wxmanmitch

The well at my place is 400' deep and provides about 5 gallons per minute. I'm not sure if that's good or bad, but the pressure seems pretty decent. The well sits in a natural wetland near the the edge of my lot so I don't think it'll ever run out of water...I hope. The water has a slight metallic taste to it due to iron in the bedrock and occasionally there's a little sulfur taste and smell when you first turn it on. The showers and toilets will turn a little brown after about a week to 10 days, but some of that CLR stuff from Walmart takes it right out. I might need to get one of those special filtration systems.

No 90° F here. I think we're probably as high as we're going to get now. I don't have a proper weather station yet, but my cheap outdoor thermo topped out at 88° F and it tends to read a bit warm during the daylight hours. The more accurate (as long as it's moving and not in a Walmart parking lot) car thermo was 85° F at the same time. It was 94° F at one point in Bennington and it was 87-89° F along route 9 in Woodford. This is about as nasty as it gets here. There's no breeze as the wind turbines in Searsburg really aren't moving. Very unusual to have such heat and no winds up here. Indoor temperature is 72° F but it's rising.

66° F outside, 69.5° F inside. No AC needed. Windows wide open. Basically I have an algorithm to determine when the windows should be open: if (Toutside-Tinside >= 0 & Tinside <= 68° F) then open windows to let warmer air in else if (Toutside-Tinside <= 0 & Tinside >= 68° F) then open windows to let cool air in else windows closed endif This of course assumes it's warm enough outside for the heat to be off.

No, it's mountain ash which is a misnomer since it's not really in the ash family. I have some aspens too. I like them as they're an attractive tree and they're not too messy. Another warm sector fail here today. This spot just does not want to mix out and break into hazy sun like most. Off and on fog and showers with temperatures in the low to mid 60s. The sun tried to break out briefly a few times earlier, but it failed miserably. Still 61° F in the house. Outdoor temperature yesterday afternoon dropped to 49° F with the rain, which explains why the house is so cool. Edit: Sun is trying to come out again. Lets see if it succeeds this time.

Interesting...the presence of mountain ash is likely a testament to the cold and snowy climate here. Thanks to you and Eek for the ID...it was tripping me up for sure. After looking it up online, I will look for the orange berries in the fall.

Deer flies are out now. There was virtually no break between the end of the black flies and the start of the deer flies. The latter seems to be much more aggressive on warm humid days with ample sunshine than on the cooler days. They were awful on Sunday and Monday but have been much less of a pest the past couple of days. I only had one come at me while working outdoors today. They are nasty, totally ignorant of deet and they'll bite right through your shirt. Can anyone ID this tree? I thought it was a yellow birch at first since the bark isn't that much different from it, but it's clearly not with the pinnate leaves and sawtoothed leaflets. I know it's a little hard to see in the 2nd photo, but it has white flowers higher up. There are several of them on the property and on the roadside. I've only seen them above about 2K elevation.

All this talk about heat and I'm debating whether to turn the heat on in the house. 62° F in here presently, but if it drops below 60° F I may have to pull the plug and do it. 50° F outside currently. Today was like mid October: cloudy, breezy, and chilly with occasional bouts of upslope drizzle and light rain with temperatures in the low to mid 50s. It was oddly dark too for some reason, almost like mid an overcast day in October or November. Meanwhile down in parts of CT it was mid to upper 80s and mostly sunny. Talk about a gradient!

How are the balsams doing up your way? A good number of them, particularly the older trees don't look too happy around here. I've had several die on my property die in the past 3 years and at least 1 or 2 look like they may die this year. The needles turn a reddish brown in the late spring, early summer and then the tree dies. There are a number of rotting trunks from others that have died in the past 10+ years and need to take them down when I get around to it . I think it's balsam wooly adelgid as I've seen these fuzzy white things on the trunks. I'm near the southern limit of their native range - in fact, the only reason they exist here at this latitude is because of elevation. The furthest south I've seen them in these parts is near where the Mass Pike crosses over the crest of the Berkshires in Becket.

Amazing there are places up north still getting frost. I haven't been <= 32° F since April 30th when it last snowed. I did have a 33° F about 3 weeks ago and 38° F this past Monday morning with the rain. I don't radiate that well here, but it stays cooler here than most places during the day.

I had a huge moth fly in when I opened the door a short while ago. At first I thought it was a bat. The pattern on its wings is gorgeous and the wing span was probably 5-6". Fortunately I was able to get it back out without injuring it. I did a Google image search and found that it is a Polyphemus Moth which is the giant silk moth family.

Sugar maple. If the sap is clear it's a sugar. Norway maple leaves don't normally have a red stem and are shiny on the back and front compared to the sugar maple. Milky sap = Norway maple.

Yellow birch. There's tons and tons of those growing around my property, including a number of saplings that can probably be dug up and transplanted. There are also quite a few paper birches in the sunnier spots. Grey birch has taken over along some of the sunny road sides as well. I find it rare to find anything except river birches (and maybe some grey birches and their cultivars) in nurseries these days. This is probably because they're more resistant to the bronze birch borer than paper or yellow birch. River birch is the southernmost of the major eastern birch species and primarily grows in the mid-Atlantic and parts of the Southeast. I did plant 10 paper birch saplings along the sunny side of my driveway. I ordered them online because their weren't really any good ones to dig up and transplant. Unlike the valleys, paper birch appears to do okay here since bronze birch borer is not overly cold tolerant.

Trying to get grass seed to grow and it looks like the weeds are winning the rat race against the grass in one part of my lawn. I'll let it go for now since at least it's green, but once the grass is established I'll probably apply some of that weed killer.

I had this deer stop by this evening outside my kitchen window as I was washing the dishes from dinner. It looked right at me as I opened the back door to take this photo. The deer definitely migrate to the valleys during the winter to escape the deep snow pack that we have up here. Although not the primary carrier of black legged ticks, this fella probably brought some up here from the lower elevations. Now I need to be extra careful and apply bug spray to my feet and legs when walking near or in the woods. I'm hoping to see a moose one of these days. Unfortunately they are on the decline due to parasites like brain worm and the winter tick.

CAM, LEWP? Never seen those acronyms before. No thunderstorm action here. Just some showers and a cool afternoon after a bright, sunny start. As a homeowner now, I could do without the severe, especially large hail as it will destroy your asphalt shingles and siding. I still do love a good summer storm though.

I wonder if my snow pack from this winter will stick around until next winter...lol. I still have 30-36" depending on measurement location. It will surely solidify after this rain with the colder weather coming and with some snow threats next week...

+SN, 23° F. 11" of upslope, 7" from the storm yesterday.

I do accept the higher totals from Wilmington over to Jacksonville, Halifax, etc. as they caught that band that I and Woodford narrowly missed yesterday. I don't always buy some of the WeatherNet6 reports, especially Woodford's. Sometimes Woodford's reports are more in line with totals around here, but other times they are not and this is one of those cases where it is most certainly not. My two week total is ~80", so there's no way Woodford has had that in the past week.

8" of new upslope on top of the 7" from yesterday. Very light snow right now, but models have it ramping up again from around 03z to 12z, yielding another 0.5-0.75" of LE. Then it tapers to flurries and light snow showers tomorrow during the day before another round tomorrow night? Snow growth has been kind of cruddy with lots of small rimed flakes and even pellets at times. Unlike a lot of these upslope events though, there's some good weight to the snow thanks to the deep moisture layer wrapping around our storm. I'm not buying the 35" storm total report from Woodford. I drove through there today en route to do an errand in Bennington (which was almost a costly mistake as I pulled over to a parking area on the side of route 9 that hadn't been plowed in several hours to let someone pass and got stuck, but luckily I was able to weasel my way out of it). Yes, they have a lot of snow like I do, but I find it hard to believe that there would be a 20" gradient in less than 5 miles at pretty much the exact same longitude and similar elevation. They were west of the meso band that nailed areas just west of I-91 like I was and radar returns haven't been that much different there. Maybe they have a little more, but not 20" more. Meanwhile Bennington had only about 2-3" that was melting in the March sun angle with temps near 32-33° F. I came back via Williamstown and N. Adams as 9 and 8/100 are tough.

Upslope machine is cranking. +SN. It doesn't look like much on radar, but trust me, it's nuking at least 1-2" per hour. Fine snow though. Will measure in a bit.

Snow has increased a little and skies have darkened as the remains of the I-91 band have pivoted back here. Looking forward to what kind of backside upslope I can get. I'm a tad east of the spine axis, so I may not get quite as much as Woodford to my NW, but am close enough that I can do well as long as the flow isn't super blocked. We may upslope right through Thursday.

6" here. Light, fine snow with a silhouette of the sun poking through the overcast from time to time. That band that was along I-91 has been trying to pivot west a bit, but is dying as it does so. Probably won't make it here.

White sandstorm here since the death band is about 20-25 miles east of where it was last time. Probably about 3-4" of new.

Here we go again...25° F and -SN with a new dusting OTG. Expecting 8-12" tomorrow with a lot of upslope on the backside. This is the most potent upslope signal I've seen in these parts since the 11/20/16 event (see avatar), and that was a much wetter snow than this is going to be.

My eclipse chase to Casper, WY was a resounding success. There were some wispy cirrus clouds during totality, but not enough to be of any detriment to the overall experience. The corona and Bailey's beads were clearly visible. It was like dawn/dusk with a 360° sunset/rise. What an incredible, goose bump inducing experience! Certainly one that I will never forget. It was well worth the money and hassle of getting there and back (mostly back). I drove up to Casper from my motel a bit north of Denver in 3 hours and 15 minutes, a distance of about 260 miles. I-25 was busy, but was moving along close to the 80 MPH speed limit during the wee hours. I left at 1:45 am and got to Casper at 5. Good thing I left when I did because Glendo (which I avoided since I had no idea how a village of 200 was going to handle 100K+ visitors) was starting to back up onto the ramp, but not the interstate yet. About an hour or two later, traffic looked bad on I-25 near there as it was backed up onto the interstate, creating a massive bottleneck. I left Casper at 2 PM and took back roads, but traffic was bad anyway. State highway 487 had a 40 mile backup to Medicine Bow and it took me nearly 4 hours to get from Casper to Medicine Bow. US Highway 30 east was good for about 35-40 miles before another jam in Bosler. Fortunately a friendly state trooper was directing some of the traffic onto an 18 mile dirt road cutoff that got me around most of this jam. I then took I-80 east to Cheyenne from Laramie and then US 85 south back toward my motel. I-80 was clear sailing, but 85 was slow at times, however not like I-25. It took 9 hours to get back to my motel, which I don't think is too bad all things considered. The 23 hour day was well worth it! KCPR had a 7° F temperature drop that I can definitely attest to as my viewing venue was right near the airport. The car surface became cool as well. I shot a brief cell phone video during the totality. The crowd's reaction is definitely noticeable. For the next eclipse in 2024 I will definitely book something in totality as far in advance as possible as the drive into and out of totality can be a pain. I'm not sure how far in advance most major US hotel chains will let you book a room. A year? I'm tentatively thinking somewhere south of Dallas near Waxahachie or Ennis. Totality is about 4 minutes and 24 seconds there, and I don't want to take a chance with NNE weather in early April, which is cutoff and backdoor season. South of Dallas also has good SW-NE accessibility along the totality path in case I need to relocate because of weather. Moving within totality is easier than getting in or out of it.