RDM

FWIW - exchanged notes with some German friends today. They are on "lockdown" until 20 April. I use the term lockdown loosely because they can still go out to get food and go for a walk, but are only allowed to socialize with those in the same household. Very interesting how Germany has such a higher mortality rate compared to Italy (about 12X). Germany has roughly 60% the number of cases as Italy, but only 5% as many fatalities (compared to Italy). This is still keeping in mind the data on the number of cases is likely skewed because those carriers who have not be tested are not accounted for in the data.

Very sad to hear for all the seniors out there - same goes for those at the University level. Our daughter is considering herself fortunate for having graduated from W&M last year. Her former classmates this year will have to do without a commencement ceremony. While the impact on education in the US is beyond anything previously contemplated, it was inevitable. As a comparison, it's worth noting Japan closed all of their public schools and universities in one action early in the onset of the pandemic. That's credited with being a major factor in minimizing the impact in Japan. To date they still have "only" 1100 cases and 41 fatalities, which is pretty amazing giving their population density. As a comparison, imagine and area smaller in area than the Washington/Baltimore metropolitan area with 40 million people - that's the Tokyo-Yokohama metropolis. Compared to less than 6 million for the W-BMA. 6 times our population in a smaller area.

The effort you've put in shows. Nice ambiance for sure. Can relate to the concept of lessening the grassy areas. When we moved into our place 10 years ago after returning from Thailand I recovered the lower 1/2 acre of our property. It hadn't been maintained for years by the previous owners and in places the weeds were 5 feet high. With the help of my Kubota BX I dug out stumps, removed dead/fallen trees, cleared it and leveled it with a power landscape rake. Was several 30 yd dumpsters full of debris. Put down over 100yds of 50/50 topsoil/compost mix and 300+ lbs of seed. Ended up with the nicest bed of weeds you've ever seen. haha. But, it's better than what we started with. At some point I may do like our next door neighbors did and kill it all and reseed the whole yard. Their yard looks pretty nice now and is light years ahead of what they had before. Some day, when I get a round-to-it.

That looks great. Look forward to some updates. Nice back yard too btw. We have a transition area with a lot of poplar trees also (albeit our back yard don't look near so nice). The abundance of trees makes it difficult to keep grass. It does ok until the leaves on the poplars come out. Then the combination of partial shade and the poplars sucking the nutrients out of the soil make it hard for grass to compete. Hope yours takes hold and does well. Certainly looks like its got a great start.

Well said PSU. During a normal flu season, how many people actually get formally tested for the flu? Nominally we get the flu, maybe go to the doctor and/or medicate to soften the symptoms and stay home until better. COVID is another situation entirely. Also agree on the point about the data. The stats on the much followed JH's COVID heat map point to some interesting trends, but need to be viewed as suspect (although I look at the site a lot myself because there's little else out there). In the more modern countries where testing is assumed to be carried out to established standards, the data is likely far more objective. With that assumption, the variability in the fatality ratio in Europe is interesting. Case in point is the significant difference in the fatality rate in Italy compared to nearby France, Switzerland and Germany. However, as a catch-all, the overall data totals on the JH site is very subjective and even suspect for two reasons. One is the data is solely reliant on official test results of people tested, which must be assumed to be far short of the number of actual cases. The second reason, which is the predominate driver in undermining the pedigree and linage of the data on the JH site is because China is heavily involved; having contributed the largest portion of the data set by country. At this point, Johns Hopkins should just cut the data out from China entirely. China is arguably at the top of the list of countries when it comes to active domain monitoring and content control. They have an iron grip on it and we are seeing that machine in action now. It was interesting how the number of cases in China came to a grinding halt last week and now the only new cases they are reporting are labeled with having originated from outside China. Their internal filter machine is working overtime now and as a result any of the COVID data out of China is questionable at best, which further taints the JH heat map as long as data from China remains included.

Yes, have a decent first hand perspective on Italy. Mainly in the Northern alpine areas, but also Rome and Sardinia. Lived in Germany two different times and spent a lot of time in the Alps. Part of the challenges in the norther part of Italy is the aging population as noted by others. The alpine villages are typically densely populated and relatively isolated - ripe for infestation once infiltrated. That appears to be a contributing factor in Switzerland too. This hit at the height of spring ski season and vacationers from the low land and tourists from other countries brought COVID into the resorts (from the brother of my Swiss-sister who is a Doctor in Bern). However, another mitigating factor in the data comparisons to the flu is that on an annual basis there are a lot of fatalities attributed to the flu as a pseudo catch-all. The same takes place in the US. No doubt, some cases of the flu are confirmed as being attributed to the flu through flu strain specific testing, but many aren't. My older sister is a recent example. She contracted flu like symptoms last week and was confirmed through flu tests to have "flu B", whichever one that is of the two flu strains she was tested for and which are dominate this year. While many of her symptoms pointed to a COVID-19 potential, not all of her symptoms were consistent with COVID, so her doctor tested her for flu first as an initial measure. When the tests confirmed flu-B, then that precluded further testing. Assume this M/O is/was being followed in other cases around the country. My sister-in-law is a PA and my daughter works for INOVA Urgent Care and this testing methodology is consistent with their testing MO, even though both work in facilities where COVID test kits are available. Back to the topic of Italy, what we're seeing take place there over the last week is way beyond comparison to anything that is nominal for even an aggressive flu season. Talked to some friends there, in Switzerland and Germany recently - they are all struggling to cope with this. On the flip side of the fatality rate is Germany. While they also have a relatively high number of confirmed COVID cases. Their documented fatality rate is significantly lower than Italy (on a percentage basis). That's interesting, but far be it from me to conjure a guess as to why.

No - this is not at all normal. Not even close to it. Italy does not nominally deploy army convoys in the middle of the night with police escort to carry away the caskets because the hospital morgues are overflowing. And yes, I've spent a fair bit of time in Italy. This is NOT normal.

Agree. Saw a couple of listings last night on FIOS from previous tournaments. If they play some finals from long ago, maybe we'll be able to forget who won when watching to avoid spoiling the fun. Heck, I can't remember who one many of the tournaments in the 90's and 2000's anyway. Was overseas most of that time - plus I'm old now and forgot what I did yesterday. On a separate note, the impact on advertising and lost revenue is enormous. Was watching something last night and an advertisement for the Players Championship ran just like normal, after it's obviously already been canceled. Was a late night program, but was still interesting to see an advertisement for a canceled event.

Not sure I follow the syntax of the part in bold about "not going to be able to under report deaths from the virus". If they are not going to be able to under report, does that default to they will be over reporting deaths? Not trying to be sarcastic, just trying to understand the point you're making. It's was interesting to watch the growth of new cases in the equatorial strip of Africa and the Indian subcontinent over the last 24 hours. Same for Central and South American and the Caribbean - all have experienced significant growth in the number of cases. Wonder if the growth in these warmer and even tropical climates is catching the eye of CDC etc.

Agree with some of the reference to warmer areas, but there's exceptions to this too. The majority of the warmer climates in the world are also among the poorest where access to reliable testing is going to be marginal at best for a long time. And the stats on the Johns Hopkins Heat Map are based solely on verified test results, which are significantly less than the number of actual cases. The stats for India and Africa are the prime examples of what is most likely under reporting. Stats in African and the Indian sub-continent are currently well behind much of the rest of the world. That said, the stats starting to ramp up 2 days ago. From a temperature perspective, the northern tier of the subcontinent is still in transition from cool winter/spring temps (it does get below freezing in the winter in Delhi - DJF) to what we would call summer-like temps in the south. If we look at South America and Australia also, their stats have grown significantly over the last couple of days and Australia is just entering Fall along the southern coast. As for China, their data integrity must be objectively questioned and significantly so. Just as they deployed the largest quarantine in history, they also have the ability to control the data/stats. They actively control all nodes of Internet traffic in and out of China with an acute level of precision most can't contemplate. Experienced a similar level of domain control albeit with the "free" press in India when I lived there in the 90's. We had an outbreak of pneumonic plague in 94. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_plague_in_India They voluntarily evacuated the US Embassy as the news consumed all forms of information services at the time (largely pre-Internet except for a few). The story went from consuming entire sections of the Delhi Times on a Friday to nothing two days later. Not a whimper. In reality, the Indian political machine clamped down on the press and it just went away - like that. Was a pretty amazing thing to live through at the time. Actual deaths were wayyy higher than those acknowledged in the official reporting. Nothing above is intended to demean or question what we're facing with this pandemic. Hopefully, the US will rise to the occasion and group together to bring to bear the best of what we can muster. My fear is the current political climate will continue to undermine attempts to do so.

Been wondering the same thing. Many of the recent events since early Dec that went N of us did so in a way we were 2-300 miles from the action. (which is a world away, I know). Realize from I-81 N and W there's another entire climate at play, especially from mid-PA N in latitude. But in some cases one could see if the setup of the ridges and troughs over the Pac and CONUS was shifted some we could be closer to at least in the game (assuming also the WAR stays out of play). Perhaps wishful thinking here, but the boundary has often been in eastern Ohio diagonally down through western KY and SRN MO. My relatives in SW Ohio have already had multiple 4"+ events, which is a bit rare for them this early.

Fantastic Bob - no doubt you are doing a lot of things the right way beyond being part of the foundation here. That's great. Can only imagine how proud your son is going to be too. Real life learning opportunities like this are too infrequent these days...

Bob, no doubt you were inoculated against having any chance of becoming jipolar a long time ago. Most of us received that immunity at a young age... Sitting at 6.5" here about a mile NW of Vienna. Picking up again....

6-1/4" just NW of Vienna on Lawyers Road. Looks to be some building down around Raleigh. Hope good stuff mentioned by the NWS for this afternoon makes far enough N&W to give us all some more. Wes should be in a prime location for that.

Great second pic of your son. The awe he must feel with what today has in store for him.... I'm nearly 60 years old and still feel the same. Only thing that changes is the way we have fun. Can't wait to get out in my Kubota and do the neighborhood. Typically plow our 450' driveway, 4 more adjacent to us that are longer, about 20 other driveways, a 1/4 mile of street and a mile or so of sidewalk along Lawyers road to Vienna. Hope your little man has a blast today!

If this were to really play out as illustrated on the NAM, suggest it would be a hands down BECS. Can barely read the posts as fast as they are coming in. If the NAM nails this, it will have dethroned king EURO.

24/21 - Nice rise in dp from when I went to bed. Hats off to all those who stayed up so those mere mortal weenie wannabes like me could get some sleep, wake up and quickly read about getting named overnight and new additions to webster's dictionary of meteorology terms "according to Jeb"

A "positive reverse bust" - I think.... hope..... pray... that is a 4 letter word that starts with B and ends in M?

WWA just extended up into lower PA...

27/16. Just went outside with my long time damaged/broken/disjointed finger/weather monitor - the digit started tingling immediately - yup, it's gonna snow.

That was a great storm for us for many reasons. The 18th of Dec is my birthday for one. That aside, it was the best welcome home present our family could have hoped for. We'd just returned to the US that Fall from a few years in Thailand, where I may point out it don't snow... ever! (except inside the snow house at the Dreamworld amusement park). We'd just bought a new house on 30 Nov and moved in the first week of Dec 09. Also bought a small Kubota tractor with a front end loader the week before the storm to go along with my two Gravely walk behinds (our driveway is 500 feet long). The Kubota with loader, a blade on one Gravely and a blower on the other Gravely saved us and the neighbors. What a Dec that was, only to be followed by the back to back fun in Feb 2010. No snow this year for my b-day - darn it.