BlizzardNole

Radar looked great 15 minutes ago, then it weakened as it arrived with the stronger stuff shifting south. Looks like I'll just catch the edge for a light shower. Oh well.

These are looking good on radar - fingers crossed. I have large cracks in parts of my yard now.

These point-click forecast graphics confuse people sometimes. We have a funeral and burial of a friend of my Mom's today, and my wife saw this and said "oh no it's going to be raining heavily today!" Probably would be better to say just chance thunderstorms instead of "heavy rain." Anyhow, hoping for a good hit in Germantown today as we are on a bit of a losing streak.

Very nice! The lack of butterflies is really weird this year; hopefully we'll see more soon. Next year I want to add some plants to try to get black swallows. I am glad that my hummingbirds are always reliable, arriving end of April and staying until September.

Got shut out. At one point there were storms in every direction. Hoping for better luck this afternoon.

94/70 at closest station to me. Those are some NICE looking storms up in PA. Can we get some of that?

I got a butterfly garden started about 12 years ago and have been raising monarchs every summer since then. I used to do the whole deal bringing in eggs and small cats, and raising them all the way. One year I must have raised more than 100. That can be a lot of work! The last few years I've been mostly letting them do their thing outdoors and bring healthy chrysalises I find in. I usually grab a few cats to bring inside. Butterflies are late this year. I finally have a couple tigers hanging around.

I got a butterfly garden started about 12 years ago and have been raising monarchs every summer since then. I used to do the whole deal bringing in eggs and small cats, and raising them all the way. One year I must have raised more than 100. That can be a lot of work! The last few years I've been mostly letting them do their thing outdoors and bring healthy chrysalises I find in. I usually grab a few cats to bring inside. Butterflies are late this year. I finally have a couple tigers hanging around.

No relief for folks at the beach today:

78 degrees felt hot walking this morning; can't imagine what it feels like in DC! Cape is gonna need one of these:

Wow nice rainbow pic! That shower disintegrated a it passed by to the north, but it temporarily sucked some heat out of the air making for a nice cookout earlier. It's HOT again and I am sweating bullets after only watering the garden beds. Hoping for a lucky t-storm tomorrow. A sultry 88 degrees coming up on 9 PM.

That is tropical milkweed. I usually buy seeds and start indoors and treat as annuals (I've never seen them in garden centers). They grow to 3-4 feet tall and bring in lots of monarch caterpillars, and other butterflies and hummingbirds love the nectar. They look best in clusters. Rabbits and deer will not touch it. I get lots of chrysalises from late July through mid-Sept, and find them hanging on fences, siding, tops of doorways, etc. They are like clock-work once they make the chrysalis, almost always hatching 10 days later. I usually bring chrysalises I find outside in so they can hatch safely. I've gotten good at getting them down -- I wait until they've hardened a little (couple days), and spray them with a little water, then carefully pull off with the webbing material they attach with. I also sometimes I'll bring in a dozen or so cats to let them make their chrysalises inside. Oh and lantana is a great butterfly attracting plant. Low maintenance and deer/rabbit proof. Here are some pics from last year: Just hatched on the deck: Bunch of chrysalises in an aquarium: Tropical milkweeds in a cluster:

Got a couple monarch caterpillars -- pretty good size already.

Butterfly garden is looking good. I've seen a few monarchs around so I should have caterpillars soon. The hummingbirds really love that tropical milkweed (tall, orange-flowered). Sometimes they even bypass my feeders for that stuff.

What a great day for mid-July -- still just 82 in early afternoon with low humidity and a breeze. Gonna throw something on the grill tonight.

Well that escalated quickly! Heavy shower developed quickly overhead -- heavy, big-drop rain, a little thunder, and down to 75 degrees.

Got 0.6 near Germantown; right at 2.0 for the month. Can't believe how regular the rainfall has been for my area after a very dry May. Key West again -- I bet that place is wonderful in the winter, but damn:

Not too bad so far today sitting on the deck in shade; just 82 at 11:30. I checked Key West out of curiosity with the outrageous 91 degree water temp...currently 92/78, and they were 89/76 at FOUR AM. Only went down to 88/75 from 5 to 6 am with a thunderstorm.

Weird how that works. I've had summers like that in the Germantown area where storms miss me left and right and I get cracked garden beds and fried grass. This year my area is a rain magnet with almost 8 inches for June and 1.4 for July already. I bet my area gets nailed Saturday evening.

Nice thunderstorm took a weird track right up I-270 and died out over Germantown, delivering a much-needed 0.8. The lawn and garden are happy.

Hope your little guy's appointment goes well and he feels better soon. Damn ticks -- I earned myself 38 days on antibiotics two summers ago because one of those things, and my mother in northern Calvert has that meat and dairy allergy from a Lone Star tick bite. Sun getting going here, and hoping for some rain later as my area missed out yesterday.

No rain for me this time. Woke up to thunder at 1:30 am but they missed. My mother in northern Calvert says 3.5 inches (four miles south of Dunkirk), and that it rumbled and poured all night.

We went to OC last Friday and noticed all the dust being kicked up by farm equipment along Rt. 404. I was surprised how dry things looked! My location was just lucky with a soaking 7.8 inches in June. It was very well spread out too, with no week letting less than 1.65.

I did not hear a thing either. Is there a way to look back at radar for several hours?

Woke up to 0.6 in the gauge -- I think it was after midnight but not completely sure. I'll count it as July 1.