ORH_wxman

There was a paper that came out maybe 7 or 8 years ago that was showing what snowfall averages would be across the US by the 2030s/2040s. The numbers were laughable....using their percent reductions by region, it would put ORH somewhere in the mid 30s inch range and BOS in the low 20s. If you took all of ORH and BOS winters that were torches (say more than 2F above average)....they'd average well above those projected values. I remember at the time running the numbers...I think BOS was like around 28-29" for their top 10 warmest winters and ORH was around 48-49". Sometimes these papers just don't pass the smell test....makes you wonder how they get through peer review. But then I have to remind myself that many of these people aren't scrutinizing snowfall the way some of us sickos do...they are probably more concerned with temps, and then throw the snowfall in there to perk up the paper. But still....if you're gonna throw in snowfall, make sure your numbers look realistic. As for the midwest/Great Lakes....they are in one of the areas of the CONUS that has seen the least winter warming in the last 30 years....the upper plains/upper Rockies actually has a cooling trend since the late 80s/early 90s....the Great Lakes and upper midwest are more like flat. It is definitely a result of these more commonplace AK ridges that we've seen the past 10-15 years....they really drive the cold air south into the northern plains/rockies and lakes....New England has been on this at times but not to the extent as the midwest/plains.

There's also unknown negative feedbacks....ala Hansen et al's "Day After Tomorrow" scenario where we see a mass Northern Hemispheric cooling event via the AMOC gone haywire. My original point wasn't really to take the "realistic" worst case scenario numbers as ironclad....more just add some relative probabilistic logic to the idea that Maine would become like NYC/EWR. The worst case scenarios require some "questionable" assumptions about energy use (such as reverting to so much coal that we have a 7-fold increase from current-day usage....this despite that coal has likely already peaked globally circa early/mid 2010s)

It won't happen....even the borderline realistic worst-case warming scenarios have around 5C of warming over the next couple hundred years....a place like AUG is about 12-13F (7C) colder than EWR/NYC in the winter. There's some crazy predictions of like 6-10C on the higher end of RCP 8.5 scenarios out to 2200-2300, but none of those actually pass the smell test....mostly because RCP 8.5 itself is almost impossible to achieve based on their assumptions of energy use over the next several decades.

I want it warm in the fall. Highs of 45F in October are utterly useless. I can maybe get on board with normal temps in Sept.

Weakening on latest frame

Yeah maybe higher MCS potential.

Euro is trying to squash the torch on this run...still gets us next Thursday, but definitely more doubt in there. Hopefully it gets squashed further on future runs.

Unrealistic expectations often affect the “grading” imho. Also, I feel like we tend to overlook the bad periods the further out we are from that year...I’ve often caught myself waxing nostalgic about some winters that were good, but probably not objectively any better than a more recent winter that I tend to point out the down periods. It also doesn’t help that there is strong variability in climate over short distances. Much of ORH county for example can expect to see 75-85 days of snow cover per winter while you might get only half that really close to the coast less than 40 miles away...and even less than half right along the coast south of BOS and much of far SE MA. With all of us sharing obs, many might feel unjustly screwed out of their share of winter when it’s actually not that uncommon to see multiple right gradient systems.

Weak Niña/Cold Neutral....just go with 2013-2014 there...

My job was almost 100% in-person 6-7 years ago. I was commuting in Boston basically every day. We had the ability to work from home during snowstorms or any other circumstances that arose, but it was cumbersome. They improved the remote working capabilities in the years since and even before the virus hit, I was up to 4 days per week at home. Haven't been in since March in the post-virus world. I don't think cities will be completely hollowed out though...there will be a pushback eventually. Human capital is the number one resource for businesses these days. Of course, there will be some variance in the different cities....you can take the path of Baltimore from the 1970s-present or you can take the path of Boston. A city like Boston has the big advantage of human capital though....it is basically the education capital of the U.S.

We had one excellent NAO block that entire winter but it was perfectly timed to coincide with a one-eyed pig that developed for the first week to 10 days of Jan 2009.....normally we would have furnaced but we hung tough and even snuck in a couple snow/ice SWFEs before the PAC flipped because the NAO block was holding the confluence in SE Canada....the NAO block broke down right as the PAC flipped back to AK ridging, but that was fine....we had excellent cold delivery and it set the stage for the bitter cold mid-month and the 1-2 punch MLK weekend.

Yeah, in our last weak Nina, we had that great stretch for most of December and into early January....too bad it didn't go a little longer before the torch after 1/10. At least it had the epic rebound in March though....not all Ninas come back like that in March. 2001 did too. Both had epic NAO blocks. Jan '09 was kind of a sneaky great month too in a Nina....zero torches the whole month with deep snow pack and a lot of events. I think ORH never broke 40F that month. Only a handful of months off the top of my head can say that (Jan '03, Feb '15, Jan '77, Feb '78 maybe)

At least weak La Nina is pretty good usually....and hopefully that means we don't have to wait long either. Usually pretty active Decembers.

'18-'19 was below normal over interior SNE....ORH only finished with 51.4". Time to get back on the horse. Last time ORH finished with 3 consecutive below normal seasons was 1997-1998 through 1999-2000.

Yeah right now I’d lean weak La Niña....it’s possible though we stay cold-neutral.

Seems like a lot of early pessimism for winter prospects going around this summer. That usually makes me feel better about things.

The subject is too political to be talking about in here ...but that study definitely has the cost analysis very flawed. It’s not taking into account a big tax increase you’d see under a theoretical Scandinavian model...and that’s not even commenting on some of the more subjective variables and how they score them. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the wrong way to go, but all the variables should be normalized if you want to do an apples to apples comparison.

That seals it, we’re definitely moving to Hungary and Turkey to raise our kids.

They can still be active after first frost....esp a larger nest which is the ones you'd most be worried about. Either do it during a cold morning (sub-40F, they are essentially useless at temps that cold outside of their nest) or wait until after a good hard freeze.

That sounds ridiculous...2-3 yellow jacket nests attacking you every summer? That's only the ones you know of since you were attacked...there were probably some that never attacked you but were present and probably didn't irritate them enough. I'm guessing maybe they grass wasn't mowed very often or it was let to grow out a lot in the first half of the summer? Seems like a ot of nests to be established on a maintained lawn of 3/4 acre. Granted, that's a decent sized lawn, but still.

Wonder how big it was...was it during your days in NJ? They can get pretty big the further south you go (longer season). Though even up here they’ll grow large if it’s a mild spring. This year they seemed to get a late start. Probably the first half of May didn’t help with those snow threats and sub-freezing lows a couple mornings. I was still seeing queens emerge inside the house in June which is usually on the late side for that to happen. During warmer springs like 2010 and 2012 I’ll see them in early/mid April.

They won’t come back if they are yellow jackets or hornets...they don’t reuse the same nest each year after it dies off. But it should be easy to remove the nest once it turns cold. Pop the top off the vent outside and just clear it out assuming it’s pretty accessible. If there’s only like 18” of piping then I assume it’s right there.

Sounds like they aren’t too far away from the outside entrance. So if they aren’t getting inside the house, I’d probably just wait for the first nasty cold snap in October or maybe even November and then pop the outside cover of the vent off and take them out. They are utterly useless when it’s cold out....so it’s pretty safe to zap them.

Can they get inside through the vent cover holes above the stove or is it too small for them? That is potentially a dangerous situation if they can get in. I’ve heard of stories where get can enter that way but it probably depends on your vent hood cover. Otherwise if they can’t, I’d probably wait until winter and then remove the vent pipe cover on the outside and get the nest out when they’re all dead. See if you can find where they are flying in from outside. You might be able to kill them too depending on exactly where it is. But if you can hear them buzzing, they might be pretty deep in close to your vent fan.