luckyweather

I saw this in Skillings page and thought it was interesting. That fire in Rockton IL was so hot and big it was intermittently blocking the heat signature from GOES-16. https://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/satellite-blog/images/2021/06/210614_goes16_visible_shortwaveInfrared_firePower_fireTemperature_IL_chemical_plant_fire_anim.gif

My son had basketball practice at Hononegah high school about a half mile from the plant, they evacuated everything within 1 mile so I got this pic when picking him up around 9. Bonus pic from my house 8 miles away. Nice light rain of ash on my car in the school parking lot, top 3 precip event of the year here.

Downhill mtb park north of MKE opened for the season today. Started out muggy and damp, rained off and on, and by the time I left around 3 it was 55 and chilly, cloud deck was basically at ground level. 80 and patchy sun a little inland, always a marvel for me what the lake can do to the weather.

Less than a month to the solstice and the sun angle starts the descent to its minima.

My wife and I have been fully vaccinated for a few weeks now (our 2nd Pfizer dose was in mid April), never did have any detectable reaction whatsoever to the vaccine. I wear a heart rate monitoring watch (I’ve been wearing them since January 2015 and have 6 years of solid data now) and I saw a couple day marginal increase in my resting heart rate which I assume was my immune system doing what it does, and then back to my long term average. Now that Pfizer is opened up for 12 and up, our 15 year old got his first shot this morning. So far so good. Now to get it approved for under 12’s so our 11 year old can get it and we’ll be done until it’s booster time whenever that may be.

Pour one out for the 20/21 winter, my backyard base fully disappeared on Sunday, c’est finis. Until November....

marveling at the astounding departure from normal during that month and the subsequent google-ing for any insight is what led me to this board. Have never been a part of such an extreme long duration meteorological event and while I believe CC is intensifying, I doubt I’ll live through another event of that magnitude in this lifetime. This March wasn’t even remotely close. Thanks for the reminder of that amazing event.

PWS shows we bottomed out at 23.5 imby, also the current temp. Could be making snow right now but I’ve lost the drive, this is about as low as we saw in all of March, I had expected March to be more like recent Marches but of course, have to wait until April 1 for that.

Got my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine yesterday. No side effects, now to wait 3 weeks for my second dose. Very impressively efficient operation managed by the National Guard here in Winnebago County, IL. I didn’t think I’d get an appointment until into April since I’m just a regular old healthy adult but I got the email from the health department Monday and jumped on it.

yeah that stat / trend sucks. as a weenie you like the season to go on as long as possible but into March. April snow is useless, it’s the equivalent distance from the solstice as August, no staying power, just a total tease and annoyance. Although - caveat - the past two mid April’s quick overnight dumps have made for some spectacular morning after caked landscapes, till mid day when it’s all gone. Maybe since it’s seems March is back in the game things will equalize and April will behave a little more traditionally this year.

Knew we weren’t done. Euro, icon, gem, gfs all have accumulating snow to some degree in WI, N IL and IA through hour 168.

Laid down 3” this morning before the wet bulb got too high. Still building the base, with these 20 degree lows I can make more than the afternoon sun eats up, although I know I’m on life support here. For sheer novelty purposes I’ll keep reporting here periodically how it’s going. If every single day that conditions here supported snow it actually snowed, how long would we have snowcover? I’ll be able to tell you soon. Obviously bad science as that’s now how things work and things like surrounding snowpack albedo etc aren’t in play as this is literally only imby, but hopefully you guys find it a little interesting. Hoping to push it into April and who knows from there.

Low of 21 on my pws ne of RFD. Wet bulb between 18-20 is allowing my snowgun to lay it down efficiently this morning. Putting a pretty white coat on to try to hold this pack as long as possible. I measure 30” on a slope, so I’m in good shape to hold for at least another week, maybe way longer if we can dodge a few typical March bullets.

The trifecta of continued covid wfh, making snow and building my base whenever possible from Oct - Dec, and sustained cold and snow since 2021 rolled in have allowed us to build something really special. Our backyard (now full yard) terrain park is I’m certain in peak shape right now, although a little more cold and snow to close out Feb would be most welcomed. The base in the original backyard part of the park is around 36-48”, a combo of man made snow and moving snow from other parts of the yard and grooming it. The backyard pipe is 8-10’ tall, each wall of it is around 20-30’ long, so just an incredible amount of snow there. The kids have progressed tremendously and each and every neighbor kid has picked up skiing and boarding, every day at 2:30 the park fills up and they are out there until dark, even with the bone chilling last few weeks, out there everyday. I know this stretch has been hard on a lot of folks and I feel a little bad because it has been abso-f-in amazing here.

evergreen tree wells in sub alpine areas that get deep powder dumps take several lives each year. The nature of the canopy causes a void under the tree that’s like a Venus fly trap for a skier or snowboarder who skis too close to the tree. I would guess the op’s observation is a smaller scale manifestation of this phenomenon.

we need a volcano eruption right around March 1, and with this snowpack, wa-la, your wish is granted

everything he “models” is long range so my money is on teleconnections a la beiring sea rule or lezak recurring cycle or an “all blend” of both making “Brian’s proprietary model” ™™copyright 2021 ps no diss Brian, while your maps are vague with farmers almanac levels of leaving yourself open to being accurate no matter what happens you have had some ringer level hits this season

Of course we will have spring and summer, but sensible weather is just going to get weirder and I think our idea of the traditional neat seasons is over. ice albedo feedback cycle keeps getting later and later, this year was the latest on record. our seasons are the product of a complex system and when the system parameters change of course the system output changes. Judah C says the new normal is go big or go home as the (global climate) system tries to rebalance.

Krupps Cam is still kicking... https://johndee.com/ncn/twinlakes_ncn.htm

PV will get weird in March and April as has been the new pattern and sag down to give you some cold air to connect with gulf moisture to give you guys some monster heavy wet storm totals that will melt in 24 hours or so. The days of being able to maintain any sort of a snowpack at 40 north are firmly over I’m afraid.

I honestly didn’t think we’d get the column saturated when I went to bed around 12, just couldn’t force a flake out of it. Must have been some magic in that old top hat as I woke up to a healthy inch/inch and a quarter snowpack refresher here NE of RFD.

over/under on likelihood of event caliber that allows you to write a special post event article? https://www.weather.gov/lot/2011blizzard

like was mentioned yesterday, RFD always does reasonably well, I feel like I get lucky more than my fair share. feeling okay with trends being in lot northern tier, although I do think biggest totals will be between I88 and I80. So with that I need to boost my snowpack. Laid down a nice manmade base with the consistent cold leading up to Christmas, then Mother Nature filled everything in and has kept fairy dust refreshing me a 1/2” to an 1” at a time. Given today’s cold I figured better be safe and make sure I can hold on to my snowpack until Memorial Day, so I’m making snow for the first time since Christmas. Hopefully we get lucky over the next 96 hours or so and I end up with a ridiculous base. I’ll post pics if it happens.

whatever happened with your greenhouse thing you built in the OG Morch? Up in Saukville right? iirc you kind of got ran out of here with all the constant torch talk....

Winter lovers unite in the war of trees. Boreal forest for the win.