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March Banter

George BM

By George BM,
in Mid Atlantic

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WxUSAF

WxUSAF

Posted
Posted
12 minutes ago, Amped said:

3/25/13 melted way faster here.  This stuff has some mass, cause we got a lot of sleet and it was subfreezing for a long time. 

And the 2/15/14  50 degree windy day when my high was supposed to be 34 melted a lot too.

3/25/13 was the worst 6” storm I’ve ever experienced. All fell at night, never accumulated on roads so I had regular work, and vaporized to puddles by lunch. 

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Amped

Amped

Posted
Posted
14 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

3/25/13 was the worst 6” storm I’ve ever experienced. All fell at night, never accumulated on roads so I had regular work, and vaporized to puddles by lunch. 

Would have complained more if 3/6/13 hadn't set the bar so low.

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gymengineer

gymengineer

Posted
Posted
8 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

3/25/13 was the worst 6” storm I’ve ever experienced. All fell at night, never accumulated on roads so I had regular work, and vaporized to puddles by lunch. 

You and I have discussed the storm before— I’m surprised it didn’t stick on roads predawn where you are but I don’t remember our conclusion. 

The pictures from Wheaton and Savage in this article are the road coverage I’m talking about: 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/03/25/beautiful-spring-snow-blankets-washington-d-c-area/?utm_term=.7693e6c5c95f

I’m guessing this was a storm that varied neighborhood by neighborhood. 

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ErinInTheSky

ErinInTheSky

Posted
Posted
Just now, nw baltimore wx said:

Complete coverage here too. I'm guessing that all the sleet that we got made it difficult to melt. 

Yeah, I remember last year's March sleetbomb where we literally got 3" of sleet here in Gburg and no snow at all, even the March sun couldn't touch it.

 

This year though we got little sleet. Mostly freezing rain then snow.

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ErinInTheSky

ErinInTheSky

Posted
Posted
8 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

@psuhoffman & @wxdude64

I love and respect ya, but I have to strongly disagree in part. I think it might be a bit different for you guys because your climo is different--you're always in the game if there's good cold around. That creates more realistic hope. Down here, it's a different story. We need everything to line up and hit the lottery it seems for a crowd pleasing event outside of our good climo. 

I agree that the persistence stuff is nonsense, and that people who want to track should track all day and every day, but snow makes us crazy. I don't think it's a stretch to say that almost everyone who posts on these boards is crazy about wx. That's perfectly fine, but when you're crazy about something it tends to give you a blind spot. This year might have been different because there were a lot of things that showed up on the guidance, but I find it hard to ask people to keep standing in as the punching bag when you endure so much fail lol. 

I know the counter to that is our history of snow in March and that some people track to learn, but even with that being true, I don't think there's anyone who fully tracks dispassionately. Again, perfectly fine to me, but if you're tracking train wrecks in your favorite season, and it pains you (internally or externally--how you post here) why keep doing it when your tracking has no impact on the outcome? 

I said it here previously, but those weeks before we went on that heater during the 2014-15 season changed me. I realized that I was too invested, and that this place made it easy for me to get too invested. If the 500h pattern is crap and I know why that's the case that's really all I need to know. I don't need to go to every ensemble run or op run to check for changes. If it's good, that's nice but call me when we're about to produce or something is inside the guidance zone of believability and in the hopper. For me at least, there are diminishing returns in looking far into the future, especially in winter. I think for a lot of people here (not saying you), they look at a bad pattern and do two things: they punt as far as they can or they double down out of desperation.

Both are defense mechanisms at the end of the day, I think. One group doesn't want to see a tomorrow where they can be hurt by the unknown. One group doesn't want to see a tomorrow where hope doesn't exist. Both end up mostly hurt at the end of the day. I think there are very few here that truly separate the tracking from the love of snow, and that underlies all the wild swings we see, good and bad. 

I'm just thinking out loud. Not trying to take "sides" or dress down anyone.

I've grown to love analyzing the psychology of this place as much as the wx :lol:  

 

Weather watchers are really a different breed. I often think about this stuff too... I mean, how the heck did I get so obsessed over something as mundane as the weather? Living in Louisiana growing up watching the weather channel and going through tropical storms and hurricanes definitely had a big thing to do with it, but I just took it to an extreme. I was so excited over the snow and I asked if my wife's friend from San Diego who just moved here was excited about it, and she said "not nearly as excited as you. You're not normal." 

 

Lol. Who knows man. For whatever reason it's addicting as hell. I started a tropical weather subreddit that has grown to like 40k people who are now also addicted to weather and never knew anything about it. I think anyone that suddenly delves into it can suddenly be pretty gripped by it.

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wxdude64

wxdude64

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, WxWatcher007 said:

LOL

I was going to respond and say that the reaper bit was a secret government study designed to understand how weenies operate, but some posters might flip the hell out over that joke. :P 

I love this place because I literally never had a sizable group of people that love wx as much as I do. GF hates it. Parents scared by it. Friends think it sucks regardless of whether it's sunny or a blizzard. 

Yet I can't help but wonder ESPECIALLY DURING WINTER, how we got to be so strange. That said, we're probably just like people who obsess over music, or architecture, or real housewives. It just happened to be the thing that stimulates us most lol. 

I've ALWAYS been a weather lover, especially cold and snow. Never really knew anything different, but the 10/10/79 storm cemented my passion and that is when I started keeping records (yeah, there are a few open spots) at 14 yo. I still am, at almost 54...40 years. I believe you may be on to something earlier 007, it IS different in other areas, and that is also why it is a fascinating hobby/passion. I just know MY climo, and I'm not out of the game until April, and that is why I've never been 'reaped' lol. Heck, I've seen flurries in late May before. That aside, once over 80 I turn into a hermit inside, or head to higher and cooler climates or head west to see son. Everybody has a favorite weather/temp/event, and ALL of us add to this forum in some way because of it, just my opinion.

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wxdude64

wxdude64

Posted
Posted
5 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

Same way. I have no idea when I started loving it. Between snow and tropical I've just been hooked. Even the other day when I was livid at this board I couldn't stay away because wx is just too fun and there are always good laughs to be had here. Heck I used to pretend forecasting and reporting from a hurricane. Now I can chase one lol. 

Favorite event as a kid was probably Floyd in SNE and every time I'd watch TWC and I'd hear Paul Kocin say "It looks like we have to take the numbers up for this one".

Favorite event as an adult is GB '13 in CT. The perfect storm.  

I have all of his books lol. And that was an awesome event.

Guess if I had to pick a favorite event it would be a three way tie. 1/6-8/1996, 3/13-14/1993  and the back to back January 1987 snowstorms.

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Cobalt

Cobalt

Posted
Posted
2 minutes ago, wxdude64 said:

I've ALWAYS been a weather lover, especially cold and snow. Never really knew anything different, but the 10/10/79 storm cemented my passion and that is when I started keeping records (yeah, there are a few open spots) at 14 yo. I still am, at almost 54...40 years. I believe you may be on to something earlier 007, it IS different in other areas, and that is also why it is a fascinating hobby/passion. I just know MY climo, and I'm not out of the game until April, and that is why I've never been 'reaped' lol. Heck, I've seen flurries in late May before. That aside, once over 80 I turn into a hermit inside, or head to higher and cooler climates or head west to see son. Everybody has a favorite weather/temp/event, and ALL of us add to this forum in some way because of it, just my opinion.

That's so funny! Just started recording snowfall this year, at the ripe old age of 14. I honestly don't know where this hobby started. My best guess is 1/26/11. Vividly remember that storm & waiting for local on the 8s to track the rain/snow line. Also a hint of 3/5/2013. I think I learned a valuable lesson from this year, which is to track when you can't track anymore, and to not complain & whine. I had my fair share of whining/panic outbreaks. One notable one would be the Jan 4th storm. To be honest if this winter was a good one where we scored on almost every chance (like it was looking the first 2 weeks of December), then I probably wouldn't appreciate this hobby and the patience required as much. All those pretty snow maps I posted in December, all those 300 hr GFS blizzards, all those 384 GEFS snow mean maps I posted at 3 am. All of those mean nothing, and meant nothing, and I'm glad they didn't matter. Don't get me wrong, I would've loved a blizzard in that HECS period that faded away, but I don't think that I would've appreciated climo as much as I do now. In fact, I would've probably gone the way of WeathermanB. I've gotta say, I've learned a ton from all of you guys over the past winter. Learned a lot that I won't forget. 

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Cobalt

Cobalt

Posted
Posted
29 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

Same way. I have no idea when I started loving it. Between snow and tropical I've just been hooked. Even the other day when I was livid at this board I couldn't stay away because wx is just too fun and there are always good laughs to be had here. Heck I used to pretend forecasting and reporting from a hurricane. Now I can chase one lol. 

Favorite event as a kid was probably Floyd in SNE and every time I'd watch TWC and I'd hear Paul Kocin say "It looks like we have to take the numbers up for this one".

Favorite event as an adult is GB '13 in CT. The perfect storm.  

I've said this before, but I have no recollection of the winter of 09/10, 11/12 (thank god), or 13/14. 

I've gotta say that my favorite events list would go like this.

#1 1/22-24/16

#2 1/26/11

#3 3/5/15

#4 2/20/15

#5 2/14/15

#6 3/5/13 (yes, even though it busted horrendously, 4th grade me enjoyed this event while it was snowing in the morning. In fact, I got Sim City the day before, and so I don't even think I remember the bust because I was too busy playing it)

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wxdude64

wxdude64

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, Cobalt said:

That's so funny! Just started recording snowfall this year, at the ripe old age of 14. I honestly don't know where this hobby started. My best guess is 1/26/11. Vividly remember that storm & waiting for local on the 8s to track the rain/snow line. Also a hint of 3/5/2013. I think I learned a valuable lesson from this year, which is to track when you can't track anymore, and to not complain & whine. I had my fair share of whining/panic outbreaks. One notable one would be the Jan 4th storm. To be honest if this winter was a good one where we scored on almost every chance (like it was looking the first 2 weeks of December), then I probably wouldn't appreciate this hobby and the patience required as much. All those pretty snow maps I posted in December, all those 300 hr GFS blizzards, all those 384 GEFS snow mean maps I posted at 3 am. All of those mean nothing, and meant nothing, and I'm glad they didn't matter. Don't get me wrong, I would've loved a blizzard in that HECS period that faded away, but I don't think that I would've appreciated climo as much as I do now. In fact, I would've probably gone the way of WeathermanB. I've gotta say, I've learned a ton from all of you guys over the past winter. Learned a lot that I won't forget. 

Awesome! Suggestion....if you don't have a weather station, get/or ask (Bday Christmas) for a decent weather station and join CoCoRaHS. You can put ALL the data in there and it becomes a permanent record, plus you are helping the weather community. I STILL haven't converted all my data off the notebooks I used to keep in the early years, I need to do that lol.

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PhineasC

PhineasC

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, psuhoffman said:

Hopefully this ends the beyond stupid "it can't snow because of persistence" and "why are you wasting your time tracking" BS nonsense we get every time it doesn't snow much by February. Forget all the old examples I've given over the years we now have 3 recent examples (2015, 2016 & 2018) where people gave up and whined  incessantly when winter got off to a putrid start and then we got a good snowstorm. 

Yea I know this year it came way later then ideal but we're not Vermont we don't get to be choosy with snow. It comes when it comes.  And unfortunately it's fairly common for us to go long stretches over multiple years without a big snow. Sucks but that's reality.

 But it can snow anytime between Halloween and Easter in any year no matter how craptastic it's been so I'm tracking every threat and if anyone doesn't like it too bad. 

It's become pretty well-established that for whatever reason March has become a great month for snow around here. It is better than January at this point.

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Cobalt

Cobalt

Posted
Posted
6 minutes ago, wxdude64 said:

Awesome! Suggestion....if you don't have a weather station, get/or ask (Bday Christmas) for a decent weather station and join CoCoRaHS. You can put ALL the data in there and it becomes a permanent record, plus you are helping the weather community. I STILL haven't converted all my data off the notebooks I used to keep in the early years, I need to do that lol.

I have a crappy La Crosse weather station that doesn't record the high/low temperatures (it just shows the temperature & humidity level), and is a couple degrees warm for whatever reason. Got it from my Grandmother on Christmas 2016, when I wasn't as avid of a weenie as I am now. I was thinking of asking for one for my birthday. 

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psuhoffman

psuhoffman

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, PhineasC said:

It's become pretty well-established that for whatever reason March has become a great month for snow around here. It is better than January at this point.

Things are cyclical. In the 40s through the 60s march was a big snow month. Then from the 70s through 2010 it was spring 99% of the time. Seems things have cycled back around lately. 

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Jrlg1181

Jrlg1181

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, wxdude64 said:

I've ALWAYS been a weather lover, especially cold and snow. Never really knew anything different, but the 10/10/79 storm cemented my passion and that is when I started keeping records (yeah, there are a few open spots) at 14 yo. I still am, at almost 54...40 years. I believe you may be on to something earlier 007, it IS different in other areas, and that is also why it is a fascinating hobby/passion. I just know MY climo, and I'm not out of the game until April, and that is why I've never been 'reaped' lol. Heck, I've seen flurries in late May before. That aside, once over 80 I turn into a hermit inside, or head to higher and cooler climates or head west to see son. Everybody has a favorite weather/temp/event, and ALL of us add to this forum in some way because of it, just my opinion.

Awesome.... I started keeping a daily precip record/journal Jan 1st 1990...when I was 12... Figured the start of a new decade was the perfect starting point... And I am still at it 28 years later.☺

 

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