RIC_WX

1.67" yesterday at DCL, 2.87" for the month. Considerably less at home in Leesburg. Lawn was last mowed on June 11.

They tend to reverse pretty quickly, as I expect this one too as well as the hot pattern of the past month appears to be transitioning and we get closer to the heart of tropical season.

1.20" month to date at DCL, .74" in the past 48 hours. Deep Creek Lake is approximately 12" lower compared to this time last year, with most all of that deficit materializing during the "flash drought" period.

Perhaps the highlands can give the Potomac a drink tonight after all…

If the tropics start cooking as expected, no way we don’t get in on that eventually. May not save July but hard to see any drought seriously persisting beyond a few more weeks.

We managed several hours overnight at DCL in the 40's. I bottomed out at 46*F, but by the time I was out for my morning run it had rebounded well into the 50's. Still refreshing to sleep with the windows open and AC off.

What a difference a day makes! It’s hot and humid at DCL. Getting the outflow from that cell now and watching the more ominous line behind it in WVA.

A quick.35”, a little more than last night and not at grilling time today. We’ll take it.

About to get real at Deep Creek

We like extremes right? Visiting Tuesday night and Wednesday. Not looking forward to flying across that boundary though…

Taking my son to WISP tomorrow and telling him to expect his last turns of the year. Shame the high expectations for this season didn’t entirely pan out.

All things considered, we’ve actually done pretty well this year given how warm it’s been. We’ve basically scored every single time it got cold. Only problem is it hasn’t been cold much. It’s rotten compared to our expectations but unless March-April is wall to wall torch we should be within striking distance of climo, or at least a respectable season.

33/16 at Deep Creek 46/not quite sure and heavy traffic on I70 in Hagerstown Lets do this

Very, very very few forecasters earned anything close to a passing grade this season and I would bet many of the ones who did were contrarian just to bet the long odds, not to have any scientific reasoning behind it. The reasoning was sound but the outcome ultimately, was wrong.

But you can't have a lot of snow without days that feature some cold air. At Dulles, 57 days have been AN and 17 days have been BN since 12.1. And that is against the 1991+ normals which are way warmer than recent past decades. Its been an overwhelmingly warm and wet winter, blame it on whatever you want but we have seen Nino's like this in the past and should only expect them to be even worse today given the overwhelming warm bias to begin with.

Enjoying the last weekend of deep winter up here before we relax the pattern. Its been ramping up all day long, the last couple squalls being the best to watch. When the wind eases up, its eerily quiet outside with all the snowcover

December looked sweet as modeled on November 19. But climo won. Just saying

It was ripping at 5A and probably a while before. Sorry you missed it. Cleared my truck off and it was covered before I could get out of the driveway.

Just in from 3 hours of crust busting shoveling. Haven’t touched the deck yet, may save it for tomorrow as I am beat. The driveway and ingress/egress to cabin however are open for business. 22/12 with wind gusts to about 40 and steady upslope snow showers. This is about as wintery as I have seen it up here since the arctic front on 12.23.2022

There are some pingers mixing in at DCL too but holding on to mostly snow…for now at least

25/21 and rain here, but mixing back with snow during the heavier returns

26/16 DCL, 2595’. The valleys on the ride in this evening were 19-23 on the car thermometer. The woodstove is ripping now too

It’s arguably what I did - pre cast superior wall foundation and ordered modular construction unfinished. At the time, this was actually the fastest of the available alternatives. It actually got a lot harder in 2021-22 because of the Covid and supply chain backlogs. I finalized my design and order in September 2020 and the box sections were delivered in April of 2021. People ordering a few weeks after me waited 12-24 months. The problem is it still took 2 years to finish it and by the time it was all set up I was already a year in. I suspect it could be easier today because of interest rates throttling some of the demand both for local labor and the factory built box sections. But it’s pretty difficult to find contractors that want to work on any projects less than seven figures anymore. At least here. I learned a ton doing this and would do it again in a heartbeat, just not in a location quite so isolated as this.

January 07 suggests we’ll need shorts before shovels. All these years did flip eventually which is encouraging, still skeptical of the 20th century analogs.

Timing is everything. House across from me sold in 2019 and he believes he can sell for 2x the 2019 price. And I think once interest rates level off a bit he probably will. Agreed the short term rental market is robust and definitely justifies the valuations. Those $500K townhomes are examples of that. I suspect plenty of homeowners there take 6-8 weekends a year, rent out as many of the rest as they can and still probably make money or at least break even. I did go for cable rail around my deck, including 2 full length staircases and admittedly that was expensive just for the materials. I did not do Trex however and will have to refinish every couple summers I suspect. With any luck the cable railing will survive the climate up here and look good for a long time.