It is once again March and the lovely EnigMarch people have challenged puzzle designers to write a puzzle inspired by today's word: "flow".
Oh no! The USA clown President Trump and his buffoonish adviser Elon Musk fired hundreds of people at the NOAA, the USA's weather prediction agency! We can expect billions of dollars in damage to transportation and other sectors that rely on weather. We can see the effects already below. E.g. That "heat flow" has a problem: it contains letters from "waft" but should have letters from "wind". So we cross out the letters W, A, F, T from heat flow to get H E L O. Then we add the letters W I N D to the right places HELO to get Whieldon, as in the influential pottery-maker Thomas Whieldon. (Gee, that's kind of obscure, like a puzzle designer was pretty desperate to shoehorn "flow" into this puzzle somehow. Let's hope the rest of the answers are easier!) No doubt that "Thomas _____" is the clue that points to Wieldon, so write it into the top set of blanks. Now do that for the rest of the entries.
When you're done, the circled letters should spell out the root of the problem (and dare we hope its solution?).
| at the age | Thomas ___: | W h i Ⓔ l d o n | |
| directional | Knowledge: | ◯_ _ _ _ _ _ _ | |
| East Timor | Disaster: | _ _ _ _◯_ _ | |
| footprints | Teachers: | _ _ _◯_ _ _ _ _ | |
| forget | Innovative: | _ _ _ _◯_ _ _ | |
| he | WIND↗ | Jeremiad: | _ _ _ _ _ _◯_ _ |
| mornings | Hand-eye _____: | _ _◯_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | |
| narrative | Anarchy: | _◯_ _ _ _ |
Weather phenomena: calm, clear, corona, dry, fog, frost, gale, heat, ice, mist, rain, scud, smog, sun, waft, wind
Some rot-13'd Hints:
- Gur Ahgevzngvp fvgr vf tbbq ng fbyivat nantenzf. R.t., sbyybj guvf yvax vs lbh jnag gb xabj n anzr lbh pna znxr sebz URYB + JVAQ
- Svefg lbh zvtug svther bhg juvpu jrngure curabzraba tbrf jvgu rnpu jebat-nafjre. Jura lbh pebff nyy gubfr bhg, lbh'yy unir srjre jrngure curabzran gb guvax nobhg jura gelvat gb sbez evtug-nafjref.
- Qel tbrf jvgu "ng gur ntr"
- Nanepul pyhrf "haerfg"
- Fphq tbrf jvgu zvfg.
All the puzzle data, all rot-13'd:
urng sybj / jnsg / jvaq / juvRyqba / Gubznf ___ zbeavatf / fzbt / tnyr / Yrneavat / Xabjyrqtr ng gur ntr / urng / qel / gentRql / Qvfnfgre rnfg Gvzbe / zvfg / fphq / rqhPngbef / Grnpuref aneengvir / enva / vpr / pernGvir / Vaabingvir sbbgcevagf / sebfg / pnyz / pbzcynVag / Wrerzvnq qverpgvbany / pyrne / pbeban / pbBeqvangvba / Unaq-rlr _____ sbetrg / sbt / fha / hAerfg / Nanepul
