4 responses to “SaturTabs”

1. 

   Michael Cain

   March 8, 2025 at 9:53 am

   I suppose if the local weather forecasters were let go, and all the people who do the data collection, operate the satellites, build the models, and run the supercomputer were kept, that would be consistent with the “AccuWeather already does the local predictions just as well” thing. Somehow you know that they’ll gut the foundational parts as well as the local forecasting staff.

   I am informed by a NOAA acquaintance who has been there for many years that AI models have been built and tested at low resolutions and are as accurate as the physics-based models at that resolution while using much less physical data. He believes it will scale up. The Europeans (ECMWF) have an AI model whose longer-term results they publish, marked as “experimental”. It seemed to do a reasonable job last hurricane season.

   I would miss the discussion product provided by the local NWS forecasters about how they arrived at the forecast. Accuweather doesn’t do anything like that. Some of the NWS people have a sense of humor. A decade ago, during a freak monsoon episode, the discussion included “…rain of biblical proportions. Do you know how long I have waited for an appropriate time to use that?”

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2. 

   Daryl

   March 8, 2025 at 10:00 am

   The Army Corp/wasted water story is funny.
   The lengths people will go to just to shut up the Presidential Doughboy…

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3. 

   Eusebio

   March 8, 2025 at 11:31 pm

   The California water release by the Army Corps of Engineers was concerning because it illustrated that the new Secretary of Defense would pass along nonsensical orders, and the military chain of command would accommodate him. The order had to go through, or with the knowledge of, the USACE commanding general on down to the district colonel and the water management professionals. They all knew it was stupid and counterproductive, but they did it anyway, until state water management officials and political pressure compelled them to stop. It was just a couple of billion gallons of water in this case, and no casualties resulted (though that was a possibility due to the inadequate notification). The next time hegseth replies “yes, sir” to trump and pressures the military CoC to comply with an asinine order, the results could be consequential.

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4. 

   Jay L Gischer

   March 9, 2025 at 4:14 pm

   Of all these headlines, the one that worries me the most is the order to “stand down” all Russian operations.

   The headline and article are far from clear though as to whether the “stand-down” is for offensive operations, or cyber defense, too.