Great news this week. The group Veterans on Patrol, which the Southern Poverty Law Center defines as “an anti-government militia organization” are out to destroy the Doppler radars used to detect and track tornadoes and other weather phenomena, all across America.
You might not think that you know what a Doppler radar looks like, but you’ll probably have seen one. They’re basically the big balls that you might find on a tower near an airport or on the top of a hill like Constantiaberg.
There it is on the left. And on the right is the mast that no-one really knows the height of.
But I digress. Often.
No-one – as far as I am aware – is going after our local ball, though. But in the US, there’s a concerted campaign by the VoP group to destroy all of these facilities to prevent them from being used as “weather weapons”.
“This group is advocating for anyone and everyone to join them in conducting penetration drills on NEXRAD sites to identify weaknesses which can be used to ultimately destroy the sites,” the email stated, using an acronym for the weather radar network. The group referred to the NEXRAD system towers as ‘weather weapons,’ and claimed there were no laws preventing American citizens from destroying the ‘weapons’”.
Much to the bemusement of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
But, of course, there’s a serious side to this:
The NEXRAD, or “next generation radar,” network has been in place since the 1990s and detects precipitation in the atmosphere. It can also help pinpoint tornadoes and severe thunderstorms, prompting timely, life-saving warnings.
This comes just ahead of the (May and June) tornado season, and at a time when – thanks to the Orange Shitgibbon and his Loud Mouth Space Wanker – there are fewer than ever engineers and staff at the National Weather Service to repair any damage that does get done.
And then when people die because there are no tornado warnings because the Doppler radars have been destroyed by right-wing loonies, and there’s no-one left at the NWS to repair them, it’ll all be Joe Biden’s fault.
Obviously.