Expressions of Opinion and Fun things
General Weather Topics
- A diatribe about a problem with the scientific
integrity of the national severe local storms reports database (15
February 1998)
- An essay about another side to severe
storms (01 August 1998)
- A combined tutorial and diatribe about weather
modification, especially cloud seeding for suppression of severe
weather (27 September 2000)
- An essay (rant?) about models,
research, and forecasting (25 October 2000)
- An essay about prejudice in
meteorology (24 April 2002)
- My Pet Peeves page (moved over from my "work" site) (23 August
2003)
- A tutorial about how to use the
virtual correction in sounding diagnosis (moved
over from my "work" site) (03 August 2005)
- An essay with my thoughts
about Hurricane Katrina and its message. (11 September 2005)
- An essay about Meteorological Education
(13 March 2006)
- An essay about meteorological "apples
and oranges" (10 April 2006)
- An essay about Global
Climate Change (20 April 2006)
- An essay about "stratiform
precipitation" associated with convective systems
(moved over from my "work" site) (24
September 2006)
- A physical discussion about PVA and
vertical motion (moved over from my "work"
site) (24 September 2006)
- A discussion of what's wrong
with "overrunning" as a concept (moved over
from my "work" site) (24 September 2006)
- An explanation of how NWS
rawinsonde winds are computed using radiotheodolite data (moved over from my "work" site) (24
September 2006)
- A discussion of the meaning of the
word "normal" applied to the weather (moved
over from my "work" site) (24 September 2006)
- A physical discussion of isentropic
potential vorticity (moved over from my
"work" site) (24 September 2006)
- A physical discussion of conditional
symmetric instability (moved over from my
"work" site) (24 September 2006)
- An interesting problem concerning Coriolis force (moved over from my "work" site) (24
September 2006)
- An essay about the use and
abuse of conceptual models in meteorology (moved
over from my "work" site) (24 September 2006)
- A sort of diary of my interest in the time-dependent behavior of deep convection
- not for the mathematically challenged! (moved over from my "work" site) (24
September 2006)
- A FAQ List of questions often
asked by precollege students (11 November 2009)
- Moved over and updated my thoughts regarding the American
Meteorological Society (16 August 2010)
Weather Forecasting Topics
- An answer to some
criticisms (and rumors of criticisms) of a conference
paper about the future of forecasting (31 March 1997)
- An ugly rant about NOAA
and NWS management (31 March 1997)
- An essay about the skills
forecasters will need in the future that has been moved off my
Federal Website (31 March 1997)
- A diatribe about the "NOAA" Weather radio,
based on listening to it during my 1998 storm chase vacation (27
June 1998)
- An essay about operational forecaster
training (29 October 1998)
- A rant about NWS idealism
(12 January 2003)
- An essay about the qualities of a good
forecaster (02 March 2003)
- An essay about the future role
of humans in forecasting (11 May 2003)
- An essay about the use of
climatological information in probabilistic forecasting (14
August 2003)
- An essay about a forecaster's defining
moment (08 March 2005)
- Two tutorials about probability forecasting, one a primer, and the
other concerning the use of probability in forecasting
convective storms (both moved over from my "work" site) (03 April
2005)
- An essay about variables
and indices (19 March 2006)
- An essay about forecasts and their
users (moved over from my "work" site)
(24 September 2006)
- An essay about the rise and fall of
X. William Proenza at the National Hurricane Center (10
July 2007)
- A rant about recent trends in NWS
"Service Assessments" (21 December 2007)
- An essay about the use
of probability in weather forecasting (02 November 2008)
- An essay about the research-operations
interaction (09 May 2009)
- An essay about improving severe
weather warnings (20 February 2013)
- An essay about some trends in the NWS (27 October 2014)
Tornado-Related Topics
- A description of some unpleasant
realities associated with tornadoes (12 March 1997)
- An essay about violent
tornado probabilities and other musings (01 May 1998)
- A rambling essay on my thoughts
about the tornadoes of 03 May 1999 (08 May 1999)
- The full text of a
lightly-edited guest editorial for the WeatherZine (27
August 1999 issue) on the topic of "Are warning lead times the most
important issue in tornado events?" (31 August 1999)
- An essay about construction
and reconstruction associated with natural disasters like tornadoes
(11 September 1999)
- An essay about the the safety of cars in tornadoes
(11 January 2003)
- A proposal for reducing tornado
fatalities (01 March 2003)
- An essay about my scientific
tornado thoughts (moved over from my "work"
site) (18 May 2003)
- An essay about problems
with sample size in looking at tornado data (17 April 2004)
- An updated set of
scientific tornado thoughts (12 March 2005)
- A tutorial about vorticity
(moved over from my "work" site) (07
April 2005)
- An essay about how a tornado is
defined (moved over from my "work" site)
(15 May 2005)
- An essay about the historical record of tornadoes and the new "Enhanced Fujita Scale (07 May 2006)
- My Tornado and Storm
Chasing FAQ list (moved over from my "work"
site) (04 June 2006)
- An essay about tornado
records (moved over from my "work" site)
(24 September 2006)
- An essay about the 2008 tragedy at a Scout
Camp in Iowa (18 June 2008)
- My version of "tornado
precautions" (18 June 2008)
- Another updated
version of tornado thoughts (09 August 2008)
- An essay about what I think it would take to improve tornado warnings (18
September 2008)
- An essay questioning the ownership
of the EF-scale (02 November 2008)
- An essay discussing what
data need to be collected to assess societal imacts of storms (11
April 2009)
- A rant about unfulfilled
promises regarding tornado warnings (11 July 2009)
- An essay about Call-to-Action
statements in severe weather warnings (20 October 2009)
- An essay about my impressions
regarding VORTEX2 (18 July 2010)
- Comments about an article on
weather hazards in the USA (27 August 2010)
- A speculative informal article on why
the atmosphere needs supercells and tornadoes (17 February
2011)
- An essay about the space-time
distribution of tornadoes (19 May 2011)
- An essay about false alarms for
tornado warnings (28 May 2011)
- A listing of tornado
myths and my reactions to them (14
January 2013)
- Comments about an
Interview with Mike Morgan (22
October 2013)
Storm Chasing Topics
- A gripy essay about chaser
irresponsibility (17 June 1999)
- A copy of an essay by Roger Edwards and me about irresponsible media chase practices, along with a reply by a Mr. Paul Bouchereau.
- An essay about crybaby
chasers (21 December 2002)
- My Chase Safety page (moved over from my "work" site) (23 August
2003)
- My Storm Chasing page (moved over from my "work" site) (13 August
2004)
- A presentation about irresponsible
storm chasers (25 March 2006)
- A tribute to the pioneering storm chaser Dave Hoadley (31 March 2006)
- An essay about risky
behavior and storm chasing (05 September 2006)
- A tribute to the late storm chaser Eric Nguyen (09
September 2007)
- An essay about chaser
convergence (20 May 2010)
Non-Weather Topics
- An essay about liberal-bashing
and another about educational responsibilty
(15 October 1998)
- An essay about my thoughts after 11
September 2001. (16 September 2001)
- An essay about the Search for Truth
(27 October 2001)
- An essay about the "corporatization"
of universities (11 May 2002)
- A listing of influential books
(29 May 2002)
- A rant about the media (15
October 2002)
- An essay about funding the
Norman Weather Center (3 November 2002)
- An essay about criminalization
of marijuana (27 April 2003)
- An essay about thieves in Europe
(13 August 2004)
- An essay about gun control (01
November 2004)
- An essay about how science works
(10 November 2004)
- Extended comments about my recent major surgery (18
December 2004)
- An angry essay about "dubya"
(22 January 2005)
- An unhappy essay about my Army time in
Viet Nam (17 February 2005)
- A collection of my favorite aphorisms,
clichés, and "sage advice" (27 March 2005)
- An essay about scientific awards (moved over from my "work" site) (06 May 2005)
- An essay about the decision to
drop atomic bombs on Japan (16 August 2005)
- A short essay about Derek Jeter. (26
September 2005)
- An essay about Education in general
(13 March 2006)
- An essay about TV science
documentaries, especially those about tornadoes (25 March
2006)
- An essay about an Apocalypse
that might be coming (20 April 2006)
- An essay about environmentalism
(03 May 2006)
- An essay about genetics and racism
(27 November 2007)
- An essay about academic elitism in
science (27 November 2007)
- An essay about digital
image manipulation (05 May 2008)
- A response to an email
attachment (05 August 2008)
- An essay about meaningless
arguments (10 December 2008)
- A rant about another
email attachment (19 August 2009)
- An essay about oaths
and moral dilemmas (26 August 2009)
- An analysis
of a tornado 'crockumentary' (01 March 2010)
- An essay about corporations
and Communism in China (30 April 2010)
- An essay about American
troops suffering PTSD (25 May 2010)
- An essay about National Weather Center
communication (21 August 2010)
- An essay about fame (07 November
2010)
- An essay on the political
spectrum (17 August 2011)
- An essay on the definition
of art (10 January 2012)
- My "memoirs" about my time in the military (PDF) (21 January 2018)
Religion and Atheism
- An essay about "Intelligent Design" (05
December 2005)
- An essay about my stand on
formal religion (03 October 2007)
- An essay about religious
moderation (14 August 2010)
- A set of dialogs with
religious believers about various topics (22 August 2010)
- An essay about the Logic of Atheism
(27 March 2011)
- An essay about Christian
Persecution in the U.S. (27 July 2011)
- An essay about the "design" of the
universe (14 August 2011)
- An essay about the evidence to
demonstrate the existence of god (16
January 2012)
- An essay about the need for
rational thinking (08 February 2012)
- An essay refuting
the notion of freethought as slavery (12 November 2012)
- A collection of essays called "Leading
Horses to Water" (13 August 2013)
- An essay about the myth of a loving
god (03 December 2013)
- A response to an essay "False Equivalencies?" (10 December 2014)
Fun Items
- A small item just for fathers with daughters of dating age (16 February 1997)
- Announcing the premier of a new page, dedicated to Principal Poop
and all the staff at More Science
High (23 August 1997)
- A semi-humorous commentary, mostly
intended for American young people (11 September 1999)
- A page of silly names for
tornadoes (21 April 2003)
- A humorous page of new Federal Travel
Regulations (13 August 2004)
- An essay about the bureaucracies and
the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics (20 September 2007)
Miscellaneous topics
- A tribute to the my friend and
colleague, the late Joseph G. Galway (02 July 1998)
- A tutorial about thunderstorm
safety issues during hiking and camping (moved
over from my "work" site) (24 September 2006)
- A presentation about communication
skills in meteorology (moved over from my
"work" site) (24 September 2006)
- An essay paying homage to my
professional mentors (06 October 2006)
- An essay discussing a recently-formulated career perspective (19
March 2006)
- A tribute
to my friend, Alan R. Moller, on the occasion of his retirement from
spotter training. (08 March 2008)