Since everyone’s posting beautiful photos of the moon at sunset, here’s some photos I took an hour ago at Jefferson Barracks Park @spann

May we never forget what an absolute monster the Lake City tornado was.

Alrighty, ready to see something really cool? The evolution of Hurricane Melissa's mesovortices at peak strength.

Man. #Hurricane #MELISSA. Incredible power. Perhaps the mightiest hurricane of the 83 I've witnessed. My location (Crawford, a tiny beach town in St. Elizabeth Parish #Jamaica) took the full force of the inner right eyewall and may have seen the peak winds in this historic, record-smashing hurricane. First pic: as it started to get scary. Bone-rattling gusts were making roofs explode into clouds of lethal confetti. The grand palm tree out front was starting to bend obscenely—in a way I found unnatural. Second pic: after we bolted the door shut because it was getting too dangerous even to watch the storm. (I'd randomly ended up in the hotel's kitchen with a local family.) The hurricane's inner eyewall was a screaming white void. All I could see through the cracks in the shutters was the color white—accompanied by a constant, ear-splitting scream that actually caused pain. (Notice the woman in the pic holding her ears.) The scream occasionally got higher and angrier, and those extra-screechy screams made my eardrums pulse. Meanwhile, water was forcing in through every crack—under the floor and between the window slats. I remember shuddering at the thought of what was happening to the town—what this screaming white void was doing to people, homes, communities. My fears were well-founded. The impact in this part of coastal St. Elizabeth Parish is catastrophic. Wooden structures were completely mowed down and in some cases swept from their foundations. Some concrete structures collapsed. The well-built ones—like my hotel—survived, but even they had major roof, window, and door damage. The landscape has been stripped bare—the trees just sticks. The roads are blocked with rubble and utility poles. Nearby Black River—a unique old historical town right on the water—was smashed beyond recognition: historical sites destroyed, main streets filled with rubble, the town market twisted like a pretzel, even the regional hospital destroyed. It's a good thing I wasn't in my hotel room during the storm because one of the windows blew out, showering the bed with glass and wood. The hotel lost most of its roof, and several third-story rooms were smashed open. But in the lower flooors, those grand old concrete walls protected us. And so far I'm aware of only two deaths in Crawford—a fellow who had a heart attack at the school next door (his body was still in his car and unclaimed the next morning, a sad and disturbing sight), and a woman who drowned in the storm surge in Gallon Beach. While walking down the devastated streets of Black River, I ran into the Jamaican Member of Parliament for this region, @floydgreenja. He's a great dude and I appreciate that he already has a gameplan for turning this catastrophe into an opportunity—to build this region back better. And I vowed on the spot that I'm going to make it my mission to spread awareness of this catastrophe and get that aid flowing in. I'll be talking about MELISSA a lot over the coming months—because it is both a fascinating meteorological event and a human disaster that demands an international response. (And I swear an epic video is coming out of this.)

10AM #Melissa Update: @53rdWRS and @NOAA_HurrHunter Hurricane Hunter aircraft find that Melissa continues to strengthen. Catastrophic winds are moving onshore southern Jamaica. THIS IS THE LAST CHANCE TO PROTECT YOUR LIFE! For more updates visit hurricanes.gov

Fifth and final pass through Hurricane Melissa for our crew today. Just after noon entering from the NW corner exiting SE.

A thread of videos from today’s flight into Hurricane Melissa In this first one we are entering from the southeast just after sunrise and the bright arc on the far northwest eye wall is the light just beginning to make it over the top from behind us.

This is a terrible situation but I couldn’t help but laugh at this mistake @MaxVelocityWX

Hmmmmm

We're still monitoring a severe threat on Saturday, Oct 18 across parts of the Mid-South/Mid-Mississippi Valley. The setup remains uncertain as a very progressive longwave trough slides in on Fri/early Sat. The exit region will likely blow past the warm sector early in the day on Saturday, providing an early round of storms, which casts some uncertainty as far as destabilization for the afternoon. We'll also have to watch how strong the low-level response is, which will be one of the major factors (along with storm mode) into how robust the tornado threat may be. This doesn't quite look like a high-ceiling setup, but at least a few tornadoes, damaging winds, and large hail do appear possible, with a more significant severe threat not entirely ruled out.

Still can’t believe these clouds were associated with the EF3 in STL

This was a sign

Maybe we can take him on a chase

This is what EF5s are made of, lucky this isn’t hitting much at the moment.

"A modern EF5 will only happen if a generationally violent tornado strikes a major population center" A fucking train car in rural North Dakota:

I delete x for a week and they decide to drop an EF5…

Who would’ve thought this was gonna be the first EF5 in over a decade

The first EF-5 tornado in the U.S. since 2013 has been confirmed after 3 months of research and surveying of damage in North Dakota. This tornado occurred on June 20th in Enderlin, ND, and had max winds near 210 mph. The wind tipped over fully loaded grain cars and carried a full tanker car almost 500 feet. The last EF-5 was on May 20th, 2013, in Moore, OK.

It's worth checking out NWS Grand Forks new PDF presentation of the upgrade. weather.gov/media/fgf/Enderl…

BREAKING: The EF-5 drought is officially over. The National Weather Service has upgraded the June 20, 2025 Enderlin, North Dakota tornado to EF-5, the first confirmed since 2013’s Moore, OK event. Wind speeds exceeded 210 mph, tossing loaded grain hoppers and even a tanker car 475 ft, completely scouring a farmstead and debarking trees across a mile-wide swath. 📍Enderlin → Alice, ND 🌀 12-mile path | 1-mile width | 3 fatalities 🗓 June 20, 2025 11:02 – 11:21 PM CDT #EF5 #ndwx #tornado #weather