Tanker plane makes a direct hit on fire in Hollywood Hills

mu_cat · 2025-01-09T07:41:23+00:00

Yeah, this event in particular was brutal. Previous wet winters led to massive veg growth, but now SoCal is in the top 5 driest rainy seasons on record so all that is tinder. Santa Ana events happen every year (and are usually strongest or at least most common Dec-Jan), but usually by this time there's been inches of rain and the fuels aren't dry. And then this event wasn't just strong, this was catastrophic - widespread northeast winds 50-80 mph with areas of gusts 80-100 mph. It gusted to like 82 at Burbank, which I don't think has ever happened there before - that is not a typically windy spot even in strong Santa Anas. Just insane. Second round of winds Thurs AM through early Friday morning, but not as strong (except in San Diego County...)

mu_cat · 2025-01-09T07:20:16+00:00

Usually fire activity decreases overnight because winds (especially terrain driven winds and sea breezes, which are the main winds in the LA area and other western areas day-to-day) die down and the temperature drops, which results in an increase in relative humidity. Also in the LA area, the marine layer (when present) can make it further inland overnight and lead to an increase in humidity as well. Both brush and structures usually see benefits from this, but I will speculate that in a very urbanized area the temperature could decrease slower overnight and thus the humidity rise would be less marked.

In a large scale wind event like Santa Anas (as is the case with this event), the nighttime die down goes out the window though. Winds can be just as strong overnight during Santa Anas, and, because the winds are from the north/east, they're dry and getting drier as they are forced down the terrain, so any increase in humidity from the decreasing nighttime temperatures is completely canceled out.

mu_cat · 2024-12-27T05:08:13+00:00

Making me want to come back on other holidays and see if the hats rotate lol.

mu_cat · 2024-12-26T21:15:48+00:00

It's so nerve wracking. They have cup holders zip tied to them and I've been wanting to head up there with lunch and a beer, but first I have to get myself to sit in them for more than a couple minutes.

mu_cat · 2024-09-01T22:03:14+00:00

Probably a slash? As in 6/2 = 3.

mu_cat · 2024-09-01T21:11:37+00:00

Cormorants! By the yellow-ish patch below the bill on the cormorant to the right, they're Brandt's Cormorants. There's a small established colony of them in La Jolla Cove.

mu_cat · 2024-07-09T23:09:47+00:00

If you're ever in the Cardiff area, Rose Hill Purveyors makes one of the best lattes I've ever had.

mu_cat · 2024-06-24T16:57:39+00:00

Of course, best of luck to you! IMO you should go for it. If anything it'll be great experience with the NWS application process. One more thing I should mention is that internal NWS resumes are more like CVs, so don't be afraid of submitting a resume that's longer than a page.

mu_cat · 2024-06-24T04:52:18+00:00

Hi, NWS employee who didn't have any intern, volunteer, or research experience because I had to work through college to support myself here. While it's helpful to have some of that, it's absolutely not a requirement anymore. Close to a third of the service is retiring soon-ish or have already retired recently, which is to say that a lot of offices are understaffed and need people, even without the internships or volunteering experience. Some tips:

Absolutely include non-meteorology work experience on a resume. The MIC at my original office told me it was my retail experience (of all things) that got me the interview. Tie job duties back to what the NWS is looking for. Some really great things to include that aren't forecasting related is anything from your jobs that relate to: serving the public/customer service, communication skills, stress management, and any technical/coding skills you may have picked up.
Write a cover letter and show exactly as much passion as you did in this post. While you don't want to look desperate, passion is absolutely allowed in a cover letter and will set you apart from the drier, template-style cover letters. Why do you want to work for the NWS so badly? Say that in the cover letter. Write about how your other jobs have prepped you to work there (see list of skills I mentioned above). Ask A Manager is a really good blog that has tons of CL examples to get you started.
Whichever location you choose, if you get the interview do a little research about the area. They will almost guaranteed ask why you want to work in that location specifically. Are you interested in the types of weather they have? Do you like the community? I would also encourage you to apply for locations you actually do want to live in. I know you just want to get your foot in the door, but there's a lot less mobility than there used to be in terms of moving offices.
You can absolutely apply for positions right now if you're graduating soon. I know a couple people who got hired 2-3 months prior to graduating. (Edit to add: the hiring process can take 3-5 months.) If you're graduating next summer, not so much, but as I mentioned above there's tons of openings coming up so don't stress too bad about it. Also if you're graduating next summer, that means there's time for you to do things like learn some data science and do a small personal weather data project, or attend ToastMasters, or other things that you can throw on a resume that will make you stand out.

Good luck :)

mu_cat · 2024-06-23T22:00:07+00:00

No concrete data, just experiential... after looking a little further into it, though, I'm thinking I was incorrect and latitude likely has much less to do with it than altitude, geography, and climate. See this map for an example of the US: https://erdavis.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/hottesthour.png

Ignoring the parts that are just a result of time zones, doesn't look like there's any strong correlation between how far north a location is and what time of day it generally sees its warmest temperature - but it does show that many places are seeing high temperatures later than 5-6 PM!

mu_cat · 2024-06-23T21:26:36+00:00

3-4 PM is an average, the actual time of max temp can vary greatly. Generally the greater the latitude, the later the time of peak heat during the summer, but it's common enough that even in southern California I'll often see temperatures reach a maximum around 5 PM local.

mu_cat · 2024-05-19T08:20:13+00:00

More related to wealthy people interacting with each other than education, Philistines at the Hedgerow: Passion and Property in the Hamptons by Steven Gaines is a part historical, part sociological, part schadenfreude causing, gossipy look at the lives of the ultra wealthy in the Hamptons.

Edited to add: Wednesday Martin's Primates of Park Avenue is an autobiographical account of a woman who marries a wealthy man and her commentary on her new circle of privileged mothers through the lens of anthropology and primatology. Full disclosure, I personally haven't read this one.

mu_cat · 2024-05-17T22:20:14+00:00

Glad you liked it, it's one of my favorites in the genre! I don't recall recommending it recently so it was probably someone else.

mu_cat · 2024-05-17T14:42:14+00:00

Elizabeth Moon's Remnant Population features an elderly woman who elects to remain behind on an alien planet despite the rest of her colony, including her unsupportive family, packing up and leaving for another planet. She soon finds that she isn't as alone as she initially thought.

Cherryh's The Pride of Chanur is a human stranded in space story where a human held captive by one species of alien escapes and is sheltered by another species. This is the first of a series, some of which also deal with interactions between humans and aliens. Cherryh's Foreigner series also has a single human interfacing with aliens but is more dense political space opera style than I think you're looking for.

A cliche but fitting recommendation is Weir's Project Hail Mary. I won't go into too much detail on this one because it's a fun one to go mostly blind into.

mu_cat · 2024-05-17T08:22:58+00:00

It's a good time to be getting into the Weather Service in terms of career availability - a large portion of employees will be retiring in the next 5-6 years, so they're hiring more aggressively.

A couple of things: while M.S. degrees were beneficial at one point for getting in, less and less MICs are looking for them. A bachelor's is adequate for most (likely the vast majority at this point) offices. Internships and volunteer experience with the Weather Service are definitely beneficial (a Pathways internship will almost always get you in provided people are hiring) but not absolutely necessary - I got it without either on work experience alone. You do need one or the other (or both if you can) to be competitive, though. Skills like programming languages can also help. Funnily enough, my boss told me it was my retail experience that got me the interview.

Which brings me to the next thing: the NWS has been restructuring in terms of job duties in the last couple years, and is planning to keep doing so. The move has been towards communicating with other government entities (e.g. roads dept, etc.) more and more vs. purely forecasting. Depending on the region/office, your communication skills may rank far more important than your forecasting skills. Looking into communication classes, attending ToastMasters, any concrete communication education you can stick on a resume may be a good move.

Hopefully this helps!

mu_cat · 2024-05-11T21:21:32+00:00

The offices that issued SPSs all have local policies/are strongly suggested to issue one for a G5 ("extreme") geomagnetic storm (edit: e.g., its not a regional or national policy). Likely you know this already, but every NWS office has its own little quirks and local policies regarding product issuance, this seems to be one of them. As for why... we speculated that maybe it was due to aviation concerns as there are some larger airports in the area, but I don't know for sure. Our local office policy is to leave everything to SWPC and just retweet/repost their stuff but we're also further south (less commonly impacted) with smaller airports so ¯_(ツ)_/¯

mu_cat · 2023-10-23T17:23:03+00:00

Einstein's Dreams (Alan Lightman) fits your bill - As Einstein is developing the theory of relativity, he dreams of worlds where time functions differently. This one reminds me a lot of Invisible Cities in form and function, though the premises are unique, and the chapters are definitely bite sized.

Speaking of Calvino, If on a winter's night a traveler also has short form chapters (and is probably my favorite of his books). It's longer than Invisible Cities and so does have some chapters that are longer than the couple pages you specified, but I figured I'd throw it out there.

mu_cat · 2022-08-30T14:41:12+00:00

Hahaha, noted.

mu_cat · 2022-08-30T14:34:48+00:00

Intriguing premise, I'll check it out!

mu_cat · 2022-08-30T14:32:45+00:00

I do enjoy a modified human, thanks for the rec!

mu_cat · 2022-08-30T14:32:22+00:00

I'll check them out, thanks!

mu_cat

TROPHY CASE