PhineasC

Some (like the Russians) say that "revolution" was sponsored by the US/CIA and not the will of the majority of the people. It's a complicated place. That's what I meant by balkanized. They are not a homogeneous bloc culturally or ethnically. I could see the country fracturing easily, as is happening.

LOL Russian agents prowling the streets of Brooklyn?

It's a balkanized state, and I don't think the regime there is popular. Not sure many people want to die for it. I think there is a decent chance they just flee and a Russian puppet regime is installed.

All that shouting didn't prevent a thing. Now we just look impotent.

Has the UN issued a strongly worded statement yet? LOL All of the apparatuses of the post-WWII world that people assumed would prevent this sort of thing seem completely powerless to stop it. The world has changed and the US needs to come to grips with that. Europe needs to start funding its own security. Same with Japan and South Korea.

I don't think it will because there is exactly zero interest amongst average people in the Western countries for that kind of intervention. This is not viewed as our fight by the Joe Sixpack types, IMO. So we will just talk a lot and implement weak sanctions and that will be it. Only question for me is will the Ukrainian regime just totally collapse now that Putin has kicked the barn door down or will they stand and fight? I think the former.

We haven't been tested against a near-peer power in many, many decades. Iraq in 1991 was the last conventional military we fought and they were nothing compared to Russia. Sending the boys into the Ukraine would mean a lot of dead and wounded and major losses to equipment. It would be a huge shock to this country.

OK, so where is the EU? This is closer to being their problem than our problem.

It's not clear the regime in Ukraine will even put up much of a fight. Decent chance they simply flee if it gets to that. Same thing would happen in Taiwan.

There is nothing we can do about Taiwan either. The US simply doesn't have the stomach for a fight like this in the current political climate. We didn't even have the stomach to really deal with a bunch of goat herders living in caves. They beat us. Any intervention in Ukraine would lead to death and destruction not seen on US TVs since Vietnam. I mean jets shot down, many dead and wounded in large battles, tanks on fire, etc. Russia is no joke. If we went to war over Taiwan, picture a US aircraft carrier sinking with thousands of sailors in the water. Think the US population can handle that image and rally? We are really soft right now and also predictable. Putin knows it.

France and Germany need to take more responsibility for this since it is their backyard and fundamentally a European issue.

Nobody does pointless arctic cold to freeze the mud puddles and then go bone dry better than NNE.

10 now. Temp goes up, temp goes down. Over and over the last couple weeks.

NAM cut back hugely up here. This is becoming a nothingburger for NNE. Enjoy the snow SNE. I will have to wait a little longer.

13 off 56.

I assume they and GYX are hedging for it to verify more north as they often do. Or they are riding the NAM for whatever reason.

And thankfully the ski hills around here seem to have survived these events OK so me not having too much snow at my house becomes kind of a "shrug whatever" deal -- more of a curiosity than anything. Friday should be enough to return wintry appeal to my backyard and that will be good to set up March.

I think the CoCoRaHS guy measured depth in a really weenie spot back in the woods, because last season I routinely went up to his spot and the depth in the "general area" was never quite as robust as he reported. He's offline this season so I can't see where things stand this winter, but I suspect if he was online he'd be reporting 8-10" depth. That would be a pretty big fib, IMO, based on what I am seeing. His obs were fine in deep winter. It only seemed to be an issue when we had meltdowns that he was kinda inflated. Two factors for my particular spot are that I have a lot of open south-facing terrain and under certain circumstances when there is strong WAA that materializes as brisk south winds I get absolutely torched due to downsloping and mixing the warm air down -- worse than anyone here by far it seems. That's what happened in the first warm event. It's just a microclimate thing here I have realized is part of the deal with having those two high peaks basically in my backyard. The event yesterday was actually far less damaging here because the winds stayed E/SE and light for a lot longer during the rain and my temp held at 31. Then the winds swung south and I almost immediately saw the gusts kick up and temp torch into the 50s -- but the rain had stopped. I swear it takes like 10 mins to happen. I just didn't have much snow left to save after the first event so it hardly mattered. It will be interesting to see over the years how anomalous this really was, which is what I think you are wondering too. We will have to see. The Northern Presidentials giveth and taketh away in some circumstances. I do really well on all wind directions other than due south so it's a net gain at the end of the day.

Some flurries now.

Nice. 26 with slowly freezing mud puddles here.

NAM is still night and day better here than the other models. Still like 6-10 here if I get good ratios. Will cover up the mud holes until the next torch at least.

The first cutter is what really did the heavy damage here. It seems a bunch of you guys rotted in the mid-30s in that one while I was torched to 60 on south winds.

Looks a lot healthier than here. That's how it looks in the woods here but anything open is nuked out.

I'll take anything I can get right now. 47/36 now so some colder air finally working back in. I love winter but these last couple weeks made me ready for spring. The worst part of NNE IMO is the extended melting and the flip-flopping between sloppy mud and frozen mud that goes on in patterns like this. Bring on a cold and snowy March.

Yeah, GYX map is bullish. Large 8-12 swath. A foot of wet snow followed by a deep freeze and then upslope next week would go a long way to getting things back on track.