Hailstoned

So was Walt Drag who was all over it. (He then worked for Accu Wx). The set-up was so prominent that even the relatively primitive models of the day we’re all lit up with anticipation. Walt always gave me early alerts of impending anything and at least by the Friday before he was telling me of prospects for something historic. And Copeland is right on with his measurements of 34” in Needham— I measured same next door in Wellesley.

Upper tier lightning from storm passing well north of Palmer, MA, this evening.

I wonder if the depiction of worst winds well to the east of the 38 center passage are based on the absurd, terrain enhanced gust to 186 on top of Blue Hill. From copious historical evidence and reports, 38's most extreme winds (and coastal storm surges) were in a swath from about the CT River to the ORH area and northward into central New Hampshire where entire pine forests were flattened. Not to say it didn't blow hard in eastern MA, but accounts, including personal ones from my relatives, do not paint nearly as an extreme picture as those in the aforementioned areas.

With 1938 conspicuously absent, don't quite catch your drift here. In August, maybe September, tropical systems affecting us may meander relatively harmlessly like Henri, but in a warming world with increased baroclinic instability as the fall season progresses, it's reasonable to surmise that an accelerating major hurricane affecting us is becoming more likely than but once every century or so.

In general, New England is in a fortunate position in relation to the ravages of climate change, but our big vulnerability is the increased prospect of an accelerting category 2 or 3 hurricane. That in two or three hours will be one hard knock that will take months/years to recover from. Henri and his trajectory were a warning shot across the bow-- something many times more merciless comes this way...

I don't recall the January snowstorm as a bust. There were the usual rain/snowline questions, but the Bob Copelands/Harvey Leonards were on it. Days later, the Cleveland bomb manifested here as a very windy rainy southeaster that melted much of the accumulated snow.. (And as a side cap, my good friend, Walt Drag, was all over the Feb 6 blizzard warning me days in advance of something big, and extolling the accuracy of the then rather new and advanced LFM model.)

If the puffy cumulus haven't completely expanded the sky later today, could be some neat visuals of the encroaching high cloud canopy of Henri, and possibly some vivid sunsets of the sort that would scare the barnacles off grizzled seafarers. Pretty rare to have an oceanic tropical disturbance approaching from a seaward angle, and, minus the grey rainy clutter of antecedent tropical rains. Today is the sort of puffy cloud, dew point obsessed day you see in FLA as people in the path frantically board their windows-- now here in New England! The best previous example I remember of a non-pre contaminated hurricane was Esther in 1961 which before it performed a slow dying pirouette off the southern New England coast was a category 3 or 4 storm. In the Boston area where I lived at the time there was a neat high cloud shield from Esther punctuated by bands of darker cirrostratus, though aside from a few antecedent squalls bands that night, the net results of Esther in the Boston area were disappointingly underwhelming.

Zeus has been very active from Ludlow to Monson with cloud to ground bangers, and he's taking a massive leak too.

Looking south to towering CU's associated with rapid build-up of early evening storms along the MA/CT border

First warned central MA cell dousing the north end of Quabbin

Don't want to go cold on a hottie.

Don't know if my Davis is out to lunch, but it says .80 from that little training episode, here. Still hearing rumbles of thunder off to the S.E.

Scoured: Brimfield State Forest where the tornado was at its greatest strength and breadth.

Shrapnel from the Monson Library's slate roof embedded in the porch of a residence across Main Street.

This peculiar person belongs in North Dakota where he could unleash his caterpillar friends on the state tree-- the telephone pole.

7" should be it in Monson, MA despite still steady snow-- but what's fallen is slumping like a weakling in a Charles Atlas ad, not to mention the very indignant April sun behind that overcast.

Floating snowballs- S+

5" snow, Monson, MA; elevation, 400 feet.

"I'm Not Throwing Away My Shot!" (Adapted from Hamilton) https://www.theolympian.com/news/coronavirus/article249981859.html As for side effects, 8 hours of fatigue, nausea and a 100.3 fever after the second Moderna jab, were more than worth it!

I'm old enough to remember dystopia. Dystopia is being a kid with polio trapped in an iron lung for the rest of his life. All the so called libertarians of today (living in Mama's basement) would be first in line for the Salk vaccine back in the day-- and probably be pushing and shoving for first dibs at mumps and measles vaccines, too. Our relatively disease free lives, up until covid, have loosed a lot of brave poseurs with contempt for masks and other measures that, inconvenient as they are, do promote the common good. But common sense has gone the way of the passenger pigeon.

The summer of 1957 was very dry, too. From the "feast" of summer, 55 (Connie and Diane) to the severe drought famine in the summer of 57.

You sound a bit like the patent office commissioner, in 1899 who was reportedly prepared to shut it down because "everything that can be invented has been invented."

As a seeker of damage, damage you shall find.

I continue to receive the same $120/month through SREC trades as I have from the start. Perhaps those new to solar credits are getting a less advantageous deal?

Q told me you shouldn't downplay the possibility of cannibalism either.