Hoosier

No surprise to see more coverage than last week

LOT afternoon thoughts As the aforementioned upper-level speed max peels northeastward and the associated low-level jet wanes, convective activity Friday morning should taper leaving behind the outflow-reinforced stationary front somewhere across northern or perhaps even central Illinois. Friday afternoon, a secondary speed max will zip in from the west possibly kicking off renewed thunderstorm development along the front. The forecast environmental parameter space continues to look supportive of severe weather with MLCAPE > 2000 J/kg south of the front, mid- level lapse rates of ~7 K/km, and effective bulk shear values increasing to 35-40 kt. And, depending on the orientation of the outflow-enhanced stationary front, an east/southeasterly storm motion and low-level shear vectors with at least a modest perpendicular component to the boundary may encourage transient semi-discrete supercell structures with associated threats for all severe hazards. However, the devil is in the detail (all of which we don`t necessarily have right now), and subtle changes in storm morphology Friday morning as well as any impact of the remnants of Hurricane Laura to our south will influence convective chances Friday afternoon and evening. All in all, Friday continues to be the day to watch for severe weather.

Looks like some potential coming up. One caveat for Friday has to do with Laura. If it misbehaves in terms of speed/location, then perhaps some clouds could become a factor in part of the risk area or maybe even throw off the frontal timing a bit. As of now, it looks like should be enough separation to not really affect the severe threat.

You can make an argument for the initial shutdowns being more tailored than they were, but hindsight is 20/20. It was a new virus and we were flying blind.

The 1660 are not all "new." Per the state dashboard, almost 1000 of those are older results that were added in to the cumulative total. Today, 16,215 antigen tests and 975 positive cases from July 28 through August 22 are being added to the cumulative reports. Moving forward, antigen cases and testing from the most recent 24-hour period will be included in the daily reports. Tests and cases from prior to July 28 will be added to the cumulative reports once they are verified.

I know there have been questions with the number of tests being performed as well as the hospital data, but if the trends are indeed real, then I think we could see deaths start coming down. Unfortunately I believe it will be very gradual and may still average like 800 per day in the "trough"... maybe a bit lower if we're lucky. I'm afraid it will be short lived though because it's going to be tough to keep driving the case numbers down with more things opening up (namely schools), growing pandemic fatigue and fall weather.

3 dozen Purdue students suspended for violating guidelines https://fox59.com/news/purdue-suspends-36-students-after-party-violating-covid-19-pledge/ If they continue to enforce this, there may be thousands of suspensions in the next few months.

Per the Notre Dame dashboard, the latest number is 336 confirmed cases out of 2035 tests. I wonder how these college cases are assigned though? Do they automatically count as part of that county's total or is it assigned to the person's home county? I know that people who have been tested while on vacation had it added into the total in their home county, not the vacation county, but obviously with college you are away from home a lot longer.

It has definitely dried out in Porter and LaPorte in the past month. Would think they will be added in on the next update.

Parties, missteps and slow testing: How Notre Dame's COVID-19 plan unraveled SOUTH BEND – In May, the president of the University of Notre Dame, the Rev. John Jenkins, insisted that despite a growing number of coronavirus cases locally and across the country, it was “worth the risk” to bring students back to campus for the fall. “We have availed ourselves of the best medical advice and scientific information available and are assiduously planning a reopening that will make the campus community as safe as possible,” Jenkins wrote in an op-ed piece for the New York Times. “We believe the good of educating students and continuing vital research is very much worth the remaining risk.” One week into the fall semester, the plan unraveled. Students partied. Others didn’t follow safety protocols. Cases immediately spiked. And the university wasn’t ready for the outbreak. Some students reported that calls to the university’s COVID hotline went unanswered. Many complained about waiting days to get tested on campus. Others relayed stories about a lack of preparation at quarantine areas the university had set up. Some professors were outraged they weren’t notified that students in their classes had tested positive. More... https://www.southbendtribune.com/news/education/parties-missteps-and-slow-testing-how-notre-dames-covid-19-plan-unraveled/article_30c4f5a6-e26d-11ea-a12a-af1bffb3d946.html

Good chance of more color in N IL/N IN on next week's update, given expected weather conditions.

A governor complaining about media coverage or another political party is not appropriate for this thread. Please refrain from mentioning political figures unless it is truly something substantive/newsworthy.

It will get cold and there will be snow. There. Simple.

Herd immunity only "works" (I put that in quotes because of the price to pay to achieve it) if reinfection can't happen or is very rare. Like I said a while back, we are going to start to get a better answer on the reinfection potential simply by having the NYC schools reopen since so many in that city have already had it.

Will be interesting to see what happens when the real big boys in IN start school, that being IU Bloomington and Purdue WL. Each one has well over 40,000 students. Notre Dame has like 12,000

Saw that Notre Dame is going to 2 weeks of virtual learning. They didn't even make it 10 days from the first day of school, which was Aug 10.

Then throw in the other damage and we could perhaps be talking something like 7-10 billion.

Trying to find a preliminary dollar amount for all of this with not much success, but the idea of a derecho possibly being a several billion dollar disaster is pretty crazy to think about.

It's easy to overestimate winds so I tend to lean conservative on estimates, but I'd say there was at least 90-100 mph stuff in there.

If the 654 hour CFS says early fall, I am all in.

Alright folks, move on.

130 mph is certainly higher end and doesn't come around often. I have heard of cases of 140-150 mph straight line winds in derecho or more localized microburst but even that is a short of cat 5 hurricane.

Here is a good video from Cedar Rapids. The intensity builds throughout. The tree in the foreground gets taken out around the 14 minute mark and the overall landscape gets transformed quite a bit from beginning to end.

How many times will the bolded be identified as a source of spread this semester? SOUTH BEND — When the University of Notre Dame had returning students tested for the coronavirus before allowing them back on campus for the fall semester, just 33 — fewer than half a percent — of the nearly 12,000 tests came back positive. But in the one-week span from Aug. 6 to Friday, the university has reported 29 cases of COVID-19. Of the 348 tests conducted since Aug. 3, more than 8% have been positive. On Friday alone, the university reported 10 new cases. Of the 348 tests, 160 were performed on students and staff members with the football program. Many of the other tests were conducted on students who were either symptomatic or potentially had contact with symptomatic students. The spike in cases, less than two weeks after most students returned, shows the difficulty of controlling the virus while keeping the campus open, despite Notre Dame’s efforts to avoid an outbreak. University spokesman Paul Browne said the increase in cases was a reminder that its coronavirus plan would work only with total cooperation from students. He said many of the COVID-19 cases have been traced to an off-campus party where students did not wear masks or practice social distancing. https://www.southbendtribune.com/news/local/notre-dame-sees-spike-in-covid-19-cases/article_df400178-de64-11ea-9eec-8f4e8e14e00d.html