mattie g

Brasileira lounging in the sand.

I honestly haven't bothered looking. Does it really matter any more?

I understand that it's fun to analyze and prognosticate, so I'm not sh*tting on anything anyone comes up with in regards to their personal forecasts, but... I feel like the last few winters have really frustrated the long-rangers. Blame it on whatever you want to blame it on, but I simply can't trust analogs and/or long-range modeling any more. Nina, Nino, Nada, blocking, no blocking, solar, PNA, EPO, AO, whatever...winter is completely up in the air. We won't know sh*t until it's pretty much on top of us.

Pretty sure I’ve mentioned this before on the boards, but I was in Lewisburg, PA that year. I remember heading up there from South Jersey after winter break on one of the coldest days of that winter, and Philly was covered in ice and steam from all the buildings - like a scene from a Soviet factory city on the Volga or something. We seemingly got snow after snow after snow, with an icing here and there for good measure. Not sure what we ended up with, but it had to have been 75”, give or take 10” or so. There was fairly deep snow on the ground for weeks and weeks on end - an absolutely unreal stretch of weather that I’m glad to have experienced.

It’s more unlikely than likely that anyone here will see an 09-10 equivalent in this area again, but it’s not at all impossible.

The one year I choose to go with late picks...

None were even close except Dulles.

I may be mistaken, but I feel like that hasn't been the case the last couple years...that Richmond's first freeze was near the same time as DC's.

Taking the over for 90% of the mentioned areas.

Every year, my guesses end up being far too early in the season, so I'm going to push it out a little this go-round... BWI: 11/15 IAD: 11/15 DCA: 12/2 RIC: 12/1 Tiebreaker: 9.2"

I know...and you confirmed that the thread is dumb.

That’s why this thread is dumb.

Beautiful garden, psu. I’m definitely jealous that you have so much sun-drenched land to lay out a really useful space. I’ll be laying out my space much differently than it is now, and I’ll likely be putting up a cage structure to help keep the pests out. This year has been worse than ever with squirrels and chipmunks doing a number on plenty of my plants. I’ve got a ton of trees around, which will make it a little difficult to clean up in the fall, but I’ll make it work.

It's a little surprising that it's been that dry in the last month, but in no way do I think we should be thinking too hard about any long-term effects. If we're still parched come July or so, then I think we can start talking about issues. I need to get the dethatching rake out to pick up the holly leaves that came down this winter. The dryness and cold did a number on the holly in my front yard - it lost at least 1/3 of the leaves by the time the windstorm finished. Those leaves choke the life out of a lawn since they don't break down easily. Once I get those up, I'll probably get to mowing for the first time this year.

Doesn’t matter. Just normal variation.

Stormy should run that lap backwards now.

Oh noes! Severe drought!

DROUGHT!!1!!!1

I'd imagine that precip is the limiting factor for heat in most summer months: More rain/less heat v. less rain/more heat.

Isn't there already a thread that covers the topic in the above slew of posts? Just sayin'...

Feel for you guys - tough livin' in winter down there. If it makes things any easier, our snow may mostly be gone this week!

December wasn't hot. It was warm.

http://w2.weather.gov/climate/local_data.php?wfo=lwx

Ice storms suck because they're a wasted combination of QPF and cold surface temps.