May Discussion

[HIPPYVALLEY]

1 hour ago, dendrite said:

Last night the noseeums made an appearance. It was fun getting bit by all 3. 

Mosquitoes have not been bad here yet but the noseeums last night were brutal.

[HIPPYVALLEY]

The valley needs rain badly.

[Bostonseminole]

1 hour ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Epstein worried 

 

why is this worrisome? we are not going into a 10 year drought like CA had, we always end up making up for it later.  

[Bostonseminole]

I bet we see some nice downpours later, but interesting to see how the HRRR just has that line go poof

[Bostonseminole]

For METS, why? such a juicy air mass. yet ..

 

[CoastalWx]

10 minutes ago, Bostonseminole said:

For METS, why? such a juicy air mass. yet ..

 

Timing sucks, no real instability, torch aloft etc. Classic SNE.

[HIPPYVALLEY]

39 minutes ago, Bostonseminole said:

why is this worrisome? we are not going into a 10 year drought like CA had, we always end up making up for it later.  

Drought talk in New England is nonsense.

[Damage In Tolland]

19 minutes ago, HIPPYVALLEY said:

Drought talk in New England is nonsense.

Lol tell that to the 1930’s and the 80’s and the mid 2010’s

[weathafella]

6 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Lol tell that to the 1930’s and the 80’s and the mid 2010’s

We had droughts within the last 10 years?  Can you post rainfall numbers for all of those years?

[powderfreak]

Just now, Damage In Tolland said:

Lol tell that to the 1930’s and the 80’s and the mid 2010’s

What happened in the 80s and mid-2010s?  I honestly don't remember a thing regarding drought in the mid-2010s... what effects would we have felt?

[ORH_wxman]

7 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Lol tell that to the 1930’s and the 80’s and the mid 2010’s

Those weren't even that bad here....1930s was mostly west of us and those other two weren't even real droughts, lol....the only real drought of consequence in NE was the late 1960s. Particularly 1964-1966.

[Typhoon Tip]

Just now, ORH_wxman said:

Those weren't even that bad here....1930s was mostly west of us and those other two weren't even real droughts, lol....the only real drought of consequence in NE was the late 1960s. Particularly 1964-1966.

Ugh... Kevin's been trying to push the drought-drama dystopian vibe for years and for years...dry times get corrected inside of a single afternoon of convection...often causing FF statements, yet ... the hardness of his skull and not learning the futility of attempting to push drought-drama doesn't seem to learn and guess what.... here we are again, and he's pushing the drought-drama dystopian vibe like it's never happened before...

and around and around and around we go with helmet and drool-cup learning curve of the hill-side America

[HoarfrostHubb]

1 hour ago, Bostonseminole said:

why is this worrisome? we are not going into a 10 year drought like CA had, we always end up making up for it later.  

He's big into gardening.  It is not a big deal for most folks

[powderfreak]

Just now, HoarfrostHubb said:

He's big into gardening.  It is not a big deal for most folks

Even if you are OCD about your lawn... like the absolute worst case scenario in New England is a town tells you not to water your lawn from like 9am to 5pm. 

[dryslot]

81/67, There is this new fangle thing they call irrigation when it comes to gardening, Works quite slick too.

[radarman]

Drought affects farmers on short time scales, and they struggle to make ends meet year to year.  Too wet, too dry, etc.  Granted, they signed up for it to a certain extent in the fickle weather of SNE.  But it is a big deal out here, particularly this year.  The cities probably don't care.

[powderfreak]

Just now, Typhoon Tip said:

Ugh... Kevin's been trying to push the drought-drama dystopian vibe for years and for years...dry times get corrected inside of a single afternoon of convection...often causing FF statements, yet ... the hardness of his skull and not learning the futility of attempting to push drought-drama doesn't seem to learn and guess what.... here we are again, and he's pushing the drought-drama dystopian vibe like it's never happened before...

and around and around and around we go with helmet and drool-cup learning curve of the hill-side America

.... it's summer climo.  We've been at this long enough to see how it works. 

It doesn't rain a quarter inch every other day or do frequent lower amounts like cold season weather patterns.  You might go 3 weeks with very little rainfall, then get a stalled FROPA and tropical moisture drop 3-4" in the same number of hours... and voila, average precipitation for the month.  Summer is short duration extreme rainfall spread among long periods (weeks even) of dryness.

[weathafella]

Kevin needs to relive one of the years I was in Southern California when we didn’t see one drop of rain for 7 months...

[powderfreak]

1 minute ago, radarman said:

Drought affects farmers on short time scales, and they struggle to make ends meet year to year.  Too wet, too dry, etc.  Granted, they signed up for it to a certain extent in the fickle weather of SNE.  But it is a big deal out here, particularly this year.  The cities probably don't care.

It just seems like it's never the "right mix" in the summer, ever.  If it's not dry, it's torrential rain every afternoon.  Summer patterns just aren't going to give New England farmers what they want... you just don't see 1/4-1/2" every few days consistently. 

The issue this year is a few week dry period right at the time of planting.  I'm sure we'll all be underwater at some point here in the next month or two.

Since March 1st, most SNE sites look to be within an inch of normal water on either side.  Some spots are above, others a tick below. 

[radarman]

12 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

It just seems like it's never the "right mix" in the summer, ever.  If it's not dry, it's torrential rain every afternoon.  Summer patterns just aren't going to give New England farmers what they want... you just don't see 1/4-1/2" every few days consistently. 

The issue this year is a few week dry period right at the time of planting.  I'm sure we'll all be underwater at some point here in the next month or two.

Semi agree. Seemingly not a year goes by when the local paper isn't quoting a farmer blaming climate change for whatever the most recent conditions are, as though the 'right mix' year you describe used to be the norm.  But the fact is that it's been one of the driest Mays on record, with a quite a bit of sun and low dews (save the last few days) and more en route.  So they'll be hurting and the fact it isn't a threat to the public water supply in metro boston is irrelevant.

[Damage In Tolland]

24 minutes ago, weathafella said:

We had droughts within the last 10 years?  Can you post rainfall numbers for all of those years?

Don’t you recall how much of SNE was running 10-20” deficits going back to like 2014? We have since made up much of it these last 2 years. It’s the reason why the gypsy moths exploded and caused so much damage from 2016-2019

[powderfreak]

Just now, radarman said:

Semi agree. Seemingly not a year goes by when the local paper isn't quoting a farmer blaming climate change for whatever the most recent conditions are, as though the 'right mix' year you describe used to be the norm.  But the fact is that's it's been one of the driest Mays on record, with a quite a bit of sun and low dews (save the last few days) and more en route.  So they'll be hurting and the fact it isn't a threat to the public water supply in metro boston is irrelevant.

Oh I get it, what were your rainfall totals?  I'm seeing a lot of 2.5-3.5" on CoCoRAHS in Franklin Cnty, and Hampshire Cnty is pretty tight around 2.75-3.0".  I'm a little surprised that's one of the driest on record but maybe my climo barometer is way off.  Some of those stations even have snowfall in them from the first two weeks of May, ha.  There was some rain around with that deep trough.

The real thing is the past two weeks has been bone dry with sun and low dews...during the planting season.  Agriculture is just such a roll of the dice around here as a well timed two week dry period can immediately cause such hurt.  Hopefully it rains for them, just really bad timing on a dry stretch.

[HIPPYVALLEY]

18 minutes ago, radarman said:

Drought affects farmers on short time scales, and they struggle to make ends meet year to year.  Too wet, too dry, etc.  Granted, they signed up for it to a certain extent in the fickle weather of SNE.  But it is a big deal out here, particularly this year.  The cities probably don't care.

Yes, absolutely. The farmers around here are all desperate for some rain but the general public has little to no interest in how dry it’s been this month.

[weathafella]

1 minute ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Don’t you recall how much of SNE was running 10-20” deficits going back to like 2014? We have since made up much of it these last 2 years. It’s the reason why the gypsy moths exploded and caused so much damage from 2016-2019

I think we were maybe 20% below normal which to me doesn’t constitute a drought.

[weathafella]

And regarding farmers, it’s very difficult to establish long term success anywhere in the USA without a backup irrigation system.

[klw]

36 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

What happened in the 80s and mid-2010s?  I honestly don't remember a thing regarding drought in the mid-2010s... what effects would we have felt?

Most noticeable effect in VT will frequently be people's home wells running dry.  If I remember right this was a big issue in parts of Vermont 2 summers ago.  In late 90's my town at the time would have to resort to secondary ponds in dry times leading to boil water notices for people on town systems.

Here are a couple of articles:

https://vtdigger.org/2018/10/11/drought-continues-plague-northern-vermont-leaving-farms-wells-dry/

https://vtdigger.org/2018/09/23/drought-takes-toll-wells-northern-half-state/

map from time:

[powderfreak]

Just now, klw said:

Most noticeable effect in VT will frequently be people's home wells running dry.  If I remember right this was a big issue in parts of Vermont 3 (?) summers ago.  In late 90's my town at the time would have to resort to secondary ponds in dry times leading to boil water notices for people on town systems.

Now that you say that I do remember some talk of that... don't remember it locally but it rings a bell.  Maybe it was Dendrite or Gene on here?

[dendrite]

It's nice to get a break from this wet stretch. What a soaking we've gotten over the last 2 decades.

[dendrite]

1 minute ago, powderfreak said:

Now that you say that I do remember some talk of that... don't remember it locally but it rings a bell.  Maybe it was Dendrite or Gene on here?

It was me, but I think it was more of a pump issue than a water issue.

[radarman]

12 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Oh I get it, what were your rainfall totals?  I'm seeing a lot of 2.5-3.5" on CoCoRAHS in Franklin Cnty, and Hampshire Cnty is pretty tight around 2.75-3.0".  I'm a little surprised that's one of the driest on record but maybe my climo barometer is way off.  Some of those stations even have snowfall in them from the first two weeks of May, ha.  There was some rain around with that deep trough.

The real thing is the past two weeks has been bone dry with sun and low dews...during the planting season.  Agriculture is just such a roll of the dice around here as a well timed two week dry period can immediately cause such hurt.  Hopefully it rains for them, just really bad timing on a dry stretch.

At UMass, 1.9".  Of that 1.15" fell on 5/1.  And another .4" in about 15 minutes on 5/15 with the line of thunderstorms, some of which runs off when falling so fast.  Only .1" in the last 2 weeks.