Spring Banter & General Discussion/Observations

[radarman]

54 minutes ago, Met1985 said:

Hey guys looking for some advice on some places to eat and some places to go see. I'm planning a trip up to Maine the first week in October. I'm flying into Portland then going to drive to Rockport for a night then I'm going to Monhegan Island for 2 nights then I'm headed up to Bar Harbor /Acadia National Park for a few days then I'm not sure from there. I'm going to end my trip in Rangeley Maine to look at some real estate. Thanks in advance.

Bissell Bros tap room might be worth checking out if you like beer.

[ORH_wxman]

You can do well to an average diet by simply replacing a lot of the processed carbs (like white bread and regular refined pasta) with whole grain carbs...and keeping everything else the same. Take out the nasty refined sugars too (typically high fructose corn syrup found in a lot of soda, etc) as an extra step and you're probably already 75% of the way to a really solid diet. Of course, there's a lot of steps you can go from there as dendrite said (some like to take out even more carbs, even whole grain)....different philosophies on how to perfect the diet, but if you just follow those two main steps above, you'll see a pretty big difference.

Hell, if you do that only 4 or 5 days per week, you're still doing quite well. Some people can't just quit their current diet cold turkey...so you can gradually work in more whole grains and less refined sugars.

Proper sleep and exercise though can do well to offset imperfect diets as well. Problem is, a lot of people have trouble achieving those so the diet is an easier thing to perfect.

[Ginx snewx]

57 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

Is that legit? It sure feels like it when you jump in.

Yes

[OceanStWx]

27 minutes ago, radarman said:

Bissell Bros tap room might be worth checking out if you like beer.

Woof, how did I forget that!?

[eekuasepinniW]

It's possible I'm done going below 32 now.

[OceanStWx]

14 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

You can do well to an average diet by simply replacing a lot of the processed carbs (like white bread and regular refined pasta) with whole grain carbs...and keeping everything else the same. Take out the nasty refined sugars too (typically high fructose corn syrup found in a lot of soda, etc) as an extra step and you're probably already 75% of the way to a really solid diet. Of course, there's a lot of steps you can go from there as dendrite said (some like to take out even more carbs, even whole grain)....different philosophies on how to perfect the diet, but if you just follow those two main steps above, you'll see a pretty big difference.

Hell, if you do that only 4 or 5 days per week, you're still doing quite well. Some people can't just quit their current diet cold turkey...so you can gradually work in more whole grains and less refined sugars.

Proper sleep and exercise though can do well to offset imperfect diets as well. Problem is, a lot of people have trouble achieving those so the diet is an easier thing to perfect.

More or less doing what you say helped me drop 18 lbs before this honeymoon. That was in about 6 months from just a minimally processsed diet and no soda. I really only started working out hard in the two months leading up to it.

[weatherwiz]

Wouldn't be surprised to see some strong to marginally severe storms on Friday, especially if the GFS is correct.  Nice plume of steep lapse rates advects in with decent shear and fairly juicy dewpoints (for mid-April).  Hail/winds would be the biggest threats.  

[Damage In Tolland]

3 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

Wouldn't be surprised to see some strong to marginally severe storms on Friday, especially if the GFS is correct.  Nice plume of steep lapse rates advects in with decent shear and fairly juicy dewpoints (for mid-April).  Hail/winds would be the biggest threats.  

Hope so. 12z Euro has us jammed up and back doored. 00z had CT in warm sector 

[weatherwiz]

1 minute ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Hope so. 12z Euro has us jammed up and back doored. 00z had CT in warm sector 

It's very well possible we don't really warm sector...maybe SW CT does but the good news is I don't think we really have to warm sector with this one to get convection.  Quite a bit of elevated instability on the models for this one.  I guess only thing being in warm sector would enhance is wind gust potential but some pretty good dynamics, lift, and lapse rates modeled right now.  Looks like s/w even tracks south of the border which is always good too for enhanced upper support. 

[weatherwiz]

Gotta love this trend to keep redeveloping ridging across the southeastern United States at 700mb with some troughing across the west coast.  Hopefully this trend continues deeper into the spring...would probably leas to some EML's advecting in at times.  Hopefully this will lead to some big severe weather setups towards the end of May and before June 5th

[tamarack]

1 hour ago, Met1985 said:

Hey guys looking for some advice on some places to eat and some places to go see. I'm planning a trip up to Maine the first week in October. I'm flying into Portland then going to drive to Rockport for a night then I'm going to Monhegan Island for 2 nights then I'm headed up to Bar Harbor /Acadia National Park for a few days then I'm not sure from there. I'm going to end my trip in Rangeley Maine to look at some real estate. Thanks in advance.

I'm sure you will get lots of good info, and since I like just about all food, my opinion there would not be worth much.  However...if you have a couple hours to spare while in Rangeley, the Bald Mountain trail offers incredible views in exchange for modest effort, and your trip should be at or just past peak color.   The summit overlooks Mooselook, Richardson and Rangeley Lakes, plus the surrounding mountains.  The trail is one mile with 900' elevation gain, mostly gradual with some steeper boney ground toward the summit, at which there's an observation platform made from an old fire tower.  You'll probably be driving on Route 4 to reach Rangeley, and if you continue on it until further travel puts you in the lake, the Bald Mountain Road heads off to the left and the trail sign is a mile or so from that intersection.  Then then head toward home on Route 17 for some additional views from the scenic overlook 10-12 miles south of town.

As far as healthy foods, I like steel cut oatmeal (though instant is fine too) with cinnamon and blueberries

We love steel-cut oats, and our usual Sunday morning breakfast alternates between them and old-fashioned oats - I put blackstrap molasses on mine, unless maple syrup is available.  (We save quick oats for no-bake cookies and avoid the little packages of instant "oats.")  My daughter and son-in-law showed us the low-maintenance way to cook steel-cut, avoiding the 40-50 minutes of pot-watching.  We bring about 3/4 of the needed water to a boil the night before, dump in the oats and salt (if any) and return the mix to boiling, then turn off the heat and cover the pot (not immediately - we've had boil-overs from residual burner heat.)  In the morning, just add the rest of the water, stir it in, and re-heat.

[HIPPYVALLEY]

 Pretty impressive tick season so far, I'm getting close to double digits between me and the dog.  No bites so far.   A week of no moisture would be helpful but I doubt that is going to happen. 

[powderfreak]

13 minutes ago, HIPPYVALLEY said:

 Pretty impressive tick season so far, I'm getting close to double digits between me and the dog.  No bites so far.   A week of no moisture would be helpful but I doubt that is going to happen. 

Jeez.  I've got the dog's soresto collar ordered, will be here in a couple days.  Worried as I've heard the ticks are rampant south of us and its only a matter of days probably before they explode up here.  Snows all gone and the ground is warming up and trying to come alive.  Do you know if hard freezes take care of them or do they have like natural anti-freeze in them?

[HoarfrostHubb]

4 hours ago, OceanStWx said:

Glad we don't live there...NOT!

Fun fact:

It is actually cheaper to fly there and stay there than it is to stay for a week at the Polynesian bungalows at Disney for a week, that are loosely modeled on them.

[HoarfrostHubb]

3 hours ago, ORH_wxman said:

You can do well to an average diet by simply replacing a lot of the processed carbs (like white bread and regular refined pasta) with whole grain carbs...and keeping everything else the same. Take out the nasty refined sugars too (typically high fructose corn syrup found in a lot of soda, etc) as an extra step and you're probably already 75% of the way to a really solid diet. Of course, there's a lot of steps you can go from there as dendrite said (some like to take out even more carbs, even whole grain)....different philosophies on how to perfect the diet, but if you just follow those two main steps above, you'll see a pretty big difference.

Hell, if you do that only 4 or 5 days per week, you're still doing quite well. Some people can't just quit their current diet cold turkey...so you can gradually work in more whole grains and less refined sugars.

Proper sleep and exercise though can do well to offset imperfect diets as well. Problem is, a lot of people have trouble achieving those so the diet is an easier thing to perfect.

I totally cut out all soda (except for a ritualistic partaking of The Beverly once per year) and all fast food other than an occasional salad (most are gross).  Blood pressure has improved due to that and excercise.   

[HoarfrostHubb]

26 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Jeez.  I've got the dog's soresto collar ordered, will be here in a couple days.  Worried as I've heard the ticks are rampant south of us and its only a matter of days probably before they explode up here.  Snows all gone and the ground is warming up and trying to come alive.  Do you know if hard freezes take care of them or do they have like natural anti-freeze in them?

Nothing seems to kill them.  The drought really helped last summer though

[Damage In Tolland]

36 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Jeez.  I've got the dog's soresto collar ordered, will be here in a couple days.  Worried as I've heard the ticks are rampant south of us and its only a matter of days probably before they explode up here.  Snows all gone and the ground is warming up and trying to come alive.  Do you know if hard freezes take care of them or do they have like natural anti-freeze in them?

Shut em down !

[TauntonBlizzard2013]

3 hours ago, ORH_wxman said:

You can do well to an average diet by simply replacing a lot of the processed carbs (like white bread and regular refined pasta) with whole grain carbs...and keeping everything else the same. Take out the nasty refined sugars too (typically high fructose corn syrup found in a lot of soda, etc) as an extra step and you're probably already 75% of the way to a really solid diet. Of course, there's a lot of steps you can go from there as dendrite said (some like to take out even more carbs, even whole grain)....different philosophies on how to perfect the diet, but if you just follow those two main steps above, you'll see a pretty big difference.

Hell, if you do that only 4 or 5 days per week, you're still doing quite well. Some people can't just quit their current diet cold turkey...so you can gradually work in more whole grains and less refined sugars.

Proper sleep and exercise though can do well to offset imperfect diets as well. Problem is, a lot of people have trouble achieving those so the diet is an easier thing to perfect.

Soda was the hardest thing for me to cut out over the last few months. I haven't had it in about 6 weeks now.

 

I bought crystal light yesterday as a flavor alternative to just plain water, but it appears that isn't very good for you either.

 

Does anyone have any drink ideas as opposed to just plain water? Would be nice to add some flavor

[TauntonBlizzard2013]

Had chicken,asparagus, sweet potato and sautéed peppers and onions for dinner. Actually quite good

[CoastalWx]

2 minutes ago, TauntonBlizzard2013 said:

Soda was the hardest thing for me to cut out over the last few months. I haven't had it in about 6 weeks now.

 

I bought crystal light yesterday as a flavor alternative to just plain water, but it appears that isn't very good for you either.

 

Does anyone have any drink ideas as opposed to just plain water? Would be nice to add some flavor

Soda water. 

[CoastalWx]

Portion control and reducing any sugars/processed crap would do the trick. That's the biggest problem with the U.S. Diet. Three simple things that go along way. If you can, reduce  alcohol consumption too. That not only cuts calories, but gets rid of unnecessary hunger craves caused by alcohol. 

[forkyfork]

the key to weight loss is to not get fat in the first place 

[Hoth]

Tamarack, thanks for the tip on the oatmeal. I will give that a try!

[weatherwiz]

Tomorrow is a real tough forecast with the high temperature.  I went 48 for here in Danbury but the NAM and GFS are like worlds apart.  GFS suggests like mid-50's possible here and NAM upper 40's or so.  I feel like we will have a quite a bit of low clouds though with that southeasterly flow in the lowest couple thousand feet with some moisture trapped.  It will be pretty darn dry though above this layer so I guess the sun could work some magic to yield some breaks.  Think we would have to mix up to around 4,000' for highs to get near the mid-50's.  

[Damage In Tolland]

Tomorrow starts off sunny. Doesn't cloud over till afternoon. 56 or so DXR

[weatherwiz]

5 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Tomorrow starts off sunny. Doesn't cloud over till afternoon. 56 or so DXR

I went cloudy all day tomorrow with on and off drizzle.  MOS showed skies becoming overcast as we head into morning and bufkit suggested this as well.  Its still a little dry right now but bufkit shows things becoming quite saturated at various levels beginning later this evening.  Quite a bit of clouds also working in from the west ahead of the next s/w 

[jbenedet]

33 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

I went cloudy all day tomorrow with on and off drizzle.  MOS showed skies becoming overcast as we head into morning and bufkit suggested this as well.  Its still a little dry right now but bufkit shows things becoming quite saturated at various levels beginning later this evening.  Quite a bit of clouds also working in from the west ahead of the next s/w 

Tough high temp forecast. I don't follow the guidance for clouds in general--it's a good way to get burned. I think the skies clear out early afternoon and that will coincide with a jump in 850 temps and the surface temp will follow with a nice spike through the 50's. 

The synoptics don't indicate "stuck in low level clouds tomorrow". Looks like a BD retreating from a warm front, and we warm sector for a bit before the clouds take over in the evening. 

[Lava Rock]

35f. Cold out.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

[weatherwiz]

15 minutes ago, jbenedet said:

Tough high temp forecast. I don't follow the guidance for clouds in general--it's a good way to get burned. I think the skies clear out early afternoon and that will coincide with a jump in 850 temps and the surface temp will follow with a nice spike through the 50's.

Part of my worry is saturated profile between 2,000-4,000' with an established easterly component to the flow.  But it is pretty damn dry above that so stronger sun angle could work to burn through any low clouds...but clouds may also be on the increase during the day as that s/w trough gets closer.  very tricky 

[dendrite]

2 hours ago, TauntonBlizzard2013 said:

Soda was the hardest thing for me to cut out over the last few months. I haven't had it in about 6 weeks now.

 

I bought crystal light yesterday as a flavor alternative to just plain water, but it appears that isn't very good for you either.

 

Does anyone have any drink ideas as opposed to just plain water? Would be nice to add some flavor

Green tea? Cold brew coffee? Kombucha? A little red wine at night? You can get away with some natural things flavored with stevia too. The problem is most sweet drinks are either loaded with sugar or come kind of chemically derived sweetener. Maybe add some kind of citrus to your water?