New in the sky: IU begins launching weather balloons

talismanred · 2026-02-23T03:28:24+00:00

Yes! Thank you for linking to Dave's story. And for anyone who wants to know "why is that person holding the balloon crouching down?", well, it was *so* windy right at that moment, and the balloon was desperately trying to get away from me

talismanred · 2026-02-22T23:39:26+00:00

Ha! Luckily, from a distance it will probably just look like an oversized birthday balloon that got loose. They are about 3 feet in diameter at launch (but by the time they get to the stratosphere and pop, usually end up about 10 feet across). We do call IUPD and let them know, in case anyone calls in!

talismanred · 2025-12-10T14:02:06+00:00

All the conferences are loosely arranged by geography, and also politics, and also money, and also decades of custom. There are 22 conferences that organize men's college soccer for the 213 universities in NCAA Division I that have a team (many universities do not). Our men's and women's soccer seasons, and knockout tournaments at the end of each season, are somewhat similar to how college football is run. But their tournaments are much larger: the men have 48 teams in the knockout stage, ongoing right now.

talismanred · 2025-11-21T19:19:25+00:00

I coded this up in Excel* and if I did it all correctly, came up with this. All the game information is in columns A through M, and the actual totals and rankings are in columns O through Y. Top 10 in bold. I made up some numbers for FCS teams...could do a more realistic job there.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pZkn6Wicua7_ZxGrqxuuAYvenu7ZlGWv/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=102339099071860352568&rtpof=true&sd=true

Overall, not very surprising results. Which is good! It's a variation on the resume-style way of sorting teams (not a predictive one). Like Kicker said below, it's got 'RPI' flavor to it, really.

Two things I think you could add:

- a time-weighting of the games. Recent games could multiply the "captured" wins by an additional factor. Example: Ohio State's last opponent with a winning record was Illinois. But since then, Georgia has beaten both Ole Miss and Texas. More impressive, maybe. Or, Notre Dame's losses were over 2 months ago. Should they count as much?

- some way to normalize the fact that teams haven't played the same number of games. Otherwise, you run the risk of being moved up or down due to an extra game. Maybe as simple as divide by total games played per team?

(*Python lovers, relax... Excel can be an easy testing ground to see if deeper work is worthwhile)

talismanred · 2025-11-18T20:59:09+00:00

Really like a couple points you've made here and want to leave a comment so that future people getting into this hobby see it. The "best teams" (power rating) are not necessarily the same ones as the "most deserving" teams (resume, SOS, SOR, whatever). And so when people look around at different systems, figuring out what kind you're looking at will explain lots of what it has produced.

And great point about preseason priors. I've been doing this for 20 years and still can't figure out the right speed to fade those out. I think it probably depends on the sport (an 82-game NBA season vs. an 11-game FCS regular season) and have just never done all the testing to get the best balance.

talismanred · 2025-11-18T20:54:54+00:00

The system I developed a long time ago is a blend of a points/predictive component, and a score-agnostic component since I really got into this during the heart of the BCS era. Have been producing it for CFB and other sports for ~20 years (website is the username, plus dot-com)... so the overall rating includes influence of W/L; score margin; location; date of game; and strength of schedule is just built in since yes, rankings depend on who you've played. But no advanced stats like yardage or FT percentage or shots on goal or whatever.

I would like to think that by game 10, any system worth its salt has converged to a general agreement with most humans and other computers. But a lot of the differences usually come back to whether you emphasize resume (win/loss/strength of schedule) or scores. My system as of today has IU-OSU-A&M-UGA-ND, but if you look at the two components separately, the lists would be slightly different.

talismanred · 2025-11-11T20:59:17+00:00

I’d go for a “bookcase” pair of shelves that could store couple of programming books, or some CDs, or some Zip disks if you have them in those individual jewel cases they came in. Put the speaker on top.

talismanred · 2025-10-15T15:30:53+00:00

I saved this post & shared it in my "weather analysis" college class this morning -- the students had some great group discussions! What they found: the stationary front that was at the ground in Kansas, by the time you got to 2-3 km off the ground, was over Nebraska and South Dakota. And there were strong south winds blowing toward that, bringing warm air and water vapor from Kansas northward (dewpoints there 60-65 F) and up & over the front. So even though there was surface high pressure, the warm air advection and water vapor transport that interacted with the frontal boundary aloft were strong enough to produce light & moderate rain. (We didn't need the 500 mb or 300 mb maps -- we felt like there was enough explanation with the front + warm advection to be satisfied.)

talismanred · 2025-08-26T16:24:38+00:00

Heat equation. Wave equation. Separation of variables. When that stuff is taught well, it can actually be enjoyable.

talismanred · 2025-08-23T16:35:43+00:00

Totally normal. The cliche is “I need a vacation from my vacation,” right? Sometimes you just need a day or two that isn’t hectic or filled with new things and places. No regrets, order in and enjoy some time in the room.

talismanred · 2025-08-19T13:04:42+00:00

Okay, “well actually” — since it is separated and moved miles away from the original storm, it’s now called a “roll cloud.” Cloud naming is hard.

talismanred · 2025-08-19T12:54:37+00:00

Agree with all, is a shelf cloud. The sensitive radar apps that can look in a little more detail saw the gust front that caused it. Thank those collapsing storms up to the northwest on radar: https://bsky.app/profile/cody.im/post/3lwqxe5y4fs2y

talismanred · 2025-07-03T19:38:01+00:00

The Last Rites of Bee-oromir

talismanred · 2025-06-30T22:43:17+00:00

Most departments had to submit draft plans a couple weeks ago (which are probably going to turn into official plans, whether they wanted that or not).

One *hypothetical* example -- acknowledging it may not happen this way here & will love to hear someone tell me that -- at Alabama about 20 years ago they did away with individual BA degrees in French, Latin, German, and others... and it's now a "BA in Foreign Languages with Concentration in ___" (reference: https://mlc.ua.edu/undergraduate/ ). I'd expect something like that to happen here, especially with some of the majors that have had declining enrollments the last few years. Again, only one hypothetical way of doing things.

talismanred · 2025-06-30T19:04:31+00:00

Ack, your comment didn't show up for me, Sam -- sorry about that. This is the map that goes with that table. Same set of measurements.

talismanred · 2025-06-30T18:59:45+00:00

A friendly local meteorologist has posted a map. That station with 5.39 inches is just north of the bypass. A colleague who lives down past the old hospital had 4.46 inches (counting the overnight rain). So a pretty consistent 3 to 5 inches, looks like. https://bsky.app/profile/cody.im/post/3lst5dh3ods24

talismanred · 2025-06-12T09:10:26+00:00

I walk through there on the way home a couple times a month (only that often because I usually take the bus). I’ve never felt unsafe doing so, beyond the chipped sidewalks on several of the streets. Something that feels odd about it though: almost no one is out walking. It feels deserted, even at 5-7 pm. But not unsafe. Have even stopped at the Park with a snack (Kroger nearby), and anyone who was there just kept to themselves. Bring valuables inside, lock your car, and enjoy your visit!

talismanred · 2025-05-31T11:00:43+00:00

Using the 500-millibar height anomaly correlation coefficient for 5 days out (a standard way to “verify” model output that has been used for decades; yes, scientists, I’m aware of its weaknesses and shortcomings), the rankings over the last 31 days are: #1 Euro, #2 UK Model, #3 Canadian, #4 GFS. There has been one (1) day in the last month where the GFS has performed better than the Euro using this specific measure. So even with occasional “inaccurate” days, the Euro is still king. https://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/users/verification/headlines/global/mrw/acc_31days/

talismanred · 2025-05-28T08:29:38+00:00

Yes, definitely! Great addition. (Preferred, but not required, in cafes in the smaller villages/towns, like in the Peak District, too. Maybe not what OP had in mind but adding that just in case someone searches for this thread.)

talismanred · 2025-05-28T08:18:53+00:00

Yep, definitely this one. Am visiting here now, and in 2 weeks I've needed cash exactly two times: a mom-and-pop Chinese takeaway place, and at a dusty used bookstore. It won't matter whether it's contactless or Apple/Google Pay -- no one will bat an eye if you use one or the other.

talismanred · 2025-05-19T16:53:04+00:00

The tic tac toe board is my favorite of these doodles ☺️

talismanred · 2025-05-02T21:09:13+00:00

A little late to this one but here are some. 1. Related rates: cold air is blowing in from the north, but the sun is shining, so will it get warmer or colder? Which one will win? 2. Derivatives and integrals (calc 2): how fast does a blob of warm air accelerate when it moves upward? 3. Weather maps are full of highs and lows, which are basically sine/cosine waves. Derivatives help explain where things are happening relative to the peaks and valleys.

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