what is double crazy is how much improved instrumentation and analytic processes / computation has become over time, and how none of that matters with shit like this. in disclosure, i am a consumer of climate prediction center data and analysis to develop resources for public distribution to interested audiences. it only accounts for probably like 5-10% of what i do for work, but about a dozen or so times a year, i look at all the longer range outlooks from the national climate prediction analysis and look at the near term forecasts and put together a little regional meta-analysis. then, like pfft probably several hundred times a year, i look at near term forecasts and relay info to people about events, usually just for my own edification and the interest of certain parties. i guess the tldr is that i am a weather nerd. i love to talk about weather patterns and signifiers, historic and current. common phenomena. TEK, folk wisdom, radar visualizations and satellite imagery. i have multiple apps on my phone, because no single app is the best at everything i want from a weather app.

this has been going on for years with me. ever since i worked primarily outdoors. nearly 15 years ago, i read this pretty dope environmental history of the tallgrass prairie (Madson's "Where The Sky Began" published in 1982). anyway, at one point in it, he's talking about early plains dwellers. maybe only 1-2 generations on the land and the intense extremes of the continental climate in the deep interior of north america. very hot, high humidity summers. brutally cold winters. and most importantly, severe temperature shifts. anyway, he brings up this event that happened long before there was a national weather service or anything like it. it was some warm late winter/early spring day, clear skies, sun is bright and shiny. no snow on the ground. everything seemed ideal for a big hunt. whole communities go out to supplement their dwindling winter stores to their various spots. anyway, long story short an ice storm swoops in, temperature drops like 60 degrees super fast, visibility goes to shit, and almost nobody even makes it home the mile or so they had walked to their hunting grounds before freezing to death.

i've lived probably half my life far from temperate climates and it made me appreciate the NWS much more, because sometimes the forecast says some insane shit is coming and i swear to god you spend all day outside getting ready for it without a hint of anything wrong headed your way.

part of me knows that's the sort of world we are transitioning into, and unfortunately for america we don't have any sort of community civil defense / disaster preparedness & emergency management institutions worth a shit anymore. cuba is light years ahead of us.