Juliancolton

Lots of changing and even dropping leaves around here already. It wouldn't be 2020 without an all-time stinker of a foliage season I suppose.

Yeah, 2016 was the last one that sticks out in my memory as being particularly nice. It is what it is, though. For my purposes, foliage season provides the impetus to get out and shoot more photos, even though the leaves themselves are almost never the main driver behind a successful autumn image. Otherwise there's only so much ooh'ing and ahh'ing one can do through the windshield.

I can't wait to be disappointed by foliage. My favorite annual source of dashed hopes and crushed dreams.

The nice thing about having a colonial building set up way on a hill in the middle of BFE is that permits are often optional.

Storms seem to put down a lot more tornadoes around here than they used to. Not sure how much of that is real/climatological and how much is just down to phone cameras, dual pol, and all the other products of modernity ensuring no meso gets left behind. There's been talk for decades about tornado alley moving east, just didn't expect it to happen so quickly. P.S. – anyone care to guess how I feel about this humidity? Just a wild shot in the dark?

I had a pretty clear view of the storm for a few moments and there was no hint of any funnel at the time. I still would have loved to keep up with it for a while to see what it did.

It was sporting an impressive wall cloud structure a few minutes ago as the cell passed just to my north. There's no fast/good road east so I couldn't get out ahead of it, unfortunately.

That's a reasonably stout couplet over West Kill heading SE. Release the drones.

Still seeing fireflies every night. It's a strange juxtaposition with more and more sugar maples flashing color every day.

I'm really surprised about that. In my conventionally cool spot, I've had one heat wave each of 3, 4, 5, and 6 day durations. Now, PWS sensors in open fields are far from infallible on sunny afternoons, so one could argue a couple of the 90.5 days are of dubious authenticity.

We 40s (48.7 so far, might still tick down a bit)

Agree with everything you (and @JerseyWx) said. Summer basically didn't exist this year in the cultural and social senses. I know it's melodramatic and a first world problem, but if you asked me to recount a single experience I had this summer, I'd have nothing to offer. Just ennui begetting more ennui. With the election and worry of Covid resurgence, time will probably continue to have no meaning for the remainder of the year. Long days and short months.

Still a few fireflies active in the yard even with the cooler temps tonight. I wonder whether they could have coasted to September if the warm pattern stayed in place for another couple weeks.

That's why I like staying at the PVInn in squammy. Not cheap, but you can always count on a quiet parcel of sand even in the busiest times. Walking a mile or whatever down to the mobbed state beach is like a spectator sport. As long as you don't draw attention to yourself, you can usually even slide on down to a couple of the resident-only town beaches for extra isolation. And yeah, I don't strictly need the rain anymore for immediate water usage purposes (10.11" since the solstice, about half of that since Isaias), but this beats the heck out of 80s and scorching sun.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/GL003i008p00463 "A rough estimate of the efficiency of fixation yields the value of 1026 NO2 molecules per lightning stroke." I have no idea how to qualify that number or compare it to anything tangible, but I do know that the atmosphere, specifically lightning, is a significant source of nitrogen fixation and has been recognized that way since at least the 60s. Not a kernel of truth but a long-recognized tenet. I think where Tony went wrong is in implying that it's a localized effect, as if grass shoots up in a ring around individual CGs. It wouldn't be something that you notice in your neighborhood, because the effect is cumulative.

That one is actually true. Lightning doesn't add nitrogen, but it does fix nitrogen already in the atmosphere into nitrates that plants use. I believe this accounts for something like 10% of nitrogen fixation around the globe, so it's pretty substantial.

That's a sweet shot. Looking forward to my weekend in Westerly in early Sep, haven't left this G-d forsaken state all year.

It'll be hot again for sure. Three weeks takes us to Labor Day weekend though and by that point, evidence of the seasonal shift will be abundant.

It looks troughy through the balance of the month. Point forecast highs in the 70s through next week. Summer's back is broken.

Add another inch to that last night. Feast or famine these days.

My 2.40" one-hour rainfall total this evening easily bests my Isaias storm total of 1.97". The post-tropical storm remains the leader in sending entire states back to the Stone Age, however.

Happy days here as well, Optimum finally restored internet service. Glad that's over, but hard to imagine we won't have more tropical threats over the next three months.

Yessir. You love to see it.

Took just a bit over 48 hours to get power back here, nice job by Central Hudson as far as I'm concerned.

Funny story... I was much older than I care to admit when I learned that backfeeding was not the proper way to hook up a generator. It was just the way my dad did it when I was growing up. Didn't know the difference until I had an electrician buddy looking at something in the basement and he said "...you know this is totally illegal, right?"