beavis1729

Part of the balance that needs to be considered is that, while people can reasonably debate whether the government should have mandated business closing and other actions as much as they did, it's unacceptable (to me) that the government didn't provide more reassurance and income for people while this is occurring. For example, just say "we will give you 75% of your annual 2019 W-2/1099 income every month until the end of 2020, up to a cap of X...with no questions asked". This would have been much more efficient than all of the complicated first-come first-served PPP/loan programs/stimulus checks that are happening now, and most importantly, it would've given people reassurance. Also, it would stop pitting people against each other. When a country has a crisis, people need to come together, not be arguing. Capitalism doesn't work well during a crisis, as the inherent desire to be competitive with other people is a very bad thing during a crisis. This is a horrendous faliure in leadership from this administration. Sure, there would probably be inflation and other unintended economic issues down the road as a result of this...but what is the alternative? People would have much more incentive to care about public health and social distance if they didn't need to worry about their paycheck and survival. This is what's causing all of the problems, imo.

LOT discussion below. Even if ORD doesn't break the daily record low of 27 on Saturday 5/9, a low of 30 would still make it the 3rd coldest temp on record so late in the season. Later Thursday night or Friday morning, strong cold front is progged to sweep across the area and allow some unseasonably cold air to spill south into region. There remain some modest differences amongst the medium range guidance in the details, but the general idea of an extremely anomalous lobe of cold air moving into the Great Lakes is a consistent theme with all the model guidance. Low and mid level thermal fields are progged to be at or just below recorded mins for this time of year, with record or near record low 500mb heights as well. All of this would seem to support the idea of both daytime and nighttime temps getting into the territory of records. The NBM guidance again resides in the upper echelon of the spread of guidance and have made some downward adjustments to both Friday`s high temps and Friday night`s low temps. Worth noting, that the normally very reliable ECMWF has highs in the mid 40s Friday afternoon with lows in the mid-upper 20s and a hard freeze Friday night. Despite the ECMWF`s run-to-run consistency and stellar track record with forecasting such anomalous events, have only trended temps in that direction, but not all the way there just yet. Certainly seeing growing support for a freeze for most of the CWA Friday night outside of the urban heat island, with the threat for a hard freeze (<= 28F) plausible.

For Chicago, here are the late-season measurable snow benchmarks to beat: - Latest 0.5+" event: May 8-9, 1923 (0.6") - Latest 0.1+" event: May 11, 1966 (0.2") I think ORD will see a Trace of snowfall over the next week, but nothing measurable. Maybe I'll be surprised.

Re-posted from other thread... 12z GFS has 510 thicknesses over Bo's house on 5/8 (hour 102). In N IL, it looks like the coldest days will be 5/8 and 5/9. As of now, it looks like the sun will be out at least part of these days...in which case daytime temps will probably be mild even if the thickness levels are anomalously low. The sun angle is equivalent to early August. If Friday night can clear out with either strong cold advection or radiational cooling, some places in N IL may drop below freezing on Saturday morning 5/9. That's probably the best chance for a record to be broken...although the record low is 27 in both Rockford and Chicago. Rockford 5/8: Record low max 41 in 1960; record low 30 in 1947 5/9: Record low max 41 in 1960; record low 27 in 1966 Chicago 5/8: Record low max 42 in 1960; record low 29 in 1983 5/9: Record low max 42 in 1966; record low 27 in 1983

12z GFS has 510 thicknesses over Bo's house on 5/8 (hour 102). In N IL, it looks like the coldest days will be 5/8 and 5/9. As of now, it looks like the sun will be out at least part of these days...in which case daytime temps will probably be mild even if the thickness levels are anomalously low. The sun angle is equivalent to early August. If Friday night can clear out with either strong cold advection or radiational cooling, some places in N IL may drop below freezing on Saturday morning 5/9. That's probably the best chance for a record to be broken...although the record low is 27 in both Rockford and Chicago. Rockford 5/8: Record low max 41 in 1960; record low 30 in 1947 5/9: Record low max 41 in 1960; record low 27 in 1966 Chicago 5/8: Record low max 42 in 1960; record low 29 in 1983 5/9: Record low max 42 in 1966; record low 27 in 1983

Yeah, crazy. And, at 216 hours verbatim, there are 516 thicknesses in NYC. They struggle to get that even in January...

Wow, that's ridiculous. I never knew about that event. More recently, there was a decent snowfall in parts of northern WI on 5/17/1997.

Here is the AWSSI index for Winter 2019-20, produced by the Midwestern Regional Climate Center (MRCC). As expected, the past winter in Chicago was categorized as "mild", which is the weakest of the 5 categories (mild, moderate, average, severe, extreme). Current winter map here, along with an explanation of the AWSSI at the bottom of the page: https://mrcc.illinois.edu/research/awssi/indexAwssi.jsp Details/graphs for specific cities here: https://mrcc.illinois.edu/AWSSI/chart.html

Just saw in the SNE forum that Boston only hit 62 for a high temp in all of April, which is the lowest April max monthly temp on record. And, the highest temp in Boston for JFMA 2020 occurred in January. That’s crazy.

Looks hot in Las Vegas early next week. It could be the first time in recorded history to hit 100 in April.

Bingo - I hear you. And, I think it’s precisely this uncertainty that is driving the overwhelming government response. Not saying it’s right or wrong... To me, the only solution is to enable widespread testing with almost immediate results...so that people can self-isolate as needed, and everyone else can get back to relative normal, even if masks are still required out of an abundance of caution.

It’s due to increased testing. There could be some other ancillary reasons, but increased testing is the simplest explanation. Occam’s Razor.

Unfortunately, pretty much all sporting events, concerts, etc. are doing this...whether it’s StubHub or Ticketmaster or the venues themselves. It’s extremely annoying, even if there may be reasons for it. Just issue the refunds for all events, if they didn’t occur on the scheduled date. Doesn’t matter if the event has not technically been canceled. Same issue with airline ticket refunds. I have 8 tickets around the US that were previously booked for my family and I for this spring and summer. I canceled all of them, and we can use the money as a credit for future flights by YE 2021...but I would rather have the money back as a refund so that I can make the decision. This is especially frustrating because airlines took a lot of the government stimulus money. Just do what’s best for the customer, and be done with it. Very simple.

Dews are near or slightly below 0F in northern MN...pretty remarkable for April 21st. INL dropped to 14F this morning.

This is the main point. Buckeye - I (and many others, I'm sure) do understand where you are coming from...but what does it say about us as a country/society/culture when there are so many deaths that occur for every 1pp increase in the unemployment rate? That is the issue. It's not about hard-core idealistic socialism...but we really need to stop with this "every man for himself" attitude in this country, and create communities where we all do what's best for the greater good, not competing viciously against one another for every nickle and dime of income so that we can barely survive until the next paycheck. What kind of a life is that? Why is our health care tied to employment in the first place? Why don't we have paid sick leave like other countries have? What do we value?? Sure, these policies would mean a higher cost of goods and services...but isn't that a reasonable price to pay for security in health and wellness? COVID-19 is exposing so many of these underlying issues in our culture. Of course an individual's own business that they spent blood, sweat, and tears on is important and valuable and should be protected as much as possible. But in a country as wealthy as we are, why can't we pull out all the economic stops to help every single person in this country...knowing that it's an emergency that will better position us for the long-term. Basically, what Powerball referenced. When 40% of people live paycheck to paycheck, $1,200 doesn't help much. Yes, these emergency measures may mean higher taxes or other challenges down the road...but it's an emergency. Why don't we all work with each other and collectively sacrifice for the greater good? We need to stop the "you vs. me" attitude that is toxic to this country.

Wow, that shattered the daily records. For April 15th...Lincoln NE dropped to 16, coldest temp on record for so late in the season...with records going back to 1887. And parts of northern WI were well into the single digits. Rhinelander was the coldest I found, with a low of 1.

Definitely underwhelming, because the storm essentially split into a northern piece and southern piece. Unfortunately, it's the story of this winter/spring. The lowest pressure didn't drop much below 985mb in the U.S., whereas many models had it well into the 970s a few days ago. Even so, it was still a decent snow event on the cold side. Just imagine if it would have been one cohesive system...

at the Euro verbatim on April 13-14...of course it’s 8 days out.

Not bad for 4PM local time on April 2nd Current conditions at Grand Forks, Grand Forks International Airport (KGFK) Lat: 47.95°NLon: 97.18°WElev: 843ft. Heavy Snow Blowing Snow and Windy 17°F -8°C Humidity 88% Wind Speed N 26 G 35 mph Barometer 30.04 in (1019.0 mb) Dewpoint 14°F (-10°C) Visibility 0.13 mi Wind Chill -2°F (-19°C) Last update 2 Apr 3:53 pm CDT

I think that's right, along with (2) more testing and (3) health-care professionals still needing to work and then unfortunately spreading the virus back into the community or their families due to lack of PPE. Just my thoughts...not saying they are 100% validated and tested.

Not sure if this perspective has been discussed much on here...but if you can get past his angry and egotistical style of writing, it's an interesting hypothesis. Most importantly - if this hypothesis is really true, what is the best solution going forward? https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=238738

Agree. And, there are income limits. https://www.yahoo.com/news/coronavirus-checks-direct-deposits-coming-105454070.html

Agree, although it would also help to have actual weather to discuss. Looking forward to talking about our 40s and 50s, and whether it will be cloudy or rainy or sunny. Very dramatic...rinse and repeat for the next 9 months.

Congrats sir - at least someone is getting something out of this.

First option...as long as the lions share of the snow occurred early in the season, after which the cold would preserve the modest snowpack.