powderfreak

I need some sun. Cloud level still really low and dark. Even some drizzle a little earlier.

Unedited out of the camera (a little dark) from this morning in town. This is low elevation (for around here, a tad below 1,000ft). The reds are incredible right now. Just a screen shot so not the highest quality, ha. But if you like your foliage to be a mix of red/green, it's about as good as it gets now before it all goes red/orange.

I look forward to your train shots every fall dude. You’ve got to have some good dates to compare too.

Can easily see in those photos though the recency bias in foliage. Last year was leaf drop in that photo and the earliest of all those years. If that’s used as folks’ baseline, then yeah it must feel real late. Like comparing any winter after 2014-2015 in SNE will feel like it’s a crap winter.

Looks like 2015/2016/2018 in one group and the others in another to me. 2015 is behind all by a good margin. This year is the one photo without bright sunshine too, it might even be ahead of the 2016/18. Maybe it’s me but it looks like 4 of 9 which is fairly evenly split. That’s how one comes up with an average Mr. Fisher.

Nicholas Sparks' is how I get my rocks off.

Happens in places with a strong sense of place and where there are transplants. Upstate (far upstate) NY, VT, NH, ME all make sense. The UP of Michigan. Happens in mountain communities out west. It’s huge in Alaska, you better be from there and not moved there from the Lower 48. Marketing firms love it, trying to invoke a localism emotional pride. It only creates divide too. Makes the lifelong resident authentic and the transplant who moved from *gasp* somewhere else the interloper. Definitely an interesting thing found outside more populated areas. Like no one gave a sh*t where I grew up in Albany, NY but like a couple hours north or west you find it once into the Adirondacks or even countryside Mohawk Valley. Hell even Hollywood loves creating that scene… how many movies involve someone or a family moving from urban/suburban setting to countryside setting and resulting small town USA is highly skeptical of them.

I gotta get out there soon. That lake is beautiful with 2,000 foot walls around it. Only been in mid-summer. All joking aside about foliage timing, there has to be a gradient somewhere with “normal foliage timing” and “drastically weeks late” stuff. A buddy went down to Lake George in NY and said very little to no color there which is definitely odd. He said our area is on pace to be bare before they see good color. It’s usually not that fragmented at all. Gradient around GFL-RUT-LCI? Does it follow the precip anomalies?

Course looking good. And even on a cell phone that foliage looks nice. Early October as it should be.

Looks like it usually does at Labor Day.

Foliage is on point. A couple chilly, rainy days and here we go. The next 7 days should be spectacular color.

Thick heavy fog and rain made for a dark day today. Was surprised at the extent of leaf drop already in some areas on Mansfield.

The change in just the last 24 hours has been nuts. A chilly, rainy 72 hours looks like it is injecting steroids into the foliage. Even on the hillsides down into town under 1,000ft it changed quite a bit.

I stupidly went for a hike. I look like I hopped in a shower fully dressed. Couldn’t get any more wet if I jumped in a pool. Plenty of leaf drop in the rain above 2500ft especially, the forest canopy is opening up.

Wait, are those colored leaves? Must be a pic from a past year.

So damn jealous, especially on a Saturday.

I just laugh because the radar looks like one of those evening mesoscale things where you are seeing 30-35dbz 2-3”/hr snowfall down the gap/valley there. The times CoCoRAHS has 1-3” snows around and you’ve got that spot 8”. I used to think it was luck, but there is without a doubt something about streamers lining up through the Winooski/I-89 slot there… squeezing converging moisture through a gap like a toothpaste tube. A little while ago I had 0.70” in the Stratus but your area should be over 1.00” tonight if not already.

Cold season must be coming. The J.Spin and Winooski Valley convergence zone has fired up.

~0.70” today. Rained all day, but cold season rain, not convective. Just that steady 0.05”/hr type stuff it seemed. Ceilings were very low all day. Low-50s temps.

We all need to move through the crap weather period, just different times for different latitudes. The best autumns are the ones where somehow you go from absolute torch, to that first deep trough bringing a snow chance. They do happen... like Indian summer type warmth/sunshine high-diurnal ranges, then cold front, deep trough, and then a follow up wave threatens snow. That's the dream lol.

It’s shocking how it works this time of year, ha, but you guys are now enjoying the weather I feel like I was a couple weeks ago when Bob was talking endless summer. It was 70-75F and beautiful top-10 days up here while folks were talking about high dews and no broke back summer down there. Now it’s 48-52F up north with synoptic chilly rain, low clouds, mist and foliage while the top-10 weather has arrived down there. This weather up here is sliding solidly into the “have no use for it” level that happens from 40-55F. Need 60-75F and sun again. I HATE being cooped up inside, pacing around looking outside like I want to be out in the woods and mountains .

Its so bad I came into work for the afternoon to get a few things done, so I can be in a position to duck out at noon on any nice day this week. I had around 0.40” in my Stratus when I left home. A steady stream of moisture heading NW to SE across the area.

It certainly wouldn’t be surprising if there was something to the rainfall distribution and timing of color throughout the region.

Closing in on peak, nice. That has to be pretty normal.