Jackstraw

Gusting to 50 here and it's hardly raining. Enjoying the IMAX show to my south lol.

Drove over to Cicero because it was starting to get some rotation. Gave up with the darkness and hail potential. Dews 15 degrees higher than here when I got to friends in Cicero. Hail core headed right for ya both. No envy here lol..

Storm SSW of Cape Girardeau bears watching. Been trying to hook.

Mesoscale Discussion 0291 NWS Storm Prediction Center Norman OK 1103 PM CDT Mon Apr 06 2020 Areas affected...northern Illinois into northwest Ohio Concerning...Severe potential...Watch unlikely Valid 070403Z - 070630Z Probability of Watch Issuance...5 percent SUMMARY...Storms will increase in coverage tonight, with mainly small hail expected. Isolated cells may produce hail approaching 1". DISCUSSION...Showers are beginning to form over northern IL in a zone of low-level warm advection which is aiding lift and destabilization. 00Z soundings from DVN and ILX show steep midlevel lapse rates, with unstable parcels originating above 850 mb. Within the cloud bearing layer, sufficient shear was noted to sustain storm cells. With a continued influx of relatively moist air from the southwest, and PWAT approaching 1.00", the result should be increasing coverage of elevated storms, moving in an east/southeastward direction. While hail will be the main threat, locally strong wind gusts cannot be ruled out from northern IN into OH, conditional on sufficient clustering of downdrafts. ..Jewell.. 04/07/2020

Hope it stays wrong

Still don't understand why AL isn't being focused on. According to the "official IHME" model they are going to get hammered. I know I keep harping on it but next to NY that state is is deep crap. The model is inputting their massive lack of hospitals to deal with it but it's getting worse. They will be running a per capita death rate 3 times NY. I have a good friend from Chicago that relocated to Mobile for work 6 years ago. He's taking his family back to Chicago this weekend because of this. He works in epidemiology from a project management aspect and he's told me the medical officials down there are bracing for armageddon. They are scared to death down there. I fear you're going to hear AL as one of the largest tragedies that could've been prevented out of all of this. It's very sad whats going on there and hopefully the medical professionals and the models are wrong.

What amazes me about Italy is northern Italy supposedly has one of the highest rated if not the best medical systems in Europe. They have a median age of I think 49. Southern Italy has not been hit nearly as hard, is much poorer a median age of like 55 and the medical infrastructure is nothing compared to northern Italy. It's kind of the wild west of Italy. Yet they've been running 50 to 60 % behind northern Italy in death rates so far. The demographics of where this hit first and hard are going to be very interesting once it settles down in about a year.

I agree and it will/should probably go through May like you said. I think it's going to be status quo until at least the the end of this month. I do have a fear that as some states start to flatten the curve while others are entering the worst of their curves, what's going to happen? I know we can't keep the economy semi shut down like it is forever, and trust me it's semi shutdown not completely. How are we going to deal with reopening the economy coming out of this? States that can relax their restrictions first will have an economic advantage over those that can't. For that matter there's going to be a similar reaction worldwide. Relaxing the social distancing rules in certain places could very well put us back into the same situation we're in. There is a myriad of issues coming up in the next 90 days. Sorry but this everyone for themselves approach this country has taken is going to do way more harm in the long run than any economic recession or depression in our history when we just say screw it we gotta keep the economy going let who dies die.

That's so sad. What sucks is compared to other disasters this one makes it difficult for neighbors to be neighbors because nobody wants to possibly expose themselves. Week 3 I'm telling ya. When you ask people to stay locked down it's week 3 when the edge really starts setting in. With this it's even worse because the news is just going to get worse as soon as folks start getting edgie. I can't say enough about just jumping in the car and taking off for a couple hours. Don't have to get out just drive. If you find a place I'm telling ya, get out set on the hood and chill. Especially at night, go somewhere dark and stare at the sky when it's clear. It's going to be crucial for a lot of people to just get away, there's plenty of room out there just gotta take a ride ad find it.

I posted before about some of things I'm doing. I admit, I am in a very rural area compared to most on this board. But if you're getting the heebeegeebees of staying at home you can get in your car and take a ride, just ride around. You don't have to get out. If you can get away from a city center and get on a country road somewhere do it. Pull over get out and set on your hood. You're not going to get sick, or more importantly make someone else sick out in the middle of nowhere. This forum is in the middle of farm country. Trust me we've been doing it. Had some friends from Indy come up today, we met them them half way in our cars, found a country road and had a picnic, some beers, a nice little social meeting with social distance on a gravel road with friends. I understand something like that might be more difficult in big cities like Chicago. I've worked in Chicago and you can take a drive and get to someplace like that in an hour. Youre in your car, youre not exposing or being exposed. I'm serious cause over the next couple weeks, especially if you live in cities, you can get out of your house go find someplace where nobody's at get out of your car and enjoy some freedom.

Link to the video I posted yesterday that does a pretty good job of explaining why this isn't like the flu. He originally posted his first one on the 19th of March. Someone cut out a piece of it and it started spreading around social media like wildfire giving the look that he was totally inaccurate which was typical social media BS and unfortunate. I think he does a good job of graphically comparing this virus with past data from the big ones in the 20th century. I've also roughly fact checked a lot of the numbers he uses and they seem to be pretty accurate. And a disclaimer I am nowhere near a professional. Just like many on here I'm stuck at home and spend a lot of time trying to filter through the BS and find the science. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz1bGzYdRdk Link to his comparisons back on the 19th... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4no04822NQ&t=6s

https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

Next week is going to tell the tale to see if all these graphs and curves and dizzying estimates start to pan out accurately, better or worse. Hoping for the first two. The IHME model, which seems like the one that officials are mainly using, is supposedly getting updated with more data points overnight so will be interesting to see where it goes. Alabama and Florida are really looking scary with roughly 6k, 7k deaths respectively per that current model. Fl. is projected to have the resources but Alabama, man, if the models right it's going to get nut's down there. Out of 25k hospital beds Alabama may need, they only have 5k. 4k ICU beds they may need , they have 500. And they have one of the steepest curves I've seen meaning if it pans out it's going to hit hard and fast. It's a very small state population wise having half the population of Michigan. TN is going to run out of resources and projected to have twice the deaths as IN with roughly the same population. Just to point out most of these states were very late in the game with any type of social distancing measure. Alabama is a secondary spring break location to FL and they embraced the spring breakers this year, with people complaining about them all the way up to last week. Will be interesting to see how these numbers get updated later Saturday. I think it's safe to say social distancing measures tend to work if even partially followed. If your states red you might be dead.

I can vouch for that around here. People everywhere today. Stores that were open were packed. I turned around outta town. My county went from 2 to 7 deaths in a week.

Another graphical representation of the effects of social distancing. Kinda long but I found it interesting. Really good links in the description ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxAaO2rsdIs&t=76s And your own Pandemic model where you can destroy the human race if you want http://gabgoh.github.io/COVID/index.html

Cary Huang updated his Covid19>Other Pandemics graph from the one he did on the 19th of March. This one comparing it to the Swine Flu Pandemic, which had the highest daily death rate in the 20th century. Informative and a little scary.

Alabama is screwed. If the IHME model is even close to being correct, they're going to to be short 25k hospital beds and 4k ICU beds at the peak. Those are really scary numbers.

I have a good friend who works in the lumber yard of the local Topp's hardware store. He's 60 and has some compromising conditions, hypertension, diabetes a little overweight. He's getting really concerned. He told me they have been busier than he's seen the place in the 5 years he's worked there. Understandably everyone who is "staying at home" is taking advantage of the time to work on their property etc. Mowing and garden season is starting. What better time to do some projects than now. He' put a sign up asking people to stay in their car or truck so he can load it but management told him to take it down. He said people get out walk up to him like nothing pointing to what particular boards or whatever they want. He has brought his concerns of having to be in such close proximity to people to management who have pretty much ignored him. He's scared to death, can't lose his job but also doesn't want to get sick and maybe die because he's high risk either. I'd imagine there's stories like this by the millions across the country. We hear a lot about people helping people but not hearing a lot about situations like this (except front line medical/police/fire workers) where someone could be risking their lives because someone wants a 2x4 and won't stay away from you and the bosses basically tell you shut up do your job or your fired. I dunno, sounds like a business taking advantage of profits over worker safety to me. Wish OSHA still existed

I've forgotten what day it was twice this week lol

Whether or not this has any thing to do with anything I found this about obesity estimates worldwide. I was surprised to see how many countries were running a 20% or higher obesity rate. 3/4ths of the landmass people occupy are running an obesity rate at 20% or higher. South Korea jumped out with an obesity rate of 4.3%. No science just a reference. https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/obesity-rates-by-country/

Oh great, either side of Yellowstone. It's gonna come in 3's!!!

A few little things we've started doing lately since it's looking like at least another month if not 2... When we need to go to the grocery or somewhere I try and go within the first 30 min they're open or the last 30 min before they close. I've found that there are very few people in the stores during those times. Also starting this week, us and a few friends of ours are going to start taking turns going for all of us limiting the amount of time each person needs to spend in stores and also sharing freezer space. Also got maters, cukes, peppers etc. started a couple weeks early indoors. Tripled the amount of herbs started. You'd be amazed what you can do even with Ramen noodles, with a bunch of fresh herbs. I like to bake my own bread occasionally but have been doing a lot more of that also. A full crusted loaf (not in a pan) can keep for a couple months on the shelf. I've been cooking A LOT lately and also dropping meals at friends doors and vise versa. The bigger the meal the more economical it is. Last work contract ran out end of Feb. and won't be renewed for the foreseeable future so tightening the purse straps now.

Don't know if anyone posted this already but thought this was interesting...

Started day 1 with clear skies, gorgeous sunrise and a crispy 32 degrees. Been a bone chilling 40, overcast and drizzle since. Helluva April Fools joke Mama Nature

I've seen some models as low as 20k total and some as high as 500k total with current restrictions in place. While I agree that modeling this pandemic is a great tool, the accuracy of this modeled data has yet to be seen. More important than forecasting when this thing will peak is modeling the data of critical care needs to available resources in specific areas as we move forward. That's the serious data in the short term that these models can provide to help get emergency supplies, personnel and equipment where it's needed before those areas get overwhelmed. Kinda surreal 30 days ago we were throwing around weather model projections for snow and now were moving into Covid19 model projections. If anybody knows how to nit pick computer modeling it's weather nerds lol.