Juliancolton

Today has been rather uncomfortable outside on account of the wind. I'd love to be able to report that it wasn't so bad if you were in the sun but, yeah, we're nowhere near that point yet.

Yeah, most of that stuff is going to dissipate in the next hour or two with the loss of daytime heating. That one squall approaching the escarpment looks potent, and may have a bit more staying power... we'll see

Snow four days in a row, what are you complaining about?!

Look on the bright side, we get to do another whole week of part sun with temps just warm enough to keep the ice thin, but not enough to be comfortable

It's kind of paradoxical. Blocking was strong enough to suppress the storm track into the deep south, with places like Austin seeing once in a generation snows, yet we're still running solidly and consistently AN. We'll be adding to those warm anomalies even more for at least the next week.

I've been keeping close tabs on the time of day at which the bleak stratus layer overwhelms the fleeting moments of morning sunshine. It was early today, with overcast taking hold by 9 am. Yesterday, the sun held out until after nearly noon. Sunday was nominal: 10:30 or so. (yes, this is a cry for help) A year ago today we were 68F and sunny.

The only observation I have is that the increasing daylight is now acutely noticeable in the evenings. Sort of belies the dismal reality that we're not even to the middle of January yet. We eager for spring.

Was the topic description just changed or did I simply miss it until now? Amusing, regardless

That does sound heavenly. Hopefully it came across that I was mostly being facetious... I love my snow, and favorable climo will definitely play a role when choosing my next spot, but I'm not totally psychotic. Would really love to do some scouting this year if the border opens up.

Hah. When I move I'm gonna be extra careful not to buy another place on a south-facing hillside.

Down to about 1/2 coverage at 36F. It would be nice to keep snow around longer than 12 hours in freaking January.

2.2" currently with some flurries. Too bad precip isn't more uniform with this system. Snow growth has been really good at times.

Really lousy wx tonight, doesn't get much worse. I was looking through old pics from this week in previous years and there was almost always at least some ice on the river. On 1/1/18 I was able to walk to Goose Island up in Red Hook, a couple hundred yards from the shore. Even the small lakes are mostly or completely open this year, which you wouldn't expect from the rather modest warm anomalies compared to some recent Decembers. At least it should look wintry again by Monday morning.

There would be murders.

Worse than that, they're tantamount to sacrilege. Snow should be shaped into tidy piles with all due reverence, not mutilated and strewn back into the wind.

I dunno, man. Judah Cohen seems excited about the SSW, and when did he ever lead us astray?

Just missed the death band by a handful of miles and ended up with around 9". Getting stranded at the verge of greatness irritates me more than the clean misses like Jan 15/Jan 16. Synoptically and wind-ically, that was a really special system and it may be a very long time before something rises to that level again.

10 years of hating Boxing Day, where does the time go?

There's a Venus–Jupiter mutual occultation coming up relatively soon... 2060s I think? But it's only going to be a few degrees from the sun and so either invisible or extremely difficult to see. That said, backyard astronomers are already doing insane work amplifying faint data from daytime and twilight imagery, to speak nothing of where astrophotography is going to be in several more decades.

The 2 BC occultation of Jupiter by Venus was probably the most impressive planetary rendezvous in recorded history. Jupiter+Saturn is a little meh.

But then that's just "I don't like crappy music," and crappy music is hardly a new thing. There's a reason you'll hear the same mega-hit two or three times on a 60s channel in one day trip... the best of the best lives on and the 95% of material in the just-okay to really bad spectrum gets filtered out with the sands of time. Labels telling artists they need to appeal more to the masses also goes back pretty much to the beginning. I'd argue that artists collectively have more freedom than ever to do their own thing without corporate pressures. They aren't beholden to the interests of terrestrial radio listeners anymore. The Jason Isbells, Phoebe Bridgerses, and Taylor Swifts of the world are objectively producing really imaginative material dripping with talent, even if it's not to one's taste – but with so many venues for independent discovery, there is, invariably, something to everyone's taste being released every day, if they're inclined to look. I mean, shoot. Bluegrass is probably having its hottest moment right now since Flatt & Scruggs got on the scene.

"Today's music" doesn't even have any meaning. It's gibberish. Jeff Lynne/ELO released in the year 2015 what I'd argue is their best album ever. Is that real music because a 70s band created it, or today's "low IQ BS"? Paul Simon released one of his best-selling and highest-charting records in 2016. McCartney, Dylan, Neil Young... they're all actively creating music that charts and permeates the popular culture. Just say "I don't like rap" and be done with it.

ok boomers

+1. Not my best forecast, but at least we can take pride in having laid it out on the table for all to scrutinize. Nothing worse than the folks who strut in at the 11th hour after a week of radio silence and say they always knew it was going to be like this.

@LibertyBell, today is exactly halfway between the 2017 and 2024 eclipses. Only 1,211 days left until my next serotonin molecule is released!