"In a cow pasture near Shawnee in central Oklahoma, Kirk Wilson parks his work truck, grabs a harness, and prepares for a 30-foot climb. "We're changing the sensor at the top of the tower that measures the wind direction," explains Wilson, a burly meteorological electronics technician with a big beard and a booming laugh. On the ground, another tech uses a GPS receiver to make sure the sensitive instrument is properly aligned before it's tightened in place. When this station — No. 84 — is back online, it'll resume beaming bursts of observations on more than a dozen factors, including wind and air pressure, temperature, soil moisture and solar radiation."
"Residents enduring the brutal and life-threatening Arctic outbreak to end January can look ahead to the taste of March that awaits during the first weekend of February."
"Humanity remains dangerously close to the apocalypse. At least according to The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the group of scientists that manages the iconic Doomsday Clock. This year, the hands of the clock were left unchanged from 2018, remaining at an unnerving two minutes to midnight."
"Has anybody here seen my old friend Martin,
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed a lotta people, but it seems the good die young
But I just looked around and he's gone.
Didn't you love the things they stood for?
Didn't they try to find some good for you and me?
And we'll be free,"
"As the remainder of January is shaping up to be quite stormy in the Midwest and northeastern United States, one weak winter storm may hinder travel spanning Wednesday night to Friday, while a stronger winter storm may shut down travel this weekend."
"Often, there’s a mismatch between how people perceive their vulnerabilities and how others interpret them. We tend to think showing vulnerability makes us seem weak, inadequate, and flawed—a mess. But when others see our vulnerability, they might perceive something quite different, something alluring. A recent set of studies calls this phenomenon “the beautiful mess effect.” It suggests that everyone should be less afraid of opening up—at least in certain cases."