CheeselandSkies

Lucky you. And lucky @A-L-E-K

We did record one this morning? Not in my part of town.

Not even a flash/rumble here yet again... I. Just. Want. To. Hear. Thunder. Once more in my life.

Our illustrious legislature and a complicit court have successfully undermined our governor's efforts to keep us safe. After doing relatively well at keeping case counts from exploding the last six weeks, Wisconsin is now the only state with NO official state-level restrictions or guidelines in effect. And I've been going to work all this time, in a workplace where several people have to touch a lot of the same devices. I've been trying to encourage my coworkers to wear masks, but so far only a few have signed on.

There are just too many stories of people under 40 getting severely ill/dying from this. Some with no identifiable preexisting conditions.

Ouch. I guess I haven't had it quite that bad, then.

That's why I prefer to shoot it with a 250mm lens!

Bald-faced Hornet Leaving Nest by Andy, on Flickr

Seems the preponderance of early Mays of late have been below average... About the only one I can recall that wasn't is 2018, which coming on the heels of that abominable April flipped right to summer. I had higher hopes for a warmer/stormier spring in this neck of the woods with all the talk of a coming La Nina and warmer than average Gulf. Now we get the spring eastern trough locked in on top of a pandemic and, apparently, "murder hornets." I'm afraid to ask, "what else ya got, 2020?" That said, the 50s/30s forecast for this coming week aren't really that different from what we've been experiencing. Thursday (my Friday with my Sunday-Thursday schedule) should be OK with sun and near 60. I do want to hear thunder, though.

I just hope we all live to see it.

Yeah, early sun went away and HRRR has backed off on convective intensity across most of the region.

Sun popping out here most of the morning in SC WI. Last three HRRR runs with a stormier look for us this evening, although the 12Z runs lost that juicy sup tracking along the Dane/Green-Rock County line ~22-23Z that the 10-11Z runs had. @madwx

Argh, probably too far south for me on a work day same as a month prior (especially since I have to pick up an online grocery order and bring it home after work).

So sorry for your loss, @Jackstraw. Those stories are heartbreaking and terrifying.

Yes. The pandemic has significantly tempered my enthusiasm for violent weather for the time being.

U.S. Supreme Court also overturned the extension to return WI absentee ballots to April 13th. Now they still have to be postmarked by tomorrow. Those who still haven't received theirs due to the massive backlog are SOL and have to vote in person if they want to vote. I see some people (not necessarily on this thread, although I have seen it once or twice) still like to throw around "socialism" and "communism" as scarewords. So, picture Chernobyl. Dr. Fauci is Valery Legasov and Boris Scherbina rolled into one. The rest of the Trump administration and the courts are Zharkov, Bryukhanov and Fomin.

It's unconscionable.

Go figure, the best chase season (and potentially, with it the most dangerous tornado season) in quite a few years would occur in the midst of this pandemic and all the logistical, legal and moral complications it has placed around interstate travel.

It's impacting the weather too (or at least our ability to predict it). Read several articles that reduced aircraft observations may negatively impact model performance.

That and, it's not feasible to enforce/follow a 100% lockdown in the U.S. Some people will continue to ignore it; but everyone still has to go out at least to get food/supplies/work if you still have it. Cases in Dane County, WI (my friend among them) have been increasing at about 10-20 per day for the last few days. We were still just under 200 at last update. I don't know if that's because we just haven't hit the exponential growth yet, or if we've actually been relatively successful in keeping the spread in check (or if we haven't been testing enough). We did seem to get a bit of an earlier start on social-distancing measures than many other places in the state.

Just found out yesterday a friend of mine is hospitalized with COVID-19. He's 39. We hung out a lot from 2014-early 2017. We haven't seen as much of each other since then for reasons that in retrospect seem kind of petty, although I did still go to some of his gigs (he's a musician here in the Madison area). I'm not really a praying man, but really hoping with every fiber of my being that he pulls through. He also has a wife and daughter.

In other news, there was just a huge ****storm on another weather forum regarding the ethics of storm chasing against state stay-at-home-unless-essential orders (at least WI and IL both have one in place, don't know about IA) and following (or not) social distancing guidelines and other precautions while chasing. It seemed to be a relatively reasonable discussion until I logged on this morning and . I would like to once again thank the atmosphere for making Saturday an easy no-go for me the morning of, despite the proximity of a 15% hatch and the dearth of quality tornado setups in the region since 2/28/17, which I didn't chase because, well...it was February.

Indeed, that is why some people are still questioning whether all this social upheaval is necessary/worth it. You have only to look at what has been happening in Italy/some other places in Europe and is starting to happen in New York to see why it's necessary. ...and if the US and the rest of the developed world was caught so much at the mercy of this virus, imagine a pandemic of a similarly communicable disease with a much higher case fatality rate (basically the plot of Contagion).

I think I've seen it once before; can't recall when though.