Leopards Ate My Face

They massively missed the amount of rainfall. They expected a fairly typical flood event, not 20 feet of water in an hour.

As someone who knows nothing about the NWS, would they have gotten it right or at least closer if they didn't have funding cuts? Also to be clear, I don't support cutting their funding, just wondering if this was unavoidable.
- This is a matter of storms being able to supercharge themselves due to global warming. Don’t let people reframe this against the NWS. It is like Hurricane Erick the other week that jumped to category 3 out of nowhere, storms are being rapidly supercharged. This flood broke all sorts of records, so to phrase it as the previous commenter did is unfair.. In the near future, their ability to even predict as well as they did will degrade though, at which point you will hear more of ‘they never knew what they were talking about anyways.’ This lays the groundwork for that.
  
  People aren't reframing it directly against the NWS, they're blaming the fascist regime for cutting funds to important services. NWS has already stated the cuts are effecting the amount of data they can collect which directly effects the accuracy of their models, making the NWS less effective.
- That's a very difficult question to answer. I don't work there but I studied meteorology and I'm a volunteer for a forecast office. They take in so many data sources that serve as input into forecast models and humans. The qualify of the data has dropped, but which data exactly could have made a difference would be difficult or impossible to pinpoint. It's possible better quality data would have helped, but we don't know for sure.
  
  Not sure if you can answer this. But do you have any idea how these forecasts normally work? Like how do they normally predict flooding
  
  For flooding it is a typical estimation from modelling from things like topography maps and known precipitation events. It is all rough estimations without collecting monitoring data, which is what funding for these agencies tend to be used for.
  It requires a lot of information to accurately model and predict if any given river valley can handle 1.75 inches in a 3 mile radius in 4 hours, versus 3.25 inches in a 1 mile radius in 2 hours. How much does a 0.2 inch rainfall event in the previous 24 hours impact? What about 1 inch in the same area in 24 hours? (And so on.)
  
  Ok that makes sense. Thank you. It's a really fascinating subject to me
  
  There are models that predict precipitation amounts and river/lake stage (level), yes, but usually it's up to the lead meteorologist to make the call after reviewing those models combined with their experience with the situation. Precip rate is also an output of some forecast models that is considered when issuing an advisory. These models consume huge amounts of data that influence the output prediction in complex, chaotic ways. Better quality data can often produce better forecasts and lead to better decisions but whether or not the specific event would have had a better outcome is harder to answer.
  
  I can't speak for the modeling regarding the amount of rain, but I'm was published in college for watershed analysis and now work in municipal development and review drainage plans.
  When use LIDAR to update watershed maps and can estimate the amount of water rise that will occur at a specific location with a specific amount of rainfall. One thing that makes predictions in central Texas is the heavy development and vast difference in development standards.
  Some municipalities are very strict, and only allow 15%-25% impervious cover, while others don't care. And with tree coverage it's hard to tell from serials if the ground is sod, mud, gravel, or concrete.
  More importantly, many local jurisdictions don't require rainwater detention, and counties typically don't have the resources to inspect stuff installed without their knowledge outdlside of cities, so as development increases runoff into the watershed increases, as there's less pervious cover and what cover remains is more quickly saturated. Also, the grading of land and removal of vegetation leads to less friction, speeding up runoff. If upstream water is flowing faster, then the water rises higher and faster.
  
  Thank you so very much. I really appreciate that explanation
- Our local weather person said on air that the cuts had affected the model accuracy. Something having to do with weather balloons not being sent up.

That pic is from r/conservative. That's like looking for accurate history on a .ml community. These fucking clowns would deny being struck by lightning if a Republican told them to.

I live in the Texas panhandle, which was not subject to the flooding rains. They still got everything wrong, though. Not four hours ago, they said my area wasn't going to get any rain. Guess what? Heavy rain right fucking now.

But... They're right? The NWS did send out a warning shortly after 1AM. It was local emergency officials who dropped the ball and didn't pass on the warning until 7AM.
Is everyone just too far in their bubbles now that they reject whatever actually happened in favor of whatever narrative their side of the internet made up?
I hate it here.
- Okay, I'll just respond factually, then.
  They're only right from a surface-level examination. The context of my own comment, the comment that you replied to, is enough to prove you wrong. Moreso, other people in this very thread have mentioned that while, yes, they did indeed send out a warning, the warning was severely out of scale for what actually happened, exactly like I said in the comment you replied to.
  Is everyone just too far in their bubbles now that they reject whatever actually happened in favor of whatever narrative their side of the internet made up?
  The irony being, by ignoring the context of my comment as well as the thread as a whole, this is exactly what you're doing.
- Yea this is what I want to make people aware of. I'm not sharing that to be shitty. I'm just really struggling with valid posts and comments in spaces I hang out in lately and I want to make sure people don't stop looking for details or facts before jumping on these hate circle jerks.
  There's valid criticism but if we're getting caught with invalid criticism then credibility erodes.
  I think having social media split politically has caused a lot of new errors. Almost every event lately I have been switching between left and right wing platforms. There's a big issue on the left with details. Again not trying to be shitty but it's what I'm noticing. The left wing spaces use to be a lot more factual but since COVID things have gone downhill.
  
  All the chuff, none of the nuance. As I stated, and as others have stated, the point isn't whether the NWS did or did not do something at all, it's that what they did do, they did wrong. Very wrong. They're still getting it wrong.
  Flooding is common in Texas, and is generally a minor hazard. That's how it was reported. That's not what happened. That is the valid criticism that you're intentionally disregarding.
  And this is what you do. I've seen other comments of yours. Time and time again, you try to play "devil's advocate," but you do so by disregarding any arguments that don't align with right-wing talking points. Anything you can't refute, you subtly push aside, trying to bury it within these little nonsensical attacks.
  
  I would disagree with what you're saying. I'm not attempting to play devil's advocate. I want to know better what is happening. I'm pissed off with people on the left as much as people on the right. But overall I'm noticing a shift where people on the left are becoming much less informed. They're holed up in places like Lemmy missing a lot of information. Why did I need to go to a right wing space to find out there was an alert given. Yes that alert was pretty much useless but it's such a critical part in all of this. In almost all recent events, I keep seeing critical details only on right wing spaces. The left leaning spaces have more content and comments but lack quality and information. That's not playing devil's advocate, I'm pissed off.
It is from there. I've been checking them out lately. I want to see what the left vs right are saying on these things to get a better idea of what's going on.
I wanted to verify if the alert was sent or what was bullshit. Everything is so split between right vs left now that I think it's much easier to bullshit on both sides.
I've recently started noticing how much less accurate the left is on things. I have a feeling that back in the day when both sides intermixed more if it helped fact check things better. So now I'm spending more time trying to go back and forth between the two to find out what the details are.

Psychotic rightist Nazi ghouls calling the left “beyond deranged” is completely on brand with their abject mental degeneracy.

They cheer and shrug their shoulders when blue states suffer, but get violently ass damaged when they receive the same treatment when nature suddenly decides to show them that their god is useless.

Thoughts and prayers, Lone Star State. Now put those bootstraps to use, and pull for all it’s worth.

Yea it's a real missed opportunity to post all the vile shit said wherever they play that fucking game. Especially their politicians.
I’m not angry. I’m deeply disappointed.

there is no such thing as "that's just life"

This boils me to no end.

Of fucking course there isn't, stupid numpty! Things happen for reasons! If we actually use our brains and figure those reasons out instead of being a simple minded fool who just goes "welp, it is what it is, no point in thinking critical about the things around me" then just maybe we can improve things for everyone!

Fuuuuuuck I hate stupid people. I pity them. Yes, it isn't their fault, as I said things happen for reasons, they were born into material circumstances and their loved experiences were hijacked by forces beyond their control specifically created to manipulate them instead of enriching them, but I also abhor their existence.

There is "thats just life". Grandma got cancer with no major risk factors? Just life. The tornado hit town instead of jumping it? Just life.
All sorts of shit's just life, but also a lot of "just life" can happen a hell of a lot less. Better health and safety standards mean less grandmas get cancer, and better access to Healthcare means more of them will go into remission. Dealing with climate change will mean less averse weather events, or at least not rapidly increasing numbers of them.
Conservatives get stuck on the fact that bad shit is always gonna happen, and so they don't notice that it didn't used to happen fucking constantly
- Exactly. Capitalism hates resilience because until you need it, it’s waste. And when you need it, well, “that’s life” and “no one could have seen this widely predicted thing happen”.
  It’s just another way they privatize profits and socialize losses.
- No, it isn't "that's just life". Everything happens because of a reason. We live in a material world made up of countless particles, bumping and slamming into each other, interacting in countless ways according to certain physical laws. Some of these laws we understand; most of them we have no idea and just approximate as best we can with what we know. That's science.
  Grandma got cancer? That is because of genetic mutations, the mechanisms of which we don't fully understand and may have potential causes that are unknown to us. We just haven't put the puzzle together.
  Tornado hitting town instead of jumping it? A tornado is caused by specific atmospheric conditions. With enough precision in monitoring and observing all the data you could estimate exactly why a tornado lost intensity and stopped touching ground for a period of time. We just don't because that isn't very useful to be that precise barring conducting a specific study involving those data points.
  The only thing that is ever "just life" is "things changing with the passing of time". Why those changes are happening the way they are? Well, that's a lot more complicated than we like to admit we know about.
  But as you said, it's a matter of perspective. Knowing why doesn't always help prevent it and there are varying opinions on the degree to which we should go for preventative measures as well as how to apply them.
My mom's philosophy: Life isn't fair.
My philosophy: Life's as fair as people make it.
She's the type to see issues and say, "Someone should do something about that." I'm the type to respond with, "You are someone. You should do something."
Thank fuck my dad's not that way. When he sees an animal stuck in a road, he pulls over and rescues them. He came home one day with three baby bunnies that he found in a highway median, swaddled in his shirt. My mom would've seen the rabbits, thought, "That's so sad, someone should rescue them," and kept driving.