Ju-ply 2026 Obs and Disco - Kicking it off with heat, humidity, and ... severe?

[vortex95]

11 hours ago, WxWatcher007 said:

I'm sorry, but some of this sounds like hyperbole of the hyperbole. What serious person is out there saying that a 90 degree day in New England is dangerous and requires people staying inside? Everybody knows the information environment is crap on balance. Even the general public to a large degree gets that. A met on local tv saying a heat dome is going to give us highs of 95 with a HI of 105 so take precautions otherwise it can be dangerous is very different from some kid on YouTube saying the heat dome is going to kill everybody. Yeah, they get clicks, but I don't encounter a lot of people in normal life who are cowering in a corner because of something they heard from a random online. 

In the face of a lot of bad information and hype out there, a lot of professionals and serious hobbyists have tried to counter that with using more probabilistic forecasting and communication, contextualizing how weather is not climate, and explaining how the science is the same even when terminology changes. 

To be clear--I believe the information environment is profoundly worse on balance than it was 30 years ago. There is too much hype, too many bad actors cashing in on quackery, and too little nuance introduced whenever we do have high end events (not every hurricane or major flood is directly tied to climate change, not every temperature drop below zero/above 100 is historic, etc) but I don't think it's fundamentally changed how most people make decisions, especially in advance of/during high end events.

Not yet at least. 

Good info!  Thanks.  This kind of discussion is great b/c it puts forth different views/angles that we all can take in, and then make adjustments and see things better.  It is all too easy for one to isolate themselves in their own mindset/attitude, and forget there is always more too it or another way of looking at it!

Perhaps "cowering" was not the best term choice, at least not as to what actually happens when sig wx occurs,  However, the message being put forth, from the individual to big media, is on the level that "cowering" does fit IMHO.  This is biggest tissue I have -- how wx is handled/presented by so many in recent decades. That has devolved significantly, and has real physical and physiological impacts.

I agree that more ppl than not get it and do to succumb or fall prey to excessive hype, but unfortunately the vocal minority that do get *most* of the attention, and even one person crying foul in some cases, ends up going viral or officials/authorities/politicians overreacting, and it ends up being a much bigger deal that it actually should be, and this in turn affects mindsets, zeitgeist, and policy.  And also, you get those in charge using wx events for ulterior and questionable motives at times.

And due to excessive hype, it promotes distrust and apathy in the public, and that can and does have consequences that are non-trivial.

Social media is biased w/ hype and over the top b/c it get clicks/likes and drives the algorithms, so individuals not only benefit, but also the platforms do, and you get this feedback loop, and the platform quality goes down.

I have no problem w/ hype when it is warranted, meaning when something truly big is fcst that will have impacts way above the norm and/or is quite rare, like a Sandy or the Oct 2011 snowstorm, going full throttle is a good thing.  But crying wolf for virtually *every* wx event is ridiculous and counterproductive.  What WxWiz said about local hype in CT for the most recent rain event is a good example.  Yes, in a vacuum, 4-8" of rain fcst is a concern, but as discussed, there are other factors to consider. esp. when talking about *impact* to society.  The MSM and hype-masters often conflate an event intensity and impact.  The two are not always direct correlated!  And we have the tech, skill, and knowledge now to quite easily quantify and scale wx events very good, but not all for various reasons are taking advantage of it!  For instance, you will still here some ppl  think/say (anywhere - the public to officials/authorities) -- "well, you never know w/ the wx!"  That is a largely an out-of-date and weasel excuse these days.

 

[HIPPYVALLEY]

1 hour ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Possible little or no rain next two weeks . What we all had this week was good . It will evaporate quickly. We’ll see how it plays out. This is acting opposite of typical super Nino summer with above normal and dry 

Greenfield had under .50" yesterday so not awesome but at least it was  something for the fruit trees. 

We dry moving forward.  Good for mosquito control I suppose. 

[WxWatcher007]

24 minutes ago, vortex95 said:

Good info!  Thanks.  This kind of discussion is great b/c it puts forth different views/angles that we all can take in, and then make adjustments and see things better.  It is all too easy for one to isolate themselves in their own mindset/attitude, and forget there is always more too it or another way of looking at it!

Perhaps "cowering" was not the best term choice, at least not as to what actually happens when sig wx occurs,  However, the message being put forth, from the individual to big media, is on the level that "cowering" does fit IMHO.  This is biggest tissue I have -- how wx is handled/presented by so many in recent decades. That has devolved significantly, and has real physical and physiological impacts.

I agree that more ppl than not get it and do to succumb or fall prey to excessive hype, but unfortunately the vocal minority that do get *most* of the attention, and even one person crying foul in some cases, ends up going viral or officials/authorities/politicians overreacting, and it ends up being a much bigger deal that it actually should be, and this in turn affects mindsets, zeitgeist, and policy.  And also, you get those in charge using wx events for ulterior and questionable motives at times.

And due to excessive hype, it promotes distrust and apathy in the public, and that can and does have consequences that are non-trivial.

Social media is biased w/ hype and over the top b/c it get clicks/likes and drives the algorithms, so individuals not only benefit, but also the platforms do, and you get this feedback loop, and the platform quality goes down.

I have no problem w/ hype when it is warranted, meaning when something truly big is fcst that will have impacts way above the norm and/or is quite rare, like a Sandy or the Oct 2011 snowstorm, going full throttle is a good thing.  But crying wolf for virtually *every* wx event is ridiculous and counterproductive.  What WxWiz said about local hype in CT for the most recent rain event is a good example.  Yes, in a vacuum, 4-8" of rain fcst is a concern, but as discussed, there are other factors to consider. esp. when talking about *impact* to society.  The MSM and hype-masters often conflate an event intensity and impact.  The two are not always direct correlated!  And we have the tech, skill, and knowledge now to quite easily quantify and scale wx events very good, but not all for various reasons are taking advantage of it!  For instance, you will still here some ppl  think/say (anywhere - the public to officials/authorities) -- "well, you never know w/ the wx!"  That is a largely an out-of-date and weasel excuse these days.

 

I certainly agree that the changes we're seeing in how information gets communicated is starting to have a cumulative effect, and while I think most probably still understand what's over the top, when you have so much bad, misinterpreted, misleading information combined with a growing reliance on short form video rather than reading and critical thinking, we're going the wrong way. I think you can see it in how wildly popular some of the YouTubers in particular have become and how some elements of MSM seem to be trying to adopt similar styles even if it isn't going full on hype in the way we see online. I think that's a larger conversation though about how media has become less of a public trust focused on truth and analysis and more a place for entertainment and opinion that generates engagement and profit. 

There's always been an aspect of "if it bleeds it leads" but sometimes you watch the nightly news for example and they're leading off talking about a severe weather outbreak which, while bad, might completely leave out the context that severe weather outbreaks have happened for millennia because the atmosphere at its very core seeks balance. Pick your wx topic. It may be newsworthy in its own right because people are being impacted, but if you're leaving out all of the context, it does the general public a disservice. 

Another great example--and my hobbyhorse since I care about it more than any other type of wx--is tropical. You can bank on every active year truly outrageous bad analysis and hype. Whether it's people sharing 10 day operational model doom runs under the guise of "making sure people are prepared", or wanting to be the first to call for RI of a tropical wave because they rip and read a HAFS run before a LLC has even been identified, or probably the worst...taking a string of active seasons and/or a high end hurricane and declaring that the Atlantic is in a new era of hyperactivity.

That definitely has a negative impact IMO on how the public views and responds to emergency managers who often times are community members just trying to do their best. I worry that the current information sharing landscape and the decline in reading and critical thinking is going to prove disastrous long term, not just in the wx space.  

[rimetree]

I think we probably have chances for some pretty rainy days this month. I don't buy anything models sell beyond 4 or 5 days this time of year. Just need some random disturbance to tap into a volatile atmosphere to get something going.

[WxWatcher007]

And let me just add lol. I'm not trying to be on some high horse denouncing people--mets or hobbyists--who try to be a real value add to the public discourse. I think the information sharing landscape has allowed for different perspectives to break through and advance the science by challenging our thinking on what's possible and why in wx. I'm biased, but I think many chasers add value by being in the dangerous places and collecting data and video that aids in our understanding of extreme wx and the issuance of warnings. But as we know...many are just trying to gain money and clout. God bless 'em, it's America, but the goal should always be building trust with the public and helping people understand science/context/impact.  

[Torch Tiger]

Maybe some severe around the 18th or 19th, otherwise SNE looks 

[vortex95]

13 hours ago, Layman said:

I saw this posted online and it was presented as real but I didn't verify it.  I don't doubt it however and I believe this is along the lines of what @vortex95 is talking about with regard to hype.  Consider if this bar chart went all the way to zero and those gaps between numbers remained the same - it would challenge the Burj Khalifa!

Wow, this is a good one.  Thanks for passing along.

It may be a doctored image, but *nothing* would surprise me these days.

And something like is done here?  This would fall under a classic tactic from the book "How to Lie with Statistics"  (Duff, 1954 - you can find it free to read on-line).

It goes like this:
On a graph, play w/ the y-axis.  You can make things look as significant or insignificant as much as you want visually.  Ppl are drawn to a flashy graphic first, and the labeling second (if at all).  And this has been shown to work or influence in any venue/setting to get a particular message across.

Over time, no matter how cheesy or insignificant it may be, for a hype angle or to simply grab attention more, nothing is off the table!  I get the business model and why it is done (competition is intense/shorter attention spans), but it has become ridiculous.  Micromanaging/slicing and dicing to the extreme, and I am not just making deductions/suppositions from what I see presented.  I know a number of of OCMs, and some have told me this is how it really is.  Many OCMs do not want to do such things b/c they want to keep it real and based, but they are told to do this by the news directors or consultants, and have no choice.

And the book I mentioned above, you see that the saying, "there are lies, damn lies, and STATISTICS!" is not just some casual idiom!
 

[HIPPYVALLEY]

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a heat advisory this small and specific.
 

[vortex95]

14 hours ago, tamarack said:

Agree about the softening, also for folks playing the blame game if they are inconvenienced in any way.  However, the bolded seems counterintuitive. at least from a practical standpoint.  Those out in the wx would seem to be more affected than those sitting in their LRs poking their cellphones.
 

Wonder if we’ll all go 10 straight days with no rain ?

That arrives today; most recent precip was 0.16" on June 28.  The temps running 5° AN during that period exacerbates the drying.

Yet so many ppl do not think twice taking the dog out for a walk when lightning is hitting not that far away and the thunder is very loud.  As long as it is not raining, who cares?

[vortex95]

14 hours ago, weatherwiz said:

the headlines with severe weather are a joke. "Tens of thousands under the gun for severe weather". CNN and NY Post loves to do this. Then you have clowns like Ryan Hall and Max Velocity who have to use that headline and that have their stupid looking face making a stupid reaction in their thumbnails. 

The tactic "scare w/ large numbers" is a biggie.  How about "340 million people under high UV risk today!"   Sounds ridiculous, but the trend to demonize *everything* no matter what is strong, so just you wait!  And one could say, "well, UV is ionizing radiation and is a real risk!" and they would not be wrong.  Very sleazy way to justify hype.

Since ubiquitous well-known risk exists every day routinely, there is no practical value bringing it up most of the time other than for ratings and hype.  We learn about normal risk from a young age.  Risk is everywhere, and constantly bringing attention to it is counterproductive.   Yes, alert the population as needed, and *not* for your own profit/business! 
 

[vortex95]

10 hours ago, dendrite said:

It’s real

https://www.fox8live.com/2026/06/27/heat-humidity-this-weekend-storms-return-mid-week/

It does not surprise me one bit!  Never underestimate the drive to get more ratings, no matter how ridiculous or stupid it sounds!

And it can be taken even further here, and it proves what I have said so many times in recent years.  The ordinary is now turned into extraordinary!

So this is a fcst for New Orleans.  You know what the normal high temp is for June 27 (date of this article)?  91!  And dew points are in the 70s almost all the time in summer, so afternoon heat indices are in the low 100s, and 107 like mentioned here happens a significant part of the time every summer.

So how is this "dangerous?"  This is normal climate for this area, and ppl are *used* to it.  This idea that just b/c temps 90+ and the heat index 100+ somehow that means this summarily bad for humans is bunk.  Ppl adapt well to their local climate no problem, have so for 1000s of years.

"By Monday, temperatures will surge even higher as a strong heat bubble aloft moves northward over the Tennessee and Ohio River Valleys, keeping the New Orleans area well above normal. Combined with higher humidity, Tuesday is shaping up to be a hot day."

2 F higher is a "surge?"  And 3 deg above avg for a high temps is not "well above normal."  Oh, the drama!

I get sometimes, "well, that's just the way it is."  I am not contesting that.  Society changes/evolves.  What I am contesting is the relentless fear-mongering and making mountains out of molehills.  Crying wolf all the time is a bad thing, no?  Putting ppl in a constant state of alert is unhealthy both physically and psychologically.

 

 

[vortex95]

14 hours ago, Great Snow 1717 said:

It is all about getting people to watch and/or page hits to generate advertising dollars.

People are attracted to those types of headlines....if they said something like "it's going to be  a typical July day in the east"...their  audience would be lower..

It is always best to ignore the hype in weather and sports...

Attractive headlines I have no issue w/ on a fundamental level, and they do have plenty of value, but as w/ anything, it can be abused, and that abuse line was crossed a long time ago IMHO.

You wrote:
"It is always best to ignore the hype in weather and sports... "

I agree 100%, but it's very hard to b/c it is everywhere!  Yes on social media platforms you can block words/phrases and ppl/sites, but it doesn't catch everything.  Just casually watching TV or listening to radio, or ads on on sites like YouTube, it gets you.  And over time, the drama, hype, and negative has worked their way into everything.  You can't even have escapism watching a movie or show anymore w/o some kind of messaging or virtue signaling randomly inserted that has zero to do w/ the plot, but put in anyways.  
 

[vortex95]

14 hours ago, weatherwiz said:

I can certainly imagine lol. Its interesting how the human brain works

Just the topics of logical fallacies and cognitive biases *alone* is so much material.  And we can all relate to them well b/c we are all susceptible and/or committed them at one time or another, and have experienced it first hand among the population and media.

[vortex95]

16 hours ago, CoastalWx said:

Weather is just sexier now to show on the news because we are able to catch raw and captivating video like never before. Everyone has a smart phone and can send it to a news network.

I will say that when the national news shows clips of severe weather as a headline, you'd think the weather has gone wild, but to me it looks like what summer weather brings lol. But to Jane and John Doe it might not. But that's just how it is. Footage of severe weather captivates people.

CoastalWx mentioning national news reminded me of something.

This is probably when I came to realize what wx had become in terms of treating the ordinary as extraordinary and the lack of scaling/quantification.

In late July 2014 I was visiting a friend at a TV station in NJ, and the ABC Word News Tonight at 630 came on.  And the lead story?
"We begin tonight w/ svr wx w/ at least one tornado touching down..."

This is what happened on this day.  
https://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/140724_rpts.html

The tornado in question was in Edgewater FL.  It was an EF0 and damaged some hangars and planes at the local airport.  No one was hurt.

This is national news?  This is *local* story only.  It was a minor event, par for the course any day in July for svr wx.  You have 30 min to talk about news of the world, and this is material for such a newscast?   Are you telling me that this is the best the staff of a national newscast can do for a story?  It is lazy journalism and wx is low-hanging fruit.

Don't get me wrong, wx on a national newscast is entirely relevant, but confine to something significant overall that has widespread impact or causes injuries/fatalities.
 

[ineedsnow]

5 hours ago, HIPPYVALLEY said:

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a heat advisory this small and specific.
 

Saw on the news that they have different criteria even though it will be just as hot as some places in mass. I guess we just miss the criteria 

[CoastalWx]

Timing may be off for storms tomorrow. Hopefully not.

[Damage In Tolland]

18 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Timing may be off for storms tomorrow. Hopefully not.

He back quick 

[vortex95]

59 minutes ago, ineedsnow said:

Saw on the news that they have different criteria even though it will be just as hot as some places in mass. I guess we just miss the criteria 

That's odd given the much warmer and more humid climate.  People do adapt over time and it's all what one is used to.  I noticed it when I first moved to DC.  The first couple of summers, it was a bit tough getting used to the persistent HHH wx in the summer (temps avg 6 deg higher in DCA than BOS), but by the 3rd summer, I had adapted.  And it works the other way.  This past winter was the coldest by far since I moved here, and it was noticeable that temps that I had no issues w/ in BOS were!

We all have the same body temp.  Yes, some ppl take the heat better, just like some take the cold better, but for the majority, it is about same.  There is a reason why 68 F is considered room temp, as a reference standard.

If the avg temp is in the low 90s and the DPs in the 70s in the summer, and that mets their criteria, that would mean a continuous state of alert/warning/advisory, and thus they lose their entire meaning!

And since humans can live and thrive in areas of the globe that have heat indices 130+ most of the summer (e.g. Middle East), what, is the biology of humans in the U.S. somehow different that elsewhere on the globe?

[CoastalWx]

1 hour ago, Damage In Tolland said:

He back quick 

Webbed hands hanging onto us.

[Damage In Tolland]

10 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Webbed hands hanging onto us.

He’s just sittin and smilin looking at qpf charts thru day 14

[Great Snow 1717]

5 hours ago, vortex95 said:

Yet so many ppl do not think twice taking the dog out for a walk when lightning is hitting not that far away and the thunder is very loud.  As long as it is not raining, who cares?

...I have neighbors who have been in their pool countless times during thunderstorms...some people are lucky ..if I did that I'd be fried like bacon at a fast food place..

[Typhoon Tip]

8 hours ago, HIPPYVALLEY said:

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a heat advisory this small and specific.
 

I guess they are relying on the "in or around" aspect to capture and inform the risk ... lol

Synoptic parameterization throughout the day today do not appreciably differentiate eastern interior MA, nor S. ME, from that region.  But, I have not read their AFD; I may be missing something

[kdxken]

After the nice cool days not loving 82° already. Send it back where it came from.

[CoastalWx]

Ju-Ply is here. We missed you. 

[weatherwiz]

It's going to be too much to ask to get something to time right in the Tuesday-Wednesday time frame, isn't it?

[powderfreak]

2 hours ago, CoastalWx said:

Webbed hands hanging onto us.

Took 24 hours lol.  

[CoastalWx]

1 minute ago, powderfreak said:

Took 24 hours lol.  

Kind of like on Terminator 2 when the T1000 drove a metal rod through Arnold. You thought he was gone. Then battary backup kicks in, takes the rod out, and goes to fight the T1000.

[tamarack]

That warning is in GYX' CWA.  The heat criteria in Maine may be lower than for Massachusetts.

[dendrite]

10 hours ago, HIPPYVALLEY said:

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a heat advisory this small and specific.
 

Heat indices in the MRV are modeled around 95° for a couple hours…it’s borderline. The difference I see in the criteria is GYX allows it for any amount of time (1+ day) whereas BOX requires at least 2 straight days of it.

[CT Rain]

10 hours ago, vortex95 said:

Wow, this is a good one.  Thanks for passing along.

It may be a doctored image, but *nothing* would surprise me these days.

And something like is done here?  This would fall under a classic tactic from the book "How to Lie with Statistics"  (Duff, 1954 - you can find it free to read on-line).

It goes like this:
On a graph, play w/ the y-axis.  You can make things look as significant or insignificant as much as you want visually.  Ppl are drawn to a flashy graphic first, and the labeling second (if at all).  And this has been shown to work or influence in any venue/setting to get a particular message across.

Over time, no matter how cheesy or insignificant it may be, for a hype angle or to simply grab attention more, nothing is off the table!  I get the business model and why it is done (competition is intense/shorter attention spans), but it has become ridiculous.  Micromanaging/slicing and dicing to the extreme, and I am not just making deductions/suppositions from what I see presented.  I know a number of of OCMs, and some have told me this is how it really is.  Many OCMs do not want to do such things b/c they want to keep it real and based, but they are told to do this by the news directors or consultants, and have no choice.

And the book I mentioned above, you see that the saying, "there are lies, damn lies, and STATISTICS!" is not just some casual idiom!
 

It's funny that people think this is something nefarious.

The issue is that the weather graphics vendor most stations use (your former employer) have an almost impossible to figure out UI when it comes to building bar graphs and charts. TBH, it's why I don't show them very often. Obviously it shouldn't have been used but we're generally using horribly outdated equipment and graphics systems that are generally awful all around.