showmethesnow

Couple things you can do here to help keep weeds down. First off, you really need to keep on top of the weeds throughout the summer. Never let them grow long enough where they flower otherwise they are just going to drop seeds for the coming year. You also want to throw the weeds in the trash and not just throw the pulled weeds back onto the ground in the garden. Just doing this and nothing else and you should see a noticeable reduction year over year. Second, at the end of the summer clear the garden but don't roto-tiller yet. Put down black tarp or plastic for several weeks as to where hopefully the sun will create enough heat on the surface of the soil to kill any seeds that have been deposited over the summer. If you roto-tiller before hand all you do is push these seeds deeper into the soil where not enough heat can be generated. Now if you are dealing with an invasive weed that spreads (Such as I have been dealing with a Morning Glory ivy ever since we bought the house) you need to actually spray that with a weed killer instead of pulling it. Spraying it will help kill the root system from which more plants will spring up even after you pull the original weed. I have used this method the last 3 years and it has just about been eradicated after years of it taking over a decent portion of the garden. One benefit to rotoing in the leafs in the fall is that they will compost quicker in the soil then on the surface. They will also tend to help keep the soil from packing as much over the winter as the leaves will create air pockets as they decompose.

Beaver dam,that brings back memories. Used to go swimming there as a teenager.

That sucks. Wondering myself what I will have when I get back from vacation next sun/mon. Hopefully it's just a bunch of weeds. That's the only drawback to a summer vacation, wondering if your garden survived without your pampering.

Had the same problem. But not only did I see growth under the feeder we were also seeing plants shooting up 10-15 feet away as the squirrels were stealing the seeds and taking them elsewhere to eat. The other problem with the feeder was the fact that my dogs considered their own personal buffet with the animals it attracted. Finally took it down after a year's trial.

Having our first tomato tonight for dinner with BLT's.

We have a senior community a couple of blocks away so often times I will drop some produce off there. Might look into the local food bank this year as well. Of course neighbors and co-workers get their share as well. Splitting at the forks? First I have ever heard of that. If the tomatoes are struggling you might want to try some calcium nitrate on them. Of course you probably already know that.

Best time of the year when the garden first starts producing. After a month or so though it becomes, 'Who can I foist this stuff off to so it doesn't go to waste'' as you get burned out eating veggies every day. Probably have some cucumbers (3 plants) to harvest in the next 7-10 days. Pepper plants (1 red, 1 green) are looking healthy. My tomato plants (3 plants, 1 grape tomato) are going gang busters and they are the best they have looked in years. Probably have some tomatoes to pick in about 2-3 weeks. Yellow squash look sickly and yellowish. First I had thought it was because it was to wet but the last week or two it has dried up a good deal so I am probably looking at a fungus in the soil. Overall I am happy with the garden, it looks the best it has in the last 3 years.

In the old days farmers would catch Snipes and release them into the fields to control moths and other garden pests. They are somewhat elusive so they would send their young and agile children to catch these critters. If anyone is interested I can PM you the specific directions on how best to catch them. Another method employed was to try to attract them into the fields. Snipes love candy corn, so quite often farmers would strew it liberally throughout the fields. But this method had its drawbacks as it attracted another pest, the neighborhood children.

That would come in handy for my winter snowfall predictions. Of course knowing my luck I would pick up a Ryan Leaf type pick.

@PrinceFrederickWx Did I win yet? If so PM me and I will give you my address for where you can send my prize. New car, wasn't it?

Thought I would be the first to get my snowfall predictions up for this summer. Call me a Nostradamus if you like but I do feel this will be a very tight competition between the contest participants. BWI: 0" DCA: 0" IAD: 0" RIC: 0" Tiebreaker HGR: 0"

BWI: 97 DCA: 99 IAD: 98 RIC: 101 Tiebreaker HGR: 96

Good luck with that. All I can say is if by chance we do see those numbers then I am moving the hell out of here.

Nowhere near the experience and knowledge of those on here when it comes to severe but this coming Friday into Saturday has my interest somewhat.

Looks as if the biggest culprit with the storm yesterday was that we saw less qpf and rates through central MD into Balt then expected inserted into an already marginal temp profile. Had a domino effect to the north as the warm nose was not getting mixed out as well as it continued north. So despite having better rates around the MD line they were combating warmer then expected mid-levels.

Measured 4.5" at 3:00 am here in Hanover just across the MD line. If I would have snow boarded was probably talking nearer to 6 all things considered. Went to bed at 7:30 so didn't witness it for fact but looking through the layers of the snow fall I see no indications we ever turned over to sleet or rain. So it looks to be an all snow event. Except for a brief period of time in the late afternoon where the snow got somewhat icey for the most part we were probably talking around 10:1 ratio snow and probably closer to 12:1 by the time I went to bed. But the ratios don't mean a thing when a light to somewhat moderate snow is falling into 33-34 degree temps and the ground is being heated by the deadly March sun. Temps did finally hit freezing at sundown and then that was when decent accumulations started occurring. So final call here of 4.5".

12K is coming in wetter and farther north with the max strip of precip by hour 12.

Ratios once you get out into the farther NW subs will probably be 10:1 possibly 12:1 around the favored locals around the PA line.

Just don't get arrested for indecent exposure. Or do. Would make for a great conversational piece on these boards for a long time to come.

Keep us posted for when they hoist the flood warnings for you.

I noticed that. Snow maps are pretty useless on the southern edge as much of that was actually showing sleet. And that was fluctuating from run to run depending on precip being shown. So though it looked as if we were maybe getting a shift southward of the snowfall in fact that was nothing more then it just showing an increase of qpf totals. If you actually looked at the soundings you could see there has been a shift in the temp profile northward run over run, more so to the east then the west. Right now the battle ground in my mind between mostly conversational snow and/or sleet and shovelable snow is probably just north of DC running east through Balt. Now how that adjusts will probably be determined by what amount of heating we do in fact see on the ground as well as what dews are looking like when the precip does move in. If we do see a spike in temps and/or dews then we can probably shift that battleground northward as we will see deeper low level warmth that needs to initially be overcome. That lends less time where the temp profile will support snow before the warm nose pops in over top. Conversely less heating/lower dews and you can shift the battle ground south. At this time I am liking the potential for 10-15 miles N/W of the cities especially the favored locations around the PA line. Seeing a general increase on projected qpf and tend to believe we will continue to see that increase. Thinking at this time there is a decent shot we see some 10"+ reports somewhere up in that favored local as I would not be surprised if we see some 10-1 to 12-1 ratios as we see some good lift through the DGZ at times in that region. The only limiting factor will be ground temps in that case. Keep the temps around freezing for the majority of the event and they may be golden.

Wouldn't that be a kick in the ass for many of us if that were to verify. The problem is, is it is more aggressive with warming the surface and raising the dew points then other guidance. This in turn is creating a much deeper warm layer at the surface that is much more difficult to over come. You can see this if you compare the 3K NAM soundings. Guess it could be right but I highly doubt it, I just don't see that sort of response occurring with the flow it has on the surface. Don't follow the HRRR at all so I don't know what issues it does have. But taking a stab at it maybe it is overplaying IR in heating the ground? Underplaying the cloud cover and its effects on limiting the IR? I guess what I am saying is, is the HRRR the DEB of the model world and telling us we have no chances because of the infamous March sun angle?

Not too bad, sort of mirrors my thoughts though I would tweak it a little. Probably go with a little more of a SW to NE axis of snow fall. So move the western snowfall south a touch and the eastern northward a touch. Also think there will be a tighter gradient of the snowfall north of the 2-4 zone. So shift the 4-8 southward into most of Carroll and into northern Balt county. Think just north of that we will see 6-10 around the PA line. eta: Also wouldn't be surprised if NE MD does a little better then projected if the low is a little stronger off the coast.

Where are you seeing their latest forecast? All I see is the one posted from 9:45 last night.

NAM twins are in and they continue the theme of what I have seen over the last 24+ hours on guidance and what I sort of expected to see. The tendency on guidance has been to amp (buckle) the flow a touch, away from the flat somewhat zonal look we were seeing on previous runs as the storm runs underneath us. So what does that mean? That means we would see the initial low take a more southern track (blue line) to our south initially as there is a better press at 500's behind it vs. the more zonal look (black line). But then you notice that we see blue track start hooking north as it hits the coast in what is typical of a Bench Mark track (track quite often seen with big east coast storms) vs the black track which is running more OTS. The reason for this is that with the slightly better buckling at 500's the low has more room to grow so it strengthens quicker and stronger vs the more zonal flow. This strengthening will have a tendency to pull the low pole-ward adding a more northerly component to the track. And this is what we have generally seen over the guidance the last 24 hours or so. This is a good thing as it allows our region to be under the influence of a stronger low longer vs. a weaker low that is running for the most part OTS. What is a shame though is that we don't have high pressure extending over top of us. Throw that into the mix and we more then likely have a MEC or even a KU from DC up into the NE. Now at this point most of our precip (rain/snow) is related to WAA (warm air aloft) as the low runs to our south and very little of it is related to a CCB (cold conveyor belt) transport of moisture from the low off the coast. With a quicker stronger low to our south you will see a better response with precip totals but you are also seeing a more aggressive push of a warm nose at mid-levels as well. And this can be seen with the latest NAMs. The question at that point is, are the increase in rates enough to balance out the stronger push of warm as they mix it out? In the NAMs case not so much as they do shift northward somewhat with the rain/snow line. Now one thing I will be curious to see. The NAMs are just now picking up on strengthening the low sooner as they see a more favorable 500 setup. And this is happening within 12 hours of game time. But after that initial quicker strengthening they then slow done that strengthening as to where we see roughly equivalent pressures when the low is off the coast compared to our flatter runs. I question if that will be the case here if in fact they are right with the stronger low to our south. I would tend to believe that we would see a stronger low off the coast then what the NAM's currently show (again, if the models are correct with the lows earlier solution). The implications could be that we actually see a somewhat organized and stronger CBB flow setup soon enough as to have a somewhat meaningful impact for our region. This would favor areas more so in the east/northeast portions of our region.