Stephen Mullens

@srmullens.bsky.social

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Instructional Professor of Meteorology working to spin up a MET program at U Florida. I ask smart people dumb questions. #radar #tropics #summer

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Stephen Mullens

Excellent thread discussing surveying the aftermath of yesterday's hydrothermal explosion at Yellowstone. Clearly the visitors who were close enough for those incredible videos got very lucky.

Okay, I've confirmed I'm off the hook for media inquiries, so thread begins! @erikklemetti.bsky.social has already written a lovely explainer on what a hydrothermal explosion is and what this means for Yellowstone the volcano (spoiler alert: nothing!). Go read that; it's great! ⚒️ 2/

Large Steam Explosion Rocks Biscuit Basin at Yellowstone (but Don't Panic!)www.discovermagazine.com Steam explosions are one of the biggest potential hazards at Yellowstone Caldera. Today, one of the largest explosions in years hit the Park.

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Stephen Mullens

There was a pretty big steam-driven explosion today at Yellowstone's Biscuit Basin. Thankfully, no one was seriously injured, but it does remind us that visiting volcanoes can be dangerous. (Oh yes, and Yellowstone has these often): www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth...

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#DailyPaper geez I need like 8 of these today Google takes a crack at making its own GCM. Discovers that the planet gets warmer - if it hands its model an ocean that gets warmer.

Neural general circulation models for weather and climate - Naturewww.nature.com A hybrid model that combines a differentiable solver for atmospheric dynamics with machine-learning components is capable of weather forecasts and climate simulations on par with the best machine...

It’s possible to be hopeful without “getting your hopes up.”

We don’t know enough about lithium ion recycling rates, but the oft-cited answer is a misunderstanding of outdated data. www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/battery-re...

What share of lithium-ion batteries are recycled?www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com We don't know, is the honest answer. But the 5% figure seems to be a myth.

Making some plots about Atlantic TC climatology. Here is the trend of when the second and second to last storm of a season occurs, sorted by how active the season is. Both plots are for the satellite era.

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Stephen Mullens

Hi Bluesky! In an effort to reach more members of the community, the AMS Severe Local Storms STAC has created this account to keep Bluesky folks posted on the latest AMS, severe-weather related updates. Please follow us and share this account with others here!

Looks like the Atlantic (vertical red box) will likely be free of tropical cyclones until August (dashed blue line). The brown is air broadly sinking. This fades to white in this plot in August, which is not exactly broad rising air (green) right away. Season typically ramps Aug 15 anyway.

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Stephen Mullens

"No rolling blackouts or grid emergencies as California continues on path to a carbon free grid. Several strategies, including upgrades to vulnerable parts of the grid at play here, but key enabler is more clean energy, especially solar, and above all, battery storage..." 😀

California Grid Breezes Through Heat Wave due to Renewables, Batteriesthinc.blog No rolling blackouts or grid emergencies as California continues on path to a carbon free grid. Several strategies, including upgrades to vulnerable parts of the grid at play here, but key enabler …

Evolution of this year's CSU forecast for number of Atlantic tropical storms compared to the prior decade.

In case you’re interested in live Chicago weather, here’s a livestream from Midway airport. www.youtube.com/live/DngzrNU...

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Stephen Mullens

This is a welcome change! “elevating structures by 2 additional feet adds around 2 percent to the cost of the average project, but that this spending will pay for itself over the next 60 years by preventing future damages.” grist.org/extreme-weat...

FEMA will now consider climate change when it rebuilds after floodsgrist.org The federal disaster relief agency is overhauling its rules in a bid to end a cycle of rebuilding in unsafe areas.

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Stephen Mullens

I think I can plausibly argue that going to see a certain movie next week is a job responsibility.

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Stephen Mullens

A global tornado database! This data is patchy, y'all. But if it exists, it's here. They also digitized an old archive of US tornadoes extending back to 1680 (!) to find such juicy nuggets as - the Dust Bowl was also a tornado drought (makes sense)! journals.ametsoc.org/view/journal... #DailyPaper

Women’s World Cup was Spain v England. Euros men’s final is Spain v England.

A new paper is out with an update on the our understanding of tornado cyclogenesis - how tornadoes form. 🧪 doi.org/10.1175/BAMS...

Supercell Tornadogenesis: Recent Progress in Our State of Understandingdoi.org Abstract Over the last decade, supercell simulations and observations with ever-increasing resolution have provided new insights into the vortex-scale processes of tornado formation. This article inco...

Learned a ton about the history of solar, the current status of worldwide power production, and a bit about looking forward. Turns out some of my perceptions about the pros/cons of some power production methods were wrong! Recommend. @solarchase.bsky.social

NOAA P3 ran three upper air missions on successive days for #Beryl - July 2, 3, and 4. In all of them, it looks like the GFS underestimated the upper-level outflow from the storm. Not sure the downstream implications from this error, but it's interesting.

Beryl’s pressure is lowering again. After several 998 and 996s via recon, the latest found a 992 with 7kft sfc winds.

I know it’s not the most important thing, but… the dewpoint reading.

As much as I posted my 🧵 earlier, this is also true.

Important to realize as we try to retain civility on Bluesky that all the stuff we say to each other will have literally zero impact on whether Biden bows out or not, we’re just hanging around yapping about politics like a bunch of old Greek guys at a sidewalk cafe, no need to take it personally

Welp, the direction I hoped for this morning sure was wrong. Beryl taking the short route across the Yucatan.

Beryl’s made landfall, and looks like it may take the long way through the Yucatán… or at least is on a left wobble as it’s making landfall.

Headed home from St Croix.

Beryl’s made landfall, and looks like it may take the long way through the Yucatán… or at least is on a left wobble as it’s making landfall.

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Stephen Mullens

Fascinating concept - instead of grid hardening by distributing generation, you harden the grid by distributing storage. Amazing how the battery segment of utility markets has changed so fast in just a few short years.

Today on Volts: A new startup, Base Power, is effectively giving its Texas customers oversized home batteries for the cost of installation. Homeowners get reliable backup power; Base uses the extra storage capacity to trade in the market. Intriguing! www.volts.wtf/p/a-clever-n...

A clever new way to distribute storage on the gridwww.volts.wtf A new startup called Base Power aims to bring more stability to the volatile Texas grid by selling customers oversized home batteries at minimal costs and then using the excess capacity to trade on th...

Just follow @nickhedley.bsky.social. Headlines just today: * Fossil fuels <1/3 of EU’s electricity in 2023 * >50% of EU electricity from renewables so far in 2024 * Europe’s city buses are electrifying their fleets * Money managers dumping oil stocks * Gas power nearly halves in California in 1yr

At 125 knots, Beryl is still a category 4 storm. But the 952mb central pressure is more typical of a category 3 storm. And it has no cleared-out eye, which most major hurricanes have. Beryl's trending downward, but this snapshot is an unusual combination.

Severe weather experts say all the time that the weather doesn’t know the calendar. If the environment is good for storms, there will be storms. The same is true for the tropics, and all the seasonal forecasts said it would be an exceptional year. ACE climo isn’t everything.

So, Category 3 it is. #Beryl

Air Force headed out to Beryl, NOAA headed to survey around Beryl.