Bob Chill

After nearly 6 weeks of nothing... picked up just under an inch in the past 24 hours. Feast or famine has been the theme for the last couple years. Prolonged dry is followed by too much lol. I doubt the 0z euro for down here (10 inches over 6 days lol) but i have a hunch my area will get peppered pretty good. Dust bowl to mud bowl in a blink lol

Fall color starting to pop at the top of Smith Mtn (about 2k'). Maple, elm, and hickory mostly. Oaks still mostly green but the acorns are carpet bombing everything lol. Lots of pines on the mtn so it looks really nice during peak with the contrast.

Wife and I were joking that our dog got a new house on our land way before us lol. So why not... auto water and maybe a pinball machine and mini fridge.

We kicked around the chicken/egg debate quite a bit that year. Looking back at historical data it looks (to me) that the initial warm pool was the direct result of a persistent anomalous pattern causing the PDO to spike and then some sort of feedback. SSTA plots through the fall of 2013 don't look like a harbinger to me. The NE pac was loaded with BN temps in early October but then flipped over the next month into Nov. But the PDO was spiking during that time which makes sense. Persistent troughing near Japan would naturally have a downstream ridge. Then in Dec the -epo kinda shoved the warm pool further east into the GOA region. When I look at this stuff from a 10k' view, the +PDO was the catalyst for the SSTA configuration leading to the "warm blob". The blob got bullied and enhanced by a anomalous -epo pattern that kept reloading. We've discussed this before but worthing pointing out again.... the NE pac has a cold current and is never "warm". So 5 degrees above normal is still pretty cool. Hard to say how much influence that area of the Pacific can have on the upper levels of the atmosphere. Imho, the upper levels drive the bus and not the other way around in this specific region. But having the type of ssta configuration we has in 2013-14 was most definitely an important clue or guage of what was going on in the atmosphere. If this winter isn't going to be a dud, the crazy -PDO has to implode at some point leading into met winter. You've pointed this out already but if the PDO is roasting when we're eating turkey and watching NFL games... I won't be very optimistic

We already discussed a solar fan. He's a great dog and worth it

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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