It appears as if the office went down sometime on Monday, and is still without comms as of earlier this morning. From looking at products for the Cheyenne office over the last few days, the NWS offices in Boulder/Denver and Riverton, WY appear to have been providing the bulk of backup services for the area.

This is the latest in an ongoing string of comms and IT failures that have resulted in NWS offices being out of commission for long periods of time, in some cases during severe or impact weather. It also comes on top of a high profile IT and comms glitch that resulted in delays in the timely dissemination of warnings during a severe weather outbreak in early August.

I have noted in past posts how NWS communication failures has been an issue for the agency going back to my own experiences during Katrina, but that aging infrastructure and chronic underaddressing of issues over the years has led to operations being more vulnerable to these sorts of problems now. The NWS is in the process of procuring a new national agency IT and comms infrastructure called HIVE (Hydrometeorological Interactive Virtual Environment) to replace its current AWIPS system that was deployed in the 1990s.

The current deployment schedule targets HIVE to become operational and replace AWIPS by early 2028, which is an incredibly aggressive timeline given that the contracts to develop and deploy the new system were just awarded several months ago. HIVE and its associated database of hydrometeorological data CIRRUS will be cloud-based.

As part of the modernization of its IT and communications structure, the NWS requested feedback this week on the proposed elimination of the Satellite Broadcast Network (SBN)/NOAAPort system, with elimination slated for as soon as August 31, 2027. NOAAPort is the system that “provides a one-way broadcast of NOAA environmental data and information in near-real time to NOAA and external users.” The demise of NOAAPort has resulted in a lot of concern in the weather community as many users rely on NOAAPort for data either directly or through datastreams that rely on NOAAPort.

As of now, the NWS’ public statement encourages users to submit their comments and concerns, but only provides a vague statement about what the future may bring: “We are assembling information about alternative data sources and will provide it as soon as possible.” To be fair to NWS, this a very complicated problem as the communications spectrum continues to become more constrained (which also impacts the gathering and dissemination of hydrometeorological data in many other ways).

At this point, the bottom line seems to be that the development of HIVE/CIRRUS and anticipated modernization of NWS IT/comms is a positive step forward, but there are still a lot of unknowns and questions remaining on the NWS and broader weather community’s data collection and delivery. More to come obviously in the coming months.

Turning to weather and starting with the remnants of Edouard, the 3-day rainfall product from MRMS shows a focused swath of very heavy rainfall over east Texas.

The heaviest amounts occurred between Livingston and Beaumont with 10+” of rain in much of this area. The highest measured amount I have seen so far is 24.36” just northwest of Saratoga, TX. The heavy rain flooded numerous roads and some structures, resulting in evacuations and water rescues.

Edouard is definitively weakening now, with visible satellite imagery no longer showing a well defined circulation. While residual high levels of moisture and some enhanced low level inflow will continue to support some clusters of storms with heavy rainfall and some flash flooding potential, the overall risk for organized heavy rainfall will continue to diminish over the next 24 hours.

After a busy day of severe weather on Wednesday, the area from the upper Midwest into the Mid-Atlantic looks poised for more action today. One primary area of focus will again be in the Great Lakes, where clusters of severe storms with significant straight line wind damage potential will exist — SPC recently upgraded areas from eastern Lake Erie across western Pennsylvania to an enhanced (level 3 of 5) risk. Another focus will be in northern Minnesota and eastern North Dakota, where supercell storms could produce very large hail, tornadoes and damaging winds.

These storms are occurring on the northeast periphery of the large dome of middle and upper level high pressure across the central part of the country which will continue to produce serious and unusual heat risk for September. Excessive heat warnings are now in effect for much of the Lower Missouri, Mid-Mississippi and Lower Ohio Valley regions. Numerous record warm temperatures — both maxima and especially minima — are expected east of the Rockies the next couple of days.

The central and eastern Pacific continues to churn out tropical activity with three hurricanes currently ongoing: Lowell, Karina and Marie. The one of most concern for US interests remains Lowell, which has weakened a bit in the last 18 hours and is now a category 4 hurricane. After some waffling to the west and increasing spread in model guidance from late yesterday, the most recent model runs have shown a tightening in model spread and shift back more toward the right.

The mean model tracks for Lowell continue to show a path to the west of the main Hawaiian Islands, but with the western part of the islands in the envelope with a number of model ensemble members showing a track that could cause impacts, particularly to Kauai. As I discussed in my post yesterday, the steering setup as Lowell turns north is expected to be quite complex, and as a result the models will likely continue to waffle and struggle a bit. NHC continues to urge residents and visitors to Hawaii to monitor forecasts.

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After taking several days to get its act fully together, Lowell has taken off in the last 48 hours, and this afternoon based on satellite estimates the National Hurricane Center designated it as a category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale (SSHWS) with maximum sustained winds of 160 mph. Visible satellite imagery certainly shows an impressive hurricane, with a stadium eye and what appear to be mesovortices rotating within it. A NOAA Hurricane Hunter research mission will be in Lowell this evening and will give us an even better estimate of its intensity.

Lowell is moving west at about 10 mph and that motion is expected to continue for the next few days. Oceanic heat content is well above normal in the area south of Hawai’i where Lowell will be moving and shear is expected to be light, so Lowell is expected to remain a major hurricane for the next several days. The intensity will likely fluctuate though due to internal changes that are difficult to forecast such as eyewall replacement cycles.

Lowell is currently being steered west by a strong piece of the middle and upper level subtropical ridge to its north. However, the steering pattern near Hawaii is going to change dramatically over the upcoming weekend. That area of high pressure will weaken as whatever is left of Hurricane Karina moves northwest and another upper level low develops to its northwest. This low will be drifting west underneath a strengthening area of of upper level high pressure to its northwest. The mean impact of all of this will be for Lowell to shift from a westerly motion to a northerly motion.

Given all of these different features that will be interacting, this is a very complicated forecast situation and the timing and longitude of Lowell’s turn to the north and how much motion east of north might be imparted on the storm is very uncertain. However, over the last couple of days guidance has overall been shifting east with the track, and the reliable model ensembles are now certainly close enough to Hawai’i for it to be of some concern. For example, the very reliable Google DeepMind AI mean track is now not too far west of Ni’hau — and as shown above, many members now take the system over or close to Kauai and a few as far east as O’ahu or Mau’i.

How strong Lowell will be as it moves north and reaches the latitude of Hawai’i of course is an even bigger question. It will be starting to move north of the most favorable warm ocean conditions — so how intense it is when that turn north occurs and how quickly it moves will be a key. Right now, the mean forecast from the GDM has it as around a category 2.

While I am definitively not saying Lowell is going to be a repeat of Hurricane Iniki in 1992, I do want to show the track from that hurricane to remind people that this is the type of general setup that resulted in Iniki causing devastating damage to Kauai. Again, we are a long way from this being an expectation for Lowell — but it shows why we do need to be keeping a close eye on this hurricane for the next several days.

Finally, there has also been a lot of discussion in California about Marie, which is about to become a hurricane to the southwest of Mexico. Rather than going into a lot of detail about that setup, I am sharing this excellent and detailed post from my colleague Dr. Daniel Swain which gives a great overview on Marie and everything else happening on the West Coast over the next several days.

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TS Edouard may have been a small tropical cyclone that only made it to strong tropical storm status, but it once again served as a reminder that any landfalling tropical system can cause serious issues. For these weaker systems, heavy rainfall and flash flooding are typically the dominant issue, and that was the case here as well. NSSL Multi-radar Multi-sensor System (MRMS) 24-hour rainfall estimates (above) show an area of 10+” of rain centered over the area of Texas between Beaumont and Lufkin, with a maximum area near 20” just northwest of Lumberton.

Rain gauge measurements support these estimates, with multiple gauges west and north of Lumberton reporting more than a foot of rain, with a max of 17.75” in western Hardin County.

Flash flood emergencies have been issued by the NWS in this area, and numerous roads are closed and some structures have flooded. This area has been dry in recent weeks — East Texas is in moderate drought status per the US Drought Monitor — but even so this rainfall will push several area streams into flood, with Village Creek near Kountze forecast by the NWS to reach major flood stage.

Edouard has definitely been an overachiever with its rainfall as even model forecasts as late as Tuesday’s early morning runs (HRRR 2-day rainfall forecast shown above) were relatively muted in their rainfall forecasts.

NOAA’s new high resolution model the Rapid Refresh Forecast System (RRFS) did a much better job in showing a corridor of 6-12” of rainfall with isolated higher maxima along the path of Edouard. As the day went on and Edouard showed increased organization and intensity, the model forecasts gradually caught up. Kudos to my colleague Matt Lanza noting in a post on his Substack that I shared yesterday afternoon raising awareness of the trend toward a more serious flood risk.

By last evening’s run of the HRRR, it had a much better handle on the rainfall forecast as I shared in my live chat about Edouard’s landfall. Of course, we were much closer to the event by then and the heavy rainfall was ongoing.

Rainfall was not the only impact with Edouard. While confined to right along the track of the small system, active intense thunderstorms associated with the center of the storm were quite efficient in producing strong winds as the center moved onshore and inland between Sabine Pass and Cameron, LA. The official observing site in Beaumont-Port Arthur reported sustained tropical storm force winds as high as 44 mph as the center moved by with gusts as high as 69 mph. The NOAA National Data Buoy Center observing system as Sabine Pass reported sustained winds of 56 mph and a gust as high as 71 mph as the storm made landfall.

So in addition to the flooding, more than 70,000 customers are without power this morning in east Texas due to wind impacts from Edouard. Edouard is a reminder (including to me!) of the impacts even a small, middling tropical storm — look at how small and isolated it looks in the visible satellite image above — can produce. Luckily for the Houston metro area, Edouard was as we have been discussing a small compact system, and it staying just to their east meant that the metro area was largely spared any issues from the storm.

Edouard is not quite done with Texas — it still has a well defined circulation as it passes just west of Lufkin. Bands of intense showers and storms will continue to rotate around it this afternoon and into tonight as it moves northwest, with additional flash flooding possible.

The area along and just east of the Interstate 45 corridor looks to have the greatest risk for additional flooding impacts over the next 24 hours. A tornado or two is also not impossible this afternoon in this region with the strongest of any storms that develop.

Severe thunderstorms in the eastern US are the other ongoing significant impact weather event today (along with the never ending heat, of course). A complex of severe storms has already been pushing across central Pennsylvania this morning, producing some incidences of damaging winds. These storms are expected to maintain themselves or even intensify somewhat as they move south into the region around Baltimore and DC, and a new severe thunderstorm watch (brown area in map above) has just been issued for this area.

Additional severe thunderstorms are expected this afternoon and evening upstream across the eastern Great Lakes region.

A strong upper level disturbance and associated cold front pushing into a very unstable atmosphere in southwestern Ontario will cause severe thunderstorms to erupt this afternoon and push south and southeast.

As highlighted in the Nadocast probabilities above, the area from southwest Ontario into western is of particular concern for storms with damaging winds and tornadoes, and SPC recently upgraded the American side of this area to an enhanced (level 3 of 5) risk of severe storms for this afternoon.

This post has already gotten very long, so I am going to stop here — but there are plenty of other weather issues to discuss, including the heat across much of the country east of the Rockies, unusual wet weather coming to the West Coast, and the intense tropical activity in the eastern and central Pacific. I will hopefully have a later video or post about some of this later today. I also will likely be doing another live Substack Chat for paid subscribers about all of the ongoing weather.

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GOES visible satellite imagery this morning reveals for the first time this Atlantic hurricane season something that actually looks like a tropical cyclone — albeit a small one — as Tropical Storm Edouard continues to strengthen near the Gulf Coast. Increasing strong thunderstorm activity continues to wrap around an intensifying low level circulation which is centered about 50 miles southeast of Port Arthur.

Radar shows the inner structure of Edouard bteter, and as the center drifts west-northwest toward the coast it has been showing pockets of 60 to 70 mph winds on the northeast side of the developing eyewall. These winds are aloft not at the surface, but it certainly that maximum sustained winds at the surface are at least the 50 mph estimated by NHC in the 10 am CT advisory, and we will be monitoring radar data intently for signs of further intensification.

Luckily, Edouard will be making landfall a bit quicker than it appeared yesterday, and will likely come onshore somewhere near the mouth of the Sabine River in the next few hours. Less time over water and the dry air we talked about the last couple of days getting entrained into the system has kept us from dealing with a more intense situation — but Edouard is expected to take advantage of the minimal wind shear and warm water and continue to strengthen up until that landfall. The core of Edouard is small so strong winds should be limited to near the center — but as NHC notes hurricane forecast winds at least in gusts will be possible and this could certainly cause some issues with power outages and other wind impacts near the core of the storm. A few tornadoes will also be possible near and to the east of where Edouard’s center moves.

The area where Edouard is making landfall is particularly prone to storm surge, so event though it is a relatively small tropical cyclone, maximum storm surge values of 3 to 5 feet are forecast along coastal southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana where storm surge warnings are in effect.

Again, the small, focused nature of Edouard combined with surrounding dry air means that the heavy rainfall threat will be relatively confined to along the immediate path of the storm. The morning high resolution rapid refresh ensemble (REFS) appears to be doing a good job in highlighting the area of maximum risk of 5+” rainfall potential, which given the intense rainfall rates could cause some significant flash flooding particularly in urban areas.

Edouard will be weakening as it moves into the dome of dry, hot high pressure aloft over the south central United States, but some risk of heavy rainfall and flash flooding will persist on Thursday as it moves up the Interstate 45 corridor toward the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.

A couple of other tropical notes. Lowell has become a hurricane well to the southeast of the Big Island of Hawai’i and is expected to continue intensifying for the next several days as it moves west. Model forecasts still indicate a significant turn of Lowelly to the north this weekend or early next week — and still have a large spread in where that happens with the easternmost models showing a potential risk to the western part of the main Hawaiian Islands. The mean track of the Google DeepMind (shown above) has shifted a bit to the east over the last 24 hours and this is of course still several days away, so it is worth keeping an eye on.

As expected, Tropical Storm Marie has formed well southwest of the coast of Mexico, and is expected to intensify as it moves northwest over the next several days. Most of the reliable model guidance continues to show a weakening Marie eventually turning west or west-northwest over the open eastern Pacific, but a handful of ensemble members do show a turn more toward Baja California or the Southwest US.

As I discussed in yesterday’s newsletter, the overall large scale weather pattern does favor at least some moisture being drawn up toward the Southwest US next week which could enhance rain and storm chances — and also means it is worth keeping an eye on the track of Marie for any later trends toward the outlier tracks more toward the coast.

I have some tasks to take care of the next several hours, but will try to post occasional updates about Edouard in Substack Chat (benefit for paid subscribers) as I can.

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Did a live video this evening, primarily focusing on the latest on Tropical Storm Edouard, which continues to strengthen resulting in the issuance of hurricane watches for parts of the Gulf Coast. I also took a quick look at some of the MRMS data from the Grand Canyon flood, and finished with the ongoing heat east of the Rockies.

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The tropical disturbance over the northern Gulf of Mexico continues to gradually get better organized today. US Air Force reconnaissance aircraft are in the system, and the most recent pass through the system shows an increasingly well organized low level circulation. Along with the relatively organized pattern of showers and thunderstorms, the system is very close to being (or already is) a tropical depression and likely will be designated as one soon.

NHC began issuing advisories and forecasts on the system which is now known as Potential Tropical Cyclone (PTC) 5 late this morning. There is still some uncertainty in track, especially given that the system is still getting organized and there could be shifts in the exact location of where the low level center of circulation consolidates. In general, though, it should turn more northwest toward the southeast Texas or southwest Louisiana coastlines, making landfall in about 24 to 36 hours.

As I have been discussing over the weekend, conditions ahead of PTC5 are relatively favorable for development, with light wind shear and warm waters. Looming drier air to the north is the main deterrent for a stronger system to develop — along with the fact it will only be over water for another 24 to 36 hours. As the system has become better organized, the intensity forecasts for the system have come up. The mean ensemble forecast from the Google DeepMind AI system which had the best Atlantic hurricane guidance in 2025 shows it becoming a mid-range tropical storm before landfall.

PTC5 is expected to be a relatively small system, and one thing we need to keep in mind is that small systems like this are prone to rapid fluctuations in intensity. I liken it in some ways to trying to forecast the evolution of a persistent cluster of severe storms over land. Even our best high resolution models can struggle with those forecasts, and given the way past similar systems have strengthened just before landfall (e.g., Humberto 2007), we will need to keep a close eye on observational and model trends up to landfall.

As an example, the most recent run of the Climavision high resolution model shows 60 to 70 mph wind gusts as the system makes landfall in Galveston Bay Tuesday afternoon. This is a single deterministic model that shows just one possible outcome, but it gives an idea of a plausible possibility. A handful of the 50 members in the Google DeepMind AI forecast available online also make the system a hurricane before landfall. Again, these are likely the high-end extreme solutions — but given occasional surprises in the past, I will be watching things closely in the next day.

Rainfall potential has also continued to increase as the system has become better organized. The Weather Prediction Center is now forecasting a swath of 4-8” of rain across parts of southeast Texas with PTC5. Given the small size of the storm this will likely be a rather focused rainfall event, and shifts in the track will cause shifts in the heaviest rainfall.

The most recent run of the high resolution rapid refresh ensemble model shows high probabilities for areas of 5+” of rain in southeast Texas Tuesday, and with anticipated high rainfall rates, flash flooding is a concern particularly in urban areas.

Elsewhere in the Atlantic, the remnants of Dolly have become increasingly disorganized over the last 24 hours and the models have continued to become less enthused on the idea of anything redeveloping out of it. NHC is continuing to monitor it, but the already low probabilities of regeneration have now come down to 10%.

Meanwhile, the eastern Pacific is also extremely active, with Karina having intensified to a category 4 hurricane in the last 24 hours, and Lowell on the verge of becoming a hurricane. Another system (Invest 95E) to the southwest of the Mexican coast should become a tropical storm in the next 24 hours (Marie would be the next name), and NHC (CPHC? who knows? Not gonna derail the weather discussion for this again, but will likely revisit soon) is monitoring another system with low probability of development well south of Hawai’i.

Lowell and the likely future Marie are the two main features of interest for the US as Karina should remain north and northeast of Hawai’i. As can be seen in the map above, Lowell is forecast to intensify into a major hurricane over the next several days as it continues west-northwest to the south of Hawai’i.

After this time though, Lowell is expected to make a turn to the north. However, the longitude of where that turn will occur remains quite uncertain — it is still many days away and, as I discussed in Saturday’s newsletter, the steering pattern is expected to be rather complex. Some of the forecasts from the individual members of the Google DeepMind AI show this turn happening far enough east to pose a threat to the western part of the main Hawaiian Islands, while others show it happening well west out near Johnston Atoll. The mean of the forecasts have shifted a bit west over the last 48 hours which is a positive sign for Hawai’i — but given how far out in time we are talking, we still need to keep an eye on Lowell for potential impacts, and of course it is also of even more concern for any interests in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

For the system that is about to become Marie, there has apparently been a lot of social media and some broadcast hype over some runs of the US Global Forecast System model showing this system heading toward California as a hurricane. Given the unusually warm water off the California coast which could help sustain a tropical system more than normal along with the very active El Nino tropical pattern in the eastern Pacific, there is certainly reason to be a bit extra concerned about the potential for a tropical system at some point this season in this region.

However, for this specific system, the GFS forecast in question is a rather extreme outlier in the overall model ensemble. The Google DeepMind AI ensemble shows a relatively typical track to the northwest over the eastern Pacific, followed by a turn to the west as the system weakens. A few members of the GDM ensemble do take a track more toward California, but they are the small minority.

Having said that, the overall weather pattern forecast for next week is a reason to keep a bit of an extra eye out in California. A deep trough of low pressure aloft is forecast to evolve along the West Coast, with a downstream area of strong high pressure developing (again) over the central United States by this weekend. Depending on the exact timing and strength of these features and the ultimate track of future Marie, there is at least some chance that the tropical system could get caught up in a steering channel between these two large scale weather systems and move more toward the Southwest US.

Given that we do not even have the tropical system completely formed yet, this will also just be something to keep an eye on this week. At a minimum, some enhanced Pacific moisture should move toward the Southwest by this weekend.

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I just wanted to give a quick evening update on several developing weather stories.

The tropical disturbance (Invest 97L) in the northern Gulf of Mexico continues to become better organized this evening. The system has an expanding area of showers and thunderstorms over a low pressure center which is weak but showing signs of becoming increasingly well defined in observations and satellite data. All of these are signs of a tropical system gradually becoming better organized.

NHC increased the probabilities of 97L to 70% on their evening outlooks, and based on observations and model trends it seems that at least a tropical depression will likely develop out of 97L. I would not be surprised to see NHC initiate advisories on a “potential tropical cyclone” to get official forecasts out about this system sometime later tonight.

The overall setup for 97L as far as potential intensity and track that I discussed earlier today still seem more or less valid, with a track toward southeast Texas or southwest Louisiana expected. Dry air to the north of the system will be a potential negative — but relatively light shear and very warm water could support some intensification. Looking at the latest run of the Google DeepMind AI system, only about a quarter of the ensemble members develop 97L, but of those that do several make it a rather strong tropical storm and a couple even make hurricane intensity.

As I discussed this morning, there have been some examples of systems taking advantage of the very warm Gulf waters and intensifying rather quickly in this region in spite of otherwise marginal looking conditions (e.g., 2007 Hurricane Humberto). Smaller systems like this are also more prone to rapid changes in intensity both up and down. Bottom line, while the overall idea of this system becoming a low end tropical storm seems most likely, we will need to keep a close eye on it for any trends toward further strengthening.

As 97L has become better organized, model rainfall forecasts have trended up since this morning. The latest rapid refresh high resolution ensemble mean forecast rainfall has 1-4” along the track of the storm and probabilities of 5+” rainfall amounts have come up quite a bit. We will need to keep closely monitor the potential for heavy rainfall and flash flooding assuming the system continues to become better developed.

Another developing story this evening is the rapidly growing Plaskett Fire in the Big Sur area of California.

The large dark hot spot is clearly visible on the shortwave infrared animation above.

Finally, more information is coming out this evening about a massive flash flood that swept through parts of the Grand Canyon Saturday afternoon and evening. While initial reports earlier today indicated that no casualties were known, reports later today indicate that more than a dozen people may be missing. This is an area where many people camp and hike so obviously the numbers of people impacted are fluid — dozens had to be evacuated and significant infrastructure damage to Grand Canyon National Park occurred on the canyon floor.

I will have more on all of these stories on Monday.

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One thing that I did not consider but that was raised by a couple of people to me is that this most recent flooding in Texas has not received the media attention that last year’s did due to the (thankfully) much lower loss of life. The lack of media attention has reportedly led to less in the way of outside donations and support from what was seen last year. The damage was very extensive, though — this story from News 4 San Antonio discusses how hundreds of homes in Uvalde were damaged by flood waters, and that many were not in “100-year floodplains” and hence many people apparently did not have flood insurance. Hopefully, the federal assistance authorization will be approved soon — if you are interested, you can follow the status of this disaster request on FEMA’s website here.

This Washington Post article from last week discussed a recently released report from the DHS Office of Inspector General about FEMA disaster response crews avoiding homes that had campaign signs for President Trump in the response to Hurricane Milton in Florida in 2024. This occurred during the Biden Administration and yielded charges of politicized disaster response from Florida state officials — although FEMA at the time said that it fired the crew responsible, and the crew itself claimed that unclear safety protocols were their reason for skipping the homes in question. The DHS OIG report on the incident noted that it “eroded public trust in FEMA’s ability to treat everyone impartially, offer unbiased and consistent assistance, and ensure equal access to resources and tools,” and made recommendations for the agency to improve weak training and operational protocols it said were to blame.

While I am not so naive as to believe that politics do not play some role in disaster preparedness and response at all levels of government — after all, human beings are involved and we have our own intrinsic biases and perspectives — I do believe everything should be done to minimize that and “treat everyone impartially” as noted in this OIG report. Hopefully, the more attention that is brought to these issues will help build that a culture that minimizes the political aspect of disaster response.

Finally, I want to highlight this subscriber comment on the post that raised the importance of moving the conversation around FEMA and disaster response past a focus on response and recovery and increasing the focus on risk-reduction and mitigation. This is a hugely important point and one that I have raised in past newsletters — I encourage you to read Ken’s comments.

Starting off today’s weather in the tropics again with a look at the disturbance in the northern Gulf I discussed yesterday, which has now been designated Invest 97L by the National Hurricane Season. The system has continued to gradually improve in organization since yesterday — if you look closely you can see a twist in the to the south-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River which shows where a circulation is trying to develop. NHC has increased the odds of this system developing to 30%, and overall conditions do not look too hostile for development. Shear is forecast to be light and the system will be moving over warm water.

Likely the major deterrent for development is the extremely dry air we can see in water vapor imagery (the yellow area) to the north and northwest of the system. The stronger the system becomes, more of that dry air will be pulled into it which would be a brake on intensification. The models have become a bit more enthused about this system developing into a defined tropical cyclone, but still the signal is rather muted and anything more than a tropical storm seems unlikely.

The system should be moving inland somewhere along the southeast Texas coast by late Tuesday or early Wednesday. With the dry air nearby, the models are not even showing much in the way of heavy rainfall potential with it, mainly just some 1-2” amounts along the coast. If the system were to get stronger than forecast this risk could increase though. While expectations are currently not for a particularly robust, organized cyclone, systems like this close to the Gulf Coast have pulled surprises before — so we will keep a close eye on it over the next couple of days.

Of more immediate concern for heavy rain and flash flooding is the Southwest, where increasing monsoonal moisture today will bring a risk for thunderstorms with heavy rainfall and flash flooding. The most recent REFS high resolution ensemble model forecast shows high probabilities for areas of 1” or more of rainfall across much of Arizona over the next 24 hours, with somewhat lower probabilities across parts of Utah and western Colorado.

These rainfall amounts would be occurring in a relatively short period of time and could produce some incidences of flash flooding. The NWS Weather Prediction Center has a slight (level 2 of 4) risk of flash flooding for much of this area through tonight.

Severe weather will also be a concern with thunderstorms in this region, with damaging winds the primary risk but a few incidences of large hail also possible. That risk will extend up into the Dakotas where an upper level weather disturbance will provide forcing for more organized clusters of severe storms that could produce significant damaging winds. The Storm Prediction Center has a slight (level 2 of 5) risk of severe storms in this region.

The potential for record heat today will primarily be focused in the Southern Plains, but as the week goes on heat and humidity will expand across much of the country east of the Rockies. Record high temperatures will become more numerous, and dozens of record high minimum temperatures are expected by the middle of the week due to the combination of heat and high levels of humidity. This will result in widespread major to extreme heat risk for much of the upcoming week.

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In Kerr County, where many residents are recovering from a second flood in two years, the community doesn’t have the money to give everyone the needed temporary places to stay, help fixing or replacing vehicles and help making homes liveable again, said Todd Bock, executive director of the Kerr Economic Development Corporation. “We’re in desperate need of that (federal aid) in order for us to start on what we call a full recovery,” Bock said.

Last year, Trump signed off on major FEMA help including for individuals within days of the deadly July 4 flood, which received significant media attention and caused at least 137 deaths, including 119 in Kerr County alone.

To be clear, Texas is not alone in dealing with significant delays in obtaining a federal disaster declaration. Analysis conducted by the Texas Tribune as well as the Urban Institute shows that the time between submission of a federal disaster request by a state and a final decision by the President has taken 9.5 weeks, three times longer than the average from 2000 to 2024 of 3 weeks.

While White House spokespeople say that these delays are due to President Trump wanting to ensure he takes “‘great care and consideration’ to make sure tax dollars are well-spent and that the federal government isn’t stepping in where states are responsible,” these delays are much longer than what were observed in the first Trump Administration. New FEMA Administrator Cameron Hamilton also appeared to undercut this explanation for the delays when he pledged during his confirmation hearings that he would work to speed up the approval process. While obviously it is important that due diligence must be taken with the review of disaster requests, that consideration must be balanced against the reality that time is of the essence for disaster victims to receive critical aid.

Texas is at least lucky in that it is a state that voted for President Trump, which may mean a greater likelihood that their disaster request is ultimately approved. Analysis by the Associated Press showed that the president “has approved more than three-fourths of the requests from states that voted for him in the 2024 election but less than half the requests from states that did not. Although there are federal criteria for disaster aid, decisions ultimately are at the president's discretion.”

All of this is taking place while Congress and the President consider the recommendations of a President Trump appointed FEMA review panel to make major changes to the agency and the federal emergency management structure. While there is healthy debate within the disaster community about what changes would be of most benefit, I think it is safe to say that there is broad consensus that new directions are needed.

One place where that consensus exists would be enabling FEMA to move faster to bring federal resources in to provide relief and support recovery after disasters. At the meeting announcing the FEMA panel’s recommendations, former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a council member, said “these recommendations are all about accelerating federal dollars, streamlining the process, making it less bureaucratic so that Americans can get the help they need on the worst day of their lives."

What we are currently seeing from this administration and FEMA seems to be the opposite of meeting this goal. Now that FEMA Administrator Hamilton was confirmed in his position earlier this month, it will be interesting to see if he can make good on his pledge to improve the situation.

Quite a bit going on in the tropics this morning, so I am going to take a deeper dive into what is cooking. While the remnant of Dolly may no longer have a closed circulation, it looks pretty healthy from a overall perspective with numerous thunderstorms wrapping around the tropical wave. Interesting note: one of my fellow retired colleagues who worked at the National Hurricane Center noted to me that many systems show a surge in thunderstorm activity as they cross 55 degrees west longitude as the remnant of Dolly currently is doing.

Conditions ahead of the wave for the next several days still appear rather hostile, and the model forecast expectations of rainfall across the northeast Caribbean have not changed much since yesterday. The longer range models have become slightly more bullish on the idea of something potentially redeveloping from the remnants of Dolly once it tracks farther northwest into the area around Florida or the eastern Gulf. This is still a low probability but we will keep an eye on it.

NHC is also monitoring an area of thunderstorm activity in the northeastern Gulf that is showing some signs of developing a bit of organization. This area is currently in a favorable area of upper level support for thunderstorm development, and shear is forecast to diminish with time across the northern Gulf. The models are not very bullish on development, and NHC only puts a 10% chance on something forming out of this area. However, these are the kind of “home brewed” systems that can cause issues even in El Nino years, so we will of course watch it.

In the eastern Pacific, we continue to have tropical storms Lowell and Karina to keep an eye on. Lowell looks as if it will only slowly strengthen as it moves west the next several days, with the models now in pretty good agreement that it will move mainly west to a a position well south of the Big Island in about 7-10 days. Beyond that it should be in that area of weaker steering that I discussed yesterday, and the Google DeepMind AI continues to turn it more northwesterly in the general direction of the western Hawaiian Islands. That is obviously still a long ways out, so again just something to keep an eye on.

Karina looks as if it will intensify more quickly and significantly, and is likely to become a major hurricane in a few days before weakening. It will be moving west-northwest well away from any land.

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Well, that didn’t take long. The National Hurricane Center has already issued its final advisory on Tropical Storm Dolly, just 24 hours after it developed. To be honest, it does not look a whole lot different to me on visible satellite imagery than it did yesterday — but NHC reports that Dolly passed just to the north of a NOAA buoy that did not report westerly winds, indicating that it no longer has a closed circulation and has degenerated back into a tropical wave.

Given the rapid weakening of the system, the expectations for it as it crosses the northeast Caribbean have not changed much, with 1 to maybe as much as 3 inches of rain anticipated. While most of this rain would be beneficial given ongoing drought in the region, some concern for flooding exists in the higher elevations of the Leeward Islands.

Perhaps of more ultimate interest to US interests in the tropics is Tropical Storm Lowell. Lowell is early in its genesis process, just designated as a system by NHC yesterday. It is currently undergoing some easterly shear, which is causing its intense thunderstorms to be west of the center.

The disruptive shear is expected to diminish and Lowell is forecast by NHC to intensify to a 110 mph hurricane by early next week. While still more than a week away, the long range models suggest that Lowell could once again pose some risk to Hawai’i. The Google DeepMind AI model (blue in map above) shows a track for Lowell coming up from the south and passing southwest of the islands. The European AI model tracks even farther south, while the mean European physics based model (orange track) is just north of the islands but looking at the individual members it shows a very wide dispersal of tracks from well south of the islands to farther north.

The steering flow next week in the central Pacific looks disjointed as one piece of the upper level subtropical ridge will be shifting northeast of Hawai’i while another builds to its northwest near the International Date Line, leaving the area around Hawai’i in somewhat weak mid and upper level steering flow. The bottom line is that given the pattern and time range for now anticipating where Lowell goes beyond the next week is quite uncertain, but it is worth keeping an eye on as we head into the weekend.

Outside of the tropics, record heat was once again a big story on Thursday, with several locations hitting record highs including Las Vegas with 111F. Even more impressive were the record warm minimum temperatures, as Las Vegas tied an all-time monthly record with a low of 92F. Interestingly (?), all of the 90F+ minimum temperatures in August in Las Vegas have come since 2018, with the exception of a lone 90F on August 12, 2003.

Phoenix also tied its all-time record warm minimum for August with a low of 95F on Thursday. Here as well, August warm minimums have been increasing in recent years, with all but one of the top 50 warmest August low temperatures occurring in the 2000s (lone exception, 92F on August 10, 1995). The majority have occurred since 2020.

Numerous record warm minimums also occurred in southern California on Thursday.

The extreme heat will gradually be shifting east back into the south-central United States this weekend, and looks likely to expand into parts of the Midwest next week.

Much of the East will also be seeing increasing warmth and humidity into next week, and by the middle of the week record warm minimum temperatures are expected to be widespread across a large swath of the country east of the Rockies (above: NWS forecast min temperatures near or above record warm readings for next Wednesday).

The unusual heat is certainly not unique to the United States, as many sections of the globe are dealing with ongoing record heat waves. As reported by climatologist M. Herrera on his Extreme Temperatures around the World Bluesky account, South America, South Africa, eastern Asia and the Mediterranean regions are dealing with particularly brutal heat. A number of locations in north Africa set all-time record warm temperatures, with spots in Algeria and Tunisia seeing afternoon highs near 50C (122F).

Locations in Brazil, Colombia, and Paraguay — where it is winter — have reached 41C (106F), and as he notes above Brazil set a record today for warmest winter night.

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The disturbance in the eastern tropical Atlantic that we talked about in Tuesday evening’s newsletter has become better organized in the last 24 hours, and microwave satellite data this morning showed that it had a well organized low level circulation with 40 mph winds. As a result, Tropical Storm Dolly was designated by the National Hurricane Center this morning. To be clear, the fact this system is named Dolly is not related to the ongoing news cycle. From NHC’s discussion this morning:

Tropical Storm Dolly does not appear as if it will have a long or robust future. It is currently not well organized — the visible satellite loop above shows that the center of low level rotation is well north of the storm’s thunderstorm activity.

The “strongest” model forecasts make Dolly a slightly stronger tropical before upper level shear increases even more and the system degenerates back into a tropical wave. None of the models really maintain it as an organized tropical system beyond the next 48 hours.

The official NHC forecast is aligned with this, showing the system as a remnant low as it approaches Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands this weekend. NHC highlights the potential for some heavy rainfall and flooding in those islands from the remnants of Dolly.

While we obviously do not want any tropical cyclone induced flash flooding, the Caribbean could really just use some rain. This graph shows the summer rainfall accumulation at San Juan compared to normal. As of yesterday, San Juan was running more than a foot below normal since June 1st, and Summer 2026 is on track to be the driest summer on record. In fact, San Juan will need about 2 inches of rain before the end of the month to avoid being the driest summer ever. The US Department of Agriculture issued a federal drought disaster declaration for Puerto Rico on Wednesday as water rationing continues on parts of the island.

The latest models show some limited enhancement in rainfall due to the passage of whatever remains of Dolly, but as of now generally 1-3” of rain is all they muster for the northeast Caribbean through early next week. Hopefully the models trend a bit wetter while keeping Dolly weak.

Meanwhile, too much rain is once again a problem in parts of the Northeast today. Training thunderstorms have already produced significant flash flooding this afternoon in parts of the NYC metro area, particularly around Newark and Staten Island. Flash flooding has also likely been an issue in areas near and east of Wilmington, DE where as much as 6” of rain has fallen since late this morning per radar estimates.

Severe weather and flash flooding is expected to continue to be a risk into this evening across parts of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, with severe thunderstorm and/or flood watches in effect for many areas from the DC Beltway region north into the Capital District of upstate New York.

Record heat continues across the Southwest today. After setting a record high yesterday, Las Vegas looks as if it will be a particular hot spot today, having already reached 109F as of 1 pm local time (110F is the daily record there today). Extreme heat will continue to be an issue as we head into this weekend, shifting back more toward the south-central and central United States.

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A massive flash flood and mudslide swept down several river valleys in the border region of Nepal, Tibet and China early this morning, killing at least 150 people and leaving hundreds more missing and feared dead. After being initially suspected to have been caused by an earthquake, further scientific analysis by the US Geological Survey and other scientists determined that the observed seismic waves initially reported as an earthquake were actually the result of a surface motion from debris flows and a landslide.

Scientists now suspect that a glacial collapse was responsible for the catastrophe. Geomorphologist Dr. Daniel Shugar from the University of Calgary told New Scientist magazine that a glacier at about 17,000 feet AGL appears to have collapsed directly into a river valley several thousand feet below. “Comparing satellite imagery from yesterday and today, the glaciers in the vicinity do seem to have lost a fair bit of snow in the last 24 hours,” he told the magazine. “My guess is that snow melt, and glacier ice melt as well, injected a lot of liquid water into the glacier, which percolated down to the bed and lubricated it. That was enough for it to collapse.”

Shugar indicated that “it’s not that much of a stretch to think, yes, we’re seeing one terrible ramification of human-caused climate change.” Meteorologist Chris Gloninger did an excellent video explaining some of the scientific evidence for how global warming is impacting glaciers in this region of the world and how that likely played a role in the catastrophic event.

Dr. Shugar — who is an expert in glacier and mountain geological change — said that videos (caution, graphic content) of the flood are “off the charts. This is horrific. It looks like this will rank very high on the list of historic mountain disasters in terms of people killed, and cost.”

Speaking of global warming, today Phoenix yet again tied a record high temperature, reaching 117F. Not only did this tie the record for the date, it also tied for the third latest 117+ reading at Phoenix — the record latest date is September 28, set in 2024. Before 2011, the latest 117F had ever been observed at Phoenix was July 28th. Since then, it has been recorded in August or September in five different years. With a low of 91F, the average daily temperature for today was 104F, which trails only August 29 2023 for the warmest day on record so late in the season.

A number of other locations in the West set record high temperatures today as well.

Extreme heat is expected to continue in the Southwest the next couple of days, before shifting back east to the south-central US by early next week.

A return of greater heat and humidity is also anticipated over the East by early next week. Before that happens, though, another disturbance moving through the upper level trough of low pressure that has been dominating the region the last several days will bring another round of severe weather to the East Coast Thursday into Thursday evening. Damaging straight line winds will be the primary risk, but a few tornadoes and incidences of large hail are also possible.

Flash flooding will also be a risk in parts of the I-95 corridor from Baltimore to north of New York City — as well as along the central Gulf Coast.

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Yesterday in the wake of the sad news that Dolly Parton had passed away at the age of 80, this trend started going around on Bluesky: talk about a book that you read as a child that changed your life. I immediately knew what mine was as I have been thinking about it a lot over the last couple of months.

“Katy and the Big Snow” was published in 1943 by renowned Caldecott Award winning children’s author and illustrator Virginia Lee Burton. “Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel” and “The Little House” are her more renowned books — but Katy was the character that made a huge impact on my young self.

I don’t of course remember exactly the first time I read “Katy and the Big Snow” — although I do have a memory of reading it with my mom as well as my grandma who passed away in January 1977, so it was before that. I grew up in the St. Louis area, and along with much of the Midwest the 1970s was one of the coldest, snowiest decades on record. Four of the ten snowiest years in the 130+ years of climate records for St. Louis occurred in that decade.

Luckily for me, I loved snow. I loved playing out in the snow — I remember my mom saved bread wrappers to wrap my stockinged feet in to help keep my feet dry while out in the snow in my rubber boots. At night when it was snowing I would stand at our front window and watch the snow fall in the streetlights and gradually pile up.

So I guess it is not surprising that when I was about 7 and got my hands on a book all about snow — and with a protagonist snow plow named Katy — that I kind of became obsessed with it. Of course, it wasn’t just the topic — Burton’s art was so engrossing to me. I loved that she decorated the margins of many of the pages with little animations like the one on the page above.

Burton infused her anthropomorphized snow plow with real personality, and I loved that the focus of that personality was helping the people of fictional Geoppolis get through their blizzard safely.

Katy helped me understand that people were vulnerable to bad weather like blizzards — and that we needed people to perform tasks (sometimes really hard tasks) to keep us all safe. Reading Katy piqued my interest in watching the weather forecasts on television and warning my teachers and friends about what was going to happen — especially when it came to snow and the possibility of us not having school the next day.

I have no doubt that reading Katy at a formative point in my childhood drove an initial interest in weather — and primed me for when I received a NOAA Weather Radio for a Christmas present (a story I told when my mom passed away) to become enthralled with the idea of working with the people that gave me all of the wonderful weather and science information I heard from that radio. This was particularly true when I learned enough about the National Weather Service to understand that these were the people that truly helped society get through bad weather — just like Katy.

Dolly Parton was a towering figure throughout my childhood, and I loved so many of her songs and movies. Her later work in literacy with her Imagination Library that has given away more than 300 million books to kids was just another reason for me to love her.

Books have always been an important part of my life, and as I grew up, married and raised kids they were an integral part of our family. As a teacher and passionate book lover, my wife has spent much of her time the last several years running her own literacy non-profit Little Read Wagon that has distributed more than 80,000 books in central Oklahoma. When I occasionally volunteer at one of the events where Little Read Wagon gives out books, I see the joy on the faces of people of all ages from getting a book to take home. We never know which book might be one that will provide a life changing experience like “Katy and the Big Snow” gave me — but just imagine how many opportunities for such an experience Dolly Parton provided.

Dolly said that she would rather be known as the “book lady” than the “Queen of Country Music” — she clearly understood the importance of what she was giving our world with her work.

I will have a more “traditional” post with weather updates by tonight.

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Unusually hot temperatures continue to dominate the south-central and southwestern United States, with a number of record high temperatures set again today (note though that a couple of record lows were set in the Mid-Atlantic as cool and dry air settled into this region).

Weeks of unusually hot and dry conditions across the Southern Plains has been leading to increasing issues with wildfires, including the huge Ross Fire in Palo Pinto and Jack counties in north Texas. The fire quickly grew to more than 50,000 acres in the last 24 hours and is clearly visible in the shortwave infrared satellite loop above as the large, dark area south of the Red River. The fire forced numerous evacuations overnight last night.

Also visible in the satellite animation are thunderstorms across the Texas Panhandle and western Oklahoma. These storms are being triggered by a weak cold front moving into the region which will bring a bit of a reprieve to the record heat in the region, but the storms will also bring some severe weather — particularly damaging straight line winds — this evening.

However, that reprieve will be temporary. Record heat will build and peak over the Southwest the remainder of this week. Phoenix set a record high today, reaching at least 114F — and will see temperatures near 115F each day the rest of the work week. Extreme and record heat will build over southern California and other Desert Southwest locations the next couple of days, along with some concern for increased wildfire activity. Eventually, this extreme heat will once again expand east into the Southern Plains by early next week.

In the tropics, the National Hurricane Center is monitoring a strong tropical wave south of the Cabo Verde islands which it shows as having a high (70%) chance of development into a tropical cyclone this week. However, conditions are only marginally supportive and today’s models have backed off showing much in the way of development — and given the continued hostile conditions in the tropical Atlantic due to the strong El Nino, it will not be a surprise if this system continues to struggle. The Google DeepMind AI model actually shows the system having some increase in potential development a week from now when it gets north of the eastern Caribbean islands into an area where conditions have not been as unfavorable — we will keep an eye on it.

Meanwhile, the Pacific continues to crank out systems — including Lala which is still holding on as a tropical storm as it approaches the International Date Line around 35N latitude. As of now, none of the various disturbances and systems are expected to directly impact land — but some of the moisture from the eastern Pacific will be periodically working into parts of California and the Southwest at times which will be something to monitor.

More details and info on other weather happenings tomorrow…

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A Balanced Weather reader shared with me yesterday that there is actually a more recent NWS Directive on this topic that I missed in my research for my post. This directive more clearly outlines specific criteria based on NWS national outlooks for various hazardous weather threats — which as an aside is another demonstration of the importance of those outlooks. Based on these criteria, the enhanced SPC severe weather outlook and moderate WPC excessive rainfall outlook on this day would not have justified a critical weather day declaration, but rather an “enhanced caution event.” Per the directive, this is defined as:

Some significant weather or events may warrant more targeted caution, allowing most NOAA/NWS enterprise Information Technology (IT) operational changes and service upgrades to proceed, while taking steps to ensure availability of critical operational services and applications that are the most crucial to protecting life and property.

My interpretation of this is that an “enhanced caution event” would mean that NWS staff responsible for major IT upgrades on that day would be alerted of the potential for impactful weather events, and monitoring would be occurring for weather developments that might necessitate postponing changes to some critical systems if high impact weather was ongoing. Again, as I pointed out in the my original posts, I know that these sorts of decisions are very complicated with a lot of factors having to be considered — which is why it is important that critical agencies like NWS be adequately resourced and have leadership at all levels that supports a strong organization with a solid culture and open communication.

In preparation for a trip to the Florida Space Coast, I just finished reading an excellent book about the history of the Kennedy Space Center. I was struck by the clear parallels between NOAA and NASA and their challenges with balancing both research and operational responsibilities. The authors detailed the three major operational loss of life failures that NASA has suffered — Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia — and in none of these events was any one person or decision responsible. They were all the result of a chain of failures and problems that resulted from serious organizational challenges.

Due to a variety of their own organizational challenges — some caused by recent events but others much more long term and chronic — I and many colleagues I talk to are concerned that NOAA/NWS are in a place where operational failures have become more of a concern. I hope that agency officials are looking at episodes like the IT/comms failure last week to try to learn and help ensure that the organization can be strengthened to reduce the likelihood of future events.

The heat continues to be the major story in US weather, with numerous record highs set on Friday from the Southern Plains to the Pacific Northwest.

The southwest and south-central US will continue to deal with serious heat and periodic record warm temperatures for the foreseeable future as an upper level dome of high pressure remains locked over the region for at least the next 7-10 days.

After a somewhat more favorable weather period in which progress was able to made on many wildfires in the West, critical fire danger will return today, with a combination of windy, dry weather and isolated to scattered dry thunderstorms yielding the potential for wildfire issues today.

Severe weather will remain a concern over parts of the Ohio Valley and Appalachians today as a disturbance moving through upper level trough of low pressure over the East produces thunderstorms with potential for strong winds. Another disturbance moving through the southwest part of this trough will feed off the heat and humidity across the south central US to produce some strong to severe storms over parts of the Mid-South, while a few severe storms will be possible in the West from monsoonal moisture on the west side of the upper high.

The tropical depression southeast of Hawaii strengthened into Tropical Storm Moke yesterday, and this morning it is moving west-northwest with maximum sustained winds of 45 mph. While the intensity forecast for Moke has come down some, the overall forecast scenario has not changed much for Hawaii as shown above.

Programming note: we are going to be busy with some fun stuff the next couple of days, so I am going to take some time off. If something really crazy happens weatherwise I may do a quick post or two — otherwise, I will be back sometime Tuesday. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

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As expected, Thursday afternoon and evening were very busy with thunderstorm activity in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. Several inches of rain in a short period of time caused significant flash flooding in the New York City metro area and parts of New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware. Severe weather including tornadoes impacted the region as well, with tornadic waterspouts causing damage in parts of Long Island.

The most impactful tornado appears to have been in Dover, DE, where Doppler radar data showed a clear tornadic debris signature with a tornado that caused significant damage across the city.

Thankfully, there were apparently not any injuries, possibly in part due to what looked to be good NWS tornado warnings with lead time — and the use of the “considerable” impact-based warning tag for a large, confirmed tornado, something that has to be pretty rare for Delaware.

The risk of strong to severe storms along the East Coast will shift to the Carolinas today, where there will also be a risk of flash flooding as thunderstorms develop ahead of a disturbance rotating around the developing upper level trough of low pressure across the East. Meanwhile, disturbances along the northeast edge of the upper level dome of high pressure bringing excessive heat to parts of the western and south central United States will also bring a slight (level 2 of 5) risk of severe weather to parts of the central Plains and Midwest.

Unfortunately, that heatwave looks as if it will persist in the foreseeable future. The upper level high pressure area will oscillate in intensity over the next 10 days, resulting in periodic peaks in temperatures — but overall, well above normal temperatures with a number of record highs are expected.

The tropical depression southeast of Hawaii has not yet strengthened — but environmental conditions are expected to support intensification into a strong tropical storm over the next few days as the system moves west-northwest.

The models have overall shifted a bit to the south in the last 24 hours, keeping the center of the storm well south of the islands. Even so, enhanced easterly flow on the northern side of the tropical storms should bring potentially heavy rainfall to eastern sides of Maui and especially the Big Island, as well as the potential for rough surf for the state’s beaches (especially the south sides).

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I am traveling today, but wanted to get a quick update out about a couple of ongoing weather situations.

An active day of strong thunderstorms is expected in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic today as the upper level trough that we have been discussing begins to evolve. Flash flooding is a particular concern as tropical moisture will be pulled north ahead of the upper trough, supporting storms with torrential rainfall rates. A moderate (level 3 of 4) risk of flash flooding is in place across central New Jersey and adjoining eastern Pennsylvania where high resolution models show the highest probability for these high rainfall rate storms.

Severe weather will also be probable as the developing upper level trough brings increasing wind shear to support stronger storms. Damaging winds and a few tornadoes will be the primary risks. Severe storms will also be possible in the Northern Plains with large hail potential.

In the tropics, a new tropical depression has formed in the central Pacific to the southeast of Hawaii. This system is expected to intensify to a tropical storm as it moves west-northwest and passes south of the islands over the next several days.

While the models are in pretty good agreement that the storm should stay farther south than Lala, it does appear as if it will pass close enough to bring a threat of heavy rainfall, particularly for windward sides of Maui and the Big Island. There is still some uncertainty in the track of this system, and the closer it ends up to the islands the more significant the impacts could be. More on this system in the coming days.

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Student advocates, education experts and some universities have heavily criticized the new rule, particularly the time limits given that nearly all doctorate programs take more than 4 years to complete, and many students need more than 4 years to complete undergraduate programs. The University of Michigan pointed out that the rule did not align with average degree completion times.

I am bringing this story up in my newsletter because in my decade of work in NOAA Research I became very aware of the crucial role that foreign students play in scientific research, and specifically within the atmospheric science communities. Many important advances in recent decades in modeling, weather radar, social science and other areas were made by international researchers whose work was started or was still ongoing through research in support of a degree program. A significant number of these scientists went on to obtain their green cards or citizenship and became NOAA employees or affiliated with NOAA labs through university cooperative institutes. I am sure that other federal science agencies like NASA and NSF are similar.

Dealing with the student international visa program was already a major source of overhead and angst for students and universities alike — and it seems clear these rule changes will add serious additional obstacles for foreign students to pursue academic degrees here. While I think everyone would agree that visa abuse resulting in “forever students” would be something that we would want to curtail, DHS’ own statistics show that a total of 2,100 people who obtained student visas in the 2000 through 2010 are still in the US today on a student “F” visa, compared to 1.4M student “F” visa entrants into the country in 2024 alone.

I am seriously concerned about this being yet another self-inflicted wound to our nation’s scientific capacity with minimal tangible benefits. The US will almost certainly become a much less attractive location for these talented international early career scientists to conduct their research. The reality is that the United States does not have the pipeline of students to fill the void left by these international students going elsewhere. The result will almost certainly be that the US will be doing less cutting-edge research and will gradually fall behind other countries like China and India where these students will now be headed.

Tuesday was a day for some rather impressive heat records to fall across the country. Here in my backyard, NWS Norman pointed out the above statistics about the 109F high that was reached at Oklahoma City. The daily record high temperature was broken by 5F.

Amazingly, it could get even hotter today for some areas along and south of Interstate 40 ahead of a cold front which will bring slightly cooler (but more humid) conditions to northern Oklahoma.

Temperatures at midday were already in the triple digits and as high as 104F to the south of the front.

The heatwave extends east into the Southeast and Florida, where Miami tied its all-time record high temperature on Tuesday, reaching 100F for the only the second time in history and the first time in August. Combined with a morning low of 82F, the daily mean temperature of 91F set a record for the hottest day on record for Miami, where records date back to 1895.

Humidity will be much higher in the Mid-South and Southeast than areas farther west, and extreme heat risk will continue to be common the next few days. The Southeast will finally see a bit of a cooling trend late this week as a developing upper level trough of low pressure along the East Coast will cause a cold front to drop south across the eastern US.

The “heat dome” will remain in firm control of the south-central US, with well above normal and at times record heat expected into next week. It will also expand across much of the western United States. While the Midwest and Northeast will somewhat cooler than normal temperatures, even with the reprieve from the extreme heat of recent days the Southeast looks as if it will experience above normal temperatures much of next week.

Clusters of thunderstorms moving around the periphery of the upper level area of high pressure will continue to bring some risk for severe weather and flash flooding this afternoon and tonight.

An ongoing cluster of severe thunderstorms moving southeast across Nebraska has already brought a number of incidences of severe weather today, including an 82 mph wind gust near Greeley. These storms will likely produce additional severe weather as they move across southeast Nebraska where a severe thunderstorm watch is in effect.

In the tropics, Hurricane Lala became a major hurricane yesterday, and actually briefly achieved category 4 intensity on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.

To give some perspective on the rarity of this, there have only been two other category 4 intensity hurricanes on record within 200 miles of Lala’s current position west of Hawaii. While Lala does not threaten any populated areas, it is expected to still be a large, powerful hurricane when it impacts the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands the next couple of days.

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Thanks to Balanced Weather subscriber FFSBoise for sharing yesterday’s edition of the comic Non Sequitur (one of my faves) in a comment on yesterday’s newsletter. Given what I have been writing about lately, I thought it would be a humorous (if somewhat depressing) way to start off today’s newsletter. I particularly like the “Lethal Hail” target.

Yesterday ended up being a relatively active day for severe weather across the Southeast and Northern Plains, with over 300 reports of severe weather. There were several reports of significant (greater than 75 mph) wind gusts across the Northern Plains, including a 97 mph gust near Ardmore, SD and a 79 mph gust at the official observation site at the Grand Island, NE airport.

A complex of severe storms that moved across eastern Oklahoma and central Arkansas caused widespread tree and powerline damage and also damaged some homes, with the NWS in Little Rock reporting 3 injuries. The official observing site at the airport in Little Rock reported a 63 mph gust, and tens of thousands of customers lost power with PowerOutage.us showing that nearly 20,000 customers remain without power this morning along the track of these storms.

For much of the southern United States, the focus this week will remain on extreme heat as the large dome of upper level high pressure that has been dominating the Southeast will gradually build back more toward the Southwest and Intermountain West this week. Record warm temperatures are expected in parts of the south-central and southeast US the next several days — and extreme heat warnings and advisories are in effect.

Oklahoma and north Texas will be seeing some of the hottest weather this region has seen in a few years. Temperatures were already in the triple digits across much of this region before Noon.

Afternoon high temperatures will peak in the 105-110F range today with Wednesday likely to be the hottest day for Oklahoma. If Oklahoma City hits 110F, it would be the first time since 2022 and would tie for the sixth hottest day on record. Luckily, humidity will be lower here as building drought is resulting in drier (and hotter) air in this region.

The very hot temperatures will still result in major heat risk in this area — and humidity will be much higher to the east this week over the Mid-South and Southeast where large areas of extreme heat risk are expected

While not as potent and widespread as we saw last week (nearly 100K customers are still without power in northwest Indiana from the derecho a week ago), thunderstorm complexes will still be an issue across the Midwest to the north of the high pressure area. Slight risks of severe weather (left) and flash flooding (right) are in place as shown above.

Lala has become a hurricane again as it continues to move farther away from the main Hawaiian islands, and certainly on satellite looks the most impressive it has at any time during its existence. Cold-topped thunderstorms are wrapping around a relatively apparent eye in infrared satellite. NHC is estimating it to have 85 mph sustained winds. It is now forecast to intensify to a category 2 hurricane with 100 mph winds — and NHC said in its technical discussion this morning that it could get more intense than that given recent trends and the anticipated environment ahead of the hurricane.

Luckily Lala should not pose any additional threat to land other than the small islands of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument northwest of the main Hawaiian Islands, where a hurricane watch is in effect from Lisianski Island to Maro Reef.

Hawaii is slowly recovering from its encounter with Lala, which produced as much as 43” of rain (before and after Lala video of same waterfall above, courtesy CNN) and numerous hurricane force wind gusts. State officials now report one fatality and more than 100 homes and roads destroyed on the Big Island with significant damage on the other islands as well. More than 50,000 customers remain without power in the state per PowerOutage.us.

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This evolution was part of a series of changes to operational NWS entities that also included the absorption of the Climate Prediction Center by the Weather Prediction Center that I talked about in a late February post. From talking to various sources, it also included moving the Center Weather Service Units that provide crucial weather support to the FAA’s air traffic control system from under local Weather Forecast Offices — the organizational structure they were in during my entire NOAA career — to being a part of the national Aviation Weather Center. The NWS also combined the Environmental Modeling Center with the Meteorological Development Lab into a new NWS Office of Modeling and Development.

While NOAA colleagues I talked to mainly knew about these changes, most of the external colleagues I talked to were much less aware. These modifications may seem bureaucratic in nature, but I do think they have tangible implications on how the NWS produces forecasts and warnings and conducts its scientific work that are important for the broader meteorological enterprise to have awareness of — some potentially positive, some not so much.

For whatever reasons — political pressure, overwhelmed staff, or others — NOAA/NWS has not publicized these (and other) organizational changes in ways that I would expect based on my career experience. In fact and for what it’s worth, if you ask Gemini if the CWSUs are part of AWC, you get a response that no they are not, they remain independent entities under the broader NWS operational structure. If you ask if CPHC still exists as an independent entity, Gemini tells you not only that it is but also that it is actively monitoring and issuing forecasts for Lala. In my own searching, I was able to find one webpage that noted the new Office of Modeling and Development, but otherwise was not able to find any public information about recent NWS changes.

Perhaps all of this is just indicative of how federal science is going to be managed in our “new” environment. As someone who worked in a period of (mainly) open communication and collaboration among the public and external parts of the meteorological enterprise, I think it is counterproductive — and frankly depressing.

Looking at weather, we have a pattern change afoot this week back toward something we have seen frequently in the last couple of summers: an upper level trough of low pressure developing across the Northeast while an anomalously strong (at times near that magic 6000 m level at 500 mb) area of upper level high pressure across the Intermountain West and Southwest.

The evolution of the upper level pattern will result in some shifting in the pattern of thunderstorm activity across the Midwest and East that brought the record flooding and repeated severe weather to Indiana and surrounding areas the last 7 to 10 days. However, clusters of strong thunderstorms will continue to be an issue along the northeast edge of the building heat dome across the West, as well as to the east of the developing trough over the Northeast. Some severe weather risk (shown above) and flash flooding risk will continue to be a concern with these storms.

Significant and at times record heat will continue much of this week across the southern US. The combination of above normal temperatures and humidity will result in widespread major to extreme heat risk.

Unusual heat will also be returning to parts of the West as the upper level high pressure builds.

In the tropics, Lala will continue to pull away from the main Hawaiian Islands as it gradually intensifies and recurves over the central Pacific.

Two additional systems are possible in the central and eastern Pacific this week, but as of now they do not appear to pose any threat to land (at least in the next several days). After the demise of the couple of disturbances we were watching last week, the Atlantic appears as if it should have a quiet week again this week. My colleague Michael Lowry has a good summary this morning on the impacts of Lala to Hawai’i and the quiet Atlantic.

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