Bob Chill

Just had a sporty storm roll thru. Over an inch in 20 mins with frequent CG. No warning but it was close to that level. Have had 4-5 pretty good storms so far this year. Always fun when nothing gets destroyed. Storm TV thru the window will never get old lol

Sitting around 4" total in the yard but totals are very uneven down here. About 40 miles to my southeast got a stripe of 4-6" yesterday during a mini-train in just a few hours. Areas to my west prob have less than half of my yard. Lake levels haven't responded yet. A testament to how uneven the distribution has been and also how crazy dry the ground has been. Stream levels have only made it back to normal at best.

Finally breaking the back on the drought. It's been straight crunchy dust down here for months. Had a sporty storm roll through a couple hours ago with some gully washing and gusts near 40mph. Picked up 1.3" in under an hour and now round 2 is rolling through. Could be close to 2" by morning. This is awesome 

5 hours ago, GramaxRefugee said:

Last I knew, Smith was released during the day and pumped back up at night to get power when needed ,(read expensive)...a 2 lake system. So, I'm guessing power demand affects it too. Looked at this site,  and it is down 5'...

https://www.smithmtn.com/lake-levels/

...but it's been lower. 

Appalachian Power used to have a great visitor center at the dam with large models that explain their system. It's out of the way, but really worth it. Staffed by volunteers too. Been years since I was down that way...hope it's still in operation.

Yea, the pump back operation is pretty interesting. Our property at Leesville lake is near the head of the lake so it's pretty cool when they let it loose. I've kayaked the "surge" from the visitor center to our ramp area. Its not rough or whitewater or anything like that but you move down stream pretty quick lol.

The double lake pump back operation is 1 of only 2 in the world. They release during peak demand and pump back during low demand when rates are lower. Free money glitch for the power company lol. Leesville lake can go up and down as much as 10' a day. I've been fishing from shore during big releases and you get chased uphill haha. Leesville is 3.5k acres and smith is over 20k. A full 10' pump back can only raise Smith 1' though so they can't balance the levels in that direction.

Smith has an annual draw down in the fall/winter after peak boating season but it's usually short lived. Like a few weeks. We haven't had full pool since last summer and having it so low during peak season is tickin' a lot of people off. No quick fix this time. It's going to take a lot of rain to get back to full pool. Record low is 788.30 looking at the levels data but it happened in 1977 and not 1968 like the news said. I should call and correct them haha

1 hour ago, frd said:

Ugh

 

Smith mtn lake is over 5'  below full pool. Many ramps including the one in my hood are unusable. Many boats on lifts cannot touch the water. It's apparently the lowest the lake has been since 1968 which was just a few years after it filled up for the first time. Lake levels are generally quite stable and typically don't fluctuate more than a foot or 2 throughout the year. 

The recent rain helped knocked the dust down but I'm starting to think it's going to take a tropical event to reset this drought with any efficiency. Thankfully the well on our property on the other side of the mountain has no competition from neighboring landowners. 

After some MUCH welcomed rain lol, wife and I caught a pretty sick sunset last night. 

Fun day. Had our 3rd tstorm of the day roll thru a few mins ago and another on its heels. Nothing close to severe but they've all been noisy. Popcorn boomers 

8 hours ago, Ji said:

anyone see the cansips for winter lol

Imo, cansips is prob a best case scenario. -EPO door to door and no deep GOA trough. I don't think the classic nino height pattern will be friendly like it has in the past. Oceans are warm and the pac jet is more problematic. We've needed amplified flow and the majority of our snows over the last 10+ years happened with a -EPO. "Regular" cold has been delivering near misses way too often and ninos aren't known for anomalous cold in the east. 

Waaaay too early to worry about details of course but personally I'm not that excited about a nino. The only thing that will make me optimistic over the summer (assuming a nino actually happens lol) is a legit +PDO forming. If a nino locks in and the npac sstas are all jacked up, I'll be pretty pessimistic 

Second tstorm of the day for my yard. Nothing severe but some good gusts with the first one. One right now is pretty noisy but looks like the severe stuff will stay to my NW. Enjoying the booms and rumbles either way 

Easy A- grade here

Climo is lower in my hood but over 14" is climo+ and having a 2 week period of complete snowcrete cover is quite rare. 

Accum snow in each month DJFM + plenty of cold temps made it a door to door winter appeal. Again, pretty rare. 

Had snow on snow during the snowcrete stretch and that's always a nice bonus in any winter. 

Only reason I can't go A is I couldn't manage a 4"+ single storm. There's plenty of history down this way with bigger storms in the 6-18" range. Just missed that on the Carolina big storm as areas just 30 miles to my south picked up 6" or more. Had that event produced (I got 2.5"), it would have been an easy A grade. A+ (imho) requires a double digit snow even along with all the other important factors

5 hours ago, katabatic said:

This is my 4th winter here and wrt Wisp, this was their best season of the last 4. In fact, each year since the 22-23 dud, it's gotten better (not saying much, I know). Hopefully next year, we'll get a couple of bona fide coastals that bury us. Since they threw in the towel, the Wisp employees are in limbo right now and the ~25 J1 visa employees have all returned to South America. It's that weird intra-seasonal space between ski and golf season where it's tough to get anything done there. Looking outside, occasional snow showers continue and temp is still at 19. Not too shabby for St. Patty's Day 

 

When I lived in CO ski country I used to go through that same weird transition. The month of May is the single worst time to visit or live in ski country. We called it mud season. Everything soggy, rivers too high to fish, lakes still frozen, and too much leftover snowpack for back country hiking/biking. It really sucked.

After my first season I learned and would  take the whole month off and travel to see friends in the east. Then my summer job would start memorial day weekend. Deep creek is totally similar. I recommend traveling and partying heavily until the lake season kicks in hahaha

5 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

March!

4 minutes ago, wxdude64 said:

Down to 33.1/30.0 here with moderate snow, lol. I dropped 22 degrees in 90 minutes earlier. 

Even for March standards this is pretty wild lol. Down to 43 now. 20+ degrees in an hour feels like a time warp haha.

Im starting to think I have a chance at some snow before the precip exits. Shield is pretty big in the cold sector. Last week it started snowing at 37 degrees. Accums seem much less likely (near 0% lol) this time but seeing snow fall again within 24 hours of sweat and t-shirts is comical 

Went from 65 to 48 in a blink. Wx has been a little bipolar last week or so lol. 

Under a warning for the squall line moving through but it's not severe. Just heavy rain and some typical gusts. No lightning either. 3 warnings in one day lol but none verified in my yard. Which is completely fine with me. I have enough work to do without adding to it 

Line is still to my west but front running rain has broken out and it's bringing wind down with it. Has to be gusting low 40s. You can hear the roar in the distance before the gusts roll through. Still out of the south but Roanoke has switched to westerly and gusting high 30s.  This is better than both of the 2 lines that moved through earlier. 

Wow. This hits. RIP wx brother.

Winds kicking up down here pretty good now with gusts in the low 30s. Wind advisory may verify with fropa in a few hours even if storms aren't organized. 

Second line was pretty garden variety. First one had some gusts in the 40s albeit brief. Second one was just heavy rain and a couple good rumbles. So far radar to ground truth has been more bark than bite. Looks like I lull until squall line/fropa. 

Second warned line moving through in a few. Brief rotation down by Martinsville but my area looks like straight line stuff at worst. 

I'm rooting for EF3s that very gently disassemble things and then gently reassemble them somewhere else. 

13 minutes ago, Ephesians2 said:

About to get hit by this. Will report back. Some peeks of sun this morning. 

There is also clearly a good deal of wind shear. The breaks in the clouds reveal different layers moving in different directions. 

It's pretty nasty buy but not anything crazy. Biggest gusts during torrential rain and some decent CG. Power is still on lol

Tomorrow has the feel of an overperformer and I hope I'm wrong heh...

Wind advisory hoisted for my yard tomorrow for gusts to 50mph so any severe that develops in that environment is going to push stuff around and over lol. Chainsaws will be getting a workout me thinks. 

12/2: T .003" zr and 5-6 sleet pellets 

12/5: 3.0

12/8: 3.8

1/25: 4.3 (1.8 snow / 2.5 sleet)

1/31: 2.5

2/4: .5

3/12: .4

Total:14.5

Deeeeep winter lol

Mod snow/sub 1mi vis. Starting to stick a little. Honestly didn't see this coming. Was certain it wouldnt work down here. Hope this slug translates to the DMV. Was covered in sweat and dirt 24 hours ago. Wx is awesome lol