gravitylover

Where were you hiding? Everything ok? I dunno, I guess I'm just appreciating it differently this year. My wife and I were talking about this driving around the last 2 days and while it's pretty mediocre from a distance it's not bad up close in a lot of spots. What it isn't is a nice carpet of color like we used to get so it looks great out the car window. Like I mentioned earlier it's damned good when you're in the woods or in an area where it's mostly shaded and cooler, north facing helps as does tight canyons. It may also be that after being so fkd up last winter everything has been more vivid and dramatic for me this year and I'm just appreciating the fruits of the earth a little bit more this lap around the sun. Cold, wet, windy and gloomy day but after such a nice stretch since late June I'm alright with it. Bring them leaves down and get it done with

xx

It's strange, from a distance it's just ok but up close and in the woods the colors are great. I guess that means we need to get out of our cars and appreciate it.

Well I'd call it a pretty great foliage season so far this year. Unless we get a hardcore wind event I think this will turn out to be one of the better ones of the decade around the Northeast. I haven't been north of I90 in the last week but it's been beautiful everywhere I've been. Hopefully it doesn't all go away before I can get out west of Binghamton and up to the Daks in 2 weeks.

37 here. Looks like KDXR just about got to freezing. Most of the higher spots stayed considerably warmer, it's near perfect radiating conditions and it shows in the 5-6 degree difference over very short distances. With all of the different weather stations we can access now it's pretty cool that you can really see microclimates at work.

Move to the central Rockies. That's exactly what it's like from late May into mid September. Sometimes that weather holds right up until the first real snows in mid November with snow only in the high country and spectacular weather where most people actually live. Yep, gonna pull a bunch of peppers before it gets too chilly tonight but I can't figure out how to cover the plants or if I even need to be concerned about a bumper crop of tomatoes ripening on the vines. It would be nice if it gets below freezing for a few hours and starts to put some of the plethora of stinging bugs down for the season.

It's crazy how it was so much wetter here last spring when it was wet but when it dried out it was a dramatic turn and it has been exceedingly dry. Is there no way out of the extremes this century?

I hadn't thought of that, I think you're right. Huh, that's a good stretch without a totally miserable day. Good observation. FIFY

Yeah probably but the other car hit him sliding sideways. Had it not hit him it would have headed off the road into the woods moving at a pretty good clip. I guess it's a good thing he was in the way .4" and 48*. It's a good ob, a guy a few blocks away at pretty much the same elevation as me got a weather station that posts on WU.

.15 so far today, 47*. Does this low temp cancel out the highs from the last two days? Yesterday was way too high above average. Watch out for wet leaves out there today, also watch out for the genius that isn't paying attention sliding into you like happened to a friend of mine about an hour ago and totaled his car for him.

.02" Woohoo

I saw 86 before the rain.

The solution is to stop practicing modelology and learn more about the weather and how things work so you can make your own determinations. The models are really only supposed to be used as more tools in your kit that enable you to make the best decision as to how you see the weather unfolding for the next period of time.

Yeah the woods are super dry, it's not just dusty it's sandy now and in places that are frequently wet the ground is cracked and split. Most small creeks are nearly gone too and the bigger ones are just a trickle. I haven't been riding outside the LHV recently so it's just anecdotal but from pictures it looks like we have more leaves down here than pretty much anywhere else but the foliage report is showing a few spots up in the 'daks are at 50% or higher at peak color. Yup acorns are overly abundant as are chestnuts and those little spinner things. And what's with the damned swarming around your face gnats?! Those little buggers are really annoying. On the bug note, did anyone else see that EEE infected mosquitoes were trapped in Orangeburg? At least it's becoming pants season so that bit of protection is good, looking forward to a good hard freeze to put down some of these bugs that have been such a nuisance this year. That rain the other day was interesting. I got it pretty good here and Yorktown got a good soaking. As you go just a bit further north and east it dwindles quickly. Downtown Brewster got pretty wet but by the time you get to the junction of 684/84 they got very little and exit 1 was the dry line but it did stay wet south of 84 to KDXR, the north side was dry within 200 yards of the road. I ride the trails in there 3 or 4 times a month and it's scary dry, like tinderbox dry while the stuff on the other side of the road is like being in a completely different forest.

I think Rob said he was at 35 yesterday morning. Ooh you got us up here by a couple of degrees this morning.

Foliage is starting out strong all around the northeast so far. There is a lot of early leaf drop though. I noticed that started a while ago though, some trees started thinning by mid July after it dried out here, not so much in places that stayed average for rainfall. I think it had something to do with just how wet the previous 20 months had been.

Yeah it was chilly. I don't have any idea but, like this morning, it's all about microclimates especially in fringe season events. Sheltered hollows that have a wall exposed to early sun see the most dramatic differences over the surrounding area. As the sun warms that one side whatever warm air was trapped gets sucked out in the updraft and the surrounding cold air sinks in creating a much colder spot. This morning there are 30's in the valleys below my house but it's over 50 at the top of the hills. I'm at 48 and warming quickly due to my eastern exposure and being about 2/3 of the way up this range of hills while the station 220 feet above me is 53 and 350 feet below me is 42.

KDXR in Danbury was at 36 this morning around 6:30.

There are a bunch of stations near here in the mid to high 30's this morning. It's chilly in the house.

11/12 It got close this morning near here, I just saw 36 at KDXR.

Another COC day.

It surely feels like fall. It has been a near perfect transition since about 8/20 from summer to fall.

I did a little loop up to Greenfield Mass and down to E Hampton CT then home. I spent the extra hour or so in the car on the way up and went through Pittsfield then up through the heart of the Berks because it was just so damned beautiful out I didn't have the heart to do a closed window Interstate run. It was absolutely gorgeous up there today with the leaves starting to turn and the red maples a deep dark ultra rich color. The late afternoon light down the valley on 91 was great but when we got to the quiet corner area it was sublime. It's harvest season so the farm stands are overflowing with the bounty of a wet spring and a near perfect summer. I drive down the road snacking on grape tomatoes and fresh pears and peaches and ... and... mmm yummy fruits of the earth. Yup I had a good little road trip today Mine dried out and gave up in early August. The little dribs and drab kept things more green than otherwise here but a lot of things stopped growing around then. My garden took a hardcore hiatus until about 10 days ago when it woke up again. I've got peppers popping, tomatoes going wild and the lettuce found a second life altogether. Other than entirely too moist from mid Feb to mid June this hasn't been a bad year at all compared to '18.

I'll take that!

Another .1 rainstorm. It's so dry in the woods now, it's sandy and dusty.