powderfreak

Gonna have to check this out in Phin's backyard....

Well seeing as I’m chatting with Phin about his well... I’m not shook, I feel pretty good about a slow moving boundary, tropical moisture and mountains all interacting together.

Hopefully you just need to get to next Tue/Wed. Looks like a good set up for inches of water.

Really? Even after 15” this summer? But I will say I’ve never seen anything like this September... when these mountains are under half an inch for the month, yikes.

Yeah for sure Columbus Day is past peak up here pretty much every year, but it’s when the tourists come to look at the leaves. Every year they say “looks like we should’ve been here a week or two ago.” It’s still nice viewing but it’s that uniform orange by then...the red and yellow is gone and there’s a lot of bare trees as well.

The trees are changing every 12 hours it’s noticeable. Definitely going to peak early, by October 1st probably at this rate. Columbus Day weekend will be stick season.

That's pretty impressive. All the other years are grouped pretty closely but this summer has #2 beat by like 2/3rds of an inch.

I didn't think it had anything to do with moral superiority... and I'm not saying there isn't a lot of money at stake... but it's basic anthropology that the more advanced and prosperous a society gets the longer their population lives and in return the more unacceptable early death becomes. Since the dawn of time people have been trying methods to get themselves and others to live as long as possible... from witch doctors and potions, to the magic elixirs and fountains of youth. Humans have always had the desire to prolong life as long as possible. As one of the most prosperous/advanced countries in the world, early death is much more unacceptable here than it is in say West Africa. We are really in the "banter" zone but I find this stuff interesting to ponder.

I really like that line of analysis though, it’ll be interesting to see. We are certainly a society who continues to move towards keeping people alive as long as humanly possible, ha pun? We pour billions into medical research, cancer research, complicated procedures, daily medications (some take so many they need trays to organize them), you name it... we are here to get everyone to live a day longer than they would’ve last year. An early death is unacceptable. Its an interesting philosophical discussion to have as a country. It’s not a surprise we react this way. Without a real discussion, death won’t get any more acceptable in future generations either, in fact it’ll be the opposite as we keep plowing on in medical advancements and expectations grow.

Purely curious, in those comparisons is there a modifier that accounts for change in health care, living conditions, etc? I could certainly see past pandemics hitting those groups harder. Have people been claiming this one was worse in those age groups?

I guess it makes sense that those dying now can’t be dying later, and everyone alive needs to go at some point, so yeah obviously it’s speeding up death for those it kills... makes sense in that light. I guess the question would be how far out do you run it to correlate it with COVID, 2-3 years seems like a decent time frame for elderly populations. On the human emotion side of it, most people would certainly sign up for another 3-5 years with their loved ones. But that discussion heads more into the resulting public policy (ie was it worth it yes or no argument) which I’m trying to stay away from. I think the excess deaths trends are/will be interesting. Something happened to push a whole bunch of humans over the cliff edge, will that mean there’s a gap before the next line of people get to the cliff edge?

No reason for this stuff dude. Don’t ruin the larger discussion.

Regardless of cause, my father who’s a retired physician, on hospital board of directors, etc doesn’t like to discuss the policy side of things but always shares with me the excess deaths data. The excess deaths metrics are fascinating to look at in the US and other countries... deaths are incredibly stable year to year, almost to an incredible level to me. Like year over year some very populated cities will be within extremely small variations. He showed me one of his medical journals with NYC you can see very little variation going back to the point where you can see 9/11 for a spike in unexpected deaths. Small blips can be traced to even heatwaves too. Then starting in March it goes way high into April with unexplained spike in deaths, like nothing seen in the relative recent past. That to me is the proof that those people wouldn’t have just died anyway. They also looked at Ecuador and some other hard hit less prosperous countries... they compared the deaths to something you’d see from military conflict on excess deaths. Cause aside, something happened to kill off a lot of people that hadn’t in the past. Now public policy is a completely separate issue but too many people group the resulting public policy and their view on the illness all together.

America... where everyone has an underlying condition. High quality of life where you can have simple hypertension and be fine with a daily pill for decades. Then COVID comes and pushes you off the cliff.

The narrow chasms are so dangerous... if you fall in, slip or trip, it’s game over. First you have to survive the the initial fall but then hydraulics pin you underwater against rock walls... just terrifying. Huntington Gorge over in Richmond VT is notorious too as they have a plaque that is now double sided with names of people who have died there. Even State Police dive team members have died trying to pull other bodies out...really awful stuff.

And with that image burned into my mind, pretty nice day with a high of 71F off the morning low of 37F. Classic fall... 30s at night and into the 70s in the afternoon.

Yeah the gorges and falls are scary... 20-30 foot chasms into swift water with all sorts of weird hydro forces. It’s usually mossy and slick on the sides. Sounded like they found him and pronounced it on scene as they asked over radio for a body bag for transport back to the road. I absolutely hate when people die in these beautiful spots. Hits home at how easy even going to get some fall foliage photos in a scenic spot can turn into a nightmare.

Damn, radios going wild. 35-year-old male went into Binghams Falls up here by the ski area, hasn’t resurfaced in at least 10 minutes. Multiple agencies responding including Stowe Mountain Rescue and Colchester Technical Rescue over by BTV... having trouble getting a dive team together due to some rescuers being out of the area. Last fatality there was winter 2018-19 when someone slipped and fell in and wasn’t found for a day or so underwater. Fak.

Winter precip pattern? From here to you?

Lawns in general are very poor use of resources and environmentally do next to nothing. Many cultures and other parts of the world do not understand our infatuation with lawns. Leaving it as a field naturally is much better for the health of the local environment, or use it as a space to grow food... the lawn is certainly a product of suburban developments.

Yeah their written obs are gold but you can tell he’s paying attention around the clock. I found one that they had 6” of snow and it even said “only a dusting down in the valley at RT 2 but we were plowing up on top of the hill.” Thats what made me look up his lat/lon and he takes a weenie zone to its max at pretty much 1800ft lol. That’s almost the elevation of the base of Bolton Valley up here. It definitely explains the difference between the towns under 800-1000ft as even a baseline.

Sweet ridge cloud this morning. 37F for a low.

Ha yeah those dirt roads get canted and you can easily go into the ditches/snow banks on the side if it’s not level. But regarding the snow numbers there, the elevation makes sense. Looks like the observer is near the black dot (those contour lines are 40 foot intervals) and up on that shelf between the 1760-1800ft lines... I bet that’s even decently snowier than down in the river valley at 1200-1300ft (I bet that area radiates like mad though down by the pond lol). Just thinking about it at the ski resort here, there’s a pretty noticeable difference from 1300ft to 1800ft, much less an elevation like Gorham at 800ft. It gets *really* snowy around here at 1800ft, that’s where you get the 4-6 foot snowpacks in big winters. That elevation is about equal to the highest inhabited elevation here in Stowe at like the Kellogg family mansion lol.

I still don’t understand how Berlin/Gorham average that little, it seems the mountains are pretty tight in there...I would’ve guessed 115” at least. Whitefield makes sense, it’s a larger open area removed from the mountains but Gorham is tucked in pretty good. I guess looking at the topomaps, the Randolph CoCoRAHS measurements are coming from around 1,775ft elevation, and Gorham is down around 800ft or even a tad below... so that is definitely a huge difference all else being equal. Thats practically 1800ft, way the hell up there, lol and 1,000ft higher than Gorham. I don’t know why I was thinking CoCoRAHS was down in the RT 2 area at like 1200-1400ft. For sure once you get near 1800ft it’s going to get really crazy snowy. I know around here it seems to even double in snowfall/snowpack going up say 800ft to 1800ft, so it makes sense in that light.