Alaina Ross
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circle-and-square.bsky.social
Alaina Ross
@circle-and-square.bsky.social
140 followers 480 following 120 posts
Exhausted Earth Sciences BS student @ SF State, map librarian, student researcher, obsessed with Atmospheric Science and Severe Weather in all forms

📸 portfolio: alainaross.myportfolio.com
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circle-and-square.bsky.social
Alaina Ross @circle-and-square.bsky.social · Oct 15
Start to finish, yesterday’s storm was a phenomenal showing 🤩 youtu.be/zxNKlTHjoj4?... #weather
Oct 15th, 2025; Aerial Timelapse of Storm Clouds
YouTube video by Alaina Ross
youtu.be
circle-and-square.bsky.social
Graceful cloud movement over the South Bay mountains at golden hour this evening 😍 #CAwx
November 19, 2025 at 1:08 AM
circle-and-square.bsky.social
The unsettled air left behind after yesterday's storm made for some truly beautiful cumulonimbus action over the Oakland hills this afternoon #CAwx
November 15, 2025 at 2:30 AM
circle-and-square.bsky.social
There’s something remarkably graceful about the arrival of this week’s storm 😌 #CAwx
November 12, 2025 at 12:05 AM
circle-and-square.bsky.social
Didn't quite make it home in time to catch the full sunset, but what I did see was pretty gorgeous
October 16, 2025 at 3:19 AM
circle-and-square.bsky.social
Good evening ☺️
October 16, 2025 at 3:16 AM
circle-and-square.bsky.social
Start to finish, yesterday’s storm was a phenomenal showing 🤩 youtu.be/zxNKlTHjoj4?... #weather
Oct 15th, 2025; Aerial Timelapse of Storm Clouds
YouTube video by Alaina Ross
youtu.be
October 15, 2025 at 7:16 PM
circle-and-square.bsky.social
I put together all of the timelapse clips from yesterday’s epic cloud show. An unbelievably stunning day, what a treat to have witnessed 😍 #CAwx
October 15, 2025 at 5:55 PM
circle-and-square.bsky.social
Okay, today wasn’t too bad
A bright orange streak on the horizon is the sunset over the skyline of San Francisco, topped with leftover cumulus clouds from today’s storm activity Cumulus clouds at sunset over the San Francisco Bay, looking far more tropical than Northern California typically looks
October 15, 2025 at 3:31 AM
circle-and-square.bsky.social
Just based on the size of this anvil towering over the Santa Cruz mountains (@ appx. 3:30pm) it would not be surprising to learn there may have been funnel clouds embedded in this system #CAwx
October 14, 2025 at 11:28 PM
Reposted by Alaina Ross
cira-csu.bsky.social
A low-pressure system moves down the West Coast, bringing stormy weather to California.
October 14, 2025 at 4:51 PM
circle-and-square.bsky.social
Captured beautiful timelapse shots over the San Francisco Bay this morning: the pocket of unstable air embedded behind the main front of this storm set up the right conditions for some dramatic cloud development! #CAwx
October 14, 2025 at 5:55 PM
circle-and-square.bsky.social
Another moody system crawling across The Bay last night. It’s possible I’m having TOO much fun learning aerial photography 🤩
October 1, 2025 at 2:00 PM
circle-and-square.bsky.social
Dramatic rainshower over the Berkeley Marina yesterday evening as our next system arrives #CAwx
September 30, 2025 at 4:43 PM
Reposted by Alaina Ross
dustinmulvaney.bsky.social
“The Bay Area sees some of the least frequent lightning in the world. San Francisco County averages less than one lightning strike per square mile, per year, nearly 5,000 times less than parts of Florida.” #CAwx
September 25, 2025 at 5:32 PM
circle-and-square.bsky.social
Last night’s sunset over the San Francisco Bay was downright tropical😍 #CAwx
September 25, 2025 at 3:21 PM
circle-and-square.bsky.social
Tonight’s sunset over the San Francisco Bay was a feast of different cloud types! #cawx

(One of my first ever flights with my drone, plz forgive my less-than-perfect handling 🙃)
September 19, 2025 at 6:30 AM
circle-and-square.bsky.social
This is at the very top of my list of civil service dream jobs. What’s the over/under that positions like these exist in 2 years? www.kqed.org/news/12033338
Bay Area Air Traffic Control Is Down to 1 Meteorologist After Trump's Hiring Freeze | KQED
The federal hiring freeze has left a vital Bay Area aviation weather unit with just one meteorologist, risking flight delays and disruptions. The unit oversees a vast airspace, ensuring the safe landi...
www.kqed.org
March 27, 2025 at 10:52 PM
Reposted by Alaina Ross
cira-csu.bsky.social
Smoke from wildfires in Chile wraps around a low off the coast.
March 24, 2025 at 7:10 PM
Reposted by Alaina Ross
weareseismica.bsky.social
March 27 marks the anniversary of the 1964 Great Alaska Earthquake (M9.2), the most powerful recorded quake in U.S. history. This megathrust event reshaped landscapes, and you can help reshape our understanding by publishing your seismic research in #OpenAccess #CostFree journals
March 23, 2025 at 12:40 PM
circle-and-square.bsky.social
Stumbled across this 2024 paper researching how people engage with live-streamed Extreme Weather Events, which feels very timely "particularly as recognition grows of the relationship between how extreme weather is understood and remembered determines future risk behaviours" doi.org/10.1080/1747...
Watching the disaster unfold: geographies of engagement with live-streamed extreme weather
An increasing number of Extreme Weather Events (EWEs) – including storms and hurricanes – are now being live-streamed on websites such as YouTube. These streams often repurpose existing webcam infr...
doi.org
March 18, 2025 at 1:22 AM
Reposted by Alaina Ross
ecmalcolm.bsky.social
The first Tylertown, MS tornado from the Saturday outbreak has been preliminarily rated EF4, the third tornado to be rated as such from the three-day stretch. #wxsky #mswx
March 17, 2025 at 9:35 PM
Reposted by Alaina Ross
noaabrauer.bsky.social
A lotttt of blowing dust on true color imagery over Oklahoma and West Texas...
March 14, 2025 at 4:34 PM
circle-and-square.bsky.social
It’s a shame I couldn’t get a better photo, this little flush of instability across the bay made for some pretty awesome cumulus spires on this morning’s commute 😍
March 6, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Reposted by Alaina Ross
bobkopp.net
Strong statement from @agu.org
WHAT YOU DIDN'T HEAR LAST NIGHT BUT NEED TO KNOW Last night, President Trump addressed a joint session of Congress. Titled "The Renewal of the American Dream," there was heavy emphasis on the economy, border security, and foreign relations, but what you didn't hear was the realities of a hollowing out of the federal workforce that has weakened critical scientific expertise, abdicated climate leadership, shrunk important research, and frozen global cooperation. Not a dream but a nightmare of loss and uncertainty for the United States and the world. Declaring that "America is back" and "at the dawn of a golden age," the president highlighted more than $1.7 trillion in investments made since he took the oath of office, including increases in energy production. But missing from last night is the reality that fast and furious halts to science funding along with sweeping terminations of federal workers at key agencies is ushering in a dark age of retreat on climate research, leadership, and international engagement. The United States is becoming increasingly isolated, from our withdrawal from the World Health Organization and the Paris Agreement to a pull back from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, blocking future participation of federal scientists and diplomats. The nation's vital science is cut off from the world. The president spoke of "a comeback" - one of economic vigor and committed deregulation, but it is chaos that is reigning with widespread and indiscriminate cuts to federal research funding. You also did not hear about how proposed funding cuts are causing significant distress among research institutions. Universities are implementing hiring freezes and reducing Ph.D. admissions. The uncertainty is prompting concerns about a potential brain drain, with researchers considering opportunities abroad if domestic funding continues to dwindle. If cuts to agency workforces and funding freezes were not enough, just before the president's speech the Administration informed two pivotal centers for weather forecasting that their leases would be canceled. These are not simply buildings, but nerve centers for lifesaving meteorological information. The NOAA Center for Weather and Climate Prediction in College Park, Maryland, ensures data is correctly processed for accurate forecasting. The Radar Operations Center in Norman, Oklahoma, works to improve and repair the nation's aging fleet of Doppler weather radars. The president praised farmers in his address, declaring a new day for their productivity and success, but without reliable weather data how can they bank on that bright future? In his closing, the president vowed to "conquer the vast frontiers of science." But with scores of scientists being fired or muzzled and with funding frozen, one must ask: How do we do that? Sadly, at the moment, the state of our science is not strong, but the resolve of our community in Earth and space sciences to restore and renew it is.
March 6, 2025 at 2:54 AM
Reposted by Alaina Ross
mattlanza.bsky.social
This is exactly what many of us that are not NOAA employees are worried about why this impacts more than NOAA.
dustinmulvaney.bsky.social Dustin Mulvaney @dustinmulvaney.bsky.social · Mar 2
How it started / How it’s going.
Anthony Edwards @edwardsanthonyb.bsky.social NEW: Thursday's massive National Weather Service layoffs included three employees at the Monterey office, which provides weather forecasts for nearly all of the Bay Area. One meteorologist, an administrative support assistant and a facilities technician were all fired with less than a day notice. NOAA NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FORECAST OFFICE Bay Area National Weather Service office hit by DOGE layoffs The Monterey office, which provides weather forecasts for nearly all of the Bay Area, including San Francisco.. WEATHER NWS Bay Area Bot Our radar is currently offline & we need your help! Are you seeing rain/hail/snow/flooding today? If so, be a citizen scientist. Send us your weather reports NWS Bay Area Be a "citizen scientist" and send us your weather reports us the mPING app.
March 2, 2025 at 6:13 PM