Bob Chill

Seems reasonable

Same. I just look at the ridge/trough orientation and glean some thoughts on source region. As depicted continental cold will dive east at times. That's the horse. Hopefully the cart bangs some precip into it when it matters. There could be a giant blob of blue heights in the Pac NW and we'd be better off discussing winter of 26-27 lol

Pretty much thinking the same thing as @Terpeast and @CAPE. CFS has been mostly unwavering for months. EPS and cansips basically in the same genre. Progressive NS dominant winter = so-so in all departments. Bad luck= disaster warm wet/cold dry cycles and good luck = a heater stretch or 2 with multiple events in compressed timeframes. Big events are possible in any winter and precip has trended up with dynamic storms because of reasons. No lr guidance is showing anything classic and I'm not expecting classic setups but you can never blanket write stuff off. Something nasty and dynamic is going to hit again one of these years. WDI keeps climbing every year too lol. Gut guess is this winter will be warmer than last winter (easy guess lol) and snowfall/frozen will probably end up at least in the barely acceptable department.

Salivating.... this has been a tuff summer down here for outside work. I put in my time no matter what but there is no way to fully "get used to" the level of soup that has been dominating the weeks since early June. Been tracking this pattern flip closely and making work plans. A 5 consecutive day break from relentless 70+ dews will be a lotto for me. The last few days have been nice but 3 days out of 30 doesn't really do much for my mental state lol

This hits... SE legend. Loved his posts and sense of humor. I will most certainly miss his knowledge and style. RIP forum brother and thank you for the decade+ of good reads and laughs

Yep... last summer was a soupy mess. I got really tired of it. I had some unfounded optimism going into this summer because you know.... rubber bands and stuff. Optimism erased. Lol. My complaints aren't even the temps. 90 degrees with reasonable dews is totally fine. Even low 90s. The pattern has been stupid stagnant soup with little wind. NWS Blacksburg had a quote in one of their AFDs that said "if you liked this week, you'll love next week. Looks like a carbon copy" lol. Referencing the pattern in a week timeframe and not a couple days sums up how persistent its been down this way. True groundhog day stuff. Maybe the back half of the summer breaks our way. Feels like lotto odds rd tho

Been watching ens guidance as well. I'd trade 2 of my kids for a 2 week break from this stuff. What a relentless summer. I'm so torched from yesterday I need a day off. Just don't have it in me to push thru and another humid heat beat down. It's only mid July too.... ugh

Sawyer bottles are awful. We buy the biggest sawyers on amazon and transfer into a good pump bottle that actually has a nice wide spray lol

Chiggers are straight devil spawn. Got me good 3 years ago. I didn't know much about them. An army got into my socks and it was 2-3 weeks of hell before it was finally over. A big bag of WTF. Hit me a few other times since and in areas that no man wants to get chiggered... pure evil... Ticks are off the chain everywhere and alpha gal is no joke. Our neighbor got alpha gal and hasn't eaten red meat in 4 years. Apparently it eventually goes away but F that ish. I'm taking no chances anymore. Premethrim on my shoes, socks, and work pants on the regular. Picardin or however you spell it on my skin twice a day. I like that stuff a lot. I hate deet. Picardin is the way. Works great and no stinky slime on your skin. Honestly, i have no fear of anything except insects in the woods. Friends ask about snakes and bears and stuff like that and I always say the only thing to worry about is insects. Take em seriously

My day to day life seems 100% normal now but when I take a closer look at the last 3 years I do wonder if I'm... hmmmm.... well.... maybe just a little insane? My wife and I joke around that we are being prodded to "get ready for something". Which I always say is fun crazy talk but deep down inside, if I'm being totally honest with myself, a small part of me wonders if it's true

Lol. Not me. Wife is 100% the brains of the grow operation. I just do what I'm told and I like moving dirt and building stuff and things like that Sunflower fields are awesome. IIRC, they follow the sun thru the day. You should set up a time-lapse while drinking beer all day on the side of the rd and confirm. Hahaha

Grabbed a couple garden pics this AM. Veggies consist of squash and zukes in the closest bed with the trellis and the other trellis bed in the distance is beans like scarlet runners and some cukes. Empty bed kinda hidden is potatoes in grow bags. We just harvested most of them and replanted. Smallish yields but bags are really easy to deal with when growing potatoes. Big long bed is killing it. It's actually 2 rows of plants with a string of peppers in front (jalapeno, Tabasco, shishito, nardello, poblano, Italian cherry) and a WALL of tomatoes behindlol. All kinds of tomatoes that I can't remember most of. Coyotes are my faves. I just eat them whenever lol. The rest are various heirlooms and nearly every plant is stacking up with fruits. We've had some pest problems but pretty minor so far. We had shit luck with tomatoes in Rockville. Always something like fungus, mildew, and blossom end rot. Down here is much more forgiving. Pretty sure it's cooler nights and low pollution. It's rare to have lows above 70 in the forest. Still gets hot AF during the day but the natural air conditioning of the forest is pretty amazing. Next year we'll have a 12'x24' greenhouse built along with at least triple the amount of beds. This year is experimental and it's far exceeded our expectations already. Incredibly satisfying

Prolific lightning down this way. Torrential rain is taking a back seat to the epic cg stuff. Best light show I've seen in years. Wow. Training cell is warned but little of any wind or hail. Wouldn't want to be walking around in this one. Nowhere to run or hide lol

@RDM wow man, that's sick... love it. Seriously. Masonry is one building skill I haven't practiced much but greatly respect. Not much room for error and it's gotta be just right from the get go. You'll remember the build like yesterday and appreciate it forever. I'm excited to build our house. Modest size but lots of little touches that wife and I will love and appreciate until our time on earth is up. Then our kids can fight over it lolol

CFS has been showing a similar -epo/+pna pattern for months now. Progressive flow kinda similar to the 2013-15 winters. Bootleg -AO at best on the plots but who knows anymore. Volatility rules the roost lately and long range hasn't done well for years. My personal algorithm says odds favor a -AO more than the other way around. No reason to be down on our chances. All seasonal guidance has an OK pac DJF. At least the epo/pna as shown can deliver continental cold in the east. My gut says winter won't be 3 month cruise on the failboat fwiw

I wish I could say all the cedar came off our tract but probably less than a third of it. We don't have a lot of cedar in the mix and few were in the way of the land clearing plan so I bartered with a small mill in Fincastle VA. Traded 2:1 with white oak boards. Had a lot of white oak come down so I milled that off and got cedar in return. Cedar is twice as valuable so it was a lot of work milling the boards lol. Around 150 10' 1x6s lol for 75 cedars. I wish you can preserve the deep purple heart wood of cedar. It's crazy looking when you mill it but it oxidizes quickly to brown. I did seal it all with a whey based food safe sealant from a company called Vermont Natural Coatings so the grain color should remain as is in the pic for years to come. Otherwise it turns silver/grey which is cool if you like the antique look. Wife and I decided to keep the natural red/brown color and we're glad we did. Came out better than we expected and the sealant is expensive. I think it was $350 for 5 gallons yikes lol

We've missed a lot of typical events since. It's that simple. Big events were never that common here even in the 70s and 80s. We've had more big events in the last 15 years than we did in the 25+ before that. The problem in the last 10 years (imo only) is typical or "normal" event frequency. Weather around the world is more volatile in all seasons than I've ever seen. Feast or famine is everywhere. Last winter had the temps but when it came down to when it mattered things had a real hard time working out. A handful of years in the last 10 were plain warm and that's always a dagger but even the good looks didn't produce like many years further back in time. It's a combination of a lot of things and not one explanation. In my eyes I'm seeing fewer cold periods and the ones that do come along are either short lived or the depth of cold is weak. Look at NC... their problems are similar but amplified. The best advice is to approach each winter expecting the same problems that have plagued us for a decade and be thankful for things that work out. Big storms will almost certainly happen again but active snowy winters with lots of events will require more extreme (and rare) longwave patterns

I'm mid 50s nowadays and cannot take a beating like I used to lol but I've really hit a stride this year. Working very hard and but smart. When my body tells me to take a break I listen hahaha. It's hard for me to talk to my old friends in MD because they can't relate to what I'm doing and it's too hard to explain. You seem similar though and a kubota guy lol. I picked up a used kubota mx5200 tractor late winter and it's a beast. Also rented a kubota kx04 excavator for the month of March and pushed that thing to it's limits. Bad ass machine though. Worth every penny and i saved a mountain of money doing it myself. Cleared about an acre total in various locations on our property. Pushed over 100+ trees and this was my view for 4 weeks lol It was an amazing experience although challenging AF at times. Saved all the good logs for my sawmill and have been making lumber. Built the first phase of our garden complex and now the beds are loaded with tons of veggies. I'll have to take some current pics. Turned out amazing and I'm humbled by being able to pull it off. I'm building a big greenhouse on the flat pad between the camera and beds. Our homesite is cleared and ready to build but since we have a decent place to live for now I don't have any time constraints. Greenhouse before actual house makes sense as crazy as that sounds When I'm not working on the property I'm working with a buddy doing land clearing and private road installs and things like that. It's a labor of love more than a chore. It's not for everybody but the lifestyle makes me feel better than anything i did in MD. I feel like I found my way in this crazy world... finally... lol. Life is a trip. Anything is possible if you have the enough confidence to take some chances. I never saw this coming 5 years ago and it's been a wild ride with lots of twists and turns on the way I'm sure.

PLEASE let ens guidance be right with predominant W&NW mid/upper level flow from the 4th onward... lol. Not expecting anything "cool" but the past 2 weeks have dented my resolve. I've been working outside daily and drinking 2+gals water per day without taking a leak is getting real F'n old lol. I've lost too much weight as my appetite gets destroyed. Still better than an office job though but if this keeps up for another couple weeks I may change my mind hahahah.... nah

No, not like that. Imho- record breakers are more likely than less likely. Something will line up just right and put down insane totals before long. Juice is real and prolific qpf makers in general are on the increase. Bread butter frequency is what is worrisome. The punch of the northern jet seems to be retreating on avg and south of the M/D never had a lot of room to spare even in the better times of decades past. Lack of clippers is a good example of what I'm talking about among other things. 2014-15 was 10 years ago already. Seems nearly impossible to get a run of clippers and overrunners since. The 4 decades before that had plenty.

Always appreciate your posts. We think alike often. That's either awesome or some scary S lolol. I'm pretty sold on the CFS monthly ideas in the high latitudes. Fits the "blocking is back for a stretch" weird multi decadal pattern that I personally think is real. It's not a predictable cycle like others but it does wax and wane in 8-12 year cycles. Problem with prediction is you only know its flipped in the rear view and there are plenty of odds and ends that muddy it up. I've seen enough last couple of years to feel oddly confident this winter will feature some really nice looks. But if we're all being honest, storm tracks just aren't what they used to be. Imo- it's no fluke it's hard AF to get normal stuff underneath us in a clean way... even with good looks. You could say the east is due for a run of traditional noreasters but again, muddy odds and ends are persistently and consistently stabbing us right in the heart. Random? I hope so but idk... Intuition doesn't feel like it is...

Just under 3" in my yard but I just got back from a trip to Roanoke. On the way back it was straight dumping from the east side of town to the Blue Ridge. Rivers, rocks, and debris on all roads lol. It was wild. Not like big flood stuff. Just sheets of running water and gutters barfing anything they had in them into the streets lol. My son saw a small tree stump floating down a side street. I was concentrating on driving at the time. Man that S was wild. Weather is awesome

I don't have any thoughts about next winter so I'll just use this one for now

Oh yea! I'd tell you to move north but I don't want to do that to innocent north of OKV peeps. They like rain and snow. Over 2" and counting. Ground is done absorbing. Heavies are running off pretty quick. Convective rain later (if it works out) should bring some mini flood photo ops lol. This event will end up being more than anyone needed to this area but man, we needed it anyway.

Man it's been dumpin down here lol. Start time kept getting pushed back leading in but it doesn't matter. Every wave and pulse has heavies mixed in. I wouldn't worry to much about a bust (except for a small area N of Winchester ). Tomorrow has convective potential and that will likely bring some warnings to the blue ridge into the piedmont. Some people already have over 3". My yard about half that. Glad it's coming in prolonged waves. We really needed it. Been a dust bowl since early April. Not kiddin either. Dustier than Tony Montana's upper lip and stuff