LongRanger

now that the snow has stopped, DCA can go back to using their plug-in snowboard as a grill

2 inches, impressive calls by mets who predicted the higher totals would be west and east of here

this is old but still fun:

How Cold Is It?

An Annotated Thermometer
by Don Haugen, Pensacola Austin-Healey Club

60º Californians put on sweaters (if they can find them in their wardrobe).

50º Miami residents turn on the heat.

40º You can see your breath. Californians shiver uncontrollably. Minnesotans
go swimming.

35º Italian cars won't start.

32º Water freezes.

30º You plan your vacation to Australia. Minnesotans put on T-shirts.
Politicians begin to worry about the homeless. English cars won't start.

25º Boston water freezes. Californians weep pitiably. Minnesotans eat ice
cream. Canadians go swimming.

20º You can hear your breath. Politicians begin to talk about the homeless.
New York City water freezes. Miami residents plan vacations farther south.

15º French cars don't start. You plan a vacation in Mexico. Your cat insists
on sleeping in bed with you.

10º Too cold to ski. You need jumper cables to get the car going.

5º You plan your vacation in Houston. American cars don't start.

0º Alaskans put on T-shirts. Too cold to skate.

-10º German cars don't start. Eyes freeze shut when you blink.

-15º You can cut your breath and use it to build an igloo. Arkansans stick
their tongues on metal objects. Miami residents cease to exist.

-20º Cat insists on sleeping in your pajamas with you. Politicians actually
do something about the homeless. Minnesotans shovel snow off the roof.
Japanese cars don't start.

-25º Too cold to think. You need jumper cables to get the driver going.

-30º You plan a two-week hot bath. The mighty Monongahela freezes. Swedish
cars don't start.

-40º Californians disappear. Minnesotans button top button. Canadians put on
sweaters. Your car helps you plan your trip south.

-50º Congressional hot air freezes. Alaskans close the bathroom window.
-80º Hell freezes over. Polar bears move south.
-90º Lawyers put their hands in their own pockets.

Overnight low of 8 here is one less than yesterday's 9, and one above the 7 low for the season. Anemometer was spinning slowly most of the night.

13 ar 10 pm, 1 degree warmer than yesteday at this time. Temp dropped overnight during calm winds but then jumped whenever wind kicked up.

21 for the day's max, wind has gone calm, so maybe we set a new min temp for this winter tonight

fwiw, during the cold winters of the '70s, the longwave pattern shifted as spring neared such that we flipped to the warm side

of ne.weather, one can thank the late Joe Bartlo and his pset Jack for why boards like this exist

the last VA bullseye at this range wound up at State College

it's well known the only reason Ji is still here is because he has pics of the mods in bed with the JMA

glad someone mentioned ALEET ALEET, I'd been thinking of that through the sleet, now mostly ZR here, temp has maxed out at 20, baro not falling as rapidly as a few hours ago

sleet continues, 6 inches of snow have been compressed to 4 or 5 by about 3 inches of sleet on top, temp has risen to 19, the high for the day so far

DCA avoids the bounce problem by plugging in their snow board

no HowCow plows in the hoods west of BWI yet, which is just as well since clearing roads now would only expose them to the ice to come

yes, brings back memories of 1994's sleet, IIRC one morning around that time temps near BWI dropped to -15

up a degree to 15 with sleet, gotta wonder if the progged upper 20s are going to arrive

no sign of warmth mixing down here, temps have been stuck at 13 or 14 for the last 12 hours

I imagine the QPF vs snow depth measurements are going to be distorted by IP. Whatever fluffy stuff falls first is going to be compacted by sleet on top.

anyone able to access weather.gov is doing so via a certificate other than weather.gov's invalid one, not everyone has that option

weather.gov's CA certificate has been invalid for months, leaving the site totally inaccessible to many

Clara Peller would ask, "Where's the blocking?!?"

we need more \ and less /

Earlier, there were comments about ULL capture of a surface low. FWIW, I recall that happening with the Janury 20, 1978 nor'easter.

How do various current wx station models handle normally-varying wind directions? Do any update the direction display many times per second? Many models display what the wind direction happened to be when that instrument was last queried.

As most here probably know, air does not always move in a straight line. A real-time wind vane will show the direction changing frequently, for example, anything from W to N, or even beyond, when the average direction is NW.

To learn, I acquired a low-end station because the maker was practically giving them away. When I know the predominant direction to be NW, this unit sometimes displays S or E or others because the wind happened to swirl a bit when the vane was last queried. A few seconds later, the next query might return a very different direction. It's basically useless for determining the predominant direction. Some better stations quote a 2-second sampling rate, which seems too low to me, perhaps because I am used to a wired, real-time vane.

I ended up acquiring replacement parts from d8apro.com and repairing the unit.

Is this a permanent change at the Accuweather channel, or did they give all their OCMs Thanksgiving Week off?

BTW, windiest day here in awhile. Helped me test my refurbished anemometer.