Eric

18 minutes ago, CentralNC said:

On this date in 1979, one of my favorite storms.  You want cold air?   Snow started right before dawn and temps fell from the low 20's to the low teens by early afternoon.  Some blowing and drifting.  Of course this is known as PD1 and it was spectacular.  Watched from my dorm room in Salisbury in complete awe.

 

What an incredible roller coaster ride to go from temps in the low seventies on Friday the 16th to temps in the low teens with heavy snow on Sunday the 18th!

A winter wonderland at Jackson Hole Golf & Tennis Club.

http://www.jhgtc.com/default.aspx?p=dynamicmodule&pageid=131&ssid=161&vnf=1

Nice foliage color at Purchase Knob today.  Image courtesy of the National Park Service webcams.

5 hours ago, BlueRidgeFolklore said:

We're running nearly neck and neck with 1980 in terms of averages through September 17th, here at AVL. I get what you're saying but I've been around long enough to know this isn't out of the ordinary. I'm not saying that one is the rule or the exception, I am simply saying that I've been through it before.

I well remember the July 1980 heatwave.  It was miserable staying in a room with no air conditioning at the Green Park Inn in Blowing Rock with temperatures in the low 90s.  The only respite from the heat was an excursion to the top of Grandfather Mountain where even there the temperature was around 80°.

On 9/7/2019 at 10:14 AM, griteater said:

Ha, yeah Eric I was just talking to my neighbor yesterday about how October is the new September.  It's been rough everywhere since 2007

It's getting tiresome having to constantly read about the "Upper Ridge" in the NWS AFDs.  It seems like it's now a year-round occurrence.

Friday morning I was checking out the webcam at the Jackson Hole Golf & Tennis Club and I noticed frost on the putting green and driving range and a dusting of snow on the peaks of the Tetons.  Would love to have a house there to escape the Southeast heat.

4 hours ago, griteater said:

94/42 now at ATL at 5pm

93/56 at CLT

No end in sight in the long range with the summer warmth. Yuck 

You have to go back to 2006 to find a September that was below normal in Charlotte.

Back in the '80s and '90s I used to always do my fall lawn renovation during the second week of September. That changed in the mid 2000s.

20 hours ago, Lava Rock said:

Been reading online a bit today. The flat spot out back is 7000sqft. Suggestion is to do one plug for every sqft = 7000. Granted, not every sqft of that area needs fixing, but it's gonna look weird to have a grass species like that next to fescue, KBG until it eventually takes over. IDK what to do. Apparently zoysia seed is difficult to grow, requires a lot of water early on and only works well if starting from topsoil. The more plugs you put in the faster it spreads, but from what I read, 1-3yrs or so. I'm tired of waiting to have a good decent looking lawn, so not sure I want to put in the effort of plugging.

Several years ago there was an episode of This Old House showing landscaper Roger Cook installing a tall fescue sod called "Black Beauty" at a project in Lexington, Massachusetts.  Roger praised "Black Beauty" for its drought tolerance due to its deep roots.

https://www.jonathangreen.com/product/black-beauty-blend-grass-seed.html

4 minutes ago, CentralNC said:

PD1 Feb 18, 1979 as well in western piedmont.  Watched it from my dorm room.

One of my favorite snowstorms.  Hard to believe we are approaching the fortieth anniversary of that storm.

1 hour ago, Queencitywx said:

With us just beginning winter, I wonder how many piedmont locations have had multiple snows of 6"+ in a winter. 

Check out Eric Webb's NC winter storm maps archive for 1935/1936.  An incredible amount of snow fell across the entire state that winter.  Monroe received 27" of snow.

https://www.webberweather.com/1930s-winter-storms.html

2 hours ago, griteater said:

Some of us have started adding some model performance thoughts on the storm here, FYI: https://www.americanwx.com/bb/topic/49398-southeast-winter-storm-threats-model-performance/?do=findComment&comment=5065039

 

Many thanks to you, @burgertime and others for the pbp with this storm.  Well done guys!

46 minutes ago, eyewall said:

From southwest Durham this morning:

Beautiful!  No "FAIL"?

27 minutes ago, Queencitywx said:

Final pure snow total at my house of 10.5", now mixing over. 

Excellent!  Snow seems to follow you like the Pied Piper.

54 minutes ago, +nao said:

How many winter storms have we had in the southern piedmont in the first half of December that are even close to what the models are predicting? For that matter how many winter storms in NC have been as big as what is being advertised?

For early December snowfalls in Charlotte that were 10" or greater, you have to go back to December 2, 1896 when the city received 10" of snow.  Monroe, NC received 12" of snow and 16" of snow fell in Chester, SC from that same snowstorm.  I believe one of the largest December snowfalls in North Carolina occurred in early December 1886 when over two feet of snow fell around Asheville.

On 8/19/2018 at 12:01 PM, Eric said:

Hope this helps.  I can attest to the low rainfall totals in Union County North Carolina.  It started last summer and has continued ever since.

It was looking "crispy" in Monroe today.  A client of mine who lives just west of downtown Monroe lost an established dogwood tree in a wooded section of their property due to the ongoing dry weather there.  Other dogwoods along the street in their neighborhood are drooping.

2 hours ago, SouthWake33 said:

can anyone point me to a map that shows 2018 rainfall for NC?  I’ve looked around online and can’t find one.

Hope this helps.  I can attest to the low rainfall totals in Union County North Carolina.  It started last summer and has continued ever since.

https://water.weather.gov/precip/

With comparisons made to the weather pattern of March and April 1962, I hope we don't have a repeat of the torch that ensued in late April 1962 and continued throughout the month of May 1962.

One side note, in a diary I was keeping in 1978 I made an entry on April 8 that the trees were in full leaf in Monroe, North Carolina.  I noted it was a remarkable transition from bare trees to full leaf during the first week of that month.  

A post I made a year ago during the February 2017 mega torch.

Lest we forget the mid-March snow and the devastating hard freeze that followed afterwards.

http://www.weather.gov/ilm/2017March12Snow

48 minutes ago, Queencitywx said:

It’s about time. What’s your snow total for the yr? 

Around three inches.  You and @griteater have done real well the past two winters.  My brother attended Davidson College back in the 70's and he would send me postcards detailing the amounts of snow he got while we had nothing but rain in Monroe.  It's amazing how the rain/snow line sets up in Northern Mecklenburg County.  Strangely, Monroe has had far more snow than KCLT over the past twenty years.

Congratulations Charlotte on recording your first below normal average monthly temperature since January 2016.  Charlotte's previous below normal average monthly temperature prior to January 2016 occurred in February 2015.  What a streak!  Was January an anomaly or will February follow suit?

10 minutes ago, WarmNose said:

Yeah if you live in Charleston  

It's not often Charleston's season-to-date snowfall exceeds DC's.

Charleston - 5.3"

Washington National - 3.1"

Dulles - 5.0"

Today is the fortieth anniversary of the great blizzard that struck the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes regions.  As an eighth grader, I was keeping a weather diary and I made an entry forty years ago tonight that my home barometer bottomed out at 29.04".  One thing I clearly remember about that storm was the hellacious windstorm that lasted well into the next day.  Charlotte had wind gusts to near 60 mph.  Needless to say, there was quite a bit of tree damage.  

It's disconcerting to see rain chances dwindling for Monday.  The Central Carolinas up into Virginia are in dire need of rain.  I have a client in Monroe, NC who has received less than four inches of rain since the beginning of September.

Interesting distribution of snowfall throughout the South so far this season.

David Ludlum in his book Early American Winters II 1821-1870 talks about the unusually warm winters in the Eastern United States from the mid to late 1820's.  He said the climax of the warm period came in the winter of 1827-1828.  During that winter, fruit trees in the South started blooming in January and were in full bloom by the first week of February. Peach and apricot trees in Pennsylvania were in full bloom by the third week of February.  In addition to the warm temperatures, it was also an extremely wet winter(Super El Niño?). By March the circulation changed and polar air masses began to move southward with reports of snow falling as far south as coastal South Carolina during mid-March.  During the first week of April a massive cold front(much like April 2007) swept through the South delivering a devastating freeze that killed all tender crops, as well as the pears and peaches.  The warm winters of the 1820's ended with a return to snowy winters in the South during the 1830's.

Departures From Normal for Charleston, SC during the winter of 1828.

January  +11.7°

February  +13.5°

March  +6.5°