The accidental invention of the weather radar during World War II was one of the most important advances we’ve made in keeping people safe from severe storms. Today, the United States is covered by more than 150 Doppler radar sites, but there are some pretty dangerous gaps in that coverage. Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) recently introduced a bill ordering the construction of new radar sites to cover some of the country’s most vulnerable cities, but the bill might be worded just cleverly enough that it applies to exactly one city, which is coincidentally the largest in Burr’s home state.

Last week, the United States Senate briefly flirted with the idea of actually doing something useful. Depending on whom you ask, the National Weather Service Improvement Act was either a positive step toward modernization or destructive enough to give Rick Santorum the quivers. Even though the bill is now dead and gone, the idea of fundamentally restructuring the National Weather Service is a debate worth having.

Kevin Martin, the angry weather hoaxer and serial threat-giver whose string of viral prognosticatory hoaxes of late worried millions with false prophecies of doom, has a new message for Facebook and President Obama: "STOP MESSING WITH ME!" And he's very srs, guys.

In the near future, the U.S. House of Representatives plans to consider a bill that aims to force NOAA to "prioritize" a large number of its financial resources on the improvement and execution of near-term weather prediction.