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James Franklin

@franklinjamesl.bsky.social
3.1K followers 288 following 826 posts

Former Chief, Hurricane Specialist Unit, National Hurricane Center, NOAA/NWS (retired). Mostly weather posts, with occasional forays into grammar and usage, word play, and south Florida sports.

PostsRepliesMedia
James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Been a lot of storms since I ran 2026 AL/EP/CP verifications in early September. Results haven't changed much: GDMI still beating all the guidance for track and slightly better than OFCL on D4-5. For intensity, HCCA best, followed by OFCL and GDMI. Reminder that ECMWF is not in public ATCF decks.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Will Hawaii have to contend with Nolo? It's no contest.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Surely this must be the first time NHC ever wrote simultaneous advisories on rhyming storms?
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I'm not sure who came up with the term "extreme rapid intensification", but did they have to leave out the "ly"?
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Florida Panthers arena replay operator is in mid-season form. Horrible as ever.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
I don’t always do pre-season hockey, but when I do, I prefer to avoid watching the Dolphins.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
After landfalls I like to look at the consistency of the NHC official forecast, and one way to do this is to plot a sequence of 5-days' worth of OFCL forecast positions all verifying at the closest synoptic time to landfall (or in the case of Lowell, when it passed through the island chain).
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Are these Wisconsin and Notre Dame uniforms collectively the ugliest set of threads to grace a college football field?
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Took a quick look at how Google DeepMind (GDMI) is doing this year for the combined NWS basins AL/EP/CP. With the caveat that ECMWF is not in the data, GDMI for track blows everything else away, beating OFCL by 30% at 5 days! Nothing so dramatic for intensity, but still among the best guidance.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
I’m going to be pedantic and say that there’s no such thing as “hurricane conditions in gusts”. If you have hurricane conditions, you have to have at least a minute’s worth, because that’s how a hurricane is defined. “Gusts to hurricane force” is technically correct, however.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Forced into becoming a fan of Canada lately out of sheer embarrassment. Well, except for the Oilers, Leafs, Sens, and Habs - Panthers' rivals all, so that's a no-go. And Canadian bacon doesn't do anything for me. But pretty much everything else, especially that goalie who wants out of Winnipeg.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
I mean, every minute he spends renaming a body of water is a minute he's not screwing something else up, but good grief, it's hard to believe people actually voted for this idiocy. Malignant narcissists, boy, I don't know...
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Not to mix punctuation with sadness, but this is why it’s dumb to put commas and periods inside quotes, from CNN: Tim Curry, the English actor who became a massively popular cult figure thanks to his performances in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," "Clue" and the TV miniseries "It," has died.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Remembering Tim Curry...
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Thirty-four years we've lived at this house in Kendall, and today was the highest temperature I've ever recorded here - an even 100º. And today's the only day I've ever smelled asphalt when getting out of the car at home. It's melting...melting...melting...
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Tonight I can either watch Silo or Trump. Guess I’ll pick the fictional dystopia over the real thing.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Really not sure I can watch 90 minutes of this. It’s just like hockey, but without the excitement.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
So if I’ve got this right, the Panthers basically traded Samoskevich and two first round picks for Brady Tkachuk. I can live with that. :-)
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
Amazing what Carolina can do when they don’t have to go through the Panthers.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
An unusually well-written and technically accurate description of the current and likely future NHC cone graphics. The use of along- and cross-track errors is a clever enhancement, although it won’t stop people from ignoring the legend.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
Vegas versus Carolina - I think I’m gonna throw up.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
Two Baby Boomer hills I'll die on: two spaces after a sentence, and lower case in FORTRAN occurs only in comments.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
Can't root for either team in a Carolina-Colorado Stanley Cup Final, or Vegas for that matter, so I hope the hockey gods give me Montreal, Buffalo, or Anaheim. Worst comes to worst, I'll put on Panthers' playoff games from the past three seasons instead.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
The only thing better than listening to Jon Cooper explain losing Game 7 while outshooting your opponent 29-9 would be listening to Rod Brind’amour explain it.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
It’s been 3 years and 10 months since an NHL playoff game occurred with the Panthers not in contention for the Stanley Cup. This is going to take some getting used to.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
No stat is too obscure for the Panthers’ broadcast team.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
Panthers up 2-0 on the Leafs early. They obviously don’t want it as much as Toronto.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
The way tonight’s games are shaping up, the Panthers and Leafs will meet in a must-lose showdown on Saturday.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
Elimination from the playoffs is a downer, but two rings ease the sting.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
I can't help but wonder about someone's reputation for credibility when they feel the need to start a comment with "sincere question".
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
Am surprised at the numbers of people who are okay with "Artemis is going to the moon". To paraphrase from Jerry McGuire, if you're going to the moon, show me the rocks.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
More tropical cyclone wisdom from the president. Apparently Cuba diverts all their approaching hurricanes to Alabama.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
Practically speaking, I think the Panthers’ season ended tonight. But these are nice consolation…
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
“Basket of deplorables” turned out to be one of the worst understatements of American political history.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
I'm not an expert, but yeah, when it comes to weather I'd definitely go with the guy who makes hurricane forecasts with a Sharpie over the vast majority of the professional climate science community.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
Don’t care too much about the Super Bowl - I mean, it’s not the Stanley Cup final or anything.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
So the Panthers' 1st round draft pick is Top-10 protected, as it turns out. Time to TANK, TANK, TANK!
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 01/02/2026
Low of 33°. It might have been a Three Dog Night, but alas it was a Zero Iguana Morning.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
While the world is going to hell, I got to hold open the locker room door as the Panthers took the ice last night. Tomorrow, legacy season ticket holders get their Stanley Cup rings.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
When A. J. Greer took two penalties last night I said to myself, that’s what you get when you put him on the second line. Tonight, to no surprise he’s on the fourth line.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 10/01/2026
I’m thinking I should take back all the unpleasant things I’ve said about Mario Cristobal. Well, except for the Georgia Tech I-don’t-ever-take-a-knee call, which will forever be incomprehensible.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
CANES!!!!!
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
Just run the damn ball.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
NCAR’s Vin Lally (1922-2005, under the balloon) was a pioneer in the field of atmospheric measurements, and a generous mentor to me when I was a green NOAA lad learning about dropwindsondes. Few were more important to my career development than Vin. Thank you, Vin, and thank you NCAR.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
These people are nuts. NCAR developed the GPS dropsonde, which revolutionized the understanding of TC structure, improved forecasts, and validated remote sensing platforms, as documented in over 400 peer-reviewed publications in the last 25 years. And that’s just one of NCAR’s countless advances.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 30/11/2025
Was happy to chat with NPR’s Greg Allen for this story. Not mentioned here but importantly, Google’s DeepMind AI model performed well not only this year, but similarly well in retrospective tests from previous seasons. It’s a really exciting step forward.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 26/11/2025
Because one can’t have too many jerseys, I’ve added another…
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 15/11/2025
Weighing the deep mysteries of life tonight: two spaces or one after a sentence, periods inside or outside of quotation marks, and do we go to the Panthers’ game or the Canes’ game tomorrow? And do I really need those last two apostrophes?
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 01/11/2025
Same old story with the Canes. Now let’s see if the Panthers can salvage something of this so-far crappy day.
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James Franklin @franklinjamesl.bsky.social · 01/11/2025
They keep trying that play. I don’t think it works as well as they think it works. (Done in Princess Bride accent.)
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