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Kim Wood

@drkimwood.bsky.social

4.6K followers 300 following 960 posts

Associate professor at the University of Arizona. Hurricane mortician. Open science + Python + scicomm + 🐈 enthusiast. Personal account. Occasionally salty. Always tired. Helpful to a fault.

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Kim Wood @drkimwood.bsky.social · Aug 8

With the climatologically active part of the Atlantic hurricane season around the corner, I've reproduced my explainer on the six "ingredients" for tropical cyclone formation on Medium as an experiment in using that platform. medium.com/@drkimwood/t...

The six “ingredients” of tropical cyclone formation

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) defines a tropical cyclone as

medium.com

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Lisa Will @dustchick.bsky.social · 9h

I've always said this, but since last November, I've been pointing this out frequently in whatever venues to whatever audiences I can: "The planet NASA studies most is Earth."

Celeste Labedz @celestelabedz.bsky.social · 17h

A lot of comments on Mars rovers or Moon landings, but it's important to remember that the planet NASA studies most is Earth. This is less about cutting flashy things like moonwalks and more about keeping communities in the dark on climate, weather, agriculture, pollution, natural hazards, and more.

Reuters @reuters.com · 20h

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to lay off about 550 workers reut.rs/4302N2L

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Alan Gerard @wxmanms1.bsky.social · 14h

Disastrous storm surge struck western AK Sunday. All 6 NWS upper air sites in the area have chronic issues (see alt-text). In addition to no releases from 2 sites, 2 sites are releasing only 1x per day instead of 2x. 2 have intermittent issues, 1 of these (Nome) had no releases 10/9 or 10/10 (1/2)

Map of National Weather Service upper air sites in Alaska. Red circles indicate sites not currently releasing balloons, orange circles sites on releasing routinely once per day instead of twice, and purple sites with intermittent issues with releases.

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David Folkenflik @davidfolkenflik.bsky.social · 4h

NPR's veteran defense reporter Tom Bowman: Why I'm handing in my Pentagon Pass

www.npr.org/2025/10/14/g...

Opinion: Why I'm handing in my Pentagon press pass

Tom Bowman has held his Pentagon press pass for 28 years. He says the Pentagon's new media policy makes it impossible to be a journalist, which means finding out what's really going on behind the scen...

www.npr.org

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Rick Thoman @alaskawx.bsky.social · 14h

If you're able, please consider a donation to the Alaska Community Fund to help people in western Alaska impacted by ex-typhoon Halong even as winter is bearing down. All the money donated goes to the region. Quyana. #Alaska #AlaskaSky

alaskacf.fcsuite.com/erp/donate/c...

Screen shot of the ACF Western Alaska Disaster Relief 2025 Fund:

"In response to recent severe storms, including Typhoon Halong, that devastated Alaska's western coast, local community organizations and regional partners have come together to establish the Western Alaska Disaster Relief Fund, housed at the Alaska Community Foundation.
Two major storm systems struck western Alaska in rapid succession, bringing record flooding, extreme winds, and extensive damage from Kwigillingok to Kotzebue. Homes have been damaged and destroyed, critical infrastructure compromised, and subsistence resources disrupted. The Western Alaska Disaster Relief Fund will provide support to affected communities for immediate relief, recovery support, and long-term resilience, including disaster preparedness initiatives. Distribution decisions will be guided by advisors including regional leaders and stakeholders, ensuring resources reach affected communities based on locally identified needs.

The Western Alaska Disaster Relief Fund brings together a growing list of local, regional, and statewide partners endorsing the fund, including:

Association of Village Council Presidents
Alaska Federation of Natives
Alaska Native Heritage Center
Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium
Bethel Community Services Foundation
Calista Corporation
Healthy Alaska Natives Foundation
First Alaskans Institute
Kawerak, Inc.
Native Peoples Action
Maniilaq Association

Yukon Kuskokwim Health Corporation"

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Christina Toms @christinatoms.bsky.social · 19h

Bellingham is an awesome town with some fantastic mountain biking!!!

Robyn Mieko Dahl @dahlgeoed.bsky.social · 21h

The Geology Dept at WWU is hiring an Assistant Prof in Hydrology! Come be my colleague in a great department! More info in the attached flyer, and at hr.wwu.edu/careers-facu...

Assistant Professor of Hydrogeology

About Western: Western Washington University, with over 15,000 students in seven colleges and the graduate school, is nationally recognized for its educational programs, students and faculty. The campus is located in Bellingham, Washington, a coastal community of 90,000 overlooking Bellingham Bay, the San Juan Islands and the North Cascades Mountain range. The city lies 90 miles north of Seattle and 60 miles south of Vancouver, British Columbia. Western has additional sites in Anacortes, Bremerton, Everett, Port Angeles, and Poulsbo. Western is recognized nationally for its successes, such as being named one of the top public master's-granting institutions in the Pacific Northwest for 25 years in a row by U.S. News & World Report.

About the Geology Department: The Geology Department has 17 faculty, offering BA, BS and MS programs in Geology, Geophysics, and Science Education, serving approximately 190 majors. The department has strengths in field and lab-based teaching and research in geomorphology, igneous petrology, geophysics, hydrogeology and envionmental/engineering geology, planetary geology, sedimentology, science education, and structure/tectonics.

Additional information about our programs can be found at https://geology.wwu.edu/. The Geology Department strives to further Western's identity as an institution that welcomes and embraces diversity and encourages applications from diverse candidates.

About the Position: The ideal candidate will support our department's ability to produce workforce-ready geoscientists. We seek individuals who are enthusiastic about teaching and who will establish a productive research program that involves undergraduate and Master's-level students. Broad areas of research interest may include, but | are not limited to, groundwater-surface water interactions, environmental hydrogeology, and groundwater systems (e.g-geothermal, fault zone, coastal, mountain). Teaching responsibilities will in…

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The New York Times @nytimes.com · 1d

Emergency crews rescued dozens of people in western Alaska on Sunday as flooding from the remnants of Typhoon Halong battered remote coastal communities and tore houses off their foundations, officials said.

Dozens Rescued in Remote Alaskan Villages in Storm That Swept Away Homes

The Coast Guard and the Alaska National Guard were conducting search-and-rescue operations in two villages along the Bering Sea on Sunday.

nyti.ms

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Nick Lutsko @nick-lutsko.bsky.social · 21h

There's a good essay in @science.org about the importance of free global access to climate and weather data. The atmosphere doesn't know about borders, so paywalls anywhere hurt predictions everywhere; even more so for those who can't pay

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Free global access to climate and weather data must continue

Last month at the 80th session of the United Nations, the call to be “better together” was especially appropriate for discussions on the Early Warnings for All global initiative. About half the world’...

www.science.org

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Kelsey Malloy @kmalloy.bsky.social · 20h

An atmospheric general circulation model you can run on a Python Jupyter notebook?! Heck yeah! Check out this project- both an educational tool for undergraduates/graduate students, and a research tool for scientists interested in idealized climate modeling.
journals.ametsoc.org/view/journal...

journals.ametsoc.org

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Kim Wood @drkimwood.bsky.social · 22h

I'm glad to hear that! It's great to have additional tools in the forecaster's toolbox. Alas, I'll always poke around for nuance since my pessimism fears that something like GDMI will supplant rather than complement other guidance. :)

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Jen DeHart @jcdehart.bsky.social · 22h

Two open faculty positions at CSU!
Topic areas: 1) climate dynamics and 2) applications of AI to atmospheric science.

Deadline: 1 December 2025.

CSU Department of Atmospheric Science @csuatmossci.bsky.social · 23h

We invite applications for two tenure-track faculty positions at the Assistant to Associate professor level: jobs.colostate.edu/postings/167...

Assistant/Associate Professor

The Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University invites applications for two tenure-track faculty positions at the Assistant to Associate professor level:1) Climate dynamics. We see...

jobs.colostate.edu

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Kim Wood @drkimwood.bsky.social · 1d

I'm excited but also holding my breath for validation from an additional season! But I'm not sure it's a LLM (large language model). The white paper states that it's based on a "combined architectural, training, and inference approach for probabilistic modeling of weather" rather than language.

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Kim Wood @drkimwood.bsky.social · 1d

It's wild to read how many ways a subset of people will grasp at straws or simply make stuff up because they don't understand that folks can and do take action for what they believe in without monetary compensation.

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Kim Wood @drkimwood.bsky.social · 1d

I apologize for not posting about the recent TC-influenced rain in the SWUS! I spent much of my time in grad school studying these events, so I wanted to geek out, but when family members are directly affected by these flash flooding hazards, that takes priority. (Everyone's good!)

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Kim Wood @drkimwood.bsky.social · 1d

!!! I had no idea this database existed. Thank you for sharing!

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Dr. Kat Napaaqtuk❄️ @napaaqtuk.bsky.social · 1d

I am seeing a lot of people reposting Lakota Man today bc it's Indigenous Peoples Day. A reminder that he is not well liked amongst many (most?) Natives on social media. Many of us blocked him a long time ago. Some of the reasons why are in this article.

www.dailydot.com/irl/lakotama...

Who is LakotaMan, the user behind one of the most popular Native American accounts on X?

John Martin is adored by white X users—but infamous among Native and Indigenous communities.

www.dailydot.com

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NPR @npr.org · 1d

A Cornell University researcher has been developing an artificial heart for children for more than 20 years. Now, his research is on hold and his lab is shut down.

This 4-year-old's heart is failing. A federal grant that might help him was canceled

A Cornell University researcher has been developing an artificial heart for children for more than 20 years. Now, his research is on hold and his lab is shut down.

n.pr

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Rolling Stone @rollingstone.com · 1d

Vance could not give a straight answer to questions about:

➡️ Tom Homan's alleged acceptance of a bribe
➡️ Trump's accusations that J.B. Pritzker is a criminal
➡️ Layoffs at the CDC

Read/Watch: bit.ly/4nMSVl9

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Rachel Maddow @maddow.msnbc.com · 1d

“With your patient and rigorous work, you can act as a barrier against those who, through the ancient art of lying, seek to create divisions in order to rule by dividing,” he said. “You can be a bulwark of civility against the quicksand of approximation and post-truth...”

apnews.com/article/pope...

Pope urges news agencies to stand as bulwark against lies, manipulation and post-truths

Pope Leo XIV has encouraged international news agencies to stand firm as a bulwark against the “ancient art of lying” and manipulation.

apnews.com

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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 2d

About a month ago, the Trump administration got rid of the de minimis exemption, whereby packages valued under $800 could slide in without import duties. Now there's a backlog as the government can't process all of this paperwork, leading to UPS just destroying packages

Business Insider headline reads: UPS is telling customers that their packages coming to the US are marked for destruction.

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ProPublica @propublica.org · 3d

Federal workers: If you were impacted by the Trump administration's just-announced mass layoffs, our reporters are here to listen.

We understand you may be taking a risk in contacting us, and we take your privacy seriously.

Here's how to get in touch securely 👇

How to Contact ProPublica or Send a Tip Securely — ProPublica

Our job is to hold people and institutions accountable. To do that, we need evidence.

propublica.org

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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 4d

“Oh my god… I have no words.”

Listen to the emotional moment this year’s laureate Maria Corina ( finds out she has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Kristian Berg Harpviken, Director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, shared the news.

NobelPrize #NobelPeacePrize

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Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 4d

MIT says no to the Trump admin higher-ed compact clearly and emphatically. Other universities would be well served to read, remix, and respond similarly.

"In that free marketplace of ideas, the people of MIT gladly compete with the very best, without preferences."

orgchart.mit.edu/letters/rega...

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Jen DeHart @jcdehart.bsky.social · 4d

our research group has been obsessed with the decay and remnants of Octave this week. such a persistent (and adorable?!) low-level circulation 😍

(cc @drkimwood.bsky.social)

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Solomon @solomonmissouri.bsky.social · 4d

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Meghan Bartels @meghanbartels.bsky.social · 5d

The science is in: COVID boosters are worth it, even if you've been vaccinated and/or infected before. Stay safe out there, friends!: 🧪 🛟 www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-...

Annual COVID Vaccines Save Lives, New Study Shows

A new study shows that receiving an updated COVID vaccine reduced people’s risk of severe disease and death in all age groups, regardless of immunity from prior infection or vaccination

www.scientificamerican.com

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