gravitylover

What's the timing of the rain in the NW CT hills today? It's beautiful up here this morning at Mohawk Mtn, we have a booth on the deck at the Fall Festival, the mist just finished rising off the lake, it's about 85% leafed out in full color and there's an acoustic band playing down on the lower patio. Nice...

Heavy frost this morning in Mahopac. As I went north into the NW CT hills the freezing fog and peak leaf color was beautiful as the sun came.up.

I thought I saw lightning last night after the living room lights were off and I was watching tv. It's been raining on and off here for the last two hours with pretty much nothing showing up on radar. Just a raw and nasty day out there.

I wouldn't call the ground saturated at all. I bet that it's nearly dry 4" down. This was the first rain of consequence in quite some time. In a lot of places, around here anyway, the ground was so dry it had contracted to the point that rocks just get knocked loose when you walk or roll over them (on the mt bike) and deadfall was tinder dry rather than the soft almost sponge like texture it has had for almost the last 2 years. This is a nearly perfectly timed storm to get the soil moisture up a bit before winter. Now it will accept more moisture and will be able to freeze thoroughly rather than just in pockets which can lead to better snowpack retention due to fewer warm insulating pockets at ground level. Getting ahead of myself a bit maybe... If you took I90 as a base point and go north about 100 miles they're just getting wasted and have been for at least the last 3 hours that I've been awake. They've been under 35dbz returns since 5am and the wind looks to be pretty bad too. Yuck.

The guy a few blocks away from me has 3.15 and 2 miles away 2.98 so you're pretty close to what I'm seeing here. KDXR seems to only be showing 1.85 though which is a lot lower than surrounding less official stations. Unfortunately the Brewster mesonet has no precip record for this one, Somers has 2.73 and Dover 2.46. I'm glad it's not as windy as down on LI or along the coast, too many weak branches and widowmakers still hiding up the trees for my comfort.

3.15" here. It's windy but nothing too terrible, station .3 miles away at the same elevation and pretty much the same exposure as me has 6mph with gusts to 21 and down in town it's nearly calm with gusts to 15. It looks like the Upper Hudson Valley/Lake Champlain and Adirondacks are having a rotten morning.

1.65" wind is still under 5mph with the occasional 10-15mph gust.

1.65" now. Good soaking going on.

We were at about 60 percent this morning in many areas, wind sheltered is still around 80-85% but it has been raining leaves more heavily than water so hopefully if that SJ moves through here it ends up mostly harmless. .55" so far.

You know how when it's not raining you want it to rain but when it's raining you want it to be nice... Yeah that's today. After such an awesomely nice golden hour ride yesterday I want another one NOW.

My tomatoes are still growing but not ripening. I'm thinking that I need to pull them and bring them in where it doesn't get so cold overnight to finish. Peppers are doing great too and carrots are still cruising along. All of my lettuce went to seed but there's one nice garlic clove left. Nice and crisp out there right now, this afternoon was awesome in the woods. Man is it dry out there but strangely the reservoirs are still bank full.

Actually you have lots of green along the Taconic too. I was amazed driving through on Thursday. I"m in Stockbridge for the weekend and the dichotomy between the intense colors and late summer greens is pretty great.

I think the leaves turn in response to shorter daylight hours. I do think the temps also play a role in some aspects of it. The most recent cool shot was the coldest yet and the trees were much more vivid after the cold night than the afternoon before, I know that's anecdotal but I've watched it happen plenty of times before. I also think that a good windstorm like we just had blows off the weaker leaves and now what's left will look great today after the cold still night last night. I'll let you know

Even though it's dry out it has that raw feeling, it's cold and windy, leaves are falling like snow... and Don is talking about a 70% chance of warmer than normal. I dunno man, it feels awfully fall like out there

Gotta love being right on the edge of a weather system. It's dank and overcast to my east, mostly cloudy overhead and bright and sunny to my west. Judging by the leaves falling the wind id swirling not moving in any particular direction. The cloud bank is fluctuating so sometimes it's bright and (almost) sunny and then a minute later it's dark and gloomy. Pretty cool.

They're welcome to come up here where it's gloomy, windy, cold and trying to dry out. Mostly it's just grey and dismal.

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.