ORH_wxman

Unrealistic expectations often affect the “grading” imho. Also, I feel like we tend to overlook the bad periods the further out we are from that year...I’ve often caught myself waxing nostalgic about some winters that were good, but probably not objectively any better than a more recent winter that I tend to point out the down periods. It also doesn’t help that there is strong variability in climate over short distances. Much of ORH county for example can expect to see 75-85 days of snow cover per winter while you might get only half that really close to the coast less than 40 miles away...and even less than half right along the coast south of BOS and much of far SE MA. With all of us sharing obs, many might feel unjustly screwed out of their share of winter when it’s actually not that uncommon to see multiple right gradient systems.

Weak Niña/Cold Neutral....just go with 2013-2014 there...

My job was almost 100% in-person 6-7 years ago. I was commuting in Boston basically every day. We had the ability to work from home during snowstorms or any other circumstances that arose, but it was cumbersome. They improved the remote working capabilities in the years since and even before the virus hit, I was up to 4 days per week at home. Haven't been in since March in the post-virus world. I don't think cities will be completely hollowed out though...there will be a pushback eventually. Human capital is the number one resource for businesses these days. Of course, there will be some variance in the different cities....you can take the path of Baltimore from the 1970s-present or you can take the path of Boston. A city like Boston has the big advantage of human capital though....it is basically the education capital of the U.S.

We had one excellent NAO block that entire winter but it was perfectly timed to coincide with a one-eyed pig that developed for the first week to 10 days of Jan 2009.....normally we would have furnaced but we hung tough and even snuck in a couple snow/ice SWFEs before the PAC flipped because the NAO block was holding the confluence in SE Canada....the NAO block broke down right as the PAC flipped back to AK ridging, but that was fine....we had excellent cold delivery and it set the stage for the bitter cold mid-month and the 1-2 punch MLK weekend.

Yeah, in our last weak Nina, we had that great stretch for most of December and into early January....too bad it didn't go a little longer before the torch after 1/10. At least it had the epic rebound in March though....not all Ninas come back like that in March. 2001 did too. Both had epic NAO blocks. Jan '09 was kind of a sneaky great month too in a Nina....zero torches the whole month with deep snow pack and a lot of events. I think ORH never broke 40F that month. Only a handful of months off the top of my head can say that (Jan '03, Feb '15, Jan '77, Feb '78 maybe)

At least weak La Nina is pretty good usually....and hopefully that means we don't have to wait long either. Usually pretty active Decembers.

'18-'19 was below normal over interior SNE....ORH only finished with 51.4". Time to get back on the horse. Last time ORH finished with 3 consecutive below normal seasons was 1997-1998 through 1999-2000.

Yeah right now I’d lean weak La Niña....it’s possible though we stay cold-neutral.

Seems like a lot of early pessimism for winter prospects going around this summer. That usually makes me feel better about things.

The subject is too political to be talking about in here ...but that study definitely has the cost analysis very flawed. It’s not taking into account a big tax increase you’d see under a theoretical Scandinavian model...and that’s not even commenting on some of the more subjective variables and how they score them. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the wrong way to go, but all the variables should be normalized if you want to do an apples to apples comparison.

That seals it, we’re definitely moving to Hungary and Turkey to raise our kids.

They can still be active after first frost....esp a larger nest which is the ones you'd most be worried about. Either do it during a cold morning (sub-40F, they are essentially useless at temps that cold outside of their nest) or wait until after a good hard freeze.

That sounds ridiculous...2-3 yellow jacket nests attacking you every summer? That's only the ones you know of since you were attacked...there were probably some that never attacked you but were present and probably didn't irritate them enough. I'm guessing maybe they grass wasn't mowed very often or it was let to grow out a lot in the first half of the summer? Seems like a ot of nests to be established on a maintained lawn of 3/4 acre. Granted, that's a decent sized lawn, but still.

Wonder how big it was...was it during your days in NJ? They can get pretty big the further south you go (longer season). Though even up here they’ll grow large if it’s a mild spring. This year they seemed to get a late start. Probably the first half of May didn’t help with those snow threats and sub-freezing lows a couple mornings. I was still seeing queens emerge inside the house in June which is usually on the late side for that to happen. During warmer springs like 2010 and 2012 I’ll see them in early/mid April.

They won’t come back if they are yellow jackets or hornets...they don’t reuse the same nest each year after it dies off. But it should be easy to remove the nest once it turns cold. Pop the top off the vent outside and just clear it out assuming it’s pretty accessible. If there’s only like 18” of piping then I assume it’s right there.

Sounds like they aren’t too far away from the outside entrance. So if they aren’t getting inside the house, I’d probably just wait for the first nasty cold snap in October or maybe even November and then pop the outside cover of the vent off and take them out. They are utterly useless when it’s cold out....so it’s pretty safe to zap them.

Can they get inside through the vent cover holes above the stove or is it too small for them? That is potentially a dangerous situation if they can get in. I’ve heard of stories where get can enter that way but it probably depends on your vent hood cover. Otherwise if they can’t, I’d probably wait until winter and then remove the vent pipe cover on the outside and get the nest out when they’re all dead. See if you can find where they are flying in from outside. You might be able to kill them too depending on exactly where it is. But if you can hear them buzzing, they might be pretty deep in close to your vent fan.

Lol....Hard to avoid saying that BDL sticks out like a sore thumb on that list.

Yeah it was cool going from clear skies with the moon visible about 10-20 miles out and then it got cloudy and a few flurries by the time I was at downtown Troy. Still, there wasn’t that much snow OTG...but once I start climbing the final slope toward the base, it just increased exponentially and it’s like I went into a snow globe with 2 feet OTG. It wasn’t heavy when I got there but a consistent 1 mile vis light snow with good dendrites stacking up....but at some point overnight it turned into a wind whipped upslope blizzard and woke up to an absolute white out. When I left the upslope storm wasn’t even done yet, but I was out of it just as quickly going home. Troy had more snow but it seemed like they “only” picked up about 5-6” additional from when I passed through there on the way up. Meanwhile up at the mountain they were nuking 30+. But man, that cold is what I’ll remember about that trip. That whole month seemed like it probably had trouble getting above 10F up there. Prob a good number of sub-zero days on the summits I imagine.

Yeah this year has def been brutal. Plenty of time to salvage though with a good warm autumn and a fast start to winter in December.

I was up at Jay peak in early February that year...it was around a week to 10 days before the vday storm.....and there was light snow cover all over New England. I left ORH with maybe 3” on the ground and by the time I got to N VT outside of Jay it was maybe 6”....I drove up into the mountain and went into a cloud of currier and Ives by the time I got to the lodge, there was maybe 2 feet OTG. It was evening...I woke up the next morning to an absolute upslope blizzard. Prob 8-10” new...I think they got 30 inches out of it. The thing that stuck with me was how fooking cold it was during the snow. It was like a 5F upslope blizzard. Not one of those 20F jobs. That month was damned cold and that frigid upslope event is always the memory I have of it. It was almost uncomfortable to ski in it with the wind and those temps...even for a diehard like me who doesn’t mind the cold.

I actually find his obsession with BDL absolutely hilarious in the summer. That site is total anathema to him in the winter. Completely ignores it once it turns cold and the narrative needs to be winter.

Their 18z high was 89F even though the hourly ob was 88F...but they are back down to 87F as of last obs.

Not time yet for him to be optimistic. Just wait until October. You’ll see the changes....they start subtle and then get more obvious as the month goes on.

Nice. That will be great in winter for obs.