mattskiva

Some of us got rain... the severe thunderstorm in northern PW/southern Loudoun was no joke. 1.5" of rain in 30 minutes here, worst flooding in the basement since we moved to this house in 2010.

Full sun in Catharpin area with DP of 71. Blue sky .

What do you do about it?

Thank you for the tip, will give that a try!

So, banter time - but I have to ask here because it is driving us absolutely crazy. Anyone else having problems with extreme ant infestations the past couple of years? We live in a semi-rural area in Loudoun, 5+ acre zoned part of the county, with lots of forest and have always had plenty of everything - foxes, turkeys, deer and of course insects. But in the time I have lived here, I have never seen the problems with ants - of all types - we are having now. The little ones are constantly finding ways in, no matter how much we treat for them. And the larger ones are everywhere outside too. I just took down my Davis VP2 main station which had been on my fence. It stopped working a few days ago and I figured the batteries were dead, so I went to open it up to replace the batteries. When I pulled open the main compartment, I was confused at first by what I saw inside - then realized it was moving because there were about 500 large ants inside there. They chewed up the wires and destroyed it - so now I have to try to replace it before I can get data again, and try to site it somewhere that the ants will have more trouble reaching it in the future. They were presumably carpenter ants which like to nest in crevices inside structures. I can't say for sure because I lost it when I saw them and hit them with the hose.

And we're now officially losing daylight! Best Spring weather I can remember in recent years with no persistent heat - hopefully we don't suffer too much in the next 60 days or so before it starts to cool.

Loudoun's population grew from 86k in 1990 to 427k in 2021, so the area around IAD is certainly far from "rural" anymore. Not sure about UHI, but certainly much more populous.

I haven't looked at the long term trends (frankly I don't have the time) so I may be wrong but it feels like out here west of IAD, we had several really good years in the mid 2010s. And obviously terrible since 2016 but 2010-2016 or so had several well above average winters, and that isn't very long ago. To be clear, I am not arguing against long term trends being down or the reasons why - it is obvious that the climate has changed - but my point is that locations west of the fall line still seem to be able to have pretty good short term periods even during the overall decline.

That was a great storm for the ski areas in WV.

Unlikely a surface low in that position produces zero precip along the Allegheny Front...

I would lock this in and run. This would be a huge win for places like Canaan Valley, which is where I go every weekend so yeah, bring it on. Even gets a little snow in to Loudoun.

I've been there nearly every weekend since Dec, and Timberline has been really good all season long. Almost miraculous considering the lack of natural snowfall there this year. They will warm up for a few days and then inevitably get a few days and nights below freezing, during which they fire up the guns. They invested millions in snowmaking in the offseason, and it's really paid off. We were at Snowshoe last weekend, and the snow was nowhere near as good as Timberline.

Solid 1" here -- Aldie, VA .

Yep. There are huge differences even in the extended metro areas - DCA vs BWI vs IAD - one you get further out into Loudoun/Frederick/etc it is a different ballgame. The truth is that it has always been hard to get consistently good snowfall years along the I-95 corridor. They happen but are rare. Yes this is a historically bad period but even so, other areas nearby (in this case the delmarva) have had some way above average years. It's cyclical and the metros will eventually have a good run again, particularly the western burbs.

Kind of looks like the storms that every forecast had staying west of the blue ridge, are in fact alive and well east of the blue ridge