Bob Chill

Thanks man! This was abrupt. Plan was in place for years but 2022? Didn't see that coming. Because we're doing it so early, the math is different. This is no early retirement. Kinda the opposite lol. Appreciate it. We're taking the road less traveled. Blood, sweat, and tears instead of chasing money and big houses. Off grid as well. Not hooking up to any utilities. Prop taxes are $300/yr as is and maybe 700 tops when we build. I'm 100% done chasing stuff and money. All it ever did was stress me out and make me anxious. I'm busting my ass 15 days a month running heavy equipment and developing the land. Never felt better in my life. Especially in my head. This is what I'm supposed to do. No idea how I know. I just know. Same with the wife. Feels bizarre at times but we're really happy.

It's the Pitts County lol. Pittsylvania to be exact. Sandy Level is next to Pittsville. Thank god the property wasn't next door haha. Highest elevation is 840' and lowest is 640'. Ridge down the middle is around 760. Good upslope enhancement spot for east flow events. Elevation runs from 650-2000 (top of smith in a short stretch from east to west in the area. Already works with east flow rain every time. 33 and rain will REALLY pile up. I'm screwed with clippers though. House build is a minimum 12 months out. Much has to happen b4 then. Milled hardwood timbers need 6 months of curing/drying. I'm practicing milling right now and building sheds/cabins/outhouse etc. Timbers are the only house framing members allowed without being "graded". So apparently it's against code to self-mill HARDWOOD dimensional lumber even though it's magnitudes stronger than pine. Lol. I can get my own dimensional lumber graded but for higher cost than buying pre-milled. What a scam. It's confusing for sure with Google maps. No idea why. We're in the sticks. No 2 ways about that. Literally the edge of society due to topography. Smith Mtn and the 2 lakes box thru traffic completely out of our area. Land is 2 miles down a private dead end road as well so no tourists ever (or anyone really lol). Property came with deeded access to leesville lake so thats super cool. Half mile down the road is a common area and ramp but there's only a total of 5 seasonal land users that use it and rarely at that. These pics will give u a good point of reference. First 2 are in mid July like 2 days after closing. I dragged a big chainsaw a quarter mile into thick woods and sawed a view in 95 degree heat. It was my inspiration for the big job at hand. Kicked my ass and then some... Last pic is right when the colors on Smith started. The dam and gap is just to the right. We'll have a huge view by spring. Can't wait.

Sandy level is weird with postal codes. We're in 24161. Rocky Mt, Gretna, Alta Vista for big box runs.

Hey Wx Fam, been a busy boy since last post @Jiwill be happy to know I won't be leaving the MA sub as the wife and I bought 25 acres on the east side of Smith Mtn in Sandy Level, VA back in July. Tract of untouched forest. Last logging run was back in the 1970s. Got the RV setup with generator/solar/outhouse/fresh water. Lots of work ahead building the house. I'm milling all the beams myself. Working on getting out of Rockville plan now. That's a big job too. I have no thoughts on winter except I would prefer this one to be warm so that means break out the shovels and parkas. I'm not trying to avoid amwx. I just rarely spend time on the internet nowadays except for DIY videos lol

That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm just saying

Yea, we know. We know. If the sun was out it would about to be obscured by rain too.

Can confirm. I'm on my 3rd or 4th blizzard. Looking for an even 6 pack at this point

Already got more snow than I was expecting. Man this is annoying

It's a confusing system in some ways. It's layered like a sandwich longitudinally with the vertical approach. We usually fail hard with these. It's very rare to get strong synoptic support like this after fropa. The upper level support appears to catch up on the mesos and keeps the shield fairly healthy for a number of hours. Does that happen tho? NW flow and departing slp without a closed ull low is tuff to trust. Well see

You can see the tight vorticity round the base in SW VA. The current shield will move out then unstable upper levels take over. Usually pretty unpredictable but unless steady/heavy I don't see much more than an inch at best after the synoptic shield moves out. SnowTV is always fun tho.

Fake? Evertime a gust rips I start flippin switches. Some scary shizzle uppin my hizzle

You're doing it wrong man! You CLOSE your eyes and make shit up. You new here?

Hmmm... lemme think here a minute.... yeah, OK. Here's what we're gonna do. Go ahead an book a second blizzard for now but leave space in the ledger for a 3rd or 4th. Still early.

I like seeing side by side bands developing west of us currently over HGR/Cumberland zone. That's prob the best ratio/best lift stuff. Should pull thru most of our sub in some fashion

I do the opposite. I come to this forum, start considering jabbing ice picks in my eyeballs, THEN it gets really really REALLY haaaaaazy uppin dacrib

Eyeballing your post I'm going with 35.8mph. Go ahead and book the blizzard. Who's next?!

Man, starting to feel bad for all the poor defenseless snowflakes getting pummeled and concussed in my yar.... wait a minute.... I was thinking of someone else. Suckers! Now you know how I FEEL during winters here! Beat up with a headache

I just realized I've never had an anemometer but I can eyeball wind like a boss. 35.5mph on that last gust. Blizzard in the books. Ready for garden season.

Now we're talkin. Flake size consolidated and the dumping has commenced. One single gust of 35mph and I officially declare a blizzard.

2 blizzards on the same day? That's A LOT of blizzarding! Man, I tell you what, this Friday just keeps gettin better. Might have to get some cold cuts

Idk man. This is pretty epic in any winter if it's close to reality

Haven't had a good blizzarding in a while. This is gonna be cool

It seems to run every hour on time so pretty reliable.

In my brain, I keep it pretty simple. To me, the trends look exactly like "climo lines creeping north". My yard today probably has winter wx far closer to Doswell, VA than the yards I grew up in in the 70s and 80s here. It's only a 90 minute drive but it makes a big difference. York PA winter weenies prob feel the same way just different reference points. SNE hasn't been affected nearly as much because they usually have a lot of wiggle room. Especially on warm side of storms. Anywhere south of NYC all the way to Raleigh probably have similar thoughts to me. OTOH- climo lines have been constantly moving waaaay before man was even around. I don't doubt our messy ways have affected the atmosphere. If everyone was being honest with themselves we wouldn't have "deniers". But how much? Who's to say we don't enter a cold period regardless of our bad habits? Watch and wait is all I can do.

It cuts both ways around here imho too. Moisture transport benefits greatly from just modest rises in base temps. That + strong baroclonicty with warm ocean/cold continent is most likely the primary driver behind the series of outsized east coast storms since 2009. That will likely continue for years. But being right in between cold/warm climo regions, we're also going to continue to suffer fails that wouldn't fail before. We had a lot of boring mild winter wx in the 80s. Especially the first half before the 87 storms. Reminds me very much of the last couple winters here. We really did struggle to get good snow between 1980-87. It was warm A LOT too. Maybe not the new normal warm but just boring and crappy. If you lived here between the blizzard of 79 and 87 back to backers you would have absolutely hated this hobby. I'm sure of that. There are cycles in cycles in cycles with longwave patterns. I'll reserve my personal fear and concerns for another 5 years or so. Back in the 50s there was a stretch of ungodly warm winters iirc. Maybe we're in that cycle and it's being exasperated by a warming planet. Beats me. I'm kinda old so when it stops snowing entirely around here IWGAF cuz I'm doing dead things by then