New England 2024 Warm Season Banter

[tamarack]

1 hour ago, radarman said:

https://www.wwlp.com/news/local-news/hampshire-county/sighting-of-mountain-lion-in-massachusetts-confirmed-in-goshen/amp/

 

I hope they can find some hair or scat, so to confirm whether it's a wild animal or a captive lion whose owner got tired of tossing 2 Benjamins/week to feed it.

[dendrite]

5 hours ago, radarman said:

https://www.wwlp.com/news/local-news/hampshire-county/sighting-of-mountain-lion-in-massachusetts-confirmed-in-goshen/amp/

 

Heh. Just came to post this. 

[dendrite]

On 10/17/2024 at 8:41 AM, mreaves said:

@dendrite Pawpaws in the news!

https://www.sevendaysvt.com/food-drink/the-pawpaw-fruit-thrives-in-burlingtons-intervale-42068962

We pawpaw

 

[DavisStraight]

4 minutes ago, dendrite said:

We pawpaw

 

I'd like to try it, but it doesn't look appetizing, of course I'll try anything, you never know. I wouldn't touch a steamer until I was about 12 and now, they're one of my favorite foods.

[dendrite]

4 minutes ago, DavisStraight said:

I'd like to try it, but it doesn't look appetizing, of course I'll try anything, you never know. I wouldn't touch a steamer until I was about 12 and now, they're one of my favorite foods.

My wife is picky and loves them. The key is to get fruit from people growing the selected cultivars. The wild ones can have a chemical/bitter aftertaste. I got these from someone in Marlborough…not too far from you. If you look up Timothy from Ockoo Microfarm he may have some left. $8/lb

[DavisStraight]

Another pawpaw story, looks like Dendrite's a man ahead of his time.

This American fruit could outcompete apples and peaches on a hotter planet

[dendrite]

13 hours ago, DavisStraight said:

Another pawpaw story, looks like Dendrite's a man ahead of his time.

This American fruit could outcompete apples and peaches on a hotter planet

They’re really homegrower friendly…maybe moreso than any other fruit. American persimmons may be close. 

They’re native so they’re pretty much disease free. So there’s no spraying for pests or diseases. You don’t need to prune them. You can plant them really close together. Mine are planted 8ft apart as it helps with pollination. The only thing is they don’t compete well with grass and weeds when they’re young and they are heavy, heavy feeders. They want their fertile compost/soil and regular nitrogen.

I experimented with diluted 46-0-0 urea granules in water this year and applied some daily and they responded well. I think it was like 2.5oz granules per 5gal bucket of water. I use the neutral pH condensed water from my dehumidifier so the urea brings the pH down to a number similar to rainwater. But they’re a cool little tree and I recommend people to grow them even if it’s just for their ornamental value. They’re also very deer resistant after the first time they nibble a leaf. Raccoons, possums, and squirrels will potentially go for the fruit though. 

[DavisStraight]

49 minutes ago, dendrite said:

They’re really homegrower friendly…maybe moreso than any other fruit. American persimmons may be close. 

They’re native so they’re pretty much disease free. So there’s no spraying for pests or diseases. You don’t need to prune them. You can plant them really close together. Mine are planted 8ft apart as it helps with pollination. The only thing is they don’t compete well with grass and weeds when they’re young and they are heavy, heavy feeders. They want their fertile compost/soil and regular nitrogen.

I experimented with diluted 46-0-0 urea granules in water this year and applied some daily and they responded well. I think it was like 2.5oz granules per 5gal bucket of water. I use the neutral pH condensed water from my dehumidifier so the urea brings the pH down to a number similar to rainwater. But they’re a cool little tree and I recommend people to grow them even if it’s just for their ornamental value. They’re also very deer resistant after the first time they nibble a leaf. Raccoons, possums, and squirrels will potentially go for the fruit though. 

I might plant a couple in Maine when we move up there next year, also a couple other fruit trees, not sure yet, depends on what the lot looks like after building.

[MJO812]

I'm rooting for the Yankees because the last time the Yankees won was in 2009 and the winter right after they won was great. 

[dendrite]

25 minutes ago, MJO812 said:

I'm rooting for the Yankees because the last time the Yankees won was in 2009 and the winter right after they won was great. 

I’m rooting for an asteroid. 

[DavisStraight]

7 hours ago, dendrite said:

I’m rooting for an asteroid. 

You ever wonder why they call asteroids, asteroids and hemorrhoids, hemorrhoids? Shouldn't it be the other way around?

[tamarack]

13 hours ago, MJO812 said:

I'm rooting for the Yankees because the last time the Yankees won was in 2009 and the winter right after they won was great. 

It was probably my most frustrating snow season since moving to Maine, also the only winter in geologic time that CAR had less snow than BWI.  The last Dodgers-Yankees WS was 1963, and we did quite nicely in NNJ the following winter.

[TheClimateChanger]

On 10/20/2024 at 9:17 AM, dendrite said:

They’re really homegrower friendly…maybe moreso than any other fruit. American persimmons may be close. 

They’re native so they’re pretty much disease free. So there’s no spraying for pests or diseases. You don’t need to prune them. You can plant them really close together. Mine are planted 8ft apart as it helps with pollination. The only thing is they don’t compete well with grass and weeds when they’re young and they are heavy, heavy feeders. They want their fertile compost/soil and regular nitrogen.

I experimented with diluted 46-0-0 urea granules in water this year and applied some daily and they responded well. I think it was like 2.5oz granules per 5gal bucket of water. I use the neutral pH condensed water from my dehumidifier so the urea brings the pH down to a number similar to rainwater. But they’re a cool little tree and I recommend people to grow them even if it’s just for their ornamental value. They’re also very deer resistant after the first time they nibble a leaf. Raccoons, possums, and squirrels will potentially go for the fruit though. 

ChatGPT says they are not native. Is there any evidence of non-cultivated pawpaws in New Hampshire or Vermont?

[CoastalWx]

15 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

ChatGPT says they are not native. Is there any evidence of non-cultivated pawpaws in New Hampshire or Vermont?

And a quick google search says they are. They are found from the Midwest to New England in general.

[TheClimateChanger]

7 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

And a quick google search says they are. They are found from the Midwest to New England in general.

I would trust the Dr. Elbert Little and the U.S. Forest Service over a Google search. Looks like there farthest north native range is far southern Ontario and southwest New York.

Range and Niche Maps for pawpaw Climate Change Atlas - Northern Research Station, USDA Forest Service

[CoastalWx]

19 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

I would trust the Dr. Elbert Little and the U.S. Forest Service over a Google search. Looks like there farthest north native range is far southern Ontario and southwest New York.

Range and Niche Maps for pawpaw Climate Change Atlas - Northern Research Station, USDA Forest Service

There's a lot of literature from places like Academia where it extends a little further north. I'd take that over something from AI.

[dendrite]

They’re not native to New England. Long Island and far SW CT is debatable, but i don’t think they are there either. The generally accepted northern range is pretty much what that map depicts…spotty native areas near water in IA/WI near the MS River and then hugging the southern Great Lakes into S MI, S ON, and far W NY. There’s people successfully growing them in MN, VT, NH, and QB now. They’re pretty cold hardy…well down into the -20s. What limits their range is the length of growing season not being conducive for propagation. 

[CoastalWx]

4 minutes ago, dendrite said:

They’re not native to New England. Long Island and far SW CT is debatable, but i don’t think they are there either. The generally accepted northern range is pretty much what that map depicts…spotty native areas near water in IA/WI near the MS River and then hugging the southern Great Lakes into S MI, S ON, and far W NY. There’s people successfully growing them in MN, VT, NH, and QB now. They’re pretty cold hardy…well down into the -20s. What limits their range is the length of growing season not being conducive for propagation. 

Yeah should clarify, they are “found”

in New England per literature. But they’re not some invasive species clogging our forests. 

[dendrite]

42 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Yeah should clarify, they are “found”

in New England per literature. But they’re not some invasive species clogging our forests. 

Yeah they’re not technically native for us, but our forests are pretty similar to PA/MI and they behave nicely there. I have a pawpaw variety that I’m growing from someone in Mass that he says is “wild” to him. So there’s wild populations slowly spreading in SNE. Supposedly this one tastes like pineapple so that will be pretty cool. 

[tamarack]

20 hours ago, dendrite said:

They’re not native to New England. Long Island and far SW CT is debatable, but i don’t think they are there either. The generally accepted northern range is pretty much what that map depicts…spotty native areas near water in IA/WI near the MS River and then hugging the southern Great Lakes into S MI, S ON, and far W NY. There’s people successfully growing them in MN, VT, NH, and QB now. They’re pretty cold hardy…well down into the -20s. What limits their range is the length of growing season not being conducive for propagation. 

And that's the key.  Unless a plant can consistently produce viable seeds, it cannot persist.  Many species can be successfully planted well north of their native range, and do well.  One might be able to plant a Northern red oak at Chicoutimi and have it survive, and grow well if put in a place with sun and little wind.

[dendrite]

47 minutes ago, tamarack said:

And that's the key.  Unless a plant can consistently produce viable seeds, it cannot persist.  Many species can be successfully planted well north of their native range, and do well.  One might be able to plant a Northern red oak at Chicoutimi and have it survive, and grow well if put in a place with sun and little wind.

I always found it interesting that tulip poplars are native in S VT and MA, but not NH. It’s like they were just never able to make it over the higher terrain. 

[tamarack]

16 hours ago, dendrite said:

I always found it interesting that tulip poplars are native in S VT and MA, but not NH. It’s like they were just never able to make it over the higher terrain. 

Not native to Maine, either, but there's a planted one about 45" dbh/85 feet tall in downtown Farmington.  It has some frost cracks but is otherwise vigorous.  It had to have been a big tree (30" dbh?) in 1994 when Farmington set their coldest on record at -39.  Produces abundant seeds, too, and the nearby 20-foot-tall tulip tree is likely the progeny of the big guy.

The NNJ woods near our home had mostly oaks, maples, hickory and black birch, almost no tulip trees.  The terminal moraine is about 10 miles south from where I grew up, and tulip trees become more common south from where the glaciation scraped all the soil from the hilltops and pushed it southward.

[tunafish]

Sounds... not good

https://x.com/troykimmelwx/status/1849529134990623119

https://weather.gov/aviation/cwsu

[tunafish]

1 hour ago, tunafish said:

Sounds... not good

https://x.com/troykimmelwx/status/1849529134990623119

https://weather.gov/aviation/cwsu

This is your realm, @CoastalWx, yeah?

[CoastalWx]

4 minutes ago, tunafish said:

This is your realm, @CoastalWx, yeah?

Used to be. I moved away from forecasting and got into the corporate side of the business. Although that part got divested and I’ve been doing work on other products, but I miss the weather stuff so we’ll see what happens in the future.

 

Anyways I still keep close tabs on the old team. I’ve heard rumors that this may happen, but I have no idea what will substitute in place. They’ll need someone to do that work for general aviation. Many commercial airlines have their own mets and that’s where my previous work was.

[tunafish]

Appreciate the context.  Yeah, I would have to think someone has to do that work.  Can't have planes routinely falling out of the sky.

1 hour ago, CoastalWx said:

Used to be. I moved away from forecasting and got into the corporate side of the business. Although that part got divested and I’ve been doing work on other products, but I miss the weather stuff so we’ll see what happens in the future.

 

Anyways I still keep close tabs on the old team. I’ve heard rumors that this may happen, but I have no idea what will substitute in place. They’ll need someone to do that work for general aviation. Many commercial airlines have their own mets and that’s where my previous work was.

 

[OceanStWx]

On 10/25/2024 at 8:19 AM, CoastalWx said:

Used to be. I moved away from forecasting and got into the corporate side of the business. Although that part got divested and I’ve been doing work on other products, but I miss the weather stuff so we’ll see what happens in the future.

 

Anyways I still keep close tabs on the old team. I’ve heard rumors that this may happen, but I have no idea what will substitute in place. They’ll need someone to do that work for general aviation. Many commercial airlines have their own mets and that’s where my previous work was.

 

On 10/25/2024 at 9:55 AM, tunafish said:

Appreciate the context.  Yeah, I would have to think someone has to do that work.  Can't have planes routinely falling out of the sky.

Very much in flux at the moment. Essentially the FAA pays the NWS for roughly 90 mets to staff CWSUs to handle IN FLIGHT forecasts (local WFOs handle the takeoff/landing forecasts). The FAA has been looking to cut costs for years and the CWSUs always seem to be on the chopping block. It appears this time they really tried to make the clean break, but there is plenty of negotiating going on behind the scenes.

Local WFOs are not equipped or staffed to be able to handle briefing the FAA on demand, so that's not going to be the solution. Either they come up with a new agreement (maybe reduced staffing?) or they'll contract that forecast out to a company like Scott's. But the key is that they need some centralized entity to collaborate with the FAA. Because it's not just about the in route forecast, it's maintaining "gates" for flights to fly through on the way to the airport. You can't have Southwest and Delta winging it around thunderstorms, you need to the FAA to tell them which heading and what flight level to maintain so you don't have collisions.

[OceanStWx]

2 hours ago, OceanStWx said:

Very much in flux at the moment. Essentially the FAA pays the NWS for roughly 90 mets to staff CWSUs to handle IN FLIGHT forecasts (local WFOs handle the takeoff/landing forecasts). The FAA has been looking to cut costs for years and the CWSUs always seem to be on the chopping block. It appears this time they really tried to make the clean break, but there is plenty of negotiating going on behind the scenes.

Local WFOs are not equipped or staffed to be able to handle briefing the FAA on demand, so that's not going to be the solution. Either they come up with a new agreement (maybe reduced staffing?) or they'll contract that forecast out to a company like Scott's. But the key is that they need some centralized entity to collaborate with the FAA. Because it's not just about the in route forecast, it's maintaining "gates" for flights to fly through on the way to the airport. You can't have Southwest and Delta winging it around thunderstorms, you need to the FAA to tell them which heading and what flight level to maintain so you don't have collisions.

As an addendum, almost all the articles I've read have stated the FAA is opting for some sort of automated computer based software for in route weather decision making, but none of the articles describe what that is. 

I would have a hard time believing there is computer software at this time that can make decisions about air traffic routing, but dumping people in favor of a computer would certainly save money.

[CoastalWx]

On 10/29/2024 at 12:39 PM, OceanStWx said:

As an addendum, almost all the articles I've read have stated the FAA is opting for some sort of automated computer based software for in route weather decision making, but none of the articles describe what that is. 

I would have a hard time believing there is computer software at this time that can make decisions about air traffic routing, but dumping people in favor of a computer would certainly save money.

I don’t see how that could be automated by April. I wonder if there is some behind the scenes shenanigans going on. 

[DavisStraight]

On 10/22/2024 at 4:37 PM, dendrite said:

I always found it interesting that tulip poplars are native in S VT and MA, but not NH. It’s like they were just never able to make it over the higher terrain. 

Have you ever thought of a pistachio tree? I'm thinking of giving it a try next year.