fluoronium

I find it crazy that the president was given the experimental polyclonal antibody treatment. Not because of the method itself, but the fact that an experimental drug tested on ~300 people was given to the POTUS. That's a big deal.

Those people were likely infected with both as the coronavirus hit the US during the peak of flu season. Interestingly, flu cases in the southern hemisphere have been WAY down during their winter, which is at least in part due to all the measures taken to limit the spread of the coronavirus. Assuming we keep covid social distancing measures to some extent going into our usual flu season, we should also see a dramatic decrease as these measures work for the flu as well. There's also an argument to be made that the more contagious virus tends to fill the niche for infectious respiratory illness when it comes to spread, and the 2009 H1N1 flu is evidence to support this.

Wearing a mask while playing contact sports isn't going to be nearly as dangerous and the virus or even the sports themselves.  However, I doubt cloth face coverings are going to do much to prevent transmission during contact sports anyway due to the heavy breathing involved.

I was a martial arts instructor before the pandemic, but I think it's silly to be doing contact sports right now. I wish mask compliance at places like the grocery store was higher so it would be a lower risk to others by keeping gyms open. I can't blame my friends/family for being willing to accept the risk by going to the gym, but when I make the mistake of logging on to social media and seeing them fight for their life to not wear a mask, or even deny that the virus exists, I can't help but think we deserve this mess that we're in.

It's been gloomy the past couple days, but the storms on the 7th were top notch. They weren't severe but they produced the best lightning of the year by far. There were several supercell structures embedded on the south side of a big blob running along the frontal boundary, and they periodically blasted the rain free portion with huge CG bolts. I swear it's fall/winter that give the best storms here in IL. It must be those colder cloud tops.

cool rolling shutter effect from my dashcam picked up some streamer bolts before the main strike

https://twitter.com/NWSLincolnIL/status/1300857274706006021?s=2

This rain is very welcome here! The dry weather has caused a lot of the trees here to start dropping leaves.

This was a memorable storm for me for sure! When that PDS severe watch got issued, I threw all my gear in my car and headed up to the Oglesby, IL area. I pointed my car into the wind as it approached and enjoyed the show. The area took some serious damage and I encountered several roads blocked by downed trees and flipped semis on my way out. Unfortunately I bumped my dash cam into autofocus at some point so I ended up getting 50GB of macro footage of raindrops on my windshield.

August is the only time I'll welcome relatively cool and drizzly weather. It's been like this for days now and it's great.

Wow PIA got soaked. Nearly 3" in an hour and over 5" for the event

I'm near Goodfield which is about halfway between Bloomington and Peoria. We got missed by pretty much everything last month.
 

Had some nice storms yesterday, nothing crazy but it brought some desperately needed rain (and lightning )

Received about 3/4" of rain which was more than the entire month of June here. 

CRAZY tornado in Minnesota yesterday! This is some of the most ridiculous tornado footage I've ever seen. 

I wonder if the decrease in flights will cause a noticeable uptick in daily high temps during this heatwave.

My area is absolutely scorched, less than an inch of rain in the past 40 days. I hope we can at least get a consolation derecho out of this.

finished June with less than an inch of rain my poor plants

https://twitter.com/ILClimatologist/status/1278052191870300161  

I'm really hoping I can get some rain in the next few days. While most areas nearby have been soaked, I've been missed by nearly everything and my area is bone dry. Even the crops are looking bad here at this point.

There have been some interesting models runs regarding the low in Western IL, although this morning's runs weren't nearly as hopeful for that "inland hurricane" look.

I got missed by most of the rain yesterday and didn't even see a single flash of lightning clouds looked cool though at least.

17 hours ago, ovweather said:

Is it just a matter of my perspective or do thunderstorms as of late lack really good, intense lightning? Back in the 1990’s and early 2000’s I use to do a lot of lightning photography down here in the lower OV. Several times a week during the summer months I would head out to watch and photograph storms that rarely disappointed in terms of great lightning. Lots of dramatic CG’s and booming thunderclaps, and post storm anvil crawlers. Over the past 10+ years, I’ve only seen a handful of nice lightning producing storms, but even those lacked what I saw 15-25 years ago. Most storms of late have only had the occasional ho-hum in-cloud flashes, and if lucky, the occasional closer strike and ripping thunderclap. I miss the drama of intense lightning in storms. What gives?

I can at least agree that 2020 has lacked lightning for my local area. That being said the last week of September 2019 brought me a couple of the most violent lightning storms I have ever witnessed, so not all hope is lost for me yet

Some nice towers going up here as well. If anything pops up close enough I'll take a drive to enjoy some lightning at least.

1 hour ago, Stebo said:

Not this region but Caribou Maine tied their all time record of 96 today and for a good portion of the day was the hottest location in the entire country. #2020 folks.

 

 

Quite a temp swing for Caribou this June!!

For what it's worth, the Spanish flu actually mutated to become much more deadly than what it was at the beginning of the pandemic. It did go on to become less deadly after that though, in some part due to the more severe strains killing people faster than it could spread.

With the new coronavirus, there really isn't a driving force to cause the virus to become weaker in time. Incubation period is about 5 days, and for those who die, average time from symptoms to death is about 18 days. This means that people that have contracted a fatal case can still spend more than a week going about their daily activities, spreading the virus. With the Spanish flu, some people were dying the same day they showed their first symptoms, and this type of presentation limited spread. The coronavirus is a slow bake without a mechanism like this to favor weaker strains.

I don't expect this virus to start killing young people in numbers like the Spanish flu. I am concerned, however, about the potential long term effects of the virus (lung/heart/nerve damage) or even autoimmune issues. I'm fairly young, but I'm avoiding this virus like the plague.

Sandy of the north

I chased the supercell that went over Washburn, IL earlier. I ended up getting right under the main rotation and there was some wicked motion. I can't wait to look through my footage on this one!

Peoria, IL recorded its 4th latest freeze on record.

The damage is starting to show on the trees here. My hickories and tuliptree have lost half of their leaves already 

l love extreme weather, but I'd be happy to never see another May freeze here again. Maybe it's time I move south. 

Another cold soaker of rain here today. I think I'm the outlier here in that I'll always welcome a late April washout as it makes the morel mushroom/spring garden season so much better 

I chased the same supercell that IllinoisWedges chased yesterday. No tornadoes but I had a bunch of fun regardless. I captured this insane lightning bolt on my dash cam on the way home. 

I'm really enjoying this slow soaker of a rain storm here. Radar estimates of 2.5" so far here and higher amounts NW of Peoria. It was getting pretty dry and my plants weren't liking it. Plus this rain should really get the morel season going. 

This storm track would have been more appreciated in January though 

Just switched to rain here  doesn't look to switch back for a while either

First winter storm warning of the season here. Is this going to be the storm that finally beats the Halloween snow for the #1 spot??

In the past 3 years, I've had 3 winter storm warnings and 1 blizzard warning. Only one of those occurred during met or solar winter!! None of them were preceded by a watch. (winter weather advisory is the new winter storm watch, change my mind). I certainly don't envy the meteorologists at this point, trying to pinpoint a thread the needle event with insane cutoffs in accumulation.

Everything about this is so incredibly absurd. How can this much snow be possible in April at 40°N and sub 1000ft elevations? Why do the thermal parameters struggle all winter but seem to line up just 2 months before solar maximum??? I don't like cold springs, but this is too wild and I hope I get crushed by the death band here. My weakest plants were probably already killed off in the snow yesterday.

For those that need yet another model to fret over, the HRRRv4 is now live on the College of DuPage site.