Brianna

ECE PhD candidate, OU ARRC, Weather Radar Nerd. My posts/likes/retweets are my own opinions.

[Wes Hall @Wes_HallTx]

#PrideMonth #BeYourself

[Brianna @BriWitherell]

@GoedeTDS @NWSNorman Yay!! I’m glad you got some tors!

[Brianna @BriWitherell]

@CameronJNixon I’m glad you finally got one!

[gyu ⨾ rin .ᐟ❔ @imgyurin]

i genuinely have to stop and watch this video all the way through, multiple times bc he's so fucking genuine with this crashout

[DeeDee - ADHD Helper @DopaminePlsMe]

There is no greater fiction writer than an ADHDer at 11 PM saying, "I’ll just knock this out first thing in the morning."

Night Me is an ambitious CEO with a vision.
Morning Me is a swamp creature fighting for his life just to put on socks.

They have never met, and they hate each other.

[ポケモン公式 @Pokemon_cojp]

ポケモン30周年、はじまる！
『ポケットモンスター 赤・緑』の発売から30年。
2026年2月27日（金）にポケモンは30周年を迎えるよ。
今年は最高の1年になる予感！
お楽しみに！
#ポケモン30周年

[Abhishek Singh @0xlelouch_]

I keep noticing this pattern in engineering teams.

A developer hits a bug.
Opens ChatGPT or Copilot.
Pastes the error.
Copies the fix.
Moves on.

No understanding. No curiosity. Just the green checkmark so the ticket can close.

But then there are the engineers I genuinely admire.
They pause.
They read the stack trace.
They ask why this broke in the first place.
They dig into the source code instead of just the symptoms.
They learn something about the system they'll carry forever.
They fix the bug and three other things they noticed along the way.

That's the difference between using AI as a crutch and using it as a catalyst.

The crutch engineer becomes dependent.
Copies without questioning.
Ships code they can't explain.
Debugs by trial and error, pasting until something works.
Their skills plateau because the struggle is where growth lives — and they skipped it.

The catalyst engineer uses AI differently.
They ask it to explain, not just fix.
They verify the suggestion against docs.
They treat it as a second opinion, not the answer.
They stay in the driver's seat.

I've seen junior devs outgrow seniors because they kept their curiosity sharp.
And I've seen talented people stagnate because they outsourced their thinking.

AI is the most powerful learning tool we've ever had.
But only if you engage with it.
Only if you ask "why does this work" after it works.
Only if you treat every fix as a chance to understand, not just ship.

Because at the end of the day, code that you don't understand is debt you'll pay later.
And a developer who stops asking why has already stopped growing.

[MyRadar Weather @MyRadarWX]

Lizard
Lizard
Lizard
Lizard

Lizard

[the_ultimate_bruh @UltimateBruhing]

Reading 1984 and coming with the conclusion that it’s against your ideology is such a massive red flag

[Governor JB Pritzker @GovPritzker]

The State of Illinois at this time has received no requests or outreach from the federal government asking if we need assistance, and we have made no requests for federal intervention.

[Aaron Rupar @atrupar]

That was one of the most batshit press conferences of Trump's public life. He brandished a photo of Putin and promised to deploy the US military to occupy Chicago, New York, and San Francisco. A sane country would be moving toward impeachment and removal right now.

[Brianna @BriWitherell]

Having worked with the GOES series, they are one of the most valuable pieces of weather monitoring we have. This is a horrible decision.

[Andrew Freedman @afreedma]

SCOOP: Trump administration slashes scope of next-generation US weather satellites, eliminating air quality and ocean observing sensors. (1/3)

[Re-energising Your Career @career_re]

#AcademicTwitter😂#phdvoice #PhDlife

[Matthew Cappucci @MatthewCappucci]

*Vandal/conspiracy theorists TARGETING RADARS*
*Criminal knocks Oklahoma weather radar offline*

OKLAHOMA CITY – A vandal knocked News9's weather radar offline for a time Sunday night. The suspect arrived at 9:34 p.m.

Griffin Media, which owns the radar, wrote that the man disabled a "key power connector, smashed the power meter and broke into the generator's transfer switch control panel before destroying it.

They're urging anyone with information not contact OKC Crime Stoppers. He's accused of sabotaging "critical weather-prediction equipment."

This comes as a growing number of conspiracy theorists and misinformed and/or uneducated members of the public adopt outlandish ideas that radars "control" the weather.

The National Weather Service, meanwhile, has received credible threats of violence from a specific group called “Veterans on Patrol.”

According to The Washington Post, a Telegram group with 6,000 members is currently developing plans to "take as many NEXRAD sites offline as possible." They claim they already have "boots on the ground" in Washington State and Oklahoma.

It's unclear if the man in Oklahoma who targeted News9's weather radar is associated with the group or acted alone.

The group, founded in 2015, believes that Doppler radars are “weather weapons” used to control the weather.

They also believe that Hurricane Helene, which caused catastrophic flooding in the Carolinas last September, was somehow manufactured by the military. (A reminder that a single hurricane churns through 200 times more energy than the entirety of what humanity produces — so no, we cannot create or meaningfully manipulate hurricanes.)

The National Weather Service is urging technicians to not visit radar sites alone, and to report threats of violence to local law enforcement.

The United States operates a network of 159 Doppler radars. The Joint Doppler Operational Project (JDOP) was formed in 1976 as a joint endeavor by the National Weather Service and the Air Weather Service agency of the U.S. Air Force. Radars were installed nationwide between 1992 and 1997.

The weather radars — known as the WSR-88D model — are instrumental in tracking severe weather. Each emits a pulse of energy that bounces off “hydrometeors,” or precipitation particles (rain, hail, snow, etc.) and returns to the radar.
That tells meteorologists LOTS of information — the type of precipitation, the distance, the velocity it’s traveling, the shape, etc.

These radars allow us to peer into storms to track damaging winds, hail and tornadoes. We can detect rotation ahead of time and issue lifesaving severe weather warnings.
Each time you get a tornado warning on your phone, that’s because Doppler radar allowed a National Weather Service meteorologist to see inside the clouds.

The radars are harmless and have been around for generations. They offer much of the data we ingest at MyRadar to provide critical alerting.

Any conspiracies you see about weather radar are, simply stated, baseless — and threats of violence toward radar sites/meteorologists are deeply concerning.

[Matthew Cappucci @MatthewCappucci]

Being a scientist in 2025 is so disheartening.

Politicians make erroneous claims. Social media accounts perpetuate lies and pseudoscience to monetize their audience’s gullibility.

Scientists try to educate and are lambasted.

I feel like I’m at America’s intellectual funeral.

[Brianna @BriWitherell]

@jacobrosecrants I tried reaching out to him about it, but never heard back. Thank you for bringing attention to this awful bill and the other atrocities Ryan Walters is doing.

[Brianna @BriWitherell]

@MatthewCappucci Thank you for sharing this 💜. We need all of the help and eyes on this as possible.

[Matthew Cappucci @MatthewCappucci]

BREAKING: NOAA is proposing to eliminate most federal hurricane/tornado research in sweeping 2026 budget cuts.

This includes the elimination of the National Severe Storms Laboratory and the Hurricane Research Division — curtailing forecast improvements for hurricane- and tornado-prone areas.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released its proposed budget for 2026 on Monday. Aside from a 17% workforce reduction, the proposal seeks to eliminate OAR — Ocean and Atmospheric Research — an umbrella for most federally-funded weather and climate research. OAR is made up of 10 research laboratories and 16 affiliated cooperative institutes at various universities.

One of the laboratories to be shuttered is NSSL, or the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma. They’ve been around for 60 years. They’re the first ones to ever use radar to track a tornado’s life cycle (they did that in Union City, Oklahoma on May 24, 1973). NSSL was the driver that spurred Congress to approve nationwide weather radar in the 1980s. It’s why we have tornado warnings (those weren’t a thing just a few generations ago).

NSSL is currently working on an AI and machine learning-driven program called “Warn on Forecast,” which will use ultra high-resolution weather models that could allow the issuance of tornado warnings HOURS before a thunderstorm even develops. The project “is designed to make probabilistic predictions of individual thunderstorms out to six hours in advance” writes NSSL. It too is on the chopping block.

NSSL has also been working to develop and implement “phased-array radar,” which would allow radars to target individual thunderstorms and scan more rapidly, providing ultra-fast radar scans low within a storm. That would improve tornado detection. (Conventional radars — those dome-like things you see — spin around and around, which adds time to each scan).
It’s because of NSSL that we have “dual-polarization” radar, which is what lets us detect debris the instant a tornado touches down.

NSSL is also working on a groundbreaking hail study that is in jeopardy. Hail costs U.S. insurers some $10 billion per year. Understanding how to better forecast it could mitigate that loss and help meteorologists issue better warnings.

But that’s just the start of proposed cuts. NOAA’s proposal would also eliminate the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Miami. That includes the Hurricane Research Division.

The Hurricane Research Division is responsible for developing and maintaining one of our best hurricane-forecasting models — HAFS, or the Hurricane Analysis and Forecasting System. That’s the model that arguably best simulates storms that could rapidly intensify. As meteorologists, we rely heavily on it. It’s unclear what the future of the model would be.

There are also some signs that Hurricane Hunter flights could be limited, though we’re working to learn more details on any specifics. Funding for replacement planes, which have been around since the mid-1970s, is uncertain. The planes were scheduled to be retired and replaced by 2030.

Many climate monitoring services and databases could also be suspended.

The American Meteorological Society — the nation’s preeminent body for atmospheric scientists — issued a statement condemning the proposed cuts and warning of concerning consequences.

They argue that decisions are being made hastily, offering “little to no opportunity… [for] consideration of long-term impacts.”

They also write “The scientific backbone and workforce needed to keep weather forecasts, alerts, and warnings accurate and effective will be drastically undercut, with unknown — yet almost certainly disastrous — consequences for public safety and economic health.”

We’ll keep you abreast of the latest as we learn more information about proposed changes.

[Weather Track US @weathertrackus]

Contact your representatives! If this is passed, it will send weather research and forecasting backwards.

CI/OAR programs are critical in weather research/forecasting, and helping to save lives. Terminating these programs would be catastrophic.

Tell them no! This should not be passed.