Hurricane Agnes

The "pile" will make itself. Won't need to shovel to create one with this storm.

There you are! People thought our resident squirrel fled to chase a blizzard elsewhere!

Because this - Almost 37 years ago I had to make a decision during college orientation on whether to major in meteo (a love since I was 8) and chemistry (something I was aceing in HS). And due to the mimimal job prospects back in the late '70s for meteorologists, I chose chemistry as the practical major because it offered more work options. I am on track to retire next year after 30+ years. Coming to boards like this, I got direct or link access to all sorts of resources - including models and working meteorologists - allowing me to digest someone's analysis - whether red-tagger or meteo student or "advanced" hobbyist, and then do a check on what I thought I saw and compare - just by reading. Part of the problem that happens here is that the minute someone makes an attempt at a model analysis and gets it "wrong", a pile-on ensues, the degree of which dependent on how bold and perhaps (overly) confident they were when they wrote it. And the "wrong" may have been something not really weenie but truly due to lack of experience, etc. Of course this naturally requires thicker skin but sometimes it encourages big ego posters rather than those brave enough to post and hope for a mature critique. So many of us just enjoy lurking and contributing obs or occassional opinions after review of model runs to help fill in the climatological info on the area -whether ahead, during, and post storm (or even during "quiet" periods) while we engage in our hobby. Many of us also post on other forums (including non-meteo ones) so it's not like we are all here 24/7. As it was during the eastern days, there are folks who are winter/cold-lovers and were thus absent during the summers and vice versa, with those who like severe/tropical and participate more during those seasons. But if the Admins here want to close the board to red-taggers and students only, then so be it. In the past, the single-region threads often filled up quickly during storms and there was a battle on who would start (and when) the "new thread"... as well as other nonsense of chasing people out of the regional threads who were not from there and other childish bull****. Otherwise some of you all protesteth too much.

Wow. I usually try to check in often to see what is going on and just saw this thread. There are quite a few of us who do more lurking than posting but we are here (and yes, some of us are paying members ) and when events happen, we usually pop up and chime in. But given the more benign weather patterns of late, it's been relatively quiet in here. I think after past years of threats that became a big fail and other issues like wacked-out models that caused municipal over-reactions. etc.), plus this year's El Nino handwriting-on-the-wall, then I think that's why it seems dead (with less banter and model posting). But if you look in past threads when storms were imminent and/or on-going, there has been a lot of good discussion without all the weenie and left-field bravado posts. IMHO, the microclimates here (Delaware Valley) really are a bit different, being a blend between Mid-Atlantic and NYC and I do appreciate the folks in this region providing "heads-up" posts as storms move from west -> east or south -> north. Unless the admins think this is a waste of their resources, then I don't see why it can't remain the way it is.

He declared a state of emergency in preparation for the Pope (who was not setting foot in NJ). lol Although in all seriousness, that low that was south of here off the coast spinning for days plus the cold front and stuff about to run up the front, has been tearing up the beaches (none of that due to Joaquin). It's just sad.

I had an old pic of me and my sister after the blizzard of '66 (we had on Yogi Bear boots ), which I think was a 12"er. After that, '67 - '77 (1st grade --> sophmore in HS) was essentially a snow drought. Decent sleddng conditions were few and far between. First decent snowman was crafted in '78. But then senior class trip to the Poconos in January '79 resulted in 40s and rain that weekend. I think in comparison, the past 5 years have been pretty phenomenal for snow lovers.

He has a twitter feed here - https://twitter.com/larrycosgrove I don't do twitter but will occasionally look at public feeds...