CoolHandMike

1 hour ago, JTA66 said:

No worries, Mike. My gf gave me a couple of winter coats for Christmas. I’m holding her responsible.

I keep squinting, looking for flurries. Nothing yet but I do need to wash my windows.

Some nifty looking undulatus out there at the moment. I'm just happy it's properly cold and blustery for a change. 

41 minutes ago, Birds~69 said:

This winter has been a disaster. I've given up. I expect anything to be a minimum event. The long term models have been a mess as far as accuracy.

Following the Birds and the Phils just signed Hoskins for another year. Lights still up/on...all good.

30F/Cloudy

 

It's my fault, guys--I did a stupid thing and bought a fancy-pants, new snow blower last fall. I'm so, so sorry.

Spoke too soon. Back up to 37.

My forecast low for tonight is 34°F. We're there now, and it looks to be going lower still.

Well, crap. My PWS is offline. Question is, how much do I want to break out the ladder and swap the batteries in this weather? Hmm...

Hit 3.5°F right around 7am. Now 6.2 and blowing 10-15mph, so still quite chilly outside!

Took the puppy for her evening constitutional in the back yard a little while ago. That was the quickest she's gone out to pee and come back ever! lol

Properly cold and still gusty. I have a cheesy, xmas-themed, black sweatshirt with the GoT quote "Winter is coming" on it; I'm thinking of wearing it out tomorrow on my last-minute errands with some blue tape over the "coming" part with "here" written on it with sharpie. Hope I get some laughs.

1 hour ago, JTA66 said:

9F…and now with the added pleasure of shocking myself every time I touch something around the house.

About 10 years ago we lived in an old apartment with high-pile, wall-to-wall carpet. I was tired of basically defibrillating myself every time I touched something metal, and specifically, the (at the time) metal scroll wheel in my mouse. I came up with the idea of running a bare copper wire in and around my slippers. I recall that it worked pretty great, so long as my socks weren't too thick.

Brr! It's ok though, got a pot of tomato sauce reheating on the stove for our annual Xmas eve lasagna. I made the sauce back in September but I recall not reducing it enough and then making an incredibly much better batch a month later that is already gone. So I'm going to reheat and reduce 6 qts down to 4 and tweak it a little bit to try to match that later batch. Wind is howling but the house is warm and smells amazing.

I am considering leaving a faucet trickling overnight though--I'm not concerned about the indoor plumbing as our basement never gets much below 60, but I have no idea how well the plumbing outside will fare since we're on a bit of a hill with significant backfilling all around. I figure better safe than sorry.

Super grateful to be able to work from home today! Winds really kicking up with light snow now. We had a short burst of heavy snow and there's a dusting on the grass, no way I'm getting an inch out of this one. We did drop almost 8°F in an hour though, so that's neat. Temp graph should look pretty wild at the end of the day. 

3 minutes ago, Hurricane Agnes said:

One of my BIL's is from Dayton, OH and some years he and my sis would drive out there for Christmas (they were there at Thanksgiving this year) and I just checked and it's -9!  Many of the times they did go out there this time of year, they always ended up getting caught in some kind of snow/frozen either while there or on the way there this time of year.

Currently 44 with dp 44 and some light rain has started up again here, with 0.50" in the bucket sofar.

I love how W 22 G 32 MPH is just "breezy"! 

Shoveled and salted roughly 3/4 inch of sleet/ice off my driveway and sidewalk for any deliveries we might get today. I was pretty sure the rain would have washed it all out by now, but it's still just below freezing and turning into an ice rink out there.

Moderate sleet still falling. All hard surfaces are white, and is starting to show up in the barer patches of lawn. My neighborhood roads remain untreated, but the garbage guys made it through no problem at least.

Noped out of my Reading-->Southern NJ commute this morning when I hit heavy sleet and ice on the roads near Morgantown. Told my boss I'd head in when it changed over to rain. My neighborhood is also completely untreated but hopefully all the frozen stuff should melt/wash away here in thh next few hours.

What a difference ~60 miles makes. We bottomed out at 25.5°F this morning.

We just threw down for a new Ego snow blower since my wife really likes using their lawnmower, and since my Craftsman snow blower is close to 30 years old and held together with literal zip ties and baling twine. (She wants to be able to use it in case I'm traveling, plus we already have the Ego mower and leaf blower so we're already invested in the battery ecosystem. But I digress.) Based on absolutely nothing at all, here's what I'm thinking:

So... Freak snow end of Nov, 3" that melts before we have a chance to use the new machine.

December... cold rain.

January... Freakishly cold, mere dustings of snow throughout.

February... Big 2009/2010 energy, two 12"+ storms, maybe even back to back.

March... Solid 8-incher right around the 8th.

April... A dusting at the beginning of the month, then 70's, then cold towards the end.

My admittedly rather poorly sited anemometer recorded a gust of 25 mph with average of 18 mph winds earlier today (actually yesterday as of typing this). It's currently 22.6°F, feels like our customary February deep freeze, and I'm here for it. My high today (yesterday) was 33.9. Although I hate to tell you guys, winter is cancelled because I just ordered a new Ego snowblower. Sorry.

Snowed heavily the last 5 minutes of my drive home from work just now. When I got home, I saw my wife's car had a coating, as did the mailbox. First snow of the year!

My parents reported thunder and small hail in Oxford, PA around 4:10 pm. They're up to almost an inch! We only got .03" here in Reading but it blew up pretty quick. Unexpected for today--glad I worked from home.

.45" in the backyard gauge.

Mini-rant: if you can't handle driving in weather on the turnpike, at least GTFO of the fast lane you ignorant, lights-off-in-a-grey-car-in-heavy-road-spray ignoramus. Seriously, just pull TF over and do the rest of us a favor. /rant

Got another .06" this afternoon, and just now the sun popped out. My lawn is GREEN. Looks like a dang post card for Ireland out there. Next couple of days should be nice, more of a traditional "Indian Summer" if it's still ok to call it that. It's been a good false fall this year!

Received 1.9" yesterday to bring my October total to 3.38". Not bad! Yesterday driving home from work I noticed the Skook near my house looking a lot healthier than it has all summer.

I know a lot of people are bummed out by the constant grey and rain we've had for like, 5 days now, but I've really enjoyed this Hurr'easter. 

1 hour ago, Birds~69 said:

If you like football, gloomy dreary days, doing wash/stuff/taking out trash while getting drenched...today is the ticket.

Pretty sure I saw Ralph at the Warminster Starbucks calculating winter predictions.

52F/DP 49F...breezy, light rain/mist. This is what October is all about...

 

So much so, yes. Although we're only sitting at .88" between yesterday and today, still, it's very nice. This time last year, we were still waiting for the summer heat to break. This year I'm just hoping it doesn't come back.

4 hours ago, Birds~69 said:

We may see a "more normal" Oct than we've seen in years w/ some highs in the 50s and no off target flamethrower days...kinda ease into winter hopefully.

55F/DP 47F

 

I recorded summer-like temps IMBY in the 80's and DP's in the upper 60's well into mid-October of last year. I recall being miserable and complaining about it to anybody and everybody. Fall needs to be fall, damnit. This is a welcome departure from that. Making the first beef stew of the season tomorrow and officially dusting off my knit hats for the season. Let's go!

Sky looking west looks super dramatic on my potato front house cam: