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vastateofmind

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Everything posted by vastateofmind

  1. vastateofmind
    THAT sounds like an incredible trip! I've always wanted to take an Alaskan cruise. My wife and I (and our yellow Lab!) just returned from a two-week, out-and-back road trip across the southwest to the Grand Canyon. As most of you already know, it's been heatwave mode in the midwest and southwest for a few weeks now...most days in all of the cities we visited (including the Grand Canyon area) ranged between low/mid 90s to low 100s (was 109 when we pulled into OK City last week)...but it was otherwise clear and sunny the entire time, with exception of five minutes of light raindrops from a passing shower in Santa Fe last week. I still can't believe our weather luck held out that well for two whole weeks. We enjoyed it so much, we're going to take the more northwesterly version of that road trip to Yellowstone National Park next year.
  2. vastateofmind
    Sooooo....the haziness today, is there ANOTHER round of wildfire smoke coming from somewhere overhead today? I swear I could smell it a bit when I left Fort Belvoir over an hour ago. And, well...I'm thinking that we probably could've planned our two-week long (staring in two days) trek through the southwest U.S. to the Grand Canyon, and then back to NoVA, a little bit better. But we'll do okay...just need to dress lighter.
  3. vastateofmind
    Preach. We love to visit downtown Frederick...in point of fact, I prefer it over the overcrowded and overrated Old Town Alexandria, all day every day. We just hate getting to Frederick from NoVA, which is nearly always a tremendous pain in the ass, no matter if you leave early morning, midday, or mid afternoon on a weekend day. I-270 = HELL.
  4. vastateofmind
    I'm sorry to hear all of that...it's always a bit of a gamble to go see a concert outside of our area. On an arguably brighter, somewhat related note....my youngest son (at a dewy-eyed 26) has been deep-diving into the oldest recesses of Springsteen's discography, and just discovered his Nebraska album from 1982 (which is my personal favorite of his albums). My son has been pinging me with questions the past two weeks about this album, has been teaching himself songs from it to play on his own guitar, and just admitted last night that it has rapidly become HIS favorite Springsteen album. My work there is (almost) done...
  5. vastateofmind
    Yeah, yesterday was one of the worst I've seen in the 30 or so years I've lived here...can't imagine driving in that. Yeah, there was definitely some grumbling and rumbling but nothing like yesterday's laser show...dear LORD. The rain, @Eskimo Joe's point below, was impressive today....not for the direction it was falling or blowing but the sheer amount. We got a river through the backyard (has since subsided) and that rarely happens for us.
  6. vastateofmind
    The latest flash flood warning issued for SE FfxCo is personally interesting...they typically mention the areas/neighborhoods AROUND where I live (e.g., Franconia, Lincolnia, Fort Belvoir, Mount Vernon) but this time they actually included our neighborhood, Hayfield. And we are indeed having a "round two" that is rivaling yesterday afternoon...maybe not horizontal rain, but definitely diagonal, and I can fully believe the 1-3" that NWS says is possible within the next hour.
  7. vastateofmind
    Indeed. We just had a 15 minute gully washer...but at least it wasn't horizontal rain like yesterday, and no bad lightning (yet). Snapped this a few minutes ago...was trying to capture the mammatus-like effect at far right for @mappy, but I was about two minutes too late to get the best of it.
  8. vastateofmind
    Looks like we have a good chance to get clocked two days in a row, @H2O, @mattie g and @WeatherShak. My home office is currently taking on that same as-dark-as-9pm ambience it had yesterday afternoon...
  9. vastateofmind
    Glad you mentioned that...we had lost power by the time we went under a tornado warning yesterday, though I still received all alerts on our wx radio with battery backup. What I didn't expect was to get the cell phone based emergency alert for the tornado threat. Is that standard practice for tornado warnings? (That was only the second I've experienced in the 20+ years living in this neighborhood.)
  10. vastateofmind
    I'd just received the first STW yesterday that mentioned that monster was over your head and headed our way pretty quickly. Ran outside, took some armageddon sky pics to share here, had just got back to my laptop inside when the oft-reported "blinding white flash!" lit up every window on the front side of the house instantly followed by head-splitting thunder...and there went our power. Not sure where the CG hit, but it was on my property somewhere. We also had two more intense, close-by strikes on our block within 15 min after that...along with the tornado warning! We regained power in about four hours last night and (surprisingly) had zero damage in or around our house, so we got lucky. Was expecting some severe yesterday, just not a blow-up like that. Between the lightning, loss of power and the rare tornado threat for these parts, I'd forgotten about the wind and rain in yesterday's storm. Heaviest rain I'd witnessed in many years, driven horizontally by the winds you mentioned. Entire front of the house and all windows on that side got a better power washing in that storm than I could've probably managed manually.
  11. vastateofmind
    This morning's LWX forecast: 70% chance of showers through the day! 30% chance of thunderstorms by mid-afternoon! And of course, it was dry LITERALLY the entire day here...we got a few threatening clouds passing through over the last hour with some mean-spirited sprinkles assailing us within the past 20 min. Good Lord, the drama.
  12. vastateofmind
    I guess I should've shelved the "sigh" -- in classic SE FfxCo fashion, the discrete storm cell that formed about 30 min ago near Burke and took aim at us, weakened and then completely split, with each "half" going north/south of us. If I hadn't quickly covered all of the patio furniture and grill, it would've been sure to hit us...
  13. vastateofmind
    Currently 88/62. No rain or storms in forecast this A.M. -- isolated 20% chance snuck in sometime around midday (I think?). And a storm currently bearing down on me. Sigh.
  14. vastateofmind
    You know what I miss? Growing up in the late 70s, ALL of the 80s, and at least the early 90s...being able to throw myself into being a fan of players in professional football, baseball, hockey et al, across any number of states and franchises....and not having to worry about all of the f*cking drama off of the field/diamond, be it owners, an owners' conglomerate, the players, and...all the rest. The most controversial "thing" I remember growing up? As a young Baltimore Colts fan growing up in north central PA, waking up one morning and realizing that my "Baltimore Colts" t-shirts and sweatshirts had to be traded in for Indianapolis-branded crap (NOT)....well, you all know where that path of disappointment leads. That one event was like the first in a long line of disappointments in professional sports. And most of that crap is pretty much why I've given up on following any professional sports in recent years. It's wearying. And really not worth the investment of time/emotion.
  15. vastateofmind
    Currently 67/66, light breeze, and clear blue sky quickly invading from the west.
  16. vastateofmind
    I'm sorry for your friend's property loss....but man, MAMMATUS!!
  17. vastateofmind
    Yeah, northcentral MD took it on the chin last couple of hours, and I don't really want to deal with THAT. But man, the rain AND lightning is picking up here again. I spoke too soon, I guess.
  18. vastateofmind
    I figured when my wife and I got caught in a bit of rain from that little popup cell about 20 min before the "main event," that we wouldn't get the full punch from the main event. Having said that, we're getting horizontal rain right now and some CG lightning from what I think is still the main event...but nothing like what I was anticipating from the earlier forecasts. Currently 70/69. And based on radar....do we get another, less severe round in about an hour?
  19. vastateofmind
    Yep, Mrs. V and I were caught in that one, we were hoping to get our standard 4-mile early evening walk in, but that little cell truncated it. I wondered if that cell would "take the sails" out of the main line coming through, and indeed, I think it might have because the main line starting to come through is very much standard summertime thunderstorm fare. Yup. Got a little ominous-looking here, too, but that's about it (with exception of gust front). I tend to agree with you -- took the below pic/vid about 5 minutes ago. Hearing some thunder now, but I think we missed out on the "big stuff." OTOH...I don't think I want to deal with what Westminster, MD is facing right now. :/ Video: https://photos.app.goo.gl/2J3XdYS1AGy1dxGq7
  20. vastateofmind
    Just got home....89/74. Hot AF.
  21. vastateofmind
    89/74 at Fort Belvoir, full sun for about an hour now. Fun sidebar -- we just had a mini power outage of a couple seconds here in the office. I heard a couple folks on the floor above us running about, yelling, "Is this THE STORM??" Shit, people...look out your damn windows.
  22. vastateofmind
    85/74 at Fort Belvoir...quickly clearing off in past 30 min. My boss and I are the only two in the office, but since he lives in Upper Marlboro, he said we're BOTH hightailing it at 1:30 to TW rest of day at home, and be well ahead of any incoming wx.
  23. vastateofmind
    Yeah. I was so ticked, as we didn't cover any furniture on the back patio (nor our electric fan!), because there was no indication, at least before bedtime LAST EVENING, that there would be heavy showers coming through early this A.M. Was so pissed to wake up to lightning alerts and a CLEARLY soaked back patio...AND electric fan. Ugh. Letting everything dry out, but these are times I desperately wish for a covered and screened-in back porch.
  24. vastateofmind
    You personally posted a couple dramatic vids over the past 1.5 hours, so that doesn't surprise me. My wife just headed out of our neighborhood to travel the one mile up to the Alexandria (SE FFxCo) Wegmans, and she said that the roads were a mess with downed leaves, branches, and just general trash. This was admittedly a pretty bad storm for our part of FfxCo.
  25. vastateofmind
    Also, paging @diatae...looks like what smacked about an hour ago took a direct bean on Waldorf. How y'all doing down there?
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