winterwx21

You're definitely right about this. Covid is much much worse than the flu for young people that are overweight and have underlying health conditions.

It's just a shame seeing these stories of young people dying because they didn't realize that they were at higher Covid risk due to their health, so I feel it's important to hammer the point that it's critical for young people to get into shape if they don't want to be vaccinated. BuffaloWeather always responds with these posts about rare cases where athletes get more sick, like he doesn't understand that a very significant risk reduction through exercise is a very important thing for people that won't take the vaccine. These rare severe cases are going to happen, but you'd much rather have a very tiny risk than a much more significant risk. So I'm not sure why he keeps responding to my posts this way.

Here in NJ they lifted the mask mandate yesterday. I went to Shoprite today, and they are still requiring customers to wear masks. I didn't see 1 customer without a mask today. I heard Stop & Shop is doing the same thing. Stores in this area are being extra cautious, and I think that's fine. Nothing wrong with being cautious for a little longer. We are down to just a few hundred cases being reported per day in NJ, a huge drop from the 4 to 5 thousand that were being reported per day a couple months ago. I would think when we get into the middle of summer and cases are down to just a handful per day, the stores with stop requiring masks. I did go to the bakery today as well, and they removed the mask requirement. For now it's gonna a mix in this state with some businesses requiring them and some not.

So you wouldn't root for weather like this all the time, correct? I've seen you say that you would love cold/snowy weather all the time. That would not work with baseball. I've questioned you on it before and never gotten a response. I'm sure you do not mean it when you say you would like weather like that all year round, because that would mean no baseball. I know you are a big baseball fan. I love winter and snowy weather, but I would never want it in spring/summer because it would ruin so many outdoor things that happen in those seasons. Can't imagine no growing season and no baseball season.

“The doctors told me if I played one more game in the World Junior Championship, this could have ended completely different,” Rossi said Tuesday, his voice still quavering from the memory of how close he may have been to a tragic ending. “I’m thankful to God that he supported me. … I’m just happy that I’m still alive.” Knowing Rossi was devastated by the realization that he was that close to potentially having his heart stop on the ice, Wild general manager Bill Guerin sent Rossi home to Austria to be with his parents. Rossi was petrified. Anytime he was alone, he worried his heart was going to stop. After returning home to Austria, Rossi lived with his parents and each night begged his mother, Claudia, and father, Michael, to sleep in his room. After being drafted by the Wild in October, Rossi signed his three-year, entry-level contract a few weeks later. The Wild assigned him to the ZSC Lions in Zurich, Switzerland, to allow him to play hockey and ramp up for a potential Wild training camp in the winter. He played one game, registered an assist but was then diagnosed with COVID-19. He experienced mild symptoms, including lower back pain. By the time he was cleared and ready to return, three other players tested positive and the team was put into quarantine. Still, during his comeback attempt with the Lions, Rossi said he was absolutely exhausted. He figured it was because he was so used to pushing his body to great lengths and his body must have been shellshocked from not being allowed to do anything during his 10-day COVID-19 quarantine. “My exhaustion (from Switzerland) always kept going. It didn’t stop. Like, it was never, ‘Now I’m back to 100 percent,’” Rossi said. “At the tournament, that was the highest point where I said, ‘OK, I can’t do it anymore. I’m so tired.’” Dr. Bill Morice, the president of Mayo Clinic Laboratories and chair of Lab Medicine and Pathology at the Rochester, Minn.-based hospital, explained there are four ways to diagnose myocarditis: Blood work can show an elevation of some of the enzymes specific to the heart muscle that can leak into the blood if there’s inflammation; EKG abnormalities; imaging, like an MRI; and a heart biopsy, which is the most definitive but not commonly done. After follow-ups to the initial bloodwork, Rossi and the Wild got definitive news that he indeed had myocarditis. Neither the Rossis nor Payer are blaming the ZSC Lions or Team Austria for clearing Rossi to return after his bout with COVID-19. “I don’t want to blame anyone,” Rossi said. “The COVID is so new to everyone, and nobody really knows what is the best reaction to do. … I’m just happy that I’m still alive.” You always post something like this after I've pointed out the severe covid risk reduction from being in shape through exercise. I realize it is not 100% protection. There will always be some severe cases in people that are in shape. But it does greatly reduce risk. I've posted several studies that have showed that. Myocarditis is a rare covid complication in athletes. There was a major study done that showed that it happened to 0.6% of athletes, so the number is very low. Much lower than the general population. Being in athlete level shape does give a high level of protection, but again there will always be some cases. You can get vaccinated and reduce the risk to just about zero, or get into shape and have a very low risk that you can live with. My main point is do not let yourself get out of shape AND not get the vaccine, because then the risk is much higher. It's very sad when you see the stories of young people dying.

The one thing you notice when you see pictures of young people that die of Covid is they're usually overweight. I know you pointed it out on monday when you posted the story of another young person that died of the virus, and it's the same thing with this young police officer. Young people need to realize (and the numbers show this dramatically) that when it comes to this terrible virus, the protective benefit of being young is really lost if you're out of shape. I don't understand how people that are so overweight can be confident that the virus won't threaten their life. Even if you're young, it's critical to either get the vaccine or get into shape. Obviously getting the vaccine gives the best protection since these vaccines work so great, but getting into shape at least gives a good level of protection from severe illness and death. These stories are very sad. Young people that didn't have to die.

At least it appears that we will salvage 1 day of the holiday weekend. The models have the rain getting out of the way by early monday morning. Monday is looking pretty good.

I know they opened up the vaccines much earlier for young people with any underlying health conditions that put them at greater risk of severe Covid though, so it's possible he could have gotten vaccinated very early on since he had health problems as ORH_wxman just mentioned. But we don't know for sure what the situation was for him. Very sad news. Obviously a great guy. RIP.

The big change on the Euro is it lingers the rain well into monday too. The previous Euro run cleared it out for monday, and most other models clear it out for monday. Hopefully this 12z Euro run isn't a sign that monday will be bad too.

The early evening storm didn't drop a lot of rain here (only .10), but had some impressive 40 to 50mph wind gusts. We got another storm late tonight that didn't have the wind that the early evening storm had, but it had much heavier rain. A quick very heavy downpour that dropped a quarter inch. So we ended up with a little over a third of an inch of rain for the day. Finally a decent watering for gardens. Looking forward to the much bigger soaking late friday.

We don't know if next weekend's rain will stay south, but it does appear that we have a decent chance of some strong storms in the heat/humidity wednesday evening. Hopefully that will work out, because the soil is really dry right now. Really need some rain.

I know New Jersey has one of the best vaccination rates. Right now we have 44% fully vaccinated and 61% have gotten one dose. I'm sure that's the biggest reason why we're seeing a major Covid decline here now.

Here in NJ the transmission rate has fallen to 0.63, the lowest it has been during the entire pandemic. Great to see the virus in rapid decline now.

89 degrees here! Temps always go higher than forecast in these situations.

Things are rapidly improving now here in NJ. Cases are down 31% from a week ago and 42% from a month ago. 60% of people in this state have received 1 dose and 42% are fully vaccinated. It seems as if 40% vaccination is the area in which cases start to decline significantly.

And NYC ended up with a .59 total. Not bad.

Glad we got our decent half inch soaking. It was bone dry so we really needed it. Next chance of rain looks to be thursday, although not a significant event. Right now is looks like showers and maybe around a quarter of an inch.

And radar looks pretty good. Heavier echoes are making it pretty far north in eastern PA. Looks like it's gonna be a good half inch to three quarters of an inch soaking for the NYC area.

12z Euro looks good for a decent soaking. It gives NYC about .75, similar to RGEM, and gets the half inch line well up into northern NJ. GFS is probably too far south with the rain amounts. The other models are in agreement on a good half inch to 1 inch soaking.

I just read that upon further examination by US vaccine advisors, the amount of blood clots linked to the J&J vaccine increased to 15. All of them women, and 13 of the 15 under 50 years old. I assume they will resume the J&J vaccine with a warning for the blood clot risk to younger women.

Although 12z NAM came north with the heavier rain amounts, compared to last night's run. It gives NYC close to an inch. RGEM also gives NYC a good three quarters of an inch. Hopefully GFS is off with the heavier amounts staying south. We could use a good soaking.

My allergies are bothering me a bit more today (windy days make it worse), but nothing terrible. My allergies are always at their worst when the tree pollen first comes out in mid to late March, and then it calms down for April. I guess it's an initial major overreaction to the pollen by my immune system, but then it adjusts and the allergies aren't quite as bad. Every year in mid-late March I have one night where I'm up all night because the allergies are so incredibly bad. There's some kind of tree pollen here that seems to come out all at once and hits me like a ton of bricks for one night as my immune system goes nuts with the reaction. This year it was a little bit later than usual on the 28th. Maybe it was a little delayed because we had a cold February, but I was up all night with the constant sneezing and runny nose. Not even one hour of sleep. Thankfully that happens for only 1 night and then it calms down a little. Now for April and May my allergies are moderate with more sneezing and congestion than usual, but nothing too bad.

Just a light shower. Frustrating. I'm going outside now to water the broccoli and lettuce plants.

Yeah got very windy here too as the storm missed slightly to the northwest. 30 to 40mph gusts, but not even a sprinkle. I see a pretty good storm is going into central Middlesex county now. As almost always happens, storms miss just to the north and just to south for this area. I don't know why the broken part of the line goes over northern Middlesex County so often. Looks as if I'm gonna have to go out and water this afternoon.

I can see on radar that this storm is gonna miss me a few miles to the north. Very frustrating how often this happens for this area. So often storms miss northern Middlesex County just a few miles to the north and a few miles to the south. Strange how often this happens.