Its a Breeze

1 hour ago, Weather Will said:

WB 12Z GEFS is wetter up our way compared to 12Z yesterday.

Have we determined which is the better Spring model?

EURO is 100% dry.

With more real estate, that little spinny in the Gulf may have had a chance to develop more...

May is the one month I don't mind being just a tad warmer than normal. Though this morning was a slight taste, we're not in oppressive humidity mode just yet.

A cool May is just painful....

5 hours ago, mattie g said:

We've had one pileated that comes to our front-yard suet feeder on the regular (lots of them in our area). Funny to see this massive bird pecking at a feeder that's about 1/3 its size.

We have a couple of Pileated, they never go to the feeders though. The Red-bellied (greedy) and Downy definitely do though.

Seen a Northern flicker once, but only once so far...

Media is absolutely fascinating.

This headline

SpaceX blows up: Starship rocket fails seconds after launch site take off | The Independent

It goes on to mention it was 240 seconds after take off. Why not use minutes? lol

The launch btw, was definitely a success. The first one always blows up. This test lasting four minutes before rapid unscheduled disassembly, is cause for celebration.

^ Absolutely none of that is true. Like at all, lol

But we're off topic.

Apologies for my contribution.

On 4/14/2023 at 4:52 PM, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

09-10 3 blizzards melted in 3 days, each time. mid 30s, it was ridiculous. We need heavy cloud cover these days (I hate 09-10). I'm saying we are really amped for a big storm, but the "nothing but GOA giving us snow" is really a snow drought pattern. 

So many questions, lol.

You hate 09-10 because we had 3 blizzards?? Are you referring to the 1909/1910 season? Melted in 3 days? Where exactly were you during that season? Also, those weren't the only times we got snow and it still doesn't explain why it was in the one hit wonder category. Which of the three was the one?

If the most snow we've ever seen in a season, for a huge majority of the region, was in a "snow drought pattern", what's the complaint? Given that no non-drought pattern season has given us that much?

1 hour ago, CAPE said:

Latest guidance is in agreement for a general inch(give or take) across the region later Saturday. Much needed.

Much needed indeed.

But as much as we need the rain, it is absolutely atrocious timing if a cool wet pattern is trying to set up now. May is our last chance of one last gasp of spectacular weather.

On 4/16/2023 at 9:50 PM, Kay said:

A few fireflies out tonight

Saw a few last week and was shocked. Don't recall seeing them this early before.

On 4/18/2023 at 8:01 AM, mattie g said:

Have yet to spot a hummingbird at either of our feeders so far this spring, but plenty of reports around.

Same. Haven't seen any yet.

1 hour ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

That's why I think we are more likely to have a Winter like 15-16 or 09-10 vs 02-03 or 95-96 (1 storm vs many). 

With those dates and when you say "1 storm vs many" are you saying:

"one or many vs one or many"?

Or "one or one vs many or many"?

9-10 is throwing me off...

6 hours ago, mattie g said:

Really the point I'm trying to make is that we don't really "drought." We get dry, but how often are things so bad that we need to think of it as a drought? And if we're like 5" below normal precip over a few months, people start talking about it, but if we're 5" above normal precip over a few months, there's virtually no discussion.

I'm definitely playing devil's advocate in here, but referring to dry periods as "drought" does trigger me

Got it.

But, it's not us. "Drought" is used by NOAA, USDA, et al. when specific conditions are met. We've been below normal since late fall (actually we've only had one above normal month since August,) but we weren't in "drought" conditions until mid-late March. And even still, it's not the whole region.

If we were in a region where it wasn't constantly wet, and we were 5" above normal, it would be talked about as flooding would likely start to be a concern.

6 hours ago, mattie g said:

What I find interesting is that when things are dry, there's this big concern about "drought," but when it's been wet there's basically no discussion about it.

?

Maybe I'm misreading. Are you saying that when it's not dry and things are normal, people aren't concerned with drought? Um...yeah? Why would they be? What am I missing?

Like, if the sun isn't exploding, people aren't going to talk about the sun exploding. But if it is exploding, then they'll talk about it. Seems like common sense *shrugs*

Also, to the common man, I don't see anyone making a big deal out of this. Interesting, sure, but I have not seen one complaint about sunny and dry

Rejoice!

This may be the last day under Snyder's control for the Commanders!!!

4 minutes ago, Eskimo Joe said:

Unpopular opinion, but today and tomorrow could be sneaky brush fire weather.

Don't know about sneaky, we've been in Elevated Fire Danger mode for a few days now (Fire Weather Watch for many a couple days ago - or was it yesterday?)

19 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Almost 90 tomorrow? 

Records are definitely going to be threatened today.

Records are :

90 DCA

87 Dulles

89 BWI

I'm sure we'll have another cold shot, but for some there's the real possibility this was it. The last dip into the 30s until October/November.

4 hours ago, WxUSAF said:

In the metro areas? This month will be AN without doubt.

I just looked at DCA...

Last week was basically the only "nice" week we've had. Half the month has been at or below normal. We had a whole stretch from the 8th to the 20th with only 3 days AN in that stretch.

20 hours ago, WxUSAF said:

Remember when this month was going to be cooler than normal? 

Looks like We're going to end up pretty much spot on average. Tomorrow may push us very slightly above. Maybe.

46 minutes ago, DarkSharkWX said:

2018-19 wasn't that bad, AN for IAD/DCA and near normal for BWI

The December miss (for all the northern folks) would have pushed it to the 'great' category....

12 hours ago, Maestrobjwa said:

Tbh I feel myself losing interest...I'll bet this board goes the way of the SE forum if we continue to have winters like the last 7 years. I don't know about anybody else, but I came here and was drawn to the science of it for the snow. Without that, or with it becoming increasingly difficult and even less of a ROI than it was in what used to be a "bad" year before this drought.

Nah, just move further south, lol

Last year was above normal with a 13"er. The 2019 season was well above average as well. Ya'll are too far north!

Edit to add: This "drought" started after 3 above average seasons in a row. Do you know how rare that is?? '14, '15, and '16 were not that long ago

For us at least, this year completes the balance. 10 years. 5 above average. 5 below.

6 hours ago, MN Transplant said:

It smells outside

I didn't go out earlier in the day, but you apparently were definitely not alone in smelling something.

https://wtop.com/local/2023/03/fire-officials-investigating-reports-of-smoke-odor-across-dc-region/

1 hour ago, brooklynwx99 said:

if we get a central-based Nino we're probably going to clean up. those are almost always money

"we" as in ya'll.

West-based please.

On 3/25/2023 at 1:38 PM, BlizzardNole said:

Quite  bit of the area at just 25-50% of normal over the last 30 days.  We will need a couple good rainmakers in April.  Eastern NC looking really crispy

Looks like the area is starting to be officially abnormally dry now -

https://www.drought.gov/current-conditions

3 hours ago, pazzo83 said:

This has been happening a lot lately, where you look at the distribution of temperatures for a given date at a given hour (these are usually normally distributed - so a bell curve), and we keep having instances where we are WAYYYY down the right tail of these distributions, i.e. temperatures that are rarely seen at that hour for that date.

Just about exclusively a late Fall to early Spring thing.

The frequency this year has been thanks to a winter of endless cutters.

Officially our 2nd 70 degree day this year.

13 minutes ago, pazzo83 said:

71 here as well - yeah I feel like by late March most of the records are gonna be 80+.

With 90s sprinkled in. For DCA, the record today is 93 (1907.)

Not sure what was going on in 1907. All three 90+ degree March records happened then.

In an above avg. snowfall year. Including 6" in March...