Bob Chill

Past week has been pretty epic. Best fall for me in some years. Weather is off the chain. One for the books

Beats me but ninos do it in their own way too. Remember this, Nina's are a math calculation based on SSTAs in a specific (small but impactful) region of the Pacific. That's all they are. Sensible wx in various regions of the hemisphere are influenced by many other things. Second year "Nina's" are often just plain strange when you compare it to classic Nina weather. Ninos have hangovers no matter what enso does the second year. So it's not just Nina's. We simply don't live in an area that gets back to back good snow years with few exceptions. Enso can't save us from that. Too much other stuff works against us by default (latitude). Nowadays, weather has been so volatile that old school thinking is no longer working. That's a big reason I don't engage during the fall much anymore. All that conventional thinking has been getting tossed by mid Dec as "real winter" shows up lol. Our snow climo has always kinda stunk. 70s and 80s werent really that different than today with weenie suicides. Us old timers like to memory compress the 70/80s. There were a few epic periods of snow and some epic cold but I wore no jacket to middle and high school quite often every winter. Early 80s were terrible except for Feb 83. Lots of warm. Lots of mixed or no frozen. Some epic cold with not a drop of precip and plenty of failed hopes and dreams. Big storms were really rare too. 79 was the first big storm I experienced in MD and my parents moved here in 72. After 1979, the next one was 83. I lived in MD for 11 years and only experienced 2 big storms. 95-96 and 02-03 individually destroyed the entire 11 year period lol. Now we expect big storms on the regular. Which isn't unreasonable because storms are clearly more energetic than 20+ years ago. On the flip side, while we occasionally enjoy more energetic storms, there seems to be a shift away from old school 1-5" storms. Especially early season. Some of it is temp related but not all. Energetic NS shortwaves like clippers were a staple in MD for as long as I can remember but something shut off after 2015 and hasn't come back. Starting to think it's permanent and sure hope I'm wrong.... Winters in the dmv (for snowlovers) have been annoying as heck for the 40 years I lived through them and they will continue to be annoying long after I'm gone lol

The marine heatwave near Japan is wild. Mt Fuji is still brown (or was recently) breaking a 100+ year record. The way we've looked at things for many years, the pdo in its current state is a pretty easy winter cancel feature. I don't disagree much. But the extent and departure from normal is so great, my gut is telling me that it will cause an anomalous surprise downstream (somewhere). Conventional LR forecasting of the winter hemispheric LW pattern hasn't been working well with man or machine over the last handful of years. Things just aren't lining up and unexpected things keep overwhelming. So what's it going to be this year? Classic warm east/snow dud nina or something nobody can predict that surprises people? Time will tell. I'm feeling a positive surprise and I'll go down with the ship at this point. That said, positive surprise doesn't mean 13-14 walking in the door imo lol. More like active enough and cold enough at times to satisfy those who expect a classic dud. Something like that.

October is actually pretty late. If we're staring down a Nina with a possible back to backer, he'll cancel 12+ months in advance.

Things are kickin in good down here now. Wife caught these early AM shots headin to our land.

Still some work to do at lake level but i dig lake reflection pics. Approx 620' at the lake and around 800' in my driveway pic.

Spent time working on our property in Sandy Level. Young hardwoods under the mature canopy are peaking nicely. Always love the contrast with the pines. There are a lot of native mixed pine forests down here so fall has a lot of deep contrasts. Love it.

Looks like peak down here is happening above 1500'. Still some work to do below that. This is the west side of smith mtn in penhook today. Top of ridge is 1800-2k'. Weather has been insane last 10 days. Reminds of of early fall in CO. Blue skies and dry for days

For overall winter flavor, my top analogs are 83-84, 03-04, 05-06. Gun to head, Dec will be in play this year but being in play and actually snowing are separate discussions lol. Like I alluded to last week with my wag, warm periods will be warm+ and overwhelm any chance at a BN DJF but the cold periods will be sharp. Maybe one month ends BN. My gut says Jan is the best chance at that but recent (persistant) trend is late cold so March is probably more logical. Just spitballin' there. If the Nino hangover guess works out then a stj storm in Jan or Feb could make the winter memorable by itself. I like Terp's forecast in general but I can't stop thinking the Npac LW pattern won't be classic Nina. A tendency for Aleutian ridging poleward and further east than classic is my against the grain thought. Downstream it would bully the classic SE ridge placement further east. SE ridge delaying and shunting aggressive cold shots has been a real thorn last handful of years. Models have been terrible in mid/long range with that. My guess is that will still be a problem but just less of one than recent years. At times it won't be a problem at all due to my upstream guess. Lots of guessin out of me this year lol

Predicting nina climo with a warmish background is a pretty safe and easy guess this year. My problem with that is over the last 5-10 years there has been an against the grain longwave feature more often than not and few if any point it out in advance. Mega epos, ninos strangely behaving like Nina's and vice versa producing confusing periods of met winter, pac jets on meth, and all that jazz. So what's it going to be this year? What's the key unusual feature(s) that will rear its head? I'm not a big fan of right for the wrong reasons with snowfall. Personally, I'd much rather see a long ranger blow the snow side of forecast but nail the red headed stepchild in the upper levels. That's a show of deeper skills and ability to think critically no matter what books and other people say (IMHO only ofc). Far easier said than done but we're in a string of winters with unexpected dominent LW features. There seems to be a propensity to buck climo. Chaos or more volatile climate? Beats me but things going as planned seems to be no longer part of the plan. Hahaha lol I'll take a crack at it.... No deep analysis here. Just intuition and observation. In a nutshell, I think the -epo is coming back. That doesn't mean easy snow without precise alignment. If anything it favors cold enough for snow but it doesn't want to snow lol. Below normal temps for DJF are never coming easy again for large swaths of the NH I don't think. Oceans are fighting that. But cold outbreaks in the east are always possible. I expect some in each month of DJF. Storm track is always a problem so it will be again but my intuition says there will be some setups that look more like a nino than a nina. A hangover of sorts. I don't expect an active or hibernating STJ but i do believe it will be present at times and briefly remind us of a nino. Lastly, I have a hunch we get some blocking and it will include Dec. Doesn't mean cold and snow. Just means tracking won't be boring or hopeless. On the balance I believe this winter will continue being weird and make people scratch heads but in the end it will be acceptable. That's all I got.

The WORST fookin invention was cheap motion detection floods. Walking the dog at night last 5 years in Rockville was a game of cat and mouse with floods. When we bought our Rockville house in 02, our rear neighbors had 2 floods on 24/7 in the back yard. Omg annoyed the hell out of me but I was new to the hood so didn't want to be a jerk and complain so I did the next smartest thing.... Drank about 6 beers on my patio and wandered up the yard and tresspassed into theirs with a 5 gal bucket to stand on around 1am. Then gently unscrewed bulbs till they went out. That was it. They never screwed them back in for 20 years lol. Same bulbs were in the fixtures when we sold. So why did they even have them on in the first place? Well, they clearly had no f'n idea either hahahaha

The May one was more intense and vivid but you guys in the dmv got hosed by clouds. Last night was pretty epic tho but that may deal down here in swva was astounding and I've seen NLs in Canada back in 96. Those were a pure 2 tab acid trip. May was a modest shroom trip but the location made it kinda mind boggling

Reminds me of a night in college

Wow. What a night. We went down to the lake and it was stunning. Naked eye no problem but long exposure pics kill it lol.

Had the brightest red wave come through just now. Could see the spikes with naked eye and total red sky. This is wild lol

My son is taking these pics. I'm not good at the photo thing. This one is 10 seconds. Milky way really shows up nice.

Pretty decent down here in Penhook around 830-9. 5 second exposure on this one. Stars are really bright tonight. Little to no light pollution to contend with.

I'm kinda liking what I see rn and what it makes me think about. To be perfectly clear... lol... I DO NOT expect a memorable winter compared to longer term history (like the last 30 years ) but I'm feeling strangely confident in a memorable winter in comparison to the last 7 lol. And I kind of agree with webberdude about 2014. I've been quietly thinking about it. Not a redux because we had some sig anomalous stuff around AK that whole winter. A "Lite Version" is what I'm thinking. Fast moving outbreaks into the upper Midwest pushing into the east on schedule. Maybe shortwaves hit when things are fresh like periods of 2013-15, or maybe they hit when flow turns late like 93-94. Either way produces actual winter precip and personally, I'd just like to see frozen stuff in general and not get bogged down in the "if only and what if" thought loops. Not to mention how fun this place is when a 3" snowfall produces unhappy bitter posts 4x1 over those who are just happy it snowed. I'm starting to think that an entire cohort of people only feel good when they are deeply unhappy surrounded by lots of company. Time alive is the most valuable commodity we have. I don't waste those minutes focusing on the negative and my appetite for seeing/hearing it has vanished lol If things are in fact going to actually behave like winter, even if volatile and streaky, there should be far better airmasses around the eastern half of the conus this winter. Which shouldn't take much considering lol. IMO- the plague of last winter on the EC was a product of persistently flawed longwave timing. The alignments and timing were out of sync and it affected the entire corridor. The ingredients kept getting tossed in the salad bowl but some dummy kept pouring ketchup on it instead of ranch or vinaigrette. We can argue the elephant, and it is part of it imo, but when the entire 95 corridor suffered the same flaws up and down, it's more likely just that way it goes sometimes. Dems da'brakes son lol If the pac jet has a propensity to buckle before hitting the west late this fall into mid Dec, it will make me feel a lot better about my gut intuition. I'm not going to trust any long range guidance though. 3 years of getting killed by that is enough. I'm not wasting any time trying to watch or predict a favorable shift in the pac jet if it's being a little bitch again. LR models haven't got that right in years lol.

When we first found the land we bought on leesville lake (lake access no frontage) we had no idea if we would "fit in" on a personal level. All kinds of preconceived ideas of "how it is". I was embarrassingly wrong lol. Spending a week in the area in summer 2022 was all it took. It's unique here with super rural remote land surround by pockets of recreational 2nd properties of all types and sizes. Our penhook property is in a locals haven and the weekenders are similar. The community were in until we build our house is 80% weekenders and 20% full timers. People are a lot of fun and super casual. No million dollar personalities here but plenty close by. Smith mtn lake in the summer draws in A LOT of what we moved away from but it's people having fun and not commuting to work. Still gets crowded in the Westlake area on weekends. Easy to avoid in totality because the crowded areas are teeny compared to expansive country. We don't spend much if any time in those areas during peak season. Our part of leesville lake is always deserted with minimal development. It's awesome if being left completley alone is your jam. Life is a trip lol. Eta: the #1-3 reasons we relocated here is cost of living. Going from $8k/yr prop taxes to $800 is liberating AF. Car insurance dropped 40%. Groceries are soooo much cheaper and far better. Local grass fed beef is everywhere and beautiful ribeyes are usually $8/lb or less. So many examples of lower cost it's shocking how bad I was bent over in Rockville lolol

Thanks man! We absolutely love it down here. Feel completely at home and the people are wonderful. Need to change lanes? Oh, just use a blinker. Need to pull out in "traffic"?... first person that can make a space does with a wave. Loading lumber alone at the yard? Employees and customers together come over and help and there is no saying "no". After many decades in DC metro, you forget that the vast majority of people out there are truly kind and helpful. Sad but true for me. It's getting kinda hairy down here honestly. Flickering lights and long drawn out gusts last 30 mins. If it gets to damage level I'll take a vid and upload it

Gettin pretty nautical down here in Penhook. Def some gusts in the 30s last hour. Under a wind adv and flood/spinny watch. Mentions of landslides in the AFD. Lol. If things really start to rip I'll head over to sm mtn lake and get some pics. I'll be careful with the storm surge

Been in MD since Sunday taking care of all kinds of stupid stuff related to our relocation lol. Dang kids Heading to penhook tomorrow. Thinking about spending Friday in sandy level on the east side of smith. Not like it matters all that much because it will just be windy rain at the worst. Kinda liking the center pass to the west. Could mix the east winds pretty good if the depression is still strong enough. Could be a fun time on the ridges of western NC for some peeps. @WxWatcher007I enjoyed your last chase vids. This storm is a different animal so be careful when you're standing in the middle of the street during the eyewall approach. I want to see the destruction in real time so maybe livestream before you end up in Southern GA with a 100mph tail wind. I have an old motorcycle helmet if u need it

Intuition is telling me this winter will be OK. We've been on a multi year stretch of stale cold. Always slower and shallower than first anticipated. Setups have been half decent at times but I can't count how many times mid level flow had already turned sw too far in advance before a shortwave arrives. It feels like if all shortwaves arrived just 12-18 hours sooner than they actually did (like models often showed in the mid range lol), stats would look a lot better. Not great but not in the gutter either. Subtle variances in lw trough alignment can always mess with us and we've been getting our asses handed to us. WDI index is high to win a few even if thru dumb luck Before 2015 got rolling in Feb, we failed in similar ways quite a bit. Once the lw trough axis shifted things heated up. 2015 isn't an analog in any way to me. Just using it as an example of failing with stale cold or mid levels scouring top early. My total wag is this winter will have several condensed periods that feel like real winter. Periods of -epo/+pna make a lot of sense to me like the climate models are starting to think about now. Counter-intuitive surprises are probably here to stay in any enso IMHO. Good luck guessing that right year after year if it keeps happening lol. Volatility is baking in it seems lol We had some see-saw winters sandwiched between the big nino years of 02-03/09-10. My wag is a mix of that stuff. Haven't thought much about it. We'll see how it goes

Got hit with a couple nice localized blobs this AM on the east side of smith mtn. Over an inch since 5am. One of these years (alive or dead lol), a noreaster is going to bank up against smith and dump on us. Rain on east flow overperforms regularly. Bout tired of that S lol

Hey Wx Fam, wanted to post a quick update. House in Rockville is sold and we're out of MD. Sale closed on Thursday. Spent 4 months getting the house ready to sell and it was on the mkt for all of 5 days lol. I thought I would be more emotional considering we lived there for 21 years. I feel more relief and freedom than anything... so far anyways. It's going to take a year to build on our land in Sandy Level so we got a place nearby in Penhook. Its a really cool little place too with free access to a boat ramp on Smith Mtn Lake. Our son is going to live there full time and wife and I will split our time between the properties. Only 20 minutes apart and that's quite a feat in an area as rural as this. I'll post more later this fall/winter than the last 2 years. Nothing big in life comes without great work and sacrifice. I think 2 straight years is enough of that. Time to slow it down and take it all in.