Eskimo Joe

Frogs out in force tonight. It's lovely.

4 hours ago, Rhino16 said:

There’s simulators and stuff that play music too.

Got a link?

1 hour ago, frd said:

Mine too. I added cow manure recently will give more fruit late in the season. Apply straw mulch as a top dressing to keep moisture in the soil,  but also prevent the heat when it gets to 90 and above. 

Early in the season they say by hitting the lower bark it signals the fig to wake up from its winter slumber.    

Eh?

You can really see the easterly flowing kicking in now. Low level clouds streaming west on the eastern horizon and my temperature crashed into the upper 50s right at sunset.

My fig tree lives!

9 minutes ago, MN Transplant said:

Fantastic out right now.  71 with filtered sun and a modest breeze.

Easterly flow can be great.

I'll be out of town June 28 to July 2. Book mark that for our next big event.

1 minute ago, Kmlwx said:

18z GFS says not so fast. It has a window around day 10 with decent mid-level lapse rates somewhat close/in the area and good supercell parameters. Wayyyy out there - but I'm willing to give the season time to evolve. It definitely is annoying getting a big early heat "wave" like this and probably not getting much out of it precip/storm wise. 

You're going to be a wreck this summer if you're tracking D10 severe already.  

1 hour ago, 87storms said:

I’m craving a storm.

We have all the makings of a total dud season. We're almost in May and we have yet to get a big event. We got lucky with that on EML-ish setup the other week, but otherwise it's been a lousy year. To be clear, I'm not advocating for damage and never do, we're just in a persistent thunderstorm doldrum.

8 hours ago, CAPE said:

3" here for April, but almost all of that fell the first 4 days of the month. Soil here is well drained, mostly silt and sand. This time of year it can get dry pretty quickly. Even though it was super wet with high water table a month ago, that rapidly changes with longer/warmer days and increase in transpiration underway, and enhanced by a dry spell. All that said, it would probably take another couple weeks of little to no rain to reach 'abnormally dry' category.

The soil moisture data at the Waldorf mesonet site perfectly illustrates this point.

Guidance really dried up in the long range.

On 4/23/2024 at 7:04 AM, yoda said:

Mid 80s next Monday gets the hot designation in the zones?  Because of near record high potential?

That's like a +15 departure 6 days out. Big heat signal.

38 minutes ago, aldie 22 said:

I feel like it needs to rain soon and pretty consistently....it's starting to get that feeling of a long hot dry summer and if we go into that dry then oh boy

The 2 inch and 5 inch soil moisture values on our mesonet sites are getting crispy.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say no late freeze this year.

On 4/8/2024 at 12:25 PM, Terpeast said:

Zero signs that the Japanese marine heat wave is ending. Looks like a carbon copy of 2022-23

Eternal pain.

6 hours ago, 09-10 analogy said:

Pocket of 9 C/km LLLR SW of DC according to latest SPC mesoanalysis.

 

6 hours ago, yoda said:

Don't see this either everyday in our region - 3pm mid-level lapse rates 

EML gives us wins.

M0.75" hail Gaithersburg

1 minute ago, ge0 said:

Berryville storm dumped a lot of hail

How large?

Looks like there maybe a subtle northwest moving boundary on LWX radar. Check out the 0.5° base velocity. If that can juice up those cells coming off WV then we might see some decent hailers coming into the NW suburbs. 

Watch coming coming out. Looks like from I-70 south?

The terrain out west and the front in Pennsylvania are probably providing enough lift to get storms started. But it's clear they can't sustain themselves closer into the metro.

As we move into a more favorable time for severe weather, I'd like to pass along some personal and professional resources for severe weather that I have found useful over the years.

First, the professional resources:

• The Storm Prediction Center's (SPC) Rich Thompson gave a nine part series on tornado forecasting some years ago at the University of Oklahoma. It was recorded and uploaded on YouTube and has significantly expanded my knowledge of tornado forecasting and severe weather in general. Each video is about one hour long. Link: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxeAIQgAiFqvsaAx79xN3gBjc8baIiWMn&si=O2fmocu33d95yGPd
• You will hear a lot about Elevated Mixing Layer (EML) over the coming months. There is a great research paper regarding the role of EMLs and northeast severe weather. While we are technically in the Mid Atlantic, the underlying fundamentals discussed in the paper are great for improving your knowledge. Link: https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/wefo/25/4/2010waf2222363_1.xml
• Each year, there are questions about the SPC probabilistic outlooks. This link does a great job cross explaining the outlook and cross walking the percentages and the corresponding categories. Link: https://www.spc.noaa.gov/misc/SPC_probotlk_info.html
• Here is a great research paper focused on the SPCs probabilistic verification of their outlooks: https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/wefo/33/1/waf-d-17-0104_1.xml
• Some helpful links for real time observations:
  • Delaware mesonet: https://www.deos.udel.edu/
  • Maryland mesonet: https://mesonet.umd.edu/
  • Keystone (Pennsylvania) mesonet: https://keystone-mesonet.org/ 

Second, some personal observations:

• There are numerous mesoscale boundaries across the area. They play a unique role in forming and disrupting convection and wreck havoc on forecasting. 
• The wedge always wins, until it doesn't.
  • If we have a steady south-southwest wind, that seems to be better are eroding the wedge quicker.
• Getting a Day 2 Moderate Risk is a jinx.
• Events seem to set up further south at the last minute. See June 13, 2013. Day 1 Moderate Risk for DC that ended up in North Carolina. 
• I have found that it is better to be level headed and expect a bust. There are so many small scale features that aren't resolved until 4 to 8 hours prior to the event.
• Downsloping kills events, but if you have either really cold temps aloft or better yet, a stout EML, then we can all win. Learn to look for these features.
• During large outbreaks, look to western North Carolina for what's coming our way. That's usually 4 to 6 hours from DC metro.

I hope this helps and good luck to everyone this year.

4 minutes ago, mdhokie said:

 

Groundhog day out in western md... Friends who live in Western PA say they've had real bad flooding. 

 

RE: Western PA flooding yesterday