winter_rules

That’s funny because I always have to clarify when I say “good” or “bad” winter to someone. It’s a matter of perspective….

Are there other sites similar to this one? I may have to give in and check out Discord.

Agreed. We’re heading into kids’ field hockey and football seasons. I recall two years ago having a game one weekend at something like 85° and high humidity followed by 45° and steady mist the following weekend. You never know what you’re going to get this time of the year! If I remember correctly, last year the games happened to land on almost all beautiful days. Doubt we’ll see that again.

I hope this happens. We have missed out on most of the recent rain events for the past week or so….after not having any chances for a few weeks before that. Gorgeous weather, but could really use the rain now.

At 1,700ft we are usually “white” but it has been many years since we have had several inches of snow on the ground on Christmas Day. It seems like it must be a pretty remarkable statistical anomaly to pick any random date between Dec 1 - Mar 1 and see how many consecutive years did not have more than say 2” of snow on the ground. I think we’re looking at a decade or more. The fact that it happens to be Christmas Day is incredible. I’d like to forget Christmas 2020 where we got hammered with 2.5-3ft of snow exactly one week before Christmas, only for it ALL to melt Christmas Eve into Christmas morning. That was almost as incredible as having it all fall overnight a week earlier!

That’s what I assumed too. Painful. On the other hand, it might not be bad for us to go into winter with that expectation. Then there is a slight chance of wintry weather exceeding our expectations….

We had our 2nd consecutive morning in the low 40s this morning. Blue skies and low humidity. It really has been a beautiful stretch of weather recently.

We received about 1” last night and about 2” overnight last week. If not for those two, we would be concerned about drought again, as well. It’s amazing how one or two fluke events can change everything. Hopefully you get something soon!

Yeah, sensory overload! Could have at least made the background colors red/white/blue….

Our son had a double header for baseball yesterday in the Binghamton area. It was in the 50s all day (exactly 50 to start the first game) with steady wind, clouds, and intermittent rain showers during the morning. Everyone agreed it felt like an October football day, not a June baseball day. Low of 39° this morning which is the 3rd time we have dropped into the 30s this month. It’s shaping up to be a gorgeous day, though!

FWIW, I’m starting a new job next week which will have me spending a lot of time this summer in Syracuse. I’ll still live in Delaware County and my work will be based out of my house by September. The job has a sales element to it and my initial territory will cover roughly Broome to Oneida County and points west from there (and 4 northern tier PA counties). I’ll be making regular trips to the Rochester and Buffalo areas once I learn the ropes. Maybe I can meet up with some of you western folks some time this fall/winter.

I’m packing my bag now!

I was starting to get nervous about drought, but yesterday and tonight/tomorrow should help out tremendously.

Road trip to Colorado?

I just upgraded to my neighbor’s car which has functional air conditioning….looks like I got lucky with the timing!

Same at our house. Saw some frost on a roof that must radiate well….it’s almost always the first place I see frost in the fall.

We had 25° Sunday morning and 28° this morning. We’ll have to wait and see how the wife’s new Mother’s Day flowers faired. They were under a covered porch roof so I have my fingers crossed.

Thanks for the input! I have been thinking about a battery push mower, weed whacker, and leaf blower, but wasn’t sure which brand to go with. I was thinking Stihl just because I trust the name, now I’ll look into Ego.

I think this is one of those storms people will remember for decades. Glad to hear that your power is back now! We got ours back about 8pm Wednesday night, but it has been out again today since 7:30am. A section of our neighbors still haven’t had power back at all since it went out.

That’s awesome. I’m living vicariously through your big hikes so please let us know how it goes!

FWIW I’m just joking with my whine about shower/brushing teeth. But yes, we are on well water. We still have water (whatever is left in the hydropneumatic tank) for now. We can refill our toilets from the pond and creek. The kids also brought snow into the bathtub that actually resulted in quite a bit of water. We can also brush our teeth and get clean water down the road at my parents who get their water from a spring on the hill that flows to the house by gravity. We lose power regularly, but this is the first time I can recall going beyond 24hrs. I consider a generator often, but then look at the never ending cost and maintenance and the fact that I’m in my mid-30s and don’t ever recall this kind of situation. It’s a lot of money to just sit there for years and then possibly use it for a day or two. The neighboring farm has one that runs off the PTO of a tractor and that is interesting to me. The generator part does not need much maintenance, and if the engine component is actually a tractor that gets used regularly for other things, then it’s less of a hassle. I’ll be looking into that option when things return to normal-ish.

Can my family of 5 come shower and brush our teeth at your house? Back at work with electric and cell service. Still no power at home and in most locations between home and Binghamton. More than half of the gas stations I pass are closed with no power…..loooong lines at those with power and functional pumps. Passed many lineman trucks heading east on I88 coming in to help. At least one was from Michigan. No action near our house yet so I’m hoping for warm and sun today to help warm up the house for us. That’s the one good thing about this storm….losing power (heat, water, etc) in late April is very different than losing it in January!

We had a dusting at 11:15pm, 10 inches of white concrete on the ground at 2:15am. Also broke a bunch of branches and trees, and we haven’t had power since about 2:30am, not expecting it back for quite a while. Maybe tomorrow? A big branch took down our overhead electric service and pulled the pole to a 45° angle rather than pull the mount off the house! The sound from 2am to about Noon when I left for work was wild. At 2am we could hear branches snapping (and the following muffled crash down to the ground) in the dark every 1-2 minutes all around us. By Noon it had slowed down to probably one every 5 minutes. I started trying to put broken branches into a pile but quit after two nearby branches broke overhead and came crashing down. Not cool. We have quite a mess to clean up.

No thank you. I’ll have an excavator at the house for a project that week. I’ve already been fighting snow for what seems like every day that I have been working on it already!!!

That’s a remarkable reduction! It leads me to the same question, though. Did all those people who were shooting and robbing others go get jobs and get straight? Did a welfare check cover all their needs? Were they all put in jail? Or did enough of them get thrown in jail to chase many of them over to a different location with less severe consequences? I should probably stop asking this question because it is going to lead to a political argument, but I am genuinely interested in an effective way to help people who are currently living “that life.”