Plans for the weekend? The weather says, "Ha!"

What's been weirdest among the many weird aspects of this weekend's weather has been nearly two days of precipitation with a strong northwest wind.
In typical patterns, systems move up the east coast, dragging a cold front behind them. The cold front shifts the wind to the northwest and brings in colder and drier air. In this case, the wind started to shift on Friday. The rain continued, hard, through Friday and Saturday. Lighter on Saturday night, we saw or thought we saw some snow mixed in.
Three months earlier, we would have called the a three-day Nor'easter.It's not uncommon for winter storms to strengthen as they get into the Gulf of Maine. Bombing out, they call it. The weather charts don't show that this happened, only that the systems moved slowly.
There are breaks in the clouds now. There are whitecaps on the lake.
The fireplace, even if we had good, dry wood, doesn't put out enough heat to fight against the wind and cold. The porch of the camp has single-pane windows with broad exposure to the northwest wind coming across the lake. When I was a kid, we had a pocket door and a pocket window on the wall that separated the porch from the main room. My father removed those during a renovation in the 70s. We could have used them this weekend.
We're burning wood that's long past its prime, stuff that was cut five or more years ago. My plan had been to cut and split the fallen hemlock that's in the front yard. There was still plenty of good meat on much of the tree. Split, it'll be good for both the fireplace and sauna. It was too cold and rainy on yesterday and on Friday, though, for me to spend very long outdoors.
The rain will stop. The winds will calm and shift again. By the end of the coming week, it'll be 90.

Fading snow

With temps climbing into the 60s today, I decided to tempt fate and move the snow blower from the front yard to its summer place by the sheds. The last chunk of snow, well, really, ice, is almost gone from our deck.

The corner of our yard, sheltered from the sun, is still snow-covered. At the camp, there's still a foot or more of ice that's been pushed into the cove by the strong northwest winds.

I'm guessing that it will take at least a week, maybe even two, before the cove is open. We're still hoping to open up around the first of May.

Dept. of Snow

It wasn't enough that Holden won the top spot in last weekend's snowfall totals. We need to keep our edge and so are trucking in more snow.

---

Feeding birds by way of ice

A few weeks ago,we had small amount of snow and ice. We also did not have any sand or ice melt. Son Mike and his crew were making repairs on our house. Mike used bird seed to give some traction. It worked pretty well.
Last Monday, we had more ice, so I tossed more bird seed on the ramp and driveway. The ensuing warmth and rain washed away the ice, leaving the seeds. Birds large and small are taking care of the rest.

When the moon hits your eye ...

When we remodeled the camp, we^[1] reused a couple of small windows. One is in our bedroom. For a couple of nights, about 2;30, the moon is at just the proper angle to shine directly into my eyes. The skies have been clear so that, even in its waning phase, the moon is bright. When that can happen again is an exercise left to the astronomers.

^[1]When I say we, I mean people who know which end of the hammer not to hit their thumbs with.

Notes on standing still

Our neighbor across the lake has a better view of our cove and reports that she's seen two herons, perching, in flight, paroling. From this vantage, we've only seen one at a time. When standing, they're improbable beings, a bunch of sticks and feathers. In flight, though, from take-off through glide, they're gorgeous. Last evening, we startled one as we came along quietly in our kayaks. It grabbed the strong southerly breeze and took off.

We're due for some hot weather. The season's first heat, like the other season's first snow, brings a bit of alarm among media types. Even when you know that it's going to be just hot and nothing more than that, it's difficult to displace the thoughts of alarm. Will the bridges melt? Will small children and old people spontaneously combust?

Astrological summer begins today for those of us on the top half of the globe. (Meteorological summer began at the first of the month.) The longest day of the year, however, will take place on June 30, when we get a leap second.

On the solstice, of course, the sun doesn't really stand still. We're the ones who need it to stop, if only for a moment, so we can consider where we've been and where we will soon be.

Uphill in the snow both ways

At this writing, we have four inches of snow (.032 cubic hectares for our metric readers). The forecast suggests that we'll double that and then some before the day is over. We  have a couple of plans for the afternoon and will make a decision late morning. I don't mind a day at home. I have school work and work work aplenty.
Late-season winter blasts are nothing new. I'm not sure that I'd even call this a late-season event. Last year we had a hard freeze in mid-May. The crocuses were peeking out in the warmer parts of our yard a couple of days ago. They're not silly. They grow based on the ground temperature, which is getting progressively warmer even as the air above does its own weird thing.
The April Fool's Day storm of 1997 was as big a storm as you'll get, two feet of white cement. That's another thing about later-season storms - the snow contains much more water. A mid-January storm can have a fluff factor of 15:1 - 15 inches of snow for each inch of melted liquid. Storms during April and May can have ratios down to 8:1.
I was working at a small startup in Westford. (We were building a $100K 100GB fileserver.) Our CEO and CFO were scheduled to start their big roadshow that would prepare investors for our initial public offering later in the year. Important meetings were scheduled for New York that day and later in Miami.
The execs went to the airport while the rest of the crew was back at the office. (Working from home wasn't much of an option. The company shared a single 56K modem line at its corporate Internet connection. Microsoft's PPTP was just rolling out and not well understood.) We got hourly updates about their attempts to get on one flight and then another throughout the day. At day's end, they were still at Logan and the money guys were still in New York. At six o'clock, we dug out our cars and drove home. I'd be back 12 hours later for another day.
The roadshow was rescheduled and we had our IPO in the summer. IIRC, the strike price was $5.00. It briefly peaked at $5.25 and never saw those levels again.
If you're a New Englander, you can't get very far by trying to blame your troubles on the weather. The  April Fool's Day storm had almost no effect on the company's fate. We earned our bad luck from our own hard work. 

Uphill in the snow both ways

At this writing, we have four inches of snow (.032 cubic hectares for our metric readers). The forecast suggests that we'll double that and then some before the day is over. We  have a couple of plans for the afternoon and will make a decision late morning. I don't mind a day at home. I have school work and work work aplenty.
Late-season winter blasts are nothing new. I'm not sure that I'd even call this a late-season event. Last year we had a hard freeze in mid-May. The crocuses were peeking out in the warmer parts of our yard a couple of days ago. They're not silly. They grow based on the ground temperature, which is getting progressively warmer even as the air above does its own weird thing.
The April Fool's Day storm of 1997 was as big a storm as you'll get, two feet of white cement. That's another thing about later-season storms - the snow contains much more water. A mid-January storm can have a fluff factor of 15:1 - 15 inches of snow for each inch of melted liquid. Storms during April and May can have ratios down to 8:1.
I was working at a small startup in Westford. (We were building a $100K 100GB fileserver.) Our CEO and CFO were scheduled to start their big roadshow that would prepare investors for our initial public offering later in the year. Important meetings were scheduled for New York that day and later in Miami.
The execs went to the airport while the rest of the crew was back at the office. (Working from home wasn't much of an option. The company shared a single 56K modem line at its corporate Internet connection. Microsoft's PPTP was just rolling out and not well understood.) We got hourly updates about their attempts to get on one flight and then another throughout the day. At day's end, they were still at Logan and the money guys were still in New York. At six o'clock, we dug out our cars and drove home. I'd be back 12 hours later for another day.
The roadshow was rescheduled and we had our IPO in the summer. IIRC, the strike price was $5.00. It briefly peaked at $5.25 and never saw those levels again.
If you're a New Englander, you can't get very far by trying to blame your troubles on the weather. The  April Fool's Day storm had almost no effect on the company's fate. We earned our bad luck from our own hard work. 

North of the blizzard

We're all abuzz with news of the Boxing Day Blizzard. Snow's forecast to arrive in the early afternoon and get serious shortly after dark.

The demarcation line for the Winter Storm and Blizzard warnings runs through the city of Worcester. A blizzard in this context is not related to overall snowfall amount, but the strong winds and heavy snow leading white-out conditions for three or more hours. Because the storm is off-shore, the strongest winds may not extend so far inland.

It's still a serious storm, though, with the potential of two feet of snow and we're ready. On Thursday afternoon, I got the snowblower ready. It started easily, but didn't roll so well on the flat tire. It had been sitting on that flat tire for several months, so the sidewall was cracked. Fortunately, our local repair shop had an inner tube that fit the tire.
We have a couple of sheltered places where I think that I can get measurements of snowfall rates and overall amounts.The NWS guidelines for reporting on the storm are easy to understand. I expect to file my first SkyWarn report in the late afternoon.

Hurricane Karl

Hurricane Karl made it to major hurricane status, Category 3. According to the definition from NOAA, a Category Three Hurricane has sustained winds of 111-130 mph, 96-113 kt, or 178-209 km/hr. Severity means that Devastating damage will occur.
Let's hope not. The forecast puts Karl onto the Mexican coast mid-day today.

via Tropical Weather : Weather Underground
A note on names.

• There was another Hurricane Karl back in 1998. It didn't amount to much. 
• There are six sets of names for Atlantic hurricanes. The names are used in cycle unless one is particularly devastating. Then, the name is retired. For that reason, there will be only one Katrina, Hortense, Klaus, or Bob. 
• Hurricanes before 1950 didn't have names. The phonetic alphabet (Able, Baker, Charley) was used initially. Starting in 1953, the storms were given women's names. The common comment then was that the storms were unpredictable in direction or intensity. Possibly responding to a dope-slap from some meteorologist's  mother, male names were introduced, first in the Pacific.

Obligatory weather grumble

As if things weren't vexing enough, the weather does a double back-flip. At the end of last week, we needed a small fire in the stove in the morning. Now, it's gonna be hot enough to grow sun-dried tomatoes on the vine. Then, we might or might not get a visit from Earl. Then, cool again.
Sandra prefers the color of the trees in May and June, when the green is fresh. Me? I like late summer. The sun is lower in the sky, so the shadows of the leaves on their neighbors sharpens the color.
That's what you get with New England weather - something for everyone. Or, more precisely, there will always be plenty of people who don't like the weather that we're having.

It's been so cold that ...

Not only did they have snow on Mount Washington,

via Weather Underground Weather Summary

but our Christmas cactus has started to bloom.

On this day ...

... in 1953, Worcester County was devastated by the strongest tornado ever to hit New England. With winds close to 300 mph, the twister traveled 46 miles across the county, reaching its peak intensity in Worcester.
...
The storm left 94 dead, 1,288 injured, 15,000 homeless and over $53,000,000 in property damage. When survivors emerged from the wreckage, they viewed destruction so complete that many thought it was either a nuclear explosion or the apocalypse.
Mass Moments: Tornado Devastates Worcester

On this day ...

... in 1953, Worcester County was devastated by the strongest tornado ever to hit New England. With winds close to 300 mph, the twister traveled 46 miles across the county, reaching its peak intensity in Worcester.
...
The storm left 94 dead, 1,288 injured, 15,000 homeless and over $53,000,000 in property damage. When survivors emerged from the wreckage, they viewed destruction so complete that many thought it was either a nuclear explosion or the apocalypse.
Mass Moments: Tornado Devastates Worcester

Things we almost learn

Marley was quite agitated throughout the storm. Lots of lightning, close cracks of thunder, rain, wind.
Oh, year. I'm a SkyWarn guy. Nothing official to report. We all settled down again.

Around 3:00, the power went out. The storm was, by that time, to our south and east, with faint flashes against the clouds and the waxing moon visible.
It was quiet. No traffic. No sounds from the buildings on Main Street. Nothing.
Except chirp.
Chirp.
Chirp.
Yes, I know about changing batteries in the smoke detectors when we change our clocks. And, yes, I wish that I'd remembered to change the batteries in the carbon monoxide detectors at the same time. We didn't realize how many of them we have in the house until well into last night's power outage, when the intermittent, incessant chirping of tired batteries echoed around the dark house. Even after the last one was done, we heard a faint, mocking chirp. It could be one more of ours or it could be one of the neighbors'. It was a warm night, so all of the windows were open.
For a while, we sat on the front porch. The power appeared to be out all over town, but there seemed to be light from Worcester. We were more interested in the lightning bug that drifted along the porch railing. Something as simple as that. Sitting outside on a summery night shows us that there's plenty going on, even in a quite, dark town.
Electricity returned around 5:00.
In the morning, I called the HMLD to try to find out if the storm was the cause, but no one was at the store. The message asked that we call the police. I called the police, but the guy on the desk hadn't heard about a cause of the outage.

Storm clouds at night

Last weekend, I attended a SKYWARN^® training session in Manchester CT and thus joined more than a quarter million volunteers who can, with skill and precision, can look to the skies and say, "Uh, oh."

NWS SKYWARN^®

SKYWARN^® is a National Weather Service program that trains emergency response teams and weather nerds in the basics of severe weather. The weather spotters learn about types of severe storms, including details such as wind speed, flooding, rainfall and snowfall rates, ice accretion, hail, and tornadoes. When weather events approach certain thresholds, we can contact the NWS with the details.
And, no, I'm not going to be chasing tornadoes.
Earlier in the day yesterday, while it was still hot, the NWS regional coordinator sent an email to the SKYWARN^® with a review of the short-term weather forecasts. There were indications that the back door cold front might trigger severe weather later in the day.
For the rest of the afternoon, we watched the skies. A few clouds drifted without conviction from east to west, not your normal upper-level wind direction. It was still clear enough by bedtime that the nearly-full moon was easily lighting up the yard. In southern New Hampshire and Vermont, however, the NWS issued warnings for severe storms and even a tornado. (No reports of damage at this writing.)

The storms rumbled through here after midnight with lightning, thunder, rain, and a refreshing wind that dropped the temperature about 15 degrees. The storms didn't even wake Marley.

---

7:30AM Update - Sandra reports that I was the one who didn't wake up when the storms first arrived. She and Marley were awake.

Many are cold, but few are frozen

The overnight wind keep the cold air from settling to the ground, so feared freeze didn't. There's a skim coat of frost on the deck and tops of the grass blades, but that's all. More cold is in the forecast for tonight.
This isn't really unreasonable or unseasonable. We had the very warm weather a few weeks ago and our clocks are set a few weeks ahead of schedule.

More on law and politics

There's a bit of crispness underfoot on the grass in the back yard this morning, a reminder that, as unseasonably warm as it's been, we still are in New England in April. The weekend forecast suggests that we might see snow showers on Friday evening. I've added fresh water that sits on top of the ice in the bird bath.
It's not often that I get to visit the state's largest cities in one week. After classes in Gardner in the morning and a quick visit to the camp mid-day, I'll go to Springfield for a seminar at Western New England Law School. Tomorrow, my school chums and I will meet at the Moakley federal court house in Boston to meet with Judge Hillman. The judge will meet with us separately, give us a tour of the court, and then invite us to attend a session.
I don't know if we'll finish up in time to hear Tina Fey-impersonator Gov. Palin at the Boston Tea Party rally over on the Common.
Thursday, I have some errands in Worcester that may or may not take me in the vicinity of our fair city's Tea Party event.
So, it's a week of law, politics, and weather. Now, if only the Red Sox would bench Big Papi or at least platoon him with Mike Lowell against right-handers, we'd be really cooking.
Did I mention that the Tea Partiers in Boston request that you take public transportation?

via Tea Party Express coming to Boston : Greater Boston Tea Party

What the noises of the night are telling us

Last week, Sandra's cousin posted a note about the peepers in Virginia.

New sound today: frogs. About a month back, there were Spring Peepers.  I missed them this year because of the foul weather and blocked trail when they were singing.
...
Several weeks later in the season, the singers in the same swamp are different frogs.  They don’t “peep” as much as bellow.  They proclaim the coming of a warmer season, very assertively.  And it’s easier to have real faith on an 80° afternoon.

via More of the Senses « Cycles of Life

Our peepers showed up last week as the result of the warm late winter/early spring and the rains that churned the waters' edges. During the last couple of nights, I've heard crickety kinds of things. (Friend Dr. Loree might appreciate my use of the scientific terms here.) It would be wonderful if the frogs made a strong return. I remember that great sound on warm evenings. The last couple of decades, however, haven't been kind to frogs in northeast, an indicator that the waters aren't as pure as they used to be and need to be.
My concern is that this might presage a hot summer. My tribe has the tradition of responding to heat by jumping into water that's as much as 100^°C colder. As you might expect, our responses to excessive heat aren't always the brightest.
Even the farmers are suspecting that we're going to have a warm spring that will lead to early crops.  Today's Telegram has a front page story, Growing concern, about the apple growers who are as much as a month ahead of their usual schedule. The farmers are now waiting for the bees to do their business, bees that Dr. Loree has discussed in her book, The Hive Detectives: Chronicle of a Honey Bee Catastrophe.
So, the night sounds and silences are trying to tell us something. As with most stuff, we'll  figure it out some time after we need to have figured it out.

More on weather

Most New England snow storms are track-dependent - the amount and type of precipitation is mostly shaped by the location of the center of the low that's coming up the coast. If it stays close to and a bit to the left of the 40/70 sweet spot (40N, 70W),folks in central Massachusetts, particularly those north of Worcester, can expect a bunch of snow.
The storms this week ran right over us pretty much, opening the sluices for southern moisture.
And then it got really interesting and stays so. Relatively slight changes in elevation makes an enormous difference in the rain/snow mix. On Wednesday, we cleared about 10" of snow. Son Adam, who lives in the foothills of the Berkshires. That afternoon, I drove to Concord MA and saw the bare ground of the prison farm.

via Geostationary Satellite Image - NOAA


The storm that's coming today has similar characteristics, such that the storm warnings are saying that areas above 800 feet can expect 5-9" of heavy wet snow. Below that elevation, folks will get a few slushy inches.
The elevation at our house is 735 feet; the center of town is 810.

via 7-Day Forecast for Latitude 42.33°N and Longitude 71.88°W