Bob Chill

Just finished a really fun/satisfying build on our land. We ended up with 2 wells drilled because the first one had a silt problem and the driller guaranteed a good well. We're using the problem well for irrigation so it's an amazing bonus resource but you can't have 2 well heads on a single permit and permits are expensive. Driller told us to camouflage the problem well. Since it sits at the junction of our main drive and homesite driveway, inspectors will literally drive right past it every time they come.

Wife came up with the idea of putting a doghouse there and hiding the well head behind a fake wall inside. Thought it was brilliant so I went to work. I've been milling logs from the land clearing project back in the spring so I have a small mountain of lumber to work with lol. House is framed with yellow and red pine and decked/sided with white oak. Turned out really slick and I'm pretty proud of this build. Adds a really nice touch to the property and most importantly... the dog loves it lol 

57 minutes ago, wxdude64 said:

Wrong side of the 'haves/have nots' here this time. Would have hurt more if it was 25 degrees in Feb. A few sprinkles around 3 pm and again around dusk. Not even enough to dampen objects. Currently 57.3/55.3. 

Total ripoff here too lol. Just enough to make the dust damp. Not nearly enough to do any good. It's pretty comical driving the gravel roads. Mile long smoke screens make me laugh . Reminds me of the old video game Spy Hunter

1 hour ago, 87storms said:

That’s awesome. They’re around in Frederick as well, but haven’t seen one biking yet…though did see one scurry across Hamburg Rd a couple years ago. Might have been the one that had been recently released.

Been seeing them a lot this year. Prob once a week. My son hit (and killed unfortunately) a young male driving back in July. I think the population must be up because there are reports of them getting into trash in more developed areas around smith mtn lake as well. There's a ton of undisturbed forest around here so frequent sightings must be part of a population increase. Deer have definitely boomed and a few too many coyotes are running around. Coyotes are the only animals that I wish weren't around. They will kill dogs and our dog will chase anything lol. Bears stay clear of dogs 

Great outdoor work wx but it's a dry dust bowl lol. Ran into a mom and some cubs today. There were 3 cubs but could only get 2 in a pic. I was about 100yds away. Black bears around here are curious but keep their distance... thankfully... lol

On 9/10/2025 at 7:53 PM, WxUSAF said:

Yeah 13-14 has some things going for it. 14-15 was a Nino. Neither had the water near Japan as boiling as it is this year however. 

The NE pac warm pool didn't get going until Dec and the PDO was favorable at the beginning of met winter. The persistent epo pattern caused the warm pool to form and then there was a feedback loop of sorts that persisted well into March. Imo, it's a stretch to be using current ssta conditions in the Pac and pulling out the 13-14 analog. 

This is a good visual showing just how hostile the pdo has been since 2017. It's only one piece of the puzzle and no single index drives "it all" but it's also no coincidence that the last time it was friendly (2014-16) we had one of our best stretches of consecutive winters. 

In enso neutral and nina winters we need a good alignment in the Pac or it gets pretty hard to get things right around here with cold and winter wx. If things are going to work this winter a -EPO will be really important. Generally speaking, -EPOs don't come easy if at all when the PDO is strongly negative. 

1 month trend in the PDO region is actually not bad...

Early August 

Current 

EPS/GEFS/GEPS all show a bias towards upper level troughing near Japan over the next 2 weeks. Still way early and a long ways to go but with Nina enso conditions seeming likely this winter, a bathwater PDO region would be very problematic during met winter. If (and it's a big if) the -PDO collapses over the next 2 months, it would be a pretty big positive sign that winter could be interesting instead of soul crushing. 

Other than major blocking, which can't really be predicted until it's happening, there isn't much to get excited about irt a cold/snowy winter. Just pointing out something worth watching as we move through the next couple months. 

19 hours ago, WxUSAF said:

I can buy some good cold shots this winter a lot more than I buy AN snowfall. Feels like cold+dry/warm+wet taken to 11.

100%. All signs point towards a predictable Nina'ish winter. There's almost always a wildcard in the general base state that surprises long rangers though. I don't have any real thoughts there. Optimist wag would be anomalous amplification of the epo ridge and downstream troughing in the east. Pessimist wag would be poor alignment in the NE pac causing a propensity to ridge in the east and a predominant storm track NW of us. 

I do think the AO will be half decent for the balance of met winter. Gut feelin the flip in the longer term phase bias cycle. Maybe the nao actually does something too. Kinda hand and hand there with decent Nina's. Without north Atlantic help, Northern stream stuff likes to avoid the MA. Especially further south like where i am lol

12 hours ago, Eskimo Joe said:

I don't think I can tolerate another lousy winter. Last winter was at least cool, but we had some real heart breakers. Hopefully we can manage several decent moderate events at least. I really would not want to see one big event that melts off in 2 or 3 days.

I don't see much to get excited about honestly. ENSO doesn't look inspiring and and the PDO region is bathwater right now. I'm not pessimistic like having a wall to wall disaster but my early guess is lining up cold air AND precip won't come easy.

The optimist side of me is thinking that we will have some patterns that lock in some cold air for periods long enough for some real chances at winter wx. How things mix together is impossible to know at any range really. 

Overall my gut is feeling pretty ho hum based on history and playing this silly game for the last 20 years. Ma Nature is a complicated and unpredictable lady though. The rubber band will bend our way again. Your guess is as good as mine as to when lol. Would be nice to enter met winter with a BN Atlantic. Dec has real hard time working when a large parcel warm along the coast. That's doesn't look hostile right now but we have a long way to go before understanding that piece. 

Seems reasonable

4 hours ago, CAPE said:

Always the case with these Climate models. I don't pay much attention to the h5 height anomalies on these tools, more so the height lines and the flow. At the surface the depicted temp anomalies give a sense of where the colder air will be relative to avg. At least there is some blue! And its nearby.

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. 

10 hours ago, high risk said:

The cooldown for the first weekend in August looks legit - very strong ensemble agreement across modeling systems.

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 

42 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

Bart: it’s the hottest summer of my life!

Homer: it’s the hottest summer of your life SO FAR

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

4 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

Yeah looks like a couple-few days of less swelter then the ridge builds over us late next week, which could bring some heat. But the ridge pulls west fairly quickly which brings back NW flow.

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

12 hours ago, CAPE said:

What brand do you use? I buy Sawyer on Amazon. Good Stuff but crappy pump spray dispenser. Super annoying.

 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

11 hours ago, CAPE said:

All that digging and playing in the dirt you do, have you managed to avoid chiggers? I do a lot of the same stuff here(to a lesser degree now) and every time I have been lazy and not sprayed myself, I have paid for it lol. I try to do my 'playing in the dirt projects' in early Spring and later in the Fall for the most part.

8 hours ago, H2O said:

Being a surveyor for 30 years I know all too well how bad ticks can be for where they like to hide. I could tell horror stories about ticks. 
 

I used to be more afraid of poison ivy than chiggers early on in my career. But as time went on and I got into places with chiggers frequently, I can say now that I would run thru fields of PI happily than get eat up by chiggers. 
 

Those damn bugs are the single most useless creature on earth

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 

9 hours ago, mdhokie said:

When society ends up in a walking dead type situation can I join your compound?  I can help you dig and build stuff! 

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 

18 minutes ago, nw baltimore wx said:

Bro, you need to change your handle to @BobTheFarmer.

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 

15 minutes ago, CAPE said:

I literally just noticed this beautiful meadow of sunflowers a couple days ago just a half mile down the road from my house. Only a small opening where its visible from the road.

 

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

10 hours ago, mitchnick said:

Updated Cansips just out, though dry for the winter, keeps it BN most areas north of the Mason-Dixon line. This is a link starting in November.

Summer is reasonably tolerable over most of the conus too.

https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/?model=cansips&region=us&pkg=T2ma&runtime=2025070100&fh=4

500mb starting November 

https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/?model=cansips&region=nhem&pkg=z500a&runtime=2025070100&fh=4

Enso starting November 

https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/?model=cansips&region=global&pkg=ssta_noice&runtime=2025070100&fh=4

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

8 hours ago, GramaxRefugee said:

Looks like you hit a jackpot of cedar for those planter beds; (assuming you harvested/milled it yourself). The aroma must be great. (Or maybe my eyes deceive me)

Nothing like working outdoors on a winter day with mans-best-friend helping.

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