ORH_wxman

2010-2011 was weird in that the pattern actually got pretty damned good in early December, but we got skunked for like 2 weeks straight. Huge -NAO and active PJ, but we still found a way to get a massive cutter in there and then everything else got shredded in poorly-timed meat grinders. We finally got a storm to retrograde underneath the massive block in the Dec 20-21 timeframe that hammered Cape Cod (and parts of Maine?) and gave 2-4" to the rest of us in New England, and then of course the Boxing Day model bust. Then we relaxed the pattern a bit around New Years before going into the epic January 2011 stretch. The model guidance didn't really "see" an epic stretch per say. It showed a persistently favorable pattern though without any warmups. We had the big -NAO until the 1/12/11 storm and then we actually went into a bit of a +PNA pattern for a time before another weak NAO block formed and then was erased in the 1/27/11 storm. We had loaded dice and they kept coming up 7s for us is essentially what happened.

That's true for younger kids, but not as much for the high school aged and college aged kids. They still transmit pretty effectively. Might not be as efficient as a 45 year old, but pretty close it seems from the prelim papers. The elementary school aged kids seem to only transmit at half the rate and toddlers even less. I'll also add that the spreading seems to be done outside of school more than in it. There was that study from CT a month back or so that showed a ton of transmission is occurring in carpool settings and after-school gatherings.

High school kids don't wear them very much outside of school. My wife tells me she will see them all hanging around someone's car after school and they have all taken their masks off and they are terrible about staying distanced at lunch time when they are allowed to take them off inside. That's definitely one reason cases are spreading...they teenagers and younger college-aged crowd don't really wear them....they'll spread it to older people. People are also staying inside more now that the weather is colder.

Yep, the usual suspects would say "oh here we go again!!!11! Always 10 days away!!!11!1!" That said, this has been increasing in intensity as we inch closer the last couple days. So I think there's a good chance is materializes.

Every time guidance has shown a pig since early month, it hasn't materialized in any meaningful way. This one looks a bit more robust but who knows. It's still in the 11-15 day.

Yeah....I feel like every April recently has blocking, lol....but the correlation during the winter months with robust blocking in November/early December is pretty good. For some reason it just never happened.

Pig last winter didn't set it until late December. Kind of a weird year. Usually when you have good blocking early in November and December, it reloads during the winter....sometimes multiple times. Last year the early blocking just gave way to a horrendous pattern. There was a brief time it looked like high latitude blocking would come back in late January....it actually almost looked like a 2015 EPO-redux, but then it collapsed spectacularly on guidance inside of 7 days. The key on the pig is does it stick around? If we get to, say, 11/25, and it doesn't show signs of breaking down on the ensemble guidance in December, then I think I'd be very worried.

zzzzzzzzzzzz for a while

Had my first when I was 34. Have two now...older one is 4 and younger one is 1. They make me laugh a ton. It’s pretty underrated how funny young kids are. I don’t think I woulda been ready in my 20s but who knows for sure. Might have forced me to grow up a lot faster too, lol.

Even if there were a few issues with the house, the plot of land with that type view is worth a long term investment. Just that view alone is worth a lot. It’s almost gravy that the house is in pretty good shape. That part of NH barely north of the presidentials over to the mahoosucs in adjacent Maine is still a relative secret but it won’t be forever.

Western slope is tough for retention. Esp if it's steep.

Even this run, after going a little bit zonal for a couple days, it buckles the flow again at D9.....this is just a useless OP run, but you can "see the potential" if things were to break the right way in the details

Isn't this essentially what places like the Hermitage Club already are? Country club setting for a ski resort. Out west, you get even bigger/more exclusive ones like Yellowstone Club. I'd hope that there are enough survivors post-covid to keep prices reasonable.

There's plenty of debate to be had on lockdown severity and the pros/cons of it....but this isn't the thread for discussing general lockdown policy....we all know where most everyone stands on it and it always goes around in circles. I think it's fine to discuss local covid-related issues in here (i.e. what our local schools are doing, local ski areas, etc, etc) but when we start going back to generalizations and policy theory/discussion, it inevitably just turns into a political discussion.

2020, the year skiing went from a middle class/upper middle class hobby to a silver spoon hobby.

This pattern definitely looks a bit like a roller coaster....Sunday could be pretty mild, esp if we get some sunshine. 60+ not out of the question? Then we go pretty damned cold for several days following with a good possibility of flurries or snow showers around on Tuesday and Tuesday night/Wed morning could be our coldest night yet. The pattern beyond that though looks interesting...it's showing up as pretty blocky but also a tendency for western troughing, so those will be opposing forces for our corner of the CONUS. Yeah at least they looked good....they aren't worth much that far out, but that was a flip from earlier runs. I'm starting to be intrigued by the blockier look on a lot of runs for the D8-12 range. That is a good sign because it wasn't that long ago that those days looked kind of ugly on guidance. So I'm hoping that it means there is a tendency to not allow an AK vortex to set up shop for any amount of time. Also, historically, it is good to have blocking in November. I know it doesn't work all the time (see last 2 years), but you'd rather have it than a death vortex for sure.

I'm hoping this will cause more people to go to some of the smaller mountains. Some of those places are nearly empty during week days, but perhaps they can pick up some extra business because larger resorts are capped. Hopefully that helps offset at least some of the losses they are going to have on the weekend.

I think many could see flakes on Tuesday....as the trough axis moves underneath us. Not a big deal but some snow showers around. Prob some minor accumulations in the usual mountain spots (Berks up to Greens and Whites)

The lodging aspect will be tough...lodging = “ski lodge” in this case. Those things usually get packed for lunch but they can’t do that this winter. I’m sure some will be trying to spread the crowds outdoors but that’s only going to go so far....we all know about those days on the mountain where the high is like 5F. But yeah, the actual skiing part is about as safe an activity as you can do. Outdoors and many people already have face coverings anyway.

I said it in the skiing thread a while back but I’m going to wait out the first few weeks and see how the ski mountains operate. Not that I usually ski on icy ribbons of death anyway in early December.... If we have a fast start though with a lot of natural snow then it will be tempting.

My wife tutors on the side and this year has been obscene...she’s having to turn down prospective clients left and right because her schedule is already too full. She’s never had this many people requesting tutoring sessions. The sessions actually work pretty well over zoom when you hook up the iPad to the laptop and use it as a “virtual paper” to write on. She got the pen for it and everything and it works like a charm. I was skeptical beforehand asking her how she would tutor virtually, but it’s been easy peasy. But yeah....business is booming in the personal tutoring world.

Yeah for some districts it’s going to be brutal. Luckily, my wife’s district was 1 to 1 (chrome books) even before covid so they didn’t have to invest in the technology. But for places that needed to invest, that’s a massive hole blown in the budget. The school administrations have shown to be conniving dipsh*ts for the most part. They are not afraid at all to throw teachers under the bus to cover for their incompetence in planning or delegating resources to this. It has made morale lower amongst the teachers which is exactly what you don’t want to be doing when their workload is drastically increased. I already didn’t have a high opinion of school administrators before this....

Most teachers are frustrated (my wife included) because they feel like the schools are not getting much additional help at all despite the increased stress on the infrastructure and scheduling. The school admin in a lot of districts have been very tone deaf and not accommodating.

10 day OP map.....caveats apply...but that isn't a bad look at all in winter. PV on the Asian side of the hemisphere but that is plenty serviceable. For November winter wx events, you probably want more PV involvement since you are fighting climo a little harder this time of the year for snow. But having that kind of blocking up in AK and the Yukon is good and would work in December.

Work from home FTW....company-issued laptop with remote sign-in for work, personal laptop sitting on the other part of my desk for weather posting.