LibertyBell

I did it the old fashioned way, my parents bought me a globe when I was 8 years old and it came with an atlas. I learned all sorts of things from that Rand McNally Atlas and the globe (which was topographically enhanced so you could feel the mountain ranges if you slid your fingertips across it.) Then when I was in 7th grade I got myself a star atlas and learned all the constellations. Those are infinitely more interesting than the countries on a planetary atlas. And this book which I found engrossing-- H. A. Rey's The Stars: A New Way To See Them.

the funny and ironic thing is, when it comes to spring, we're in the northeast. when it's winter, we're in the midatlantic.

Indeed-- I know this is obvious, but temperatures are measured in the shade. It's much warmer in the sun, which is where we should all be.

But there are all these forecasts that show temperatures in the 60s and even 70s starting in early April? Why are there polar opposite forecasts depending on the source?

The sun is so strong that as long as there's no wind, it will feel much warmer than the temperature (which is measured in the shade of course.)

I mean there's no reason for it to get cold since we have no more arctic shots coming. I would have thought that CC would have ended these unusual late season cold shots, but I suppose late March is still vulnerable even though the nights are now shorter than the days.

I loved the game Geography though, we played it a lot in 7th and 8th grade. I remember it was really annoying when we got stuck on the letter A (so in this game you have to name a place that starts with the last letter of the previous place)-- so we would have-- America, Algeria, Andorra, Africa, etc., you get the point, there's a lot of words that both start and end with *A* lol.

I placed 9th so it was okay. I was really nervous so I misspelled the practice round word (very embarrassing!) before the Bee even started. So I was shocked I made it as far as I did.

Thanks-- that's probably why the forecasts were for 8-16 inches. Such a borderline set up. April 1996 was a few degrees colder-- aloft as well as the surface. I remember when the snowstorm started it was 36 after a heavy morning frost low of 28. Amazing that it was that cold on April 9-10, 1996! And it was in the 80s a few days after that.

this reminds me of the summer when JFK gets its hottest weather right after a front passes through

Okay so will this be the last 32 degree low until next fall?

Oh that would have been awesome! I didn't even know there was such a thing. I made it to the National Spelling Bee in 8th grade but lost on a word I had never heard of, *otioseness*. I didn't even have the full list of words, just the first half (A-M). Most were easy to spell phonetically because they were medical words (my mom was a radiation oncologist and I read her books lol.) Otioseness can't be spelled phonetically =\

those tropical ones, OMG I hope those don't come inside, I've seen them on my trips, but they were always outside and look like snakes. I only see maybe one every 2-3 years but when I do, it's usually at night and don't get much sleep that night.

Where do they come from? I don't think we have any caves around here. I had a cricket in my house a few years ago, what's the difference between a regular cricket and a cave cricket?

omg this is horrible. I noticed these are solitary bees or they exist in pairs. They first come to drink water from my gutters and somehow make it inside. They're not attracted to any particular flower that I need to get rid of, are they?

I know lol, also in the Poconos we had a ton of power outages. Just speaking about the city and long island in the sense of an 8-16 forecast that busted down to 1-2 inches.

and really wet snow right-- lots of trees down!!

wow the 1933-34 winter was still going strong this late.... Tony, what's the coldest temperature we've ever had after the equinox, was this it?

Yes very cold plus wind chill. I love the clear skies, though. The spring birds don't care about the cold, I saw a huge flock of parrots and got some nice images this morning.

The only thing even remotely wintry are the cold temperatures this morning and this wind. On a more positive note, a huge flock of parrots came and sunned themselves on my roof and I got some nice images. There is some kind of enmity between parrots and starlings, when one flock comes the other one immediately leaves lol. Nature is way more interesting than our weather right now, although I love the clear blue skies -- regardless of temperatures.

That's not how it works though, Ant. Usually / most of the time when we see a snowstorm in April, the winter itself has been snowy. Like 1996, 2003, 2018.

April 1997 was so overrated, April 1996 was MUCH better. I still don't see how Boston got 24 inches of snow, Logan is right on the water.

is that a backdoor front? it looks like an arctic front that gets hung up north of here.

Some horrible person made this youtube video (I saw it years ago and not about to look for it now) in which he put a mouse and a giant centipede in a jar together and the little mouse looked so scared, as if his eyes were about to pop out of his head. I would have locked that guy in a room with about 1000 of those nasty creatures.

They're not even insects and they're much older than dinosaurs. The big asteroid couldn't even take them out lol. Ours are bad, but if you lived in South America or South Asia, OMG, they're the size of snakes there and really vicious. They eat rats and when they sting you it feels like your blood is boiling (literally!)