Bob Collins
In times of national tragedy, it must be difficult for the politics-obsessed among us to resist a ‘serves ’em right’ smugness. Garrison Keillor couldn’t. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Weather
There may be no other job on the planet that seems as risky as the one Nick Underwood does.
He’s a hurricane hunter and today he was on the crew that flew a plane — intentionally — into Hurricane Irma, providing this video this afternoon on Facebook.
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Nancy YangRichfield-based Best Buy is apologizing after being accused of price gouging Harvey victims. A photo of one of its Texas stores selling a case of water for nearly $43 went went viral Tuesday. One Houston resident sent me a pic of water he saw being sold for *$42* at a nearby Best Buy. They were Read more →
You know it’s bad when the National Weather Service has to add a whole new color or two to its map depicting how much rain has fallen in southeastern Texas. #Harvey in perspective. So much rain has fallen, we've had to update the color charts on our graphics in order to effectively map it. pic.twitter.com/Su7x2K1uuz Read more →
The devastation from the effects of Hurricane — now Tropical Storm — Harvey is still unfolding in Texas. Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Brock Long said that 50 counties in Texas are affected by the flooding and that a tremendous amount of rainfall is in the cards for southwest Louisiana, The Associated Press reported. The Read more →
The next time you get frustrated because weather prevents your flight from leaving on time, think of this video that was made public today. Read more →
A 60-mile scar — damage from hail caused by a storm on June 22 — highlights the intensity of a storm that stretched from South Dakota to Marshall, Minn. Read more →
We suspect that Minnesota and other regional farmers are about to organize a ‘hay-lift’ to the farmers of North Dakota, because from the sound of things, they’re going to need it.
A look at this week’s U.S. Drought Monitor map reveals why. To the west of us, there’s a real problem underway.
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As tornadoes go these days, this one in eastern Iowa on Tuesday was comparatively small, but it still provided one of the better tornado videos we’ve ever seen.
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Someone called the cops in Asheville, N.C., over the weekend because some people in a neighborhood built a home-brewed slip and slide in the street, which should immediately lead most of America to exclaim ‘why didn’t I ever think of that?’
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Every year around this time, Austin, Minn., gets some national attention because of a dirty pile of snow that refuses to die.
This year, while no different, seems more impressive because it didn’t seem like that snowy of a winter. Read more →
I suppose this image in the Star Tribune’s Metro section today was supposed to show us the sheer force of the wind during yesterday’s storms.
Instead, it makes me wonder what you people were thinking? Read more →
Mike Oblinski, a Phoenix-based photographer and storm chaser, says he doesn’t usually put out any video of his storm-chasing until the season is over. But he made an exception when he was in North Dakota last Friday evening. Read more →
On a weekend in which images of human evil raced around the world in seconds, it’s this image that won the day.
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Researchers at the University of Georgia are painting a picture of a massive migration in the United States because of climate change.
Their study says nine states will lose population as people flee inland. Read more →