Scarlet Pimpernel

What a gorgeous fall day yesterday! Went to the MD Renaissance Festival (have gone the last several years around this time). Here's a couple of photos I took... At the jousting arena: And here's what apparently is an early version of the NAM (but perhaps more accurate outside 48 hours)!

Get off my lawn, you damned trick-or-treaters...says the old man!! ; ) I'll continue your rant here if you don't mind, haha! OK, being a bit snarky there, but in all honesty I agree with a lot of what you say. The it's vs. its thing kind of irritates me when people don't do it right. Simple to just remember "it's" is the contraction for it is, "its" (with NO apostrophe) is the possessive of it. Also agree with the "someone has been..." vs. just saying "someone was...", but I'm a bit more forgiving on that one. I remember in about 6th grade, a teacher made us all memorize prepositions, and had a funny way of helping you to remember it. Just think of a sewer pipe and any relationship to it will be a preposition: IN the sewer pipe, NEAR the sewer pipe, ALONG the sewer pipe, etc. You get the idea. But I've never forgotten that in trying to determine what's a preposition!! Single space at the end of a sentence? Oh HELL NO!! Yeah, I'll be a Grammar Nazi, and maybe it's (not its, hahaha!) more acceptable to just use a single space with Twitter and other social media to save space or something like that. But in formal (or even not-so-formal) writing? Follow the regular rules! I always learned 2 spaces after a period or colon and one space after a semi-colon or comma. Sometimes, I find it hard to read when someone only puts one space after a period. RDM...not sure if you're old enough(?) to be familiar with Tom Lehrer. I was too young or not yet alive when he did a lot of his routines "live", but my parents indoctrinated me with his stuff when I was growing up (with records, no less!)! Your comment about new math reminded me of his song/skit about that: Oh, and as for trig? Hell, I remember having to interpolate using a table! And walking uphill both ways while doing it! Does anyone know how to interpolate from a table anymore? Part of me thinks perhaps it's just not necessary nowadays of course, but at the same time, a little bit of having to do that does help just to get a taste of how it works. Even if you never have to look at at trig or log table again. It's the idea of it, the knowledge of what to do and how it works, that's important I think.

Another mid-Atlantic get-together might be fun, if anyone else is looking into this too. I'd be up for it. Maybe as we get more into fall(?)...it's a great time of year.

So apparently, global warming has now affected Ji...this is remarkably early even for him to cancel winter!!

Stay cool everyone! Feels awful out there...ugh. Sitting here recovering from having a pin placed in the top joint of my left pinky finger to set it...had that done earlier this morning. Got injured last week at a softball game (on a bad throw, damn the 3rd baseman haha!). Fractured the top part and dinged the joint out of place. Fun times! Pin comes out in about 4 weeks.

I hear you, and can certainly understand what you are saying in your posts. For me, I find the time from about mid-March into first part of April to be a sort of weather "no man's land" and kind of a boring/doldrums period after actively tracking and following things all winter. I don't usually come in here much in the spring and summer or early fall, except occasionally if there's something really interesting like severe weather or a tropical system. I suspect many on this board are like that, too; not that they don't enjoy the other seasons, but a large number are here for the winter time tracking. Then I get interested again come later in the fall as hints of the upcoming winter start coming out. That said, I do enjoy spring, once we're into it (except perhaps for the allergies). Fall is perhaps (next to winter!) my favorite season, it's so nice to come out of a long, hot summer and enter a period of increasingly crisp evenings and pleasant days...plus the colors as the leaves change.

Hey, close enough to another March 25th snow for my birthday! Even if it is the FV3, I'm in for that pipe dream!

OK, I kind of joked in the Banter thread giving this winter a "C-plus(!!!) a'la Ralphie in "A Christmas Story". But in all honesty, I think that (ironically?) would have to be my final grade at this point. So C+ it is, but I won't shoot my eye out! It's all subjective, to be sure, depending on what one's expectations are, what one favors in a "good" vs. "meh" winter, etc. And with that, it's obviously hard to pin a single score that covers the gamut. (Subjective) reasoning for my grade... The Good: Jan. 12-13 storm, dropped 11.0" in my location, easily the largest single-event amount since the Jan. 2016 Blizzard. And setting aside that blizzard, it was the most snowfall in an event since Feb. 2014. The February 20 snow-to-ice event. Really cool and kind of over-performed. We never got the "wash out" that I was worried about once the snow ended, though 50+ degrees and sunny the next day pretty well got rid of it. A couple of legitimate, solid cold outbreaks during MLK weekend in January and late Jan/early Feb. The Feb. 1 light snow event was nifty...not a lot (~1.5" for me), but cold smoke on a cold day. And of course the November event, a week before Thanksgiving. Getting just above climo for the season around here helped, too...always a plus. The Bad: Very inconsistent season, never seemed like much of anything got truly "off the ground". Not that I expected wall-to-wall, but a lot of "potential" just evaporated for the most part. And yeah, some of that was subjective expectation. However, long range models and other indicators were a travesty this year, for whatever reason. And it wasn't like only one model was looking great 10 days out while others looked like crap...it was consistent across the board. Then it would all disintegrate for the most part as time went on. Made it very hard to assess or make a forecast for much of anything. The Ugly: Maybe this is again perspective, but seems like we had an inordinate amount of cold, rainy days compared to most years. It was wet to be sure. Just seemed like every few days we'd be looking at 35 and rain near the metro areas, while others farther north/west were looking at ice changing to 35 and rain. Dank and cold...bleah!...about had my fill of that. And the MJO lolly-gagging in phase 5-6 there for a good while. Another "ugly", though this isn't directly related to weather, was the level of discussion and commentary in here. I know many were frustrated, but the barrage of negative and "deb" posts, or just plain God-awful analysis (or assumptions) got very trying. Enough to push away some of the long-time very good posters, which was a big loss (hope they come back!!).

Bit of a late response here I know...but yeah, why does anyone care if some are discussing any possibilities in the medium range (in the medium/long range thread, no less...the horror!). I've been following this lightly for the past few days and have very little to no expectations that much of anything will come of it. But it's still interesting to see what's happening or *if* anything will. If we get lucky with a bombed out system that gives us a late-season snow then great. If not, it's no real "loss" at this point in the season.

Ha! Looks like it could be one of the puppies @Bob Chill or @stormtracker threatened to kick at one point after some model run weeks ago! Or maybe that was bunnies (@Ralph Wiggum?) , can't recall exactly! You may be on holiday now, but I'm sure some are wondering when early registration begins for next winter's reaping...low price specials if you go early?? Maybe toss in a few free Ginzu knives or a bamboo steamer. Gotta keep the business competitive during the off-season, ya know!!

I should perhaps modify my original post/response...full story for this winter: Expectations of winter back in November: Then reality sets in by March: Wicked witch there almost kinda looks like the reaper!

What, not giving winter a C+ like Ralphie?? And neighbors still had Christmas lights up into March? OK, I once saw a couple of guys carrying out a browned, old Christmas tree some years ago in *April*. They must have seen my expression of disbelief, they actually seemed embarrassed and said "I know...sorry!"

So he's gone from 1993 to 1888 now, eh?

And lest I forget "The Drive", "The Fumble", "The Shot"...

Depends on what type of bar you're in...

After a few brewskies, that never fails! Actually, after a few too many, it's almost safe to mention the CRAS.

I grew up in northeast Ohio and have witnessed the Indians lose two World Series Game 7s in extra innings in my lifetime. 1997 and 2016!! That hurt. I think 1997 was slightly worse because they had a 2-1 lead vs. the Marlins that year going into the bottom of the 9th inning of Game 7...Jose Mesa came in and blew the save allowing the tying run, and the Marlins then won in the 11th. Then of course the Cubs won in 10 in 2016. At least vs. the Cubs, they were facing a heavily favored opponent and Cleveland's pitching was already highly short-staffed through the post-season (their #2 and 3 starters were out due to injury)...they literally had nothing left and had overused their bullpen by Game 7. Still convinced that if they had Carrasco (#2 starter) available, they'd have dispensed with the Cubs earlier in that series...but them's the breaks (literally...Carrasco's hand was broken at the end of the regular season on a line drive). But hey...Cavs won the NBA championship in 2016 so at least there's that, haha!!!

I always thought mentioning the phase of the MJO was a good pick-up line, but never know with the younger crowd nowadays!!

LOL! Well, I'll 2nd, 3rd, 4th...or whatever...what others have said. I have always appreciated your analysis, it's very knowledgeable and informative, not to mention descriptive. Hope you keep that going! I think you, @Bob Chill and @psuhoffman are like the mid-Atlantic troika of analysis and information. Like having 3 starting ace pitchers. Level-headed and objective, with an edge of humor when needed. Or instead of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, you're like the three horsemen of winter (in a good way of course!). Or something like that...I'll dispense with the silly analogies now!

Yup...it was a good storm (the only one worthwhile that I recall from that winter!)...but definitely a gradient toward much better totals as you went west and north of the DC area, and especially up toward NYC as I recall. Where I was at (Capitol Hill area in DC at the time), we got around 8". And yeah, it was gone in a hurry, as it was in the 60s the following week!

So, if we were to rate winters like best/worst movies of all time, how would one list the equivalence? How's this for starters...? Best: 2002-03: Citizen Kane (Ji can cryptically blurt out "PD-II" instead of "Rosebud") 2009-10: Casablanca ("HECS us Sam, HECS us again!") 2013-14: Gone with the Wind ("With God as my witness, we'll never go snowless again!") Worst: 2011-12: Ishtar (OK, I never actually saw this one, but does it matter?!) 2001-02: Plan 9 from Outer Space (now wait a minute, I kinda liked that movie in an MST 3000 kind of way, haha!) 2016-17: Jurassic Park, the Lost World (2 hours of my life I cannot get back!)

I'd be down with St. Pat's II this year (on the 5th anniversary of the original in 2014)!! But won't hold my breath, of course.

Agree with what you both say. It is subjective, for sure. Obviously, there are some stand-out winters (02-03, 09-10, 13-14) that most everyone would put up as a top tier. Like listing the best movies of all time. But there are a lot of other variables for sure, and everyone has their own criteria. Some have said that 15-16 was "meh" or worse, despite the historic blizzard, because much of that winter besides that storm had little to cheer about (certainly the record warm December sucked!). Fair enough, I suppose. But personally, that one week in January leading up to and through the blizzard "made it" for me. And February wasn't totally awful...we got one decent event that was snow then ice around mid-month, and it wasn't a torch. I've said this before, but I think 06-07 was pretty solid in my opinion, from about mid-January onward. I actually liked that season for the most part even though it wasn't prolific with snow around metro DC. Kind of a forgotten, underrated winter in some ways. Extremely cold February, and though we just missed on the V-Day storm (getting sleet and ice instead), we still got a couple of nice events including that one. Feb. 2015 was very similar in that regard, but we scored more snow. I personally don't think we need a HECS to make it a great year. We didn't really get one in 13-14 (unless you want to count the Feb. event as one, but not sure of that), but we had many moderate "MECS" type events and plenty of cold, which made it great because it was as close to a "door to door" winter as you'll see around here. Even @Bob Chill I think said he was exhausted from tracking that year!

Very good points here. Especially the part about Congress (or the gov't in general) not making laws to abridge freedom of speech...not the same as a private entity such as a weather board setting rules on what discussion is allowed or what kinds of screen names one can use. Same reason that many message boards have restrictions on "offensive language" (f bombs, other bad language, etc.), where posts get scrubbed. Now if Congress passed a law that said that weather forums are not allowed to mention any political subject or have politically-charged names...*that* would clearly violate the 1st amendment. And God forbid they say we can't discuss snow! I don't mind a bit of political commentary in here from time to time...it's like anything else in life, we all experience it and it's probably difficult to completely avoid. But nothing way out there or too heavy. I also don't have a problem with banning certain types of usernames that are either blatantly offensive or what would be considered overtly political (even if meant humorously) for the given environment. Obviously, that's a bit of a gray area but some things are obvious..."buildthewall" is more clearly a statement nearly as much as "MAGA", whether intended or not.

Yup, I hear you. The spring break this year is kind of strange with how short it is, but I think they're changing it back next year (not sure?) in MoCo. Also found it odd that they might cut one of the spring break days out as a make-up day. I'm not going anywhere myself, but I know several people make plans well in advance for both Winter and Spring breaks...flights, hotel, etc. So tacking on an extra day of school in a vacation like that is going to cause problems. Like I said, I wouldn't mind if they go back to starting before Labor Day...*if* they do an entire week or so before rather than literally 2 weekdays then a 3 day weekend like they used to do.