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I don't know if i've ever seen this map this empty before, for a second i thought it didn't load. It's quiet out there, a little too quiet

Yep. 10/10

I grew up in northern Morris County and was 17 at that fire's date. The following super-dry and warm October, a fire on state land covered ~3,000 acres and persisted thru October and into November. The land was mostly loose rockpiles and the fire would follow roots under the stuff, often popping up behind the firefighters. The fire was only 3-4 miles from my HS, and each morning we'd look north to see where the smoke was most dense that day. Our grandkids live in Gloucester County farm country, a few miles west (thankfully) of the barrens.

Just touched 70. Allergies galore

You've obviously never seen @weatherwiz's Countdown to May 1 Severe season threads that get created 2 years in advance to take in all the severe events that happen here!

That was a crazy one (I was 5, but recall it vaguely in family discussion) in an area that gets many. That sandy soil drains so fast (and can be tough in spots to traverse ("sugar sand"!) but sits on the largest untapped aquifer east of the Mississippi! Its a unique, large area of the southern/central part of the State that is surprisingly (except at the edges, filling in) unpopulated. Radiates well in cold clear conditions, too. It can be 20 degrees here but 0 30 miles southeast, in the heart of the pines. Cool stuff!

Nuclear power is the best solution for producing clean baseline power, and power that can be spun up quickly when there is an energy demand spike. You can't have full renewable when a lot of that is just not producing energy at a steady rate 24/7. Winds die down, the Sun goes down. I don't believe battery technology is close to where it needs to be to store solar/wind energy to the point where if those two aren't producing any energy, that batteries can pick up the slack. Again, it's the need for a steady, baseline level of energy and very quick spin up of additional energy in the event of an energy demand spike where nuclear comes into play. Nuclear is very safe. Fukushima is not a good example. It was a 50 year old plant, next to the ocean, and in a major earthquake zone. Those are very specific environmental and geological conditions/dangers that are hard to replicate in many places around the world. For example, none of the factors that casued Fukishima to get damaged exist in large swaths of the USA. The Earth doesn't care who polluted and how much humans pollute per capita in different countries. All it knows is that its heating up and it's getting bad. This notion that countries should be given time to catch up in terms of pollution since they were slower to industrialize is completely insane and not a serious positition if someone truly cares about the Earth. The technology TODAY didn't exist when the USA was industrializing. There is no excuse for China to be building TODAY dozens of new coal power plants since now there are many other options that simply didn't exist in the past. I also disagree regarding the aerosols. One can say that solar is a type of futuristic technology. Certainly solar is a true deviation from the traditional "turn water into steam to turn a turbine" method of energy generation. If we didn't give it a chance then it would have never flourished into such an important energy source. Aerosol usage is better than hoping the world does the right thing one day. I don't see why it would discourage the reductiuon of fossil fuels. If anything it may actually give the world time to organically shift over to renewables all while keeping the Earth from burning up in the meantime.

meh

funny ... posted that exact same sentiment re the first little while of May over in that April thread

I am mostly relying on the LRC and Lezak forecasts

The weather is so nice, that there's currently no observation for Frederick: https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=39.4157&lon=-77.412#.YstbknbMK5c.

I have a difficult time finding the right word to use to describe today's majestic weather.

Even in our country, a mere speck on the globe, patterns are absolutely not the same from one place to another. I do not agree with bluewaves generalizations simply because you cannot predict the future, period. As he is familiar with NYC more than I am, Im not going to go into detail about anything, but i feel some of these assertions as about low snow winters of the past vs low snow winters today, or why there was heavy snow last decade, etc etc are a bit of a stretch. The coldest period of NYC's climate record would still be a super mild winter by todays standards in Detroit, and again, look on a globe and see how close the two are. NYC is not going from some winter paradise to the tropics. I also feel that the feast/famine approach has always applied to the east coast, even if its more extreme now. But its interesting to see that you are seeing that more in new england as well, as I have not really seen that here, and our temperatures are likely quite similar. Despite all the microclimates and nuances, I stand by the fact that from a pure snowfall perspective, anyone north of 40N is sitting pretty in a climate when winter precipitation on average is increasing yet it is still plenty cold for months to see fun snow times.

I was living in Milwaukee at the time and I recall it being bone dry from "Morch" onward.

Ended up with .51 yesterday and .07 this morning. Helps but we need more. Hopefully the next few days deliver the goods.

Yesterday, JB was already strongly hinting at a cold winter in the NE US and Midwest based on his expectation of it being the 2nd La Nada winter in a row. I follow his logic, which is clearly explained. His analog 2nd year La Nada winters are 1960-1, 1967-8, 1990-1, 1993-4, and 2013-4. However, there are flaws in what he presented. -Even though 2024-5 was officially (i.e., per ONI) La Nada, it unlike his other 1st year La Nada winters in the dataset was clearly La Niña per RONI (it dipped all of the way to moderate Niña),which I think is more relevant. So, that disqualifies 2025-6 as potentially being a 2nd year La Nada from my perspective. -Somehow he left off the pretty cold winter of 1981-2, which clearly was a 2nd year La Nada per both ONI and RONI. -He included 1993-4. Although he’s right that that qualifies per ONI as a 2nd year La Nada, I’d exclude it because 1992-3 was a weak El Niño per RONI. -The biggest problem imho is that he uses 1991-2020, the warmest climo at the website, for his base climo for the entire dataset. That makes his analog map too cold considering that 1960-1 and 1967-8 shouldn't be using 1991-2020 as climo. Also, 1990-1 should use 1981-2010 for its climo. Even 1993-4, which I said I wouldn’t even include in the set, could arguably also more appropriately use 1981-2010 for its climo as 1993-4 is in the middle of that period. If it were me, I’d use 1951-2010 from the website’s choices for all of the years for the best balance rather than 1991-2020. So, this is JB’s map to try to predict 2025-6: centered near a quite cold -4 in NE/Midwest However, if I were to do it myself by accepting 2025-6 as a potential 2nd year La Nada winter, I’d get it centered near -2 for the NE/Midwest instead of -4: still chilly no doubt but with only half the anomaly that JB’s map has:

Gorgeous day our. Some thin cloud cover. Slight breeze. 75 degrees.

It's awfully quiet out there!

Maybe look up April 20, 1963. The pine barrens are a fire ecotype, as the infertile sandy soil supports a pine-oak forest that's sustained by fire. Unlike most conifers, pitch pine can produce sprouts after the above-ground trees are burned, allowing the post-fire forest to remain much the same. Also, that infertility leads to late leaf out and slow decay of litter. As noted, central NJ gets more than twice the SoCal rain, but the excessively drained soil dries quickly.

Sir- I believe in a written, science/factual based forum like this one- thats its a good thing to call out personal blaming, factual inaccuracies or slander. If you 've seen a pattern of that- Thank you. I don't cotton up to BS. But there you go again- for the Ocean county fire, I used the word "contained" deliberately- as its latest given offical status was "30% contained". Thats not "Out of Control" (nor certainly out, either!) Good for you for observing that Southern California has a different weather pattern, climate and vegetation than the NJ Pine Barrens- I'm familiar as I spend lots of time in San Diego county- but have no idea why you brought that area into the dicussion. Fires )of all sizes) in the Pine Barrens are relatively common this time of year- not every year- and a part of the local ecology, and always have been, prior to the era of suppression. (Lots of scrub Oak leaf litter, pine needles and very sandy, porus soil make for a dry, fuel rich area- you can ask others who live here, or maybe Mr. Gorse, if you distrust me. I'm done so, you can get the last word in, if you'd like- as that seems important to you.

You hit on the key, global cooperation. However, the key to any economy is the cost of energy. Those who choose to invest and rely on alternative sources of energy will not only lose out economically, but could in fact create a huge disparity in military readiness. That is where we stand. If you can get China and Russia to buy in, then full speed ahead.

It’s pretty incredible how our regional location contributes to the ecological and climatological conditions to mitigate widespread extreme weather.

Early to mid spring, 2012, we received a fairly normal amount of precip around here. The spigot shut off in May.

I have to imagine that we do eventually. Those seasons that we cut our teeth in during the late 90s are much closer to normal overall than what we see now. The expanse of ++SST probably goes a long way to these late seasons. Sorry you disagree I also lean cool neutral, which is plenty in its own right to keep shear at bay and lead to an AN season. These are a bit dated, but you can see the impact of a weak Nino (unlikely here) with even warm neutral. I don’t have the Nina/cool neutral graphics but you can see how much the impact ENSO has. My main “concern” for the season isn’t ENSO or shear though. We’re used to a boiling MDR but we do not have that heading into “preseason”. IMO, the SSTa in the tropical Atlantic lends itself to reinforcing the enormous stability issues we’ve had this decade. How expansive this becomes is TBD, and as we’ve seen, it hasn’t made any recent seasons BN. But I do think it’s something to monitor.