Jackstraw

Can maybe see it on Kutchera ratio. Nice stripe of low ratio cement off the lake on this mornings GFS.

Definitely a tick up for you!

Euro looks a bit slower and weaker than it was 00Z last night. It's cutting off from the northern jet much later this run. A lot of those crazy totals on the previous runs were a perfect long lasting northerly fetch along almost the entire length of a warm Lake Michigan for upwards of 36 hours. LES on steroids. This run, still anaomolis for this time of year, makes a little more sense, to me anyways. GFS is moving closer to this also. I think in the end could see a foot in some places maybe a more wide spread 6-10. Kuchera ratios are lower so a percentage could be sloppy.

Wave train is chuggin'

Just my armchair opinion as we move into the peak over the next week but I've said it before this season. The pattern over the Conus since about mid July has been anything but normal. Up here in the lower great lakes where I am we've had 4 nights below 50 and a string of sub 80 degree days in August, that's kinda nuts. The trough anomalies - placement, strength and depth have been consistent for the last 6 weeks, consistently from the upper midwest down through TX. We're moving into a similar pattern again over the next 10 days. We do have a bit of weaker ridging over the Atlantic currently but there's signals in the ensembles for that to be temporary and begin to build a stronger WAR by the end of the week. Anything that develops off of Africa quickly will more than likely be shark food. But weaker waves that would be less likely to feel any weakness in the ridging prior to 50W could very well roll into a favorable environment and steering to threaten the states I especially think the GOM is far from done if this Conus pattern persists and we possibly could see an abnormal increase in the number of GOM storms by seasons end. As WxWatcher007 has pointed out the tepid west pacific season just hasn't been energizing the northern jet and this has enabled the pattern over the Conus to be rather stale, allowing some rather stout stubborn ridging in the SW and deeper slow moving troughing over the central US. If we don't get some west pac energy rounding into the northern jet over the conus we could still get into these slow pattern locks like we've seen. Just based on that rather weak analysis lol, to me, I think the chances of any storms that either make it to or begin organizing past 50 or 60W and south of 20N the possibility of any affecting the states is higher than normal unless we see a substantial pattern change over the Conus. Where the troughing is currently settling it's going to be able to draw anything north into the GOM or pull something into the EC. It would be nice if the troughs were digging 3 or 4 hundred miles farther E providing a shield for the EC and driving southern storms west. West coast of Fl.'s season is coming up in a few weeks, end of Sept. into Oct. If the pattern shift waits until then it could get interesting. I'm not a landfall wisher by any means, just my uneducated guess moving forward. And one more thing, where the hell are the TUTT's this year? Anyway sorry for the long post, takes me a while to form an armchair opinion nowadays

Currently 2020 is the 9th most active season through the end of August in the satellite era when using ACE index with the number at about 42 so far. With "peak" still a week away and initial ACE forecasts of 130 to 160 there's still a lot of time for some big things to happen if those forecasts pan out. One thing I'm thinking about is we are just now entering "major hurricane season". The higher percentage of majors occur from now moving forward. Sure it's not been exciting from a "headlines" standpoint so far but as others have said we're just now heading into the active period that statistically has the highest threat of stronger storms. Now if we do get 3 or 4 more majors with an ACE of 150 for the season this year along with weaker storms and the majors all are fish,will folks still be saying this season's a bust? Probably lol...... Cat 3 by month Cat 4 by month Cat 5 by month

SAL/dry air has shut down anything currently coming across/off Africa but there's 3 fairly stout waves following this last episode of very dry air. It's a wait and see if any can make a run into the Atlantic towards the end of the week. Also, link to a sat view of a pretty strong dust storm over the west central Sahara I thought was cool http://tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/sal/msg_rgbdust/movies/msg_rgbdust.html

If anything develops I think a lot is going to depend on the evolution of that monster SW conus ridge. GEFS and EPS along with the OP's show it breaking down to varying degrees around day 7 in general. There are trends toward zonal flow across the northern conus after that for a few days farther out into fantasy land across the board. A setup like that, IF it were to happen can sometimes lead to headaches forecasting a track for anything in the SE Bahamas, S GOM or the W Caribbean. Weaker steering and/or something getting trapped under a conus ridge-WAR battle. Stalls, left turns and loops oh my.

This. My biggest concern is exactly that. There's been consistent modeling of relaxed shear in the Caribbean for some time now, especially the eastern Caribbean. While normally the eastern Caribbean shear tends to relax during the peak it doesn't usually do it for very long, there always seems to be a retrograding TUTT that throws a fly in the ointment for any long track storm that gets in there and tries to traverse south of Cuba. Most years that shear tends to keep anything traversing the eastern Caribbean at least in check if not ripping it apart. Of course some have made it through if the timing's right but the eastern Caribbean is usually a tough place for any storm. The consistent modeling of a relaxing of that shear for an extended period of time increases the chances for a southern long tracker to sustain intensity right into the GOM. May not happen at all but I think there's increasing chances of that possibility.

It's not real

An average season of 10-12 has 2-3 named storms by now with 75% occurring over the next 6-8 weeks. This anomalous beginning is accounting for almost half of the very active season being forecasted. Since we already have 9, even and average Aug - Oct would put us upwards of 20. So it doesn't necessarily mean the tropics have to "blow up" soon in order to meet the current forecast. A moderate above average Aug - Oct, say 10-12, as opposed to the Aug - Oct 8-10 average could hit the threshold of some of the forecasts. I think that's an important perspective. We've almost got a 3rd of a high end 25 storm forecast in the bank by the first week of August. Even an average or slightly below average Aug- Oct portion will still put the entire season as well above average. So the question is, has the anomalous above average season being forecasted already occured? Edit: Just trying to point out that moving forward could be an average season in the timeframe left. Some people may be disappointed if storm after storm doesn't start cranking soon and think the forecasts are off. I'm putting odds on a normal, maybe slightly above normal Aug - Oct storm count.

And OMG people may be socking it away because they don't know what's around the corner. Paying off debt to reduce or eliminate bills in case it gets worse. God forbid Americans cut their credit cards, increase their savings and stop borrowing money for things like snowmobiles. When this first hit banks were getting jumpy because people were suddenly paying down credit card debt, were trying to increase their savings. When I was a kid that was taught to me as being financially responsible. This economy is a slave to debt. I choose not to participate in that type of economy thank you very much.

Well it got me and it's definitely not done with me. I'll be brief but just wanted to share a frontline experience. I began not feeling well the around the first-second week of May. Mainly persistent headaches and joint pain. I believe I posted before I've had chronic Lyme disease for over 12 years and have had a few flare ups in that time. I figured that's what it was. I didn't have a fever, no trouble breathing, none of the common symptoms of Covid. After 2 more days it got worse, especially the headaches. I called my physician, who is an LLMD, and he ordered both a Lyme test and a Covid test. He didnt think it was Covid either because I wasn't showing typical Covid symptoms. Scheduled the tests the next day, had them, got a quick Covid diagnostic while at the lab, no fever, oxygen levels fine, lungs clear, then went back home. 48 hours later I was in an ambulance because the ol'lady couldn't wake me up. All I remember is laying down on the couch with an ice pack on my head and 2 dogs on top of me and then waking up in ICU feeling like a marionette with all the tubes and wires hooked to me. I was told I was out for about 36 hours. I got the quick test at the hospital and was positive. I guess my other test came back positive 3 days later, Lyme test negative.. Once again to keep it brief, I thought if I got this thing it would hit me in the chest because I've been an on and off smoker for 40 some years. The virus didn't hit me there. It hit me in my blood and in my brain. The encephalitis in my brain got bad enough I was put into an induced coma and intubated for 17 days to try and reduce the severe swelling. I had to have 3 blood transfusions during that time because the virus was really screwing with my red blood cells causing them to basically work opposite of the way they are supposed to work. I consciously never knew it but I guess I was on the edge. Subconsciously, and I'm serious, I lived an entire lifetime in another dimension with vivid memories of my life, decades of my life,completely different from my life, that, well, weren't real? The hardest part was the loneliness after I woke up. Those stories about you're in there all by yourself, they're not kidding. It was almost 2 weeks after I woke up before I got moved out of ICU and the Covid ward before I could see anyone besides nurses and Dr's dressed up in biohazard space suits. Anyway, I was in the hospital for almost 2 months, I got out on the 10th. I'm just now starting to get semi right, so I'm told lol. There's no medical evidence of brain damage, I still have what little scruples I had before this. I told her nothing can keep me away from hurricane season, guess I arrived just in time I may be an extreme case but at least I'm alive. 145k and counting aren't. Better perspective, 140k since April 1st. Please don't take this lightly. Please think about your loved ones, your friends, your neighbor, your fellow citizens. Please think about Gertrude who already has one foot in the grave, let her put the other foot in, it's her right. Nobody deserves to get sick, go through what I have or to die like my friend did back when this started over stupid selfish pride. Where a damn mask, it's the least you can do. (maybe I'm not right that took me 3 hours lol)

That's the price you pay when an economy of production moves to an economy of service. Once you base your economy on consumption instead of production there's nothing to support it when demand for services hits the basement. A "Service" based economy is just that, it serves. We haven't had a "production" or "goods" based economy in 40 or 50 years. At least if you have a production based economy, when shit hits the fan, you can at least "make things" for yourself. If your economy is based on service, it's artificial. It's Bitcoin. Walmart is the largest employer in this country (which is absolutely embarrassing). What do they produce? Not digging at you, I'm in the same boat. I get it your a supply chain analyst. Most people never heard of the "supply chain" in detail until it was brought up during this and may not understand completely what it is. It's not just ships, ports trucks and/or warehouses. It's way deeper than the obvious on the surface. But the supply chain doesn't "make" anything. The supply chain creates jobs, but what flows through the supply chain has changed drastically over the last 40 years. Just like what I do for a living it doesn't "produce" a product that can be built or sold. I support a product or products that have already been built and sold. This country is at a true crossroads right now, for that matter the world is. The divisions are already deep, and like the stock market, are artificially being exasperated by selfish entities trying to exploit them at our expense for their own profit. We are facing something now that typical American denial isn't going to work. We're going to have to deal with it for a long time. The economic game that's been played by us world wide, the fact that we have dollar stores, the fact that we in this country get the best deals without making shit at the expense of impoverished slaves exploited by the the "walmarts" of the world. None of us can, nor should we, rely on the current leadership or the future leadership, to get us as a country through this. We need to stand up, and do the hard thing, but on our terms, not the fat cats. The economy is important, but this current economy isn't worth sacrificing lives for IMHO This is a crucial time right now in our society. We've been a junkie ignoring reality long enough. I hope our kids and grandkids won't have to forgive us and may thank us instead.

Partly true. There were definitely funding issues for continued research into vaccines for both due to the complexities of developing a vaccine against this kind of virus and of course profitability.. While flu viruses are similar to coronaviruses, the reason there's a flu vaccine every year is we have decades of vaccines to work off of and of course one can make a ton of money. Vaccines for SARS and MERS were being researched, with some success in animal trials, but not without some severe side effects. The research hasn't stopped. Funding may be part of it, but it's also the nature of these viruses that make it so difficult. I guess one could say it would be difficult to do human trials on a virus that's been "contained" because of the danger involved and probably couldn't make a buck on it (until now). MERS was thought to have been contained until 2015 when it reared it's head in South Korea so we've known these are lurking. Just as the argument we're having right now in this country about exposure and death vs the economy, I find it very ironic that a limiting factor in development of some sort of vaccine for Cov2 was due to the fact that SARS and MERS didn't kill a lot of folks therefore wasn't economically profitable. It's a dark comedic tragedy. https://www.bcm.edu/departments/molecular-virology-and-microbiology/emerging-infections-and-biodefense/sars-virus

These coronaviruses aren't smallpox or polio. They are mRNA viruses, you can't just shoot dead or semi dead virus in someone to build immunity. People really need to understand, this is the most contagious coronavirus we've ever seen, and THAT is the problem in the long run.

They don't have one for SARS or MERS yet, at least not a proven one. And thats damn near 20 and 10 years respectively. There are some iffy treatments, but containment was the key to both of them.

Yeah, you won't see me in a restaurant until 2021 and I'm still an active member in the NRA (no not that one). It was interesting that Holcomb said he had a call with the governors of KY and OH earlier in the day but not with IL or MI (although he did say they notified the latter states of IN's intentions early Fri.) So unless I'm missing something, I have not seen a new executive order on the IN corona page. In the past when the existing orders were extended there was a new executive order that superseded the current one. All I'm seeing is references to the backontrack.in.gov webpage. Such a reversal in direction I would assume would require a new executive order. I was hoping to be able to read that to see the finer points of how we move forward instead of a PP presentation. The current executive order expired at midnight Thurs. Some might think I'm nit picking but without a new executive order IN has now entered the foggy world of guidelines. Not like we weren't there already. Technically, the IDOH was entrusted with enforcement of the restrictions from day one, and only with investigative power. None of these restrictions were technically law except for some of the business restrictions (which fell underneath the INDOH. They basically changed the rules that health inspectors use when they inspect your business). People could congregate in groups in someones back yard (and they did) without fear of law enforcement dispersing or throwing them in jail (which really makes me wonder about these extremely small numbers of protestors, against what?). I digress, easy to find rabbit holes in all of this lol. I guess my point is, technically the previous executive order and all that was in it has been allowed to expire. The current stage 2 guidelines don't kick in until Monday. Is there technically a free for all this weekend? I mean "technically" without official public notification every restaurant in the state could open up this weekend. If I'm missing the legal document please point me to it. I thought IN was being a little smart about this but my state just took me for a walk and now all I have is a leash and no hand and I want to chase a rabbit

The site for the new guidelines is now up. https://www.backontrack.in.gov/

I agree. I expected some opening up, this was a little more than I expected. As he said, if things start to go south they may re-instate some of the current restrictions. I'd like to see specific guidelines that could cause that reaction. The one thing I did not see that I think deviates from the federal guidelines is for every stage the federal guidelines said continued 14 day drop in new cases. The Governor stated they expect to see an increase in cases as they move through the opening over the next 4 weeks. I find that a bit discerning. Hopefully the new order will address some of these things specifically. If the responsibility is being pushed more to individual citizens, if there is a sudden spike statewide in cases, IMO it's going to be very hard for the state to reimpose restrictions. The public will react like 10 year old let out of the corner, does the same bad thing, then gets a spanking.

It's going to be interesting. I think for our state it's more important than some that it be properly coordinated. I mean we have a couple large population centers but there's even bigger, and more, population centers in other states right on our border. The protests in Indiana are a very small bullshit minority. There's a few inconveniences, but for the most part anybody who thinks their freedom is being trampled on needs to go back in their cave. In the more rural counties like where I live the biggest issue isn't folks laid off, it's REAL small businesses struggling, not stock market listed "small businesses" struggling. I've been very impressed for the most part at the social distancing aspect. Yeah there are a lot of people out on the nice days but the few times I or one of our friends has done the group shopping thing, been very surprised at how folks are respecting the whole social distancing thing this far in. Few bad apples here and there but they are usually put in their place if there's a small respectful group around that see's it. Nice days there's a lot of cars out but the parking lots are not full at all. Think it's just people doing like me, take a ride. It's nice out, it's safe, and it keeps the heebeegeebees at bay. It's going to be hard to make the calls up where you're at, down in the SE corner of the state and down by Clarksville. Those areas are so intertwined with the larger metropolises across state lines, amongst others, it really is going to have to take coordination between the states. And to my point about state borders. When you look at a map.OH,IL, and IN share more "extensive" as in lengths of the borders consistently with more states than any other states in the country. So, IMHO, it is more imperative that they coordinate the re-opening with their border states than maybe others in the country.

I think Holcombe here in Indiana has been doing a pretty good job. Indiana is one of the few states in the country that is bordered by 4 other states , not just a small border like say GA and TN for example, but extensive borders. Indiana shares very large borders with the 4 surrounding states. I would argue the largest borders combined with other states than any other state in the country. "Cross roads of America". What Indiana's neighbors do, and just as important to Indiana's neighbors, what we do, can have a huge impact on each. It could be argued that how Indiana moves forward could have a greater impact to this region as opposed how one of the 4 bordering states move forward, at least when it comes to the number of people affected. I'm glad that this region is working together on moving forward. Holcombe could very well hold this region hostage. If he would pull a Kemp the number of people that could possibly be adversely affected would be much larger than Indiana. I think he really is listening to the Governors that surround Indiana whose states have been hit much harder than Indiana. From hearing him speak at his conference calls I get the feeling of such a thing as "State social distancing". A single state that shares like 100-200 miles of borders with 4 surrounding states, decisions by all of those states need to be very closely coordinated, partisanship aside. I think Holcombe understands that and is letting that, and more importantly, has been letting the science guide his decisions moving forward. He's not perfect, nobody is in this time. But, compared to other Republican Governors in the country I don't think he's towing the "behind the scenes" line being touted by the federal "leadership". We shall see come Monday how this Governor, and the Governors of the 4 surrounding states move forward. I am glad of one thing, better Holcombe than Pence right now.

I read that study also. Even though it's not "conclusive" there's a lot of plain old common sense in it. It's pretty much coming out the length of time to exposure is exponentially related to the chance of someone who would not "normally" have severe complications as apposed if they contracted the virus by simply shaking hands with someone, to becoming severely ill. The replication rate of this virus internally isn't extreme compared to others (Ebola doubles every 20 minutes). But if you are consistently exposed hour by hour, day by day for a couple days the "number" of viruses that infiltrate over time overwhelm even younger and/or healthy peoples immune system and can cause an immune inflammatory response requiring hospitalization. It's being studied this is why folks on these cruise ships had such an adverse reaction to the virus with severe infections up to 5 times a town of similar size. This may be why there was a higher rate of severe infections in densely populated areas initially. That church in Sacramento had a disproportionately large number of severe infections and deaths compared to people who may have been infected yet less exposed consistently. It's probably why we've seen stories of young healthy hospital workers succumbing, the hi rates of police and other first responders succumbing. These people that are higher than most to be in contact initially, they are higher than most to be in contact over and over again. They are running much higher rates of being severely infected regardless of demographic. I really think there is a "dose" factor here simply because of the long incubation time. Which once again brings us back to what? TESTING TESTING.

Well the only way we're going to get testing is the same way states had to get supplies, the feds either dish out what tax dollars already bought, or sieze what states purchased with their own money, then dish the stuff out to private middle men under the auspice that they are the best supply chain we have and those grifters basically ebay it all at a huge profit because it's legal to price gouge our tax dollars via the government but not our wallets in this country. This is the most disgusting raping of this country I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of rapes of the tax base by these fat cats. I am disgusted period. Anyone who thinks this shit's ok can just go screw themselves.

There are folks around here that are are believing an internet rumor (what? It's not true?) that if you smoke cigarettes you have a better chance of not contracting the virus because the flem from cig smoking in your lungs is so thick the virus can't get through it to get to the cells in your lungs. Seriously. I've heard that story standing in line at a store more than once, and have had people tell me that. Disclaimer: I was a fairly heavy corporate smoker for about 20 years. Currently I am a light tobacco user. Equal to about a couple packs a week but their hand rolled and I occasionally smoke a pipe. I do rationalize. I get the the tobacco from a friends very small organic tobacco farm in NC that's illegal as hell. I won't go into why organic non pesticide, non nicotine ramped up tobacco is illegal. It's a habit (tobacco company jargon for addiction lol) I've tried to stop several times but just can't, so be it, so I do it in the most "healthy" way I can. And yes I partake in the indigenous natural gift of mother nature but mostly in edible form, it's cheaper and much more relaxing. When I smoke it it literally makes me sick to my stomach and just gets me too wasted.