Tom12309

Ah, no.  People don't go to hospitals seasonally.   You really think people say hey it's fall, let's go to the ER?  Please.

What you need to look at are the ICU capacity numbers.  Places like Texas, not good.  You got a heart attack or something there, you're pretty much on your own.  Beds taken up by Covid patients.  Hey, but the economy. 

Schenectady got whacked pretty good.  I am really surprised the old maple in front of my house and the giant poplars in back stayed upright.  Stuff was banging off the house for about ten minutes there.  We were lucky, our neighbor had to move her elderly parents down to their friend's house because the big oak that was in front of their house is now on top of it.  Trees snapped off all over the place, my wife came back in from her walk this morning and said she was zigzagging down different streets because trees and wires are still on the usual ones.  There's one pretty big branch a few houses down that looks to be about six inches in diameter at the base that is all the way across the yard from the tree it came from.  It was howling for about ten minutes there.  I'm really surprised we have power this morning considering what the outage map looked like last night but there's still power out all over the place around me.  I think it also took out cell towers for a while because last night I had about no service and this morning I'm back to four bars.  

When I was a kid what I can remember is being on the tail end of the dry years in the 60s and watching the only rain around being the thunderstorms channeling down the Ottaquechee Valley two ridges north.  It happens.

64 degrees on the bike ride this morning.  Downright chilly.

Farmers.  Ow.

I have to figure the ADK park rangers had an over/under bet going on how many frozen unprepared hikers they'd be rescuing today.  Cotton kills....

That tornado warning east of Saratoga is right where they got a foot of snow, what like a week ago.  

Looking at the observation thread makes me wonder how much of this region got pretty much all of their seasonal snowfall total in fall and spring with nothing to speak of during winter?

13 minutes ago, STILL N OF PIKE said:

Areas near Albany and just west have about zero visibility last hour or so w some bright banding 

Schenectady cam you can’t see anything but white 

Depends what direction the camera is pointing, it might simply be pasted over.  Snowing horizontally at the moment.  Went out to fill the bird feeder and in three minutes I was completely coated on the upwind side.  

Ah, that's better.  Just flipped over to snow about five minutes ago in Schenectady.  Was some freezing rain there for a little while, the pines are a little bit glazed.

So close... 30 degrees and raining in Schenectady

A few years ago my brother's kids were at the Nordic JOs in Truckee and we went out to yell encouragement.  It was like 70 degrees out.  I was standing talking to my nephew fretting about whether the snow would survive.  He laughed.  He said see how we step off this deck down about six inches on to the snow?  This deck is about 12 feet off the ground.  He said the biggest problem was figuring out what wax to use at those temperatures plus how not to fall over from heat exhaustion while racing...

Ice but not enough to bend the trees halfway down the hill to Keene Valley on 74 all through the valley until going back up to Chapel Pond.  47 degrees in Lake Placid when we left, 30 degrees in Keene and 45 again cresting the hill at the other side.  The Ausable was about 6 inches lower than the road, state police hanging out at each end, in case it rose any more I guess.

Apparently tapping out this early is the norm, I don't know they keep the taps from drying out but it is all pipeline.  A run this early, though, I've never heard of.

My niece's husband in Underhill has 4600 taps out and will probably boil Monday, gallon per tap so far at 1.3.

I had to drive to Cleveland for work a couple of Januarys ago and in Pa. was pretty sure I was going to die.  No visibility with trucks blowing snow if you passed you might suddenly have taillights 15 feet in front of you if you stayed behind all of a sudden you had headlights 15 feet behind you.  I think in places they got 18 inches that night.  The one big laugh was the rest area I passed where they couldn't fit one single more vehicle in there, it was solid cars and trucks packed in tight.  It was going to take hours to unwind that.

Watching the waves on Mirror  Lake.  Though I have to say it's getting Zamboni'ed quite nicely, when they drop 40 degrees in five hours tomorrow I hope everyone has a chance to get out on it.  I personally have never skated a mile in a straight line.

Iversion must be it.  I87 until off at exit 30 raining at 30-32 and then as soon as gained any altitude 37-39.  39 in Lake Placid.  Locals bumming.

And on April 25 when I'm down in Arkville riding the Cross Mountain gravel ride it'll be snowing, graupel and rain like last April 22!  

So Karen and I schedule a weekend in Lake Placid... hoping for a little wintry appeal.  Karen's thinking fondly of strolling in 'snow globe flakes'.  Ha ha ha.  50 degrees and rain... I picked a bad month to quit drinking.  Not to mention it'll be shorts and jersey weather for outdoor riding back here in Schenectady.  Eesh.  If I leave town we get a foot and a half.  If I go where it usually is winter, we get early May.   On the bright side, my niece and her husband in Underhill started tapping their maples.  They do have like 40,000 taps or something ridiculous so it isn't as nuts as it sounds.

Wouldn't mind having an idea what the mean is these days because if this weather returns to the mean in the long term I might be needing my galoshes. 

I've been checking out the Ontario Feeder Watch cam from Cornell Labs partly to see cold temperatures and snow on the ground.  The birds are OK, too.  Only thing is today the people that host it are taunting me.... I can hear a snowblower going in the background.  Bastidges!

14.5 settled in my back yard according to my trusty Marty's True Value Hardware yardstick about 6am when I shoveled.  Snowing light to moderate now, maybe another inch or so.  Squirrels are pillaging the hemlock cones outside my office window before they move over to the bird feeders. 

Got up to dial in to work and looked outside... has to be well over a foot in Schenectady.  If there is no second part at all I'll be disappointed but only because this could be unbelievable instead of just really great.  

Schenectady snowing well.  Many flakes in the air and they mean business.  Not floating around like they don't know their purpose but heading to the ground quickly to make room for the next.  Easy four inches down so far.  Enjoying just watching it.