vastateofmind

Am working my way through Star Trek: Enterprise after being away from it for nearly 20 years now. I vaguely remember Jolene Blalock, who is T'Pol on ST:E, made pretty regular appearances in Maxim back in the day. She IS an underrated actress -- I'd say she and Nimoy have done the best out of dozens of actors/actresses who've played Vulcans in all incarnations of ST over the years. She's that good.

Yeah, unfortunately, I do remember that period last year....lost most of the flowering trees in one night.

You Baltimore crew have access to some of the most interesting beers....dang!

Generally speaking, I never met a Dogfish Head brew that I didn't get along with. Driving back from the Sterling brewery mini-crawl last weekend, we passed the Dogfish Head AleHouse & restaurant in Chantilly on the way home. We briefly considered stopping for dinner, but then we'd have felt the pressure to get some fresh draughts there, and at that point, we did NOT need anymore. I love when they pour their fresh draft mix of "black and tan" at the restaurant. #YUM

Nice find, and sounds really good! Mrs. V and I hit up the Brass Tap in National Harbor yesterday afternoon -- a pub chain, but they typically have a great selection of local beers in whichever branch you visit. Food is darn good, too, as pub grubs go. I started with the Boulevard Bourbon Barrel Quad (OUTSTANDING) and finished off with a Heavy Seas IPA (also good). My wife had the DC Brau On The Wings of Armageddon and a Brew Dog Hazy Jane, also both excellent. She suggested that we take an Uber to NH's Brass Tap next time to "properly sample" several additional beers....I think she's onto something. Here's NH's Brass Tap draught menu for those interested -- Brass Tap National Harbor Beer Menu | DRAUGHT (brasstapbeerbar.com)

DAMN. Must be killer wind chills up there! We're getting some good gusts here, probably up to 30-35 mph, and only up to 41.

Agree 100% -- and it does help ease the blah. I noticed the same thing this morning looking out across the neighborhood. It's amazing how that slight green tinge starts slowly spreading across the tree canopies, growing a bit more visible each day, and then realization whacks you across the head -- "Hey, the leaves are almost here!"

Yeah, I have two nearby neighbors whose mature magnolia trees where in magnificent full bloom prior to sunset last night...and each took a bad hit overnight. Both trees now have a brownish-pink canopy, and the petals are increasingly falling and flying in the wind.

I'm definitely ready for warmer weather...but I'm a little weird, too, in that I enjoy drizzly, onshore flow conditions for a few days at a pop, anytime of year. I was "landlocked" growing up in northern PA, and moving to this area provided new opportunities to learn how the nearby bay and ocean impact our wx....still fascinates me. I realize that most of you that grew up in this area don't find cool days with fog and heavy drizzle fascinating at all.

And you'll be so much closer now!!

Bringing this over to April banter....and this place looks pretty interesting! Have read about this several times over the past few days! Mrs. V and I spent a day crawling the outlets at National Harbor today, and finished the afternoon with happy hour at the Brass Tap in NH. Sampled too many good IPAs and stouts to list here....

Appreciate this, some interesting details there. I've put out a feeder in past years, have tried planting various types of flowers around or near the feeder, but just have not ever been able to consistently attract hummingbirds to our backyard.

Maybe the temporary cold will slow the warp-speed growth of my backyard grass, which will be knee-high in spots by this weekend if I don't get my butt out there today and do the first cut. But I doubt it.

That late cold snap last year really did a job on a lot of the bushes and flowering trees that had new leafing and budding well along or newly emerged at that point. There isn't much uglier and sadder than a plant wilted/killed by cold temps...especially in mid-spring.

Post-frontal sunset over an hour ago....winds are definitely verifying the current advisory.

Surely you have an IPA...or two...to make it more bearable.

Went outside the normal Midland variety I've purchased in the past, and picked up the Reecom R-1630 -- I've never had issues with several Midland models, but I went with this model this time because 1) has three separate "sirens" for advisory/watches/warnings, AND, 2) after the initial siren for whichever alert has sounded, the initial announcement on wx radio will play through, and then the radio will resume its previous state at the conclusion of the alert announcement (e.g., in our case, it will turn off). That last is a REALLY nice feature....I think most of the Midland wx radios will continue to play for five additional minutes after an alert siren (regardless of announcement conclusion), and then turn off....which isn't bad, but sometimes I just want to hear the alert announcement and then want the radio to turn off. The Reecom did just that, and I'm pleased with it so far. Back to current events -- as @Kmlwx pointed out a short while ago, the southern end of this line may not pan out as watch-worthy, but it continues to look impressive for MoCo/HoCo. We've had some sunny breaks in the clouds over the past 1.5 hours here....we're currently at 73/59, and winds seemed to have already verified that Wind Advisory that wasn't due to go into effect for a few more hours....but we'll see.

Wondered how bad it got in your neck of the woods....I've heard Ballenger Creek mentioned numerous times over the past hour.

It did indeed. Happy (?) to report my new SAME-equipped wx radio did its thing and alerted to the new severe t-storm watch just issued for immediate metro area. Guess I got that FfxCo SAME code programmed in correctly.

I mean, good to see you driving and all, but how about some shots of the car's exterior, too? It's been many years since I let my Motor Trend and Car & Driver subscriptions lapse....and I haven't seen some "hot" car pics in many years.

This will sound pretty selfish, but I replaced a very old SAME-equipped weather radio this past week with a newer unit, and I'm somewhat hoping we're issued some sort of watch this afternoon, if only to test its performance in a "real-world" situation. It did fine this past Wednesday during the regular weekly NWS test...but I'd like to know how loud we need to keep it for watches/warnings, to ensure it alerts us at night while we're sleeping (if necessary).

As with @CAPE, currently 73 here and it's become fairly breezy. We had a few breaks of sun through the overcast over the past 1.5 hours, but temps haven't recovered any higher than low 70s. Some convection seems to be getting its act together to the west of us...

Yeah, I'm wondering -- about 63 here now, humid out, still full overcast. Hopefully some of those breaks in the sat pic you just posted make it this way. Quick aside question -- finally purchased Radarscope on Friday. Toying with upgrading to the annual subscription for Pro Tier 1, if only for that dual screen display for some hyper-local tracking. I'm probably not enough of hobbyist to justify annual cost of Pro Tier 2. Anyone here do the single or double upgrade to PT1/PT2?

Heard first rumble of thunder of the spring season at 8:36 a.m. this morning. Woke me up (of course). Currently 56 w/ some drizzle.