Stop the Idiocracy: NOAA

Monday, August 24, 2026

Weathering in the dark

A darkly whimsical editorial illustration depicts American weather forecasting as an institution collapsing into chaos and obsolescence. Inside a vast, decaying meteorological centre, antiquated instruments, dead computer terminals, tangled wiring, cobwebs and scattered papers surround a handful of exhausted women struggling to keep the operation functioning. At centre, a bewildered forecaster studies contradictory information on her phone whilst sheltering beneath an umbrella from rain inexplicably falling indoors. Beyond her, the weather itself has become absurdly unpredictable: snow, lightning, torrential rain, brilliant sunshine, tornadoes and drifting weather balloons coexist in the same impossible sky. Broken clocks, frozen machinery and neglected equipment reinforce the central metaphor — a once-sophisticated forecasting apparatus starved of expertise, maintenance and resources until Americans can no longer reliably know what tomorrow's weather will bring.

image generated via ChatGPT

Weather forecasting in the former United States is set back decades by the Trump regime. {The Independent 24 August}

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/doge-noaa-weather-usa-b3035937.html

Rapidly descending to the status of a Third World s**thole —

FTA: Experts told Forbes that there are simply fewer weather monitoring instruments being used today than before agencies like the NOAA suffered cuts under the Trump administration

According to the report there are fewer buoys measuring wave conditions than in 2024, and fewer weather balloons being launched to collect data on air pressure, temperature, humidity, and windspeed.

That data feeds weather models, which is then used to build forecasts by weather apps and local forecasters.

One program, enacted 20 years ago to measure arctic ice, was recently cut by the Trump administration. Plans for a next-generation weather satellite meant to replace two older, faltering structures that may begin to fail in the next several years have been scrapped.

Overall, the Trump administration has cut between $1.6 and $1.7 billion in funding from the NOAA’s budget, and more than 800 NOAA workers since February.

The impacts on the nation's ability to reliably produce forecasts isn't just an annoyance for TikTokers. Fishers, farmers, pilots, shipping companies, insurers, utility operators — virtually everyone who has to operate in the physical world to do their jobs relies on accurate weather data.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Tuesday, August 11, 2026

The long summer

A richly detailed apocalyptic illustration depicts four women languishing beneath extreme heat in a devastated American landscape. In the foreground, a perspiring blonde woman in a clinging, translucent ivory dress reclines exhausted upon cracked stone steps. Behind her, a red-haired woman fans herself, while a brunette sprawls across a rusting vintage car and another blonde pours water over herself beside a depleted well. Parched earth, withered crops, abandoned oil pumps and a distant industrial complex extend towards the horizon beneath a fiery crimson sky, where smoke, flames and a burning hillside evoke environmental catastrophe.

image generated via ChatGPT

NOAA: July 2026 was the hottest month on record in the continental US, breaking the Dust Bowl record from 1936. {AP 10 August}

https://apnews.com/article/hottest-month-july-climate-change-4a9d612281485356103631f0f09b61af

FTA: The contiguous United States sizzled to its hottest month ever last month, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

July averaged 76.89 degrees Fahrenheit (24.94 degrees Celsius) across the Lower 48 states, eclipsing the Dust Bowl’s July 1936 by an eighth of a degree. Records go back to 1895.

“It’s not good when you’re breaking records from the Dust Bowl, which we are in this case,” said meteorologist Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections. “And that was a crazy sort of situation where you put tens of millions of people in motion. You had this great migration because of the drought and the heat that hit the center of the U.S. — just a cataclysmic event in U. S. history. If we’re exceeding records from The Dust Bowl, that says that we’re in deep trouble.”

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈