Althouse: Our Tornado.

February 19, 2020

Our Tornado.

54 comments:

BUMBLE BEE said...: Heh Heh... that sucks!
Couldn't pass it up!; 2/19/20, 2:15 PM
MadisonMan said...: Yeah, WeatherApps pretty much suck.; 2/19/20, 2:15 PM
robother said...: Weather, like all news these days, is all about the clicks. Every tropical disturbance is a potential Katrina, every snowstorm a looming "bomb cyclone." All of course, within the context of the AGW End of the World that has been 12 years away for the last 25 years.; 2/19/20, 2:25 PM
Leland said...: Climate Change happening very quickly now, near instantaneous.; 2/19/20, 2:26 PM
Calypso Facto said...: One of Bloomberg's recent ads said that Trump is personally responsible for more tornadoes in the US -- and I guess Bloomy's going to pay the weather apps to prove it!; 2/19/20, 2:27 PM
Temujin said...: I use the Weather Channel when on my laptop to gather temps for outside my door, or to check the city I'm next traveling to. Their landing page is always loaded with end of world crises. Never before seen floods. Record heat. Record cold. Record amounts of snowfall, disease, famine, 4 horsemen.

I just want a freakin temp. I went outside. It's hot here. Probably world endingly hot. With frogs and noseeums.; 2/19/20, 2:30 PM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: "...Trump is personally responsible for more tornadoes..."

...Trump: The Tangerine Tornado; 2/19/20, 2:32 PM
Unknown said...: Apparently, Apple still hasn't fixed the fact that when their iPhone weather app can't obtain the latest weather, it defaults to tornado.

I tweeted about this a couple years ago.; 2/19/20, 2:43 PM
Beasts of England said...: Tornados for y’all are about as rare as snow for us, so, the rule is: go outside when you’re in a tornado warning and try to get pics or a video. Just sayin’...

Also, Wunderground is the best weather app.; 2/19/20, 2:53 PM
rehajm said...: Radarscope is a pay app but worth it if you're often outside. The super res setting is very accurate and shows actual precipitation instead of cloud based moisture you see on other radar apps. Storm tracks and meso cells are tracked. I have a phone screenshot showing a tornado peeling off a hurricane right over my house...; 2/19/20, 3:00 PM
Nonapod said...: Apparently, Apple still hasn't fixed the fact that when their iPhone weather app can't obtain the latest weather, it defaults to tornado.

That seems like a pretty silly default. Why not have it be just "unable to retrieve data at this time" or whatever? Seems like it should be a relatively easy code fix.

I love those compilations of local news bloopers you can find on Youtube. I remember one where there was some bug with the software displaying the weather map over the chroma key and some of temperatures were in thousands of degrees. The weatherman was all jocular, like "You don't want to go outside today, folks!" and "I mean, look, over here in [whatever], we have a high of 3433 degrees!"; 2/19/20, 3:02 PM
Maillard Reactionary said...: Hunkering down recommended.; 2/19/20, 3:06 PM
Char Char Binks, Esq. said...: In the eye of the cyclone.; 2/19/20, 3:10 PM
Char Char Binks, Esq. said...: Anthropogenic climate change has altered the nature of tornadoes.; 2/19/20, 3:12 PM
RK said...: Apparently, Apple still hasn't fixed the fact that when their iPhone weather app can't obtain the latest weather, it defaults to tornado.

Better safe than sorry.; 2/19/20, 3:12 PM
stevew said...: Quick, into the cellar. A song is now stuck in my head.; 2/19/20, 3:12 PM
Yancey Ward said...: That is the Bloomberg advertising team arriving in Wisconsin.; 2/19/20, 3:14 PM
Dave Begley said...: What's that "blue sky" song? American songbook. Classic.; 2/19/20, 3:18 PM
DanTheMan said...: Here in Florida, all hurricane stories are the same:
1) Don't panic
2) We could all be killed

These are often delivered together.; 2/19/20, 3:27 PM
BUMBLE BEE said...: I use National Weather Service, but I'm close to the reporting airport. Lotsa info and good radar.; 2/19/20, 3:56 PM
Tomcc said...: You're lucky! What about the people without windows that are now cowering in their bathtubs?; 2/19/20, 3:56 PM
Bill, Republic of Texas said...: I signed into my Fidelity retirement account this morning. I was greeted with an account balance of $0.00. I just about died.

Why is the weather app default to tornado and Fidelity default to zero dollars. Is it so difficult to just saw "technical difficulties" like the old TV stations?; 2/19/20, 3:57 PM
Marc in Eugene said...: Wunderground is best not only because it is available in Latin. :-); 2/19/20, 4:04 PM
J Lee said...: Hold out for Apple to add volcano warning and tsunami alerts for Madison.; 2/19/20, 4:10 PM
Earnest Prole said...: Better than the alternative.; 2/19/20, 4:13 PM
motorrad said...: I use this one

https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=38.6145&lon=-90.2205

Just the facts ma'am.; 2/19/20, 4:16 PM
Beasts of England said...: ’Wunderground is best not only because it is available in Latin. :-)’

Salve amicus.; 2/19/20, 4:18 PM
etbass said...: The local news here features weather every six minutes during the main news program each night. Plus TV mockups of traffic as if anyone in cars had TV. And the wx app on my phone tells me all I need about weather. So the only thing newsworthy are the black on black crimes since previous night.; 2/19/20, 4:24 PM
Marc in Eugene said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 2/19/20, 4:30 PM
Marc in Eugene said...: Actually, I hadn't gone to WU for... a year? It looks like there has been a site renovation etc etc and the language options seem to have vanished. It's 'best', even without a Latin version, since the station that they report from is half a mile more or less from my house.

Here in Eugene, it is pleasant enough and rainy or pleasant enough and not rainy, so I don't really need WU: the only 'event' that concerns me is ice on the streets etc.

Evidently we are to have no snowfall this winter at all, tsk. A tornado would be a welcome stirring up of the weather duotony (which word doesn't appear to exist except in commerce).; 2/19/20, 4:36 PM
tcrosse said...: I own an electronic weather station, which is very good at temperature, wind, and relative humidity. But whenever the barometer drops, it predicts rain. Trouble is, I live in the desert. But the weather station doesn't know that.; 2/19/20, 4:38 PM
robother said...: When Ann goes out for her morning run, she'll discover she's not in Kans--er, Wisconsin anymore. I just hope her house hasn't landed on Amy Klobuchar!; 2/19/20, 4:41 PM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: Been sunny all day here in Ozaukee County. Sorry about your tornado.

Maybe a house will land on Tony Evers.; 2/19/20, 4:50 PM
Marc in Eugene said...: Maybe there'll be a second tornado in mid-July that will set some other, uninhabited but larger house down somewhere appropriate in Milwaukee.; 2/19/20, 4:52 PM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: Marc said...
Maybe there'll be a second tornado in mid-July that will set some other, uninhabited but larger house down somewhere appropriate in Milwaukee.

2/19/20, 4:52 PM

And a third tornado in November that brings the current House (of Representatives) down!; 2/19/20, 4:55 PM
rhhardin said...: Wunderground took all its useful pages and disabled them. The improvements suck.; 2/19/20, 5:00 PM
rhhardin said...: They test the tornado sirens at noon Wednesdays here. It's amusing to listen out here far from any town for the arrival of the siren sounds from various towns at various distances. If they tested at night it would be even better, with sound channelling in temperature inversions. Much more distance is possible.; 2/19/20, 5:03 PM
Richard Dolan said...: Looks like the best kind of tornado to have, if you have to have one.; 2/19/20, 5:06 PM
MadisonMan said...: Radarscope is a pay app but worth it if you're often outside

Most of my weather geek friends have that app. I just use NWS Radar sites.; 2/19/20, 5:09 PM
Marc in Eugene said...: We will have to be very careful propitiating the weather gods-- can you imagine what an expensive mess would be made of reconstruction of the Capitol in this day and age?

Don't the party conferences meet at resorts etc each year for 'study and research'? perhaps those would be the moments for more tornados.; 2/19/20, 5:12 PM
Marc in Eugene said...: I hadn't realized that WU and the Weather Channel are owned by the same people.; 2/19/20, 5:13 PM
Bill Peschel said...: Weather underground still works for me, but we just want the local and 10-day forecast.; 2/19/20, 5:29 PM
JaimeRoberto said...: Changes to the Weather Underground app made it much less useful to me. This time of year I just want to see if it's likely to rain when I'm riding my bike to and from the train station. The app used to give me a pretty good estimate 24 hours in advance about the likelihood of rain and the intensity. Now I can see the likelihood but not the intensity. Good thing we haven't had rain in about a month. I always had a distaste for them because of their name anyway.; 2/19/20, 5:36 PM
JaimeRoberto said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 2/19/20, 5:36 PM
James said...: https://xkcd.com/937/

Probably should download this app too. (Hmm, will this get through the filter? It does look pretty spammy. I totes pinky-swear it's not!); 2/19/20, 6:01 PM
ngtrains said...: i use Wunderground too. It's usually good.

but earlier this week all I could get was the 'local' airport that is 45 miles away.
and now many of the local stations are no longer being seen by their system.

I think someone bought it and messed it up.; 2/19/20, 6:09 PM
Yancey Ward said...: I noticed the same thing about a month ago about Weather Underground's data fields. I have been on a long term (years now) watch on certain stations historical data, and Weather Underground is where I go to keep tabs on them for the last several years. All the stations I follow are no longer accessible through the site- they all vanished since I had last checked on them last July or August.; 2/19/20, 6:24 PM
boatbuilder said...: Watch out for sharks!; 2/19/20, 6:32 PM
rhhardin said...: Weather Channel bought WU from a guy who actually was into weather.; 2/19/20, 6:51 PM
Yancey Ward said...: rhhardin, well that would explain it. I used to use Weather.com to monitor those sites, and they quit letting you access the historic data sometime about 5-6 years ago, though admittedly you could only get record highs/lows for specific date and site at that time, but it was enough for me.; 2/19/20, 7:43 PM
Yancey Ward said...: Buttuvwxyz got both Bloomberg and Sanders, but Bloomberg was the real target.; 2/19/20, 8:10 PM
Yancey Ward said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 2/19/20, 8:11 PM
Bob said...: "It's a twistah!" (Kansas farmhand played by Jack Haley, Jr.); 2/20/20, 1:02 AM
Bob said...: And wouldn't an Althouse tornado be a vortex?; 2/20/20, 11:11 PM