Vince Agard

This is wild - somebody did a deep dive into the real stories behind this famous XKCD: sheets.works/data-viz/hol...

Dang what a quote. Sarah Gille: “One of my office mates in the general exam, the qualifying exam for doing research at MIT, was asked: How would you explain chaos theory to your mother?” Her mother coded chaos theory w Lorenz.

The abstract of the original article in Journal of the History of Biology by @alistairsponsel.bsky.social and Brian Sutton is really quite something. doi.org/10.1007/s107...

Wading into the "relative versus absolute" El Niño intensity debate: I genuinely think both are important--and I think we lose important information if we focus solely on one vs another. And both, as of late Sep, have now reached or exceeded record levels! [Thread]

NSF has reduced the research budget for all atmospheric, ocean, and earth sciences by ~80%. 80%! A lot of us will not be conducting new research or training new students for the foreseeable future.

The emissions scenarios underlying the next generation of climate model runs that will be featured in the upcoming IPCC 7th Assessment Report are officially out! I have a big new explainer over at Carbon Brief taking an in-depth look at what they mean and whats changed: www.carbonbrief.org/...

One of several eyebrow-raisers in here. (Happy Holidays?) "California’s highest king tides are predicted on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day, with another in late January. Water levels will probably rival the highest in recorded history, even without a nearby storm."

Projection has become reality 22 years ago, Christoph Schär et al. published a landmark paper in Nature explaining that the 2003 heatwave was a harbinger of things to come. The study featured an iconic figure - shown in countless lectures - illustrating how outlandish the event was at the time

This will pretty much end international students pursuing doctorates. A shocking decision and one which will do irreparable damage to the United States in the long term. www.highereddive.com/news/trump-a...

The Guadalupe River at Centerpoint TX, just downstream from Kerrville, crested this AM at 37.94”— just 2 feet below the level reached in last summer’s catastrophic flood. 1. 39.61 ft on 07-04-2025 (P) 2. 24.27 ft on 10-16-2018 3. 14.83 ft on 05-29-2016 water.noaa.gov/gauges/gctt2

Parts of the Northeast US have been under a thick plume of smoke today overspreading the region from fires across south-central Canada - the worst smoke plume to affect the region since the infamous 2023 NYC smoke plume. Thread for the meteorology associated with this:

It's interesting that most people don't seem to know what weather event kills more people every year in the U.S. according to the National Weather Service Here you go...

"Climate Shift Index (CSI) levels of 5 — the highest possible — are forecast across the eastern U.S., meaning human-caused climate change made this extreme heat at least 5x more likely. This signals an exceptional climate-influenced event." 🔥 ➡️ Learn more: www.climatecentral.org/climate-shif...

Paris, the capital of France, has recorded more days above 40°C this week than during the 147-year period spanning from 1872 to 2019. Historic is an understatement.

fixed your headline

We regret that our event on Extreme Heat: Improving governance and strengthening action around the world has been cancelled due to the red extreme heat warning issued by the UK Met Office. Our apologies to everyone who was planning to attend the event.

🔴 Ce mardi est la journée la plus chaude jamais enregistrée en France. Le thermomètre est même monté à 44,3 °C à Pissos (Landes). De nombreuses villes ont connu des valeurs inédites, tous mois confondus (et nous ne sommes qu'en juin...), notamment 42,1 °C à Bordeaux. [valeurs provisoires 17h]

Has got to be one of the most miserable obs I’ve seen in the CONUS. 101/83 in McAllen, TX yielding a heat index of 129°F 🥵🥵

CIRES recently got to check out the new @noaa.gov Hail Cam! Hail melts quickly after falling, so it's difficult to know the true size of a hailstone. With the Hail Cam, researchers at NOAA NSSL can measure the size before it hits the ground to make radar estimates and warnings more accurate.

NY times covered our cut today (gift article) www.nytimes.com/2026/06/12/s...

Pretty good CAPE in today’s sounding

This is something I have never seen before on satellite. Clouds perfectly outlining roads. Just incredibly neat imagery of Houston, Texas this morning. Massive shoutout to Ethan Mok who discovered it (on Twitter).

I'm happy to announce the launch of malpais.app, a free NEXRAD/TDWR radar viewer that lives in your browser. malpais downloads Level 2 or Level 3 data from NOAA's Open Data Dissemination archives and renders it in WebGL on your desktop or mobile device. For free.

"One-quarter of the 1,100 Texas professors and researchers surveyed said they are seeking jobs outside the state. More than 60% said they would not encourage graduate students or colleagues to work at a university in Texas."

NSSL WoFS storm scale model shows an incredibly favorable environment for intense tornadoes across northeast Kansas the next several hours, SPC just issued a PDS tornado watch there into far southeast Nebraska.

24 hours of Boston in 24 seconds!

Introducing a new framework for evaluating AIWP and NWP models on a standardized set of extreme weather cases! arxiv.org/abs/2605.01126

Prof. Niklas Schneider from the Department of Oceanography showed @helenczerski.bsky.social some of the ocean phenomena that can be demonstrated with a rotating tank. In this case, it’s the formation of subtropical gyres and why we will always have the Gulf Stream. 🌊 weathertank.mit.edu

In 2025, renewables overtook coal in global electricity generation for the first time in over 100 years. Renewables: 33.8% Coal: 33.0% Coal fell below a third of global electricity generation for the first time in history.

I'd like to introduce you all to a personal project I've been working on recently. It's called Heimdall, and it's an MRMS + ProbSevere situational awareness monitor for CONUS scale severe weather. It's got roaming, alerts, archive mode, and is fully client side. heimdall.stormscale.io

Ancient Vantage Pro2

A satellite view that tracks the rocket a bit longer - the water vapor imagery. Pew pew! All imagery found via CIRA/NOAA: slider.cira.colostate.edu.

HFO continues Flash Flood Emergency [flash flood: observed, flash flood damage threat: catastrophic] for Oahu in Honolulu [HI] till Mar 20, 5:00 AM HST Link

In Phoenix, Arizona, temperatures could reach an unbelievable 107°F (+42°C) on Friday. If that verifies, it would break the record for the earliest occurrence of 107°F since records began in 1895, pulverising the previous record by a whopping 44 days. This is totally bonkers.

An absolutely stunning view of a large haboob sweeping across Texas.

Just stunning – and heartbreaking – that there is barely a single data point across the VAST combined area of DRC, Sudan and South Sudan

This winter is such a great example of shifting baselines. As someone in the east, it was cold this winter. Full stop. But it "felt" even more frigid because we haven't had such cold recently. It was cold but not historically so. But good heavens look at that record-breaking heat out West. 🔥

We use 30 year averages to show climatology (average weather conditions). During the 20th century the UK climatology followed a path around a confined box. With #globalwarming and #climatechange they have escaped out the box. This #dataviz shows UK rainfall and temperature.

Watch as a massive crack forms in the ice on Lake Erie. An impressive view captured by GOES-19 earlier on Sunday.

Neat! SPC has updated their 1955-2024 severe weather climatology. www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/datavi... Here's "tornado" for all 365 days of the year:

In my newsletter this morning, I shared the experimental real-time freezing rain ice accumulation analysis developed by the winter weather research group at NSSL. This is the kind of R2O NOAA does that has clear societal benefit - and that the admin wants to curtail. tinyurl.com/43kcrhmb

This has been the results analog in my mind since sleetmonster was born. The 2007 storm was not as big... one of the most outsized impact events I recall. The days after were a big ole mess. www.weather.gov/lwx/winter_D...

While many of you are likely yelling "GO PATRIOTS" or "GO BRONCOS!" I'm yelling "GO WEATHER and the dendritic growth zone!"

#Thundersleet in Austin SPECI KAUS 250426Z COR 36012G18KT 7SM -TSPL BKN015CB BKN023 OVC027 M04/M06 A3007 RMK AO2 SNE18 TSB25 PRESFR OCNL LTGICCG S TS S MOV NE P0000 T10391056 $