RIC_WX

It certainly busted low on temps for the Potomac Highlands this past entire week from a lead time of 3-4 days - it had snowshowers here starting 12.26 that in actuality will maybe occur on the 29th or 30th. I actually agree you are correct though, I do think areas in the eastern portion of the subforum did see perhaps legitamately colder temperatures at times during December than you might have reasonably anticipated, blunting recognition of just how disasterous the pattern evolution actually was the final 10 days of the month.

Not really overpriced. I doubt I could sell my place for a whole lot more than what I put in it. And this is not accounting for my sweat equity, which was substantial. I did 100% of the HVAC, floorcovering, painting and trim installation, 50% of the drywall install and finishing, at least 50% of the electrical / plumbing rough in and finishing. I rented heavy equipment and cleared 90% of the lot - because it was covid, because I had the time, because there was no one else to do it and I wanted it done! The big outsourced projects were things like well and septic, roofing and gutters, exterior siding and soffits, etc. Eventually, frustrated with our pace of progress my wife convinced me to outsource having a deck built around the cabin perimeter (like almost every other place up here has). It cost $46K and took almost 9 months to complete. No doubt this could have been completed for maybe 50%-70% of this cost in Leesburg and maybe taken a month. Because there are contractors everywhere, there is immigrant labor, there are building materials available on demand, the weather is benign, makeup any excuse you want. Go drive through basecamp, or even the comparatively cheaper properties irrespective if they have lake access or not. There are empty lots everywhere ready to build. Now ask the realtor trying to sell you these lots why. They won't tell you. Because if you heard the honest answer, most people would conclude they could never pull it off, because...most can't. Either because they don't have the time, or the patience, or the capital, or the expertise, or whatever. And that's why, when you find a property for sale, it appears overpriced.

Being conscious of my tone, we should probably be very cautious when referencing analogs from what was objectively the coldest decade of the entire 20th century and attempting to apply them to modern times.

The consensus in the 1970s was we were heading into another ice age and not much would stop it. 50 years later now look at us. If it was about to turn hard in another direction again how would anyone know? And if it’s cold again in 50 years but we’re all dead anyway does it even matter? Probably not

It doesn’t really look like it will be cold enough to fire the snow guns before Sunday night either. I am sure they are going to try and stay open this weekend at wisp but this fog and mid 40s temps is for sure going to eat the snowpack alive, whatever is remaining over there. A sad reprisal of 2021 it appears for new years.

Deep creek hasn’t even been below freezing since Saturday morning. They are also on track to finish December at 50%-75% of normal precip which is only noteworthy because of the positive anomaly 100 miles east. There are many ways to score but and east storm track and a generalized torching of the source region north and west isn’t one of them.

It's really only bad like that a handful of weeks a year, and very predictable. Most of the time there is hardly anybody around. Once away from the lake its even sparser. But yes, on a 3 day holiday weekend in the summertime, you can't even get cell service. And boy do the city dwellers get mad when they show up and can't find anywhere to charge up their toy cars.

If you decide to build at Deep Creek, recognize that it’s a 3 year process that is difficult to expedite under almost any circumstances. The contractors here are a very tight and closed network, and care more about steady work than starting or finishing anything on time. And there is an acute labor shortage here unlike anything you have observed in the city or suburbs/exurbs. Anything already finished and for sale usually will require significant renovations, especially if it was previously rented, and often carry significant price premiums making new construction appear competitive (until you actually try and build something). We bought our lot in summer 2020, and had provisional occupancy (read: unfinished) in Summer of 2021. I was an active participant in construction and did about 40% of the work myself and subcontracted as much as I could. That said, there are still significant areas of my project that remain unfinished to this day which I think is typical for up here. The pace of work has slowed considerably, mostly just due to demands on my time and the fatigue of a multi year build. I still think many who I talk to would argue my outcome is on the better side of average balancing what I have invested and what we’ve managed to get finished thus far.

Its not snowing in the western highlands. It hasn't snowed in the western highlands for a week. It's no longer forecasted to snow in the western highlands before Friday or Saturday or Sunday or Monday. In fact, it's the same temperature in the highlands as it is in the lowlands nearly this entire week, which lends itself to +15 or greater departures out here. Go back and look at the models from December 10 / 15 / 20-/ 24th for the highlands and tell me the can hasn't been kicked. It's kicked out of the medium range every time this season except for maybe the underperforming event December 18-19. I am sorry that ground truth is defeating the modeled predictions for more favorable conditions in the medium range.

Maybe not, but there is nearly unanimous consensus we would reach climo or climo+ on snowfall. Most of the region will exit December 150%-200% of normal on precip. That could continue, or we could just be normal or even slightly below for January and February and still finish the winter above normal on precip. And no one really forecasted a materially BN winter temperature wise. Either way, someone needs to start tracking cold air or even just seasonably cold air masses. This year increasingly has the "one storm makes climo" look to it, which historically happens here when the pattern breaks down (the hoped for pattern arguably isn't even showing signs of setting up, and most likely won't before Feb).

73 and 98 are absent from the "good years" dataset for a reason, but you already knew that. 16 kinda makes the point does it not - pattern flipped cold in early Jan, big storm and pattern breaks down. We are delusional if we think 02-3 or 09-10 are still on the table.

The good years in the Nino dataset all feature at least a period of cold/snow in December, or a decisive flip to cold and or/snow in the first 15 days of January. The latter is seemingly still in play, but absent of this verifying a big reset in expectations will unfortunately be coming. The "colder look after the 4th" is what dismays me. There has been consistency in the models to show BN at day 10 only to bleed warm and verify AN. These trends are way more important than any one good/bad day of LR looks.

The warmest departures from normal are coming in the next 6-7 days. Would you feel differently if there were normal temperatures outside of a single 7-10 day stretch where we hit 70 and struggled to get below freezing at night, and finished +2 / +3? Because it appears we are finishing a lot warmer than that.

While not 2015 levels of warmth, 60*F is beginning to look achievable for DC and close in suburbs for xmas eve / day. Depressing as this is, most recent examples here do roll forward to a somewhat pronounced and sustained flip into January. Unfortunately, it also sets the stage once again (similar to 2021-22) when the xmas holiday period and memorial day holiday weekend to see legitamately inverted absolute temperature values. Meaning, the average high at the lowest sun period of the year exceeding the average high for nearly the highest sun period of the entire year, for some meaningful period of time.

Impressive. We bottomed out at 16.9*

The LWX disco suggested significant upslope accumulation for the west slopes of Alleghenys, but mostly due to very cold air in the dendritic growth zone producing very high ratio snow. What I am seeing looks more like graupel, or dipping dots ice cream. That suggests there is a warm layer in there somewhere the models have missed. That is going to need to mix out quickly if we are going to reach even the WSW criteria out here. 26.9 / 23.0 (and slowly falling all day) 2595’

Motion Activated Camera

My cameras keep pinging me with blizzard images. Hopefully a preview of a lot more to come.

Somehow through a quirk of my unpredictable schedule I will manage to be up here to witness this. 35/27 and patiently waiting for the goods by the fire…

Down to 42* at Deep Creek (from earlier high of 61*) and on track for <32* around midnight. Looking forward to a couple days of winter preview here.

Checked my PWS and see I bottomed out at 33.9. Looks like upcoming Sunday-Monday night should be the first county wide freeze for Garrett.

If the storm track is east of the mountains this year (as virtually every model everywhere and climo suggests) Deep Creek will upslope its way to climo an inch at a time even without a big event and with nominal temps. Even if we have to wait for March, it's difficult to see this pattern not delivering.

At DCL. Comparing pictures from this weekend vs. this weekend last year and color is noticeably muted this year in comparison. Not sure how much of a proxy this is for DC tho.

Rain and lightning

Haven't most of the forecasted heat waves this season failed to deliver? What makes this one different?