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Tropical Storm Fred developed in the Eastern Caribbean Sea. Tropical storm conditions are expected in portions of Puerto Rico Tuesday night, and in the Dominican Republic by Wednesday. The tall mountains of Hispaniola are expected to cause storm weakening. Interests in the southern Bahamas and Florida should monitor updates to the forecast for this system, but it is too soon to determine what if any impacts could occur there by late this week or this weekend given the uncertainty in the long-range forecast. Mash the graphics below to enlarge. All links and images are self-updating. GOES Satellite Floater NHC Public...

Forecasters Monitor Tropical Disturbance Off Florida’s Southeast Coast The National Hurricane Center (NHC) is tracking an area of disturbance off the east coast of Florida and Georgia that could develop into a tropical system within the next 48 hours. NHC increased the chances for tropical development within 48 hours to 60%. “Showers and thunderstorm activity has increased a bit this morning in association with the low-pressure system located about 200 miles east of Daytona Beach, Florida,” NHC said. Nearby buoy observations also indicate that surface pressures have been falling close to the center of this system. However, the associated shower...

The UT researchers said that 67 sites were allowed to sign up for a voluntary “emergency response” program coordinated by ERCOT. Dozens of mostly natural gas facilities, including some directly supplying fuel to power plants around the state, were paid to have their electricity cut off in an emergency like February’s devastating winter storm, according to a report released Tuesday by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin. The UT researchers said that 67 sites, mostly gas refining and pipeline infrastructure locations around Texas, were allowed to sign up for a voluntary “emergency response” program coordinated by the Electric...

A Tropical Storm Warning has been issued for the North-Central Gulf of Mexico. TD 3 has formed in the Bay of Campeche. Current guidance indicates a generally northward track. Mash the graphics below to enlarge. All links and images are self-updating. NHC Public Advisories NHC Forecast Discussions Tropical Tidbits by Levi Cowan Radar

Correcting the record is important since assigning the wrong reasons for Texas’s electric blackouts will lead to the wrong solutions.hen the lights went out in Texas earlier this year, corporate media and the left swiftly developed a narrative and stuck to it: Texas failed because it didn’t regulate enough and it wasn’t part of the national grid.This storyline also claimed a lack of electricity from wind and solar had nothing to do with the disaster that claimed almost 60 lives. Instead, the blackouts were the failure of normally reliable thermal power—natural gas, coal, and nuclear—due to a reluctance to spend...

Parts of Tennessee, including Nashville, were under a flash flood emergency early Sunday morning as a powerful storm system rolled through the region -- with reports of people clinging to trees to avoid the rising water. "Major flash flooding is occurring with numerous roads, interstates, and homes flooded with water rescues ongoing," the National Weather Service in Nashville said. "Please stay home and do not travel." The service said there were multiple water rescues ongoing across southern Nashville and there were "people clinging to trees."

Texas officials on Thursday raised the death toll from February’s winter storm and blackouts to at least 111 people — nearly doubling the state’s initial tally following one of the worst power outages in U.S. history. The frigid weather also was blamed for dozens of more deaths across other Southern states including Arkansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama. The majority of the Texas deaths are associated with hypothermia, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. And the dramatic number of new victims is still a potential undercount, as officials continue investigating deaths that happened around the time the...

The third and last remaining commissioner of the Texas utilities regulator resigned under pressure on Tuesday after the release of comments to investors vowing to protect utility profits and dismissing financial hits from a cold snap on municipal power companies. The resignation came soon after the disclosure of inflammatory comments by the Public Utility Commission Chair Arthur D’Andrea in a March 9 call with Bank of America utilities’ analysts. The call took place two days before he was to consider rescinding billions of dollars payment to utilities. His stance against repricing helped sink a proposal this week to cut $4.1...

The president and CEO of the Texas power grid has been fired after mounting calls for his ouster following the deadly blackouts that left millions of people without electricity and heat for days in subfreezing temperatures. Bill Magness was given a two-month termination notice Wednesday by the board of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, a cooperative responsible for 90 percent of the state’s electricity. On Monday, the state’s top utility regulator resigned in the wake of the one of the worst blackouts in US history. .... Grid operators disconnected more than 4 million customers as the system buckled, which...

As millions of Texans grapple with the aftermath and destruction caused by Winter Storm Uri last week, including struggling to find access to clean water and funds to clean up their flooded homes destroyed by pipes that burst as they froze and thawed, some are benefitting from the generosity of kind strangers who have dedicated their time, effort, and money to repair the state one pipe at a time. Ashleigh Cedillo, a 36-year-old single mother in Lubbock, is one of the many people in Texas who faced no heat, no water, and burst pipes that flooded part of her home....

HOUSTON — Last week, the Texas power grid was “4 minutes 37 seconds away from a total collapse,” meaning a statewide blackout, ERCOT officials said at an emergency board meeting Wednesday. Had it happened, Electric Reliability Council of Texas says Texas would have been in the dark for weeks if not longer.

OAN Newsroom UPDATED 6:10 PM PT – Tuesday, February 23, 2021 Joe Biden was caught lying about sending federal assistance to Texas, as reports found he failed to help for five consecutive days. “So we’re going to sign that declaration once it’s in front of me, and God willing, it will bring a lot of relief to a lot of Texans,” Biden stated.

Last month, President Biden signed a series of executive orders undermining fossil fuels, on the grounds the “climate crisis” forced his hand. “We can’t wait any longer. We see with our own eyes. We know it in our bones. It is time to act.” Within days, most of the country was seeing “with our own eyes” and feeling “in our bones” a cold wave so severe that five million people lost electricity and, in a special irony, nearly half of the ballyhooed wind turbines in Texas, which had risen to supply 23% of her energy, were left frozen (and inoperable)....

The best explanation of Texas’s prolonged blackout was published by Mitch Rolling yesterday at AmericanExperiment.org. Texas gets electricity from six sources: coal, nuclear, natural gas, solar, hydro and wind. How did those sources perform, and what contributed to the blackout? [W]e created a reliability grading scale designed to judge which energy sources came to the rescue, and which ones were largely no-shows, during the statewide power outages that rocked Texas. *** For our grades, we used average capacity factors over the course of the Texas power outages to showcase which energy sources were performing the best, and which ones were...

President Joe Biden declared a major disaster for only 77 of Texas’ 254 counties in order to focus on the “hardest hit” parts of the state, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Sunday. Biden’s disaster declaration, issued last Friday, offers much less than what Texas officials had requested. Gov. Greg Abbott had asked for a declaration that covered the entire state, as Texans reel from a winter storm that knocked out power and heat across the state, and left millions without safe drinking water. The declaration Biden signed late Friday covers much of the Texas population, including Dallas and...

TEXAS POWER CRISIS THREAD: Once it was clear that the polar vortex would engulf the entire state of Texas @GovAbbott declared an emergency and asked President Biden for an EPA waiver to allow power generation facilities to operate at full capacity until the emergency passed. Biden's EPA refused Governor Abbott's request and instead offered to allow certain power generation facilities a waiver if they raised the prices they charged to Texans to more than $1,500/MWh resulting in massive statewide power outages and a failure of the grid.Amuse Twitter

Since 1980 Americans have heard that the Earth was warming rapidly, that the South would not have winters anymore and we would see “the end of snow.”We were told it is the “scientific consensus” and the science was “settled.” So why the heck would politicians prepare for something when they were told by "experts" that it would never happen?(source)Clearly the UN, Al Gore, John Kerry, Bill Gates and all the others that push this garbage on the public, without scientific data to support it, are to blame, not the Texas politicians.John Kerry, who flies on private jets, is out there...

Since Sunday, Texas weathered a fierce storm that left cities without power, water and warmth for millions of people who aren’t used to this kind of cold. Amid the tales of people struggling to survive, a few stories of hope showed that Texas hospitality is the real deal. Timmons, who lives three hours away in Houston, said she makes weekly trips to Austin because the delivery market is better there. The 32-year-old picked up one last delivery on Sunday as the snow picked up, thinking she would have time to make it home. She struggled to drive into the hilly...

At Griddy, transparency has always been our goal. We know you are angry and so are we. Here’s what’s been going down: On Monday evening the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) cited its “complete authority over ERCOT” to direct that ERCOT set pricing at $9/kWh until the grid could manage the outage situation after being ravaged by the freezing winter storm. Under ERCOT's market rules, such a pricing scenario is only enforced when available generation is about to run out (they usually leave a cushion of around 1,000 MW). This is the energy market that Griddy was designed...

resident Joe Biden on Saturday declared a major disaster in Texas as winter storms continue to wreak havoc on the state. Millions of Texas are without power and water due to freezing temperatures, which have resulted in frozen pipes and downed electrical grids. A majority of the state – 189 counties of the 254 that make up the state – are also under boil water notices. The major disaster declaration allows the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide assistance to families and businesses in the 77 counties with the most damage. Federal assistance will come in the form of...