CheeselandSkies

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.

The Day 4-8 left something to be desired, as well RE: next Tuesday in Dixie; usually even with model disagreement the man is gung ho as can be if there's any potential at all.

Haven't seen a lot of hard data on how smoking affects COVID-19 prognosis. I saw one article that said one study showed it significantly increased the risk of complications and death, but two other studies showed no correlation. Simple logic would suggest that it increases risk since your lungs aren't as healthy as they otherwise would be when the infection starts doing its thing. Still, even though data still suggests that given adequate medical care the confirmed-case fatality rate is around 2% (still several orders of magnitude higher than the flu) with the vast majority of those being over 50 and the majority of those being over 70; I'm still hearing enough stories of people in their early 40s or 30s getting fatal or near fatal cases to make me nervous despite my relatively low risk demographics (I'm 34, nonsmoker, 5'11"/188, haven't even had a cold or flu that I remember since November 2016). I'm also concerned for my fiancée (also 34, but has several health conditions) and my parents (my dad just turned 71, my mom will turn 69 next month; so any snark about 'all the olds dying' or COVID-19 being a 'boomer remover' doesn't sit well with me). Also, I bolded "adequate" above because that's the scenario if the hospital isn't overwhelmed and you can get on a ventilator if you need to. AKA not what happened in Italy and, it's becoming apparent, New York. So, all in all, I am social-distancing the **** out of this and encouraging everyone I can to do so as well. I should add that my fiancée and I are quite fortunate that we both work in fields that are considered "essential" to continue to operate during this quasi-lockdown, so our income has so far been unaffected; yet both our employers are taking major steps to reduce the risk to their employees (she has worked from home every day this week except today, my job description requires me to be physically present but we are practicing 6' social distancing and using an obscene amount of hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes/spray several times per shift, and those members of staff who CAN work from home are).

He sounds uncharacteristically bearish on the Day 3 outlook. Doesn't even use the "T" word.

Good reminder of that's what all the social distancing policies, closings, cancellations, stay home orders, etc are for.

Yep. Glad I didn't get suckered again by Lie-owa today (although TBH, if the COVID outbreak weren't happening, there's a good chance I might have since I have tomorrow off).

Yep, been there, done that several times over the last several years. No thanks.

16Z HRRR is meh for anything east of I-35 in IA. That's at least a five hour drive for me after working 3AM-noon (actually 12:20, had to stay late today as with every day this week due to COVID social distancing and sanitizing precautions slowing down the workflow, among other things). The expansion of the northern 10% and 5% tornado areas eastward makes no sense to me. Trend of the strongest activity being further west (closer to the MO river than the MS, at least until well after dark) plus the societal lockdown/"avoid discretionary travel" guidelines will have me sitting this one out. I keep thinking one of these years we have to get a legit early season outbreak involving the upper Midwest again (3/13/90, 4/8/99, 3/12/06, etc) but it hasn't happened yet.

Yep, therein lies the rub with this kind of setup.

My interest in this setup has been piqued a tad over the last couple days, I might do some local spotting if something comes up toward WI. Was thinking about going into Iowa; but between the abrupt societal lockdown/economic disruption, disagreement among the CAMs on where the strongest storms will track, likelihood of having to contend with the MS River and the poor chasing terrain nearby, and Iowa's general track record with tornado threats (doesn't produce when you expect it do, does when you don't) I'm leaning against it at this point.

To put that in weather-speak, that's more than died in the April 27, 2011 tornado outbreak; or in any Atlantic hurricane since at least 1950 except for Katrina, Maria and (possibly) Dorian.

Finally got an official statement/policy from my apartment building's management on this (what they are doing as far as cleaning common areas, etc). I'm intrigued (and concerned) that despite the mass flight cancellations/airport chaos; I haven't heard of any action (increased cleaning, spacing out of passengers in cars, service cutbacks/total shutdowns, etc) from the passenger rail systems. Amtrak, Metra, CTA El...maybe I just missed it but I'm in the TV news business so I don't think so, unless something happened after I left work today. Has New York shut down their subway system? Lots of commuter rail systems in the Northeast, too. Jails and prisons are another thing that popped into my head. Dane County sheriff's department announced restrictions on visitors to the county jails; but what about state and federal prisons? Lots of people crowded close together; access is restricted but if the virus gets in it will wreak havoc.

Does it grind anyone else's gears that the thread for this subject in Off Topic is still titled "Wuhan Coronavirus"? I mean, the whole point of the rather utilitarian official name for the disease was to avoid stigmatizing a particular place and/or people.

I'm sure smoking doesn't help the prognosis, but let's not use being a nonsmoker as an excuse not to take other precautions.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but MJO into the IO is favorable for severe weather in the CONUS, is it not?

CPC has had this in their hazards outlook for a few days now. SPC Day 4-8 hints at it in their wording but they're still reluctant to commit to delineating a risk area.

Quite likely the most reasonable post I've seen on this subject on any of the weather forums I'm on. Thank you.

Because it's a severe event to weenie out over.

18Z HRRR sim ref/UH looks ugly for MO bootheel/southern IL/KY tomorrow, but we saw that have a tendency to overhype particularly with some of the OK setups last May. Of course, tomorrow will feature a rather different set of conditions than those did.

Ugly in the sense of favorable for svr wx?

Good insight, I need to get better about remembering this. Being based further north (like you) I've seen many an early season (even well into May for us) potential setup get quashed by insufficient instability, so I'm a CAPE guy. I get really geeked out to chase on those 86/77 days, then wonder why the updrafts weren't going up like atom bombs. This mindset cost me on 4/9/2015, when I was bumming around IN OGLE COUNTY, IL until about 4:30 PM, then threw in the towel and started for home. Got there just in time to pull up GR Level 3 and see the debris ball about 10 miles from where I'd just been 90 minutes before.