” them of disease. If anything, the horror I find is parents would rather do something that could kill their child then accept that they will be different.

Yes, people believed Jade Helm as a front to turn Texas into a gay Muslim state run by Obama

I firmly believe that Google, Facebook, Twitter, and a list of others have a moral obligation to fight the spread of misinformation. I believe the intelligence communities of nations must protect their citizens from outside false information and propaganda. I think all of us would do better if we left our echo chambers and listened to other voices, and I think we would be more willing to listen if the voices weren’t so shrill. How do we do it without crushing free speech? That is a question we need to answer quickly. To quote from the movie Men In Black, “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals, and you know it.”

We need to stop the people who are manipulating the dumb, panicky animals because the alternative is nationalism, disease, and anti-science. I continue to wonder if 500 years from now people will look back, and consider early 21st-century society as living deep in a Dark Age.

Please think about it.

Malcontent, out.

Weather

Tornado outbreak expected today

It is going to be a rough day in northern Texas and central Oklahoma. Conditions have lined up to create the first High Risk warning from the Storm Prediction Center in two years. As I often write, the weather is not climate; the climate is not the weather. The geography and intensity of this forecast are not out of the “norm,” despite High Risk warnings being rare. For the heart of Oklahoma and part of the Texas panhandle, there is a 45% chance of a tornado forming today, and a better than 10% chance that any given tornado will be EF-2 or stronger. In plain English, that means if you live in Oklahoma City, there is a 45% chance today that a tornado will touch the ground within 25 miles of where you are sitting. There is a 10% chance that tornado will be EF-2 or stronger. That kind of odds schools close and businesses send people home.

Tornado-producing supercells need several things to form. They need energy, and that comes in the form of high humidity. Dew points in the area are in the 70s, which is ridiculously high humidity. That is the kind of humidity where you walk out of the house, and your clothes stick to your body two minutes later. You need convection, you need high temperatures, and you can’t have a “cap,” that is a temperature inversion that traps warm air close to the surface. Finally, you need wind shear, that is the wind at different altitudes traveling in different directions, and you need a lot of wind shear. High dew points and unstable air can create amazing thunderstorms, but it is the wind shear that turns them into rotating supercells. There is one other element that enhances the development of tornadic producing storms, individual cell development. Thunderstorms that form in a line along a front can produce tornadoes, but the mechanics (which I’ll spare here) of the storms combine and act to moderate supercell and tornadic development within the cells. It is the stand-alone cells with a forecast model like today, that can form and produce the largest tornadoes.

Tornado damage is measured using the Enhanced Fujita scale. Tetsuya Fujita and Allen Pearson developed the Fujita scale to measure the strength of tornadoes consistently and started using the scale in 1971. It was updated in 1973 and 2007 when it became the Enhanced Fujita Scale.  The scale goes from EF-0 to EF-5. An EF-0 can raise your blood pressure, break large branches off a tree, take some shingles off the roof, crack some windows, and send the trash cans into the neighbor’s yard. An EF-5 can suck the pavement off of the ground, toss loaded rail cars like children’s toys, and leave nothing but a concrete slab behind when it passes over a house. The 1996 movie Twister may be loaded with pseudoscience and hyperbole, but the description of an EF-5 tornado as, “the finger of God,” is correct. As a civilian, there are only three ways to escape an EF-5, get out of its a path (never attempt to outrun a tornado), go underground, be in a specialized tornado shelter built to survive an EF-5 — the end.  

Storm Prediction Center Convective Outlook for May 20, 2019

In addition to the extreme danger in the central Midwest, there is a more than a small chance for tornadoes in most of Connecticut, western and central Massachusetts, almost all of New Hampshire and the western part of Maine. This too isn’t an “unusual,” forecast for this time of the year. You might be surprised to learn that Massachusetts suffered one of the most destructive tornadoes in United States history in 1953. There remains debate among scientists if the Great Worcester Tornado was an EF-4 or EF-5 storm, and the damage has gone through an unprecedented review twice. For today the storm stands as a very strong EF-4.

The Great Worcester Tornado in 1953, taken as it reached EF-3 strength in Holden, Massachusetts

Although watches, warnings, and forecast models have gotten much better, and research has gotten more extreme, the average warning times for tornadoes remains excruciatingly short. Yesterday, in a real-life Twister not based on Hollywood fantasy (I’m harsh, it is easy to call out everything the movie Twister got wrong, but it did get a lot right) Reed Timmer was able to drive his Dominator 3 vehicle into a tornado and get 3 drones deployed. As much as we may understand our world, we still don’t fully understand the mechanics of why some supercells produce tornadoes and others don’t. The more we can learn, the better we can understand what a tornadic supercell looks like in early development, and the earlier we can issue warnings. For that part, the movie Twister got 100% right. Stay safe out there, and if you live in one of these areas under an Enhanced, Moderate, or High Risk categorical forecast, keep your eye to the sky and have your survival plan in place.

Weather

Uncertainty and the weekend forecast

Weekend weather for the 17th to the 19th of May. Friday and Saturday are clear, Sunday is very tough to call. On to the forecast!

Friday will start wet, and for Kirkland specifically, things could be very wet with a Puget Sound Convergence Zone forming overnight. The question with the CZ is always where exactly. The further north you are of the King-Snohomish line, the more likely you’re in the wet, but it is possible for the zone to form a little further south. If you’re south of downtown Bellevue and Seattle, the rain will be lighter and turn to showers earlier in the day. Friday afternoon looks, “OK,” and Friday night dries out further.

Saturday we get an onshore flow, the same wind direction that gave us our mini-heatwaves in March and last week. We won’t see temperatures soaring into the 80s, and it will be mostly cloudy, but it will get into the 70s with an increasing chance of rain on Saturday.

Sunday – this is the tough forecast. Models are all over the place on how much rain but it will rain. Most of it will be during the overnight hours and should be lighter than the rain we’ll see tonight and Friday morning. We then have a general chance of rain and “normal” May weather out until Tuesday of next week. Given how wide apart the models are, I’ll make another call on Sunday tomorrow and update.

For weekend outdoor plans Saturday is your day – won’t be bright blue skies but it will be dry.