Ned Weather

Alright, Front Rangers... let's do a snow dance and hope this system materializes:

Yeah, UAVs don't have to deal with road traffic while chasing and they can head straight towards the storm over any terrain (at least wherever there aren't flight restrictions). I think it's one of many potential boons UAVs could provide to climatology and meteorology - but we definitely need to set some rules to protect privacy. I don't think anyone wants every square mile of the planet to be buzzing with drones.

You make a great point about war. It's fascinating how many clever plowhares we've beaten our swords into over the generations. I can only speculate as to whether or not we'd invent some of them without the motivation of war, but necessity is the mother of invention, as they say.

If it weren't for the inspiration of war, we might still be trying to chase tornadoes with spark-controlled dirigibles:

From wikipedia:

The earliest examples of electronically guided model aircraft were hydrogen-filled model airships of the late 19th century. They were flown as a music hall act around theater auditoriums using a basic form of spark-emitted radio signal.

:)

Well the snow has tapered off here in Nederland for now, which is a bit worrisome because so many of this winter's storms have started off with a promising squall only to shut down earlier than expected. We've only got an inch or two of snow on the ground so far.

However, I'm encouraged by this forecast...

Conditions around the area this morning:

Denver


Nederland


Not exactly Snowmageddon, but at least there's snow on the ground and a few flakes are still flying.