RDM

9 hours ago, Bob Chill said:

The "earn your turns" lifestyle was my favorite. Yes, I loved inbound lift access skiing but the "religious" experience was getting a small group of friends together loaded with proper gear (avalanche transceivers most importantly) and just going for it. We'd plan descents for days. Waiting for the right weather/avalanche conditions and then nervously going for it when things were right. Hiking above 13k' is on a whole new level of cardio. Your heart would pound in your ears for hours and you learn how to speed up and slow down your pace so you didn't need to stop and catch your breath every 10 minutes. Took 3 years to get in really good shape. I no longer needed to stop for anything after a while. The first few years I always thought I was going to have a heart attack or something. lol. The really weird thing is that below 13k isn't too bad. Almost easy in a way. Once you cross 13k the whole atmosphere changes. 

When dropping into the descent it was always heart in throat. We used to draw straws for who went first. Out of 100s of descents I only witnessed one serious avalanche and nobody was caught in it. It was a sympathetic release thankfully. We were pretty smart for dumb guys. We had the gear and we dug our pits and didn't take too many big chances but it was always on your mind...

Bob,  

   Your pics and posts brought back many fond memories of skiing in the Alps, and other locations around the world, with a lot of backcountry mixed in.  I'm a die hard telemark skier - aka "pinhead".  Tried the long skinny skis in 1990 and never went back to alpine gear.  Really enjoy putting on the televators and skins and climbing beyond the lifts and noise of the slopes...  The off-piste options in the Alps are a hard-core skiers heaven.  You mentioned beacons...  When going off-piste you can tell how much your friends cared about YOU by the size of THEIR avalanche shovel!  Haven't skied much in recent years, but still have my dual freq beacon, Ramer poles that are also avalanche probes and other specialized gear.  

   Grew up skiing the hills in Ohio.  All 350 vertical feet of them!  Never skied in Colorado, nor much at all out west.  Skied Squall Valley a couple of times and it was disappointing.  The snow quality was good and they get tons of it.  However, the length of the runs and overall difficulty of the terrain was a letdown from the expected.  A black diamond at Squall would be an intermediate slope in the Alps, if that.  That may generate some responses, but it's all relative.

   For sheer snow volume and arguably snow quality, the western resorts in Japan on Honshu are hard to beat for snow depth and snow type.  There are places that get 70+ feet a year on average.  Zao for instance is known for its snow monsters, which are the snow covered tops of pine trees sticking out of the slopes.  They have absolutely incredible snow there, not just in depth but the type of snow is about as perfect as there is.  Light and dry, but not too light.  (Trying to ski on depth hoar is not that much fun IMO).  Enough substance to provide buoyancy, yet light enough to let you sink in to get that rolling action off your legs.  The challenges in Japan are the long lines and extremely high skier density.  That said, the Japanese are very hesitant to go off-piste and there's typically incredible snow just off the beaten path.  Naeba is a great location too.  Had the opportunity to telemark down Fuji san with two snowboarders (the mountain was officially closed at the time).  That was an incredible experience...

   If you (and other readers) ever get a chance to hit the Alps, you'll never forget it.  Collectively I had the good luck to spend 6 seasons in Europe.  Skied all over France, Germany (blah-skip it), Austria (great hosts and more laid back) and Switzerland (my main stomping grounds).  When it comes to sheer vertical and challenging runs many resorts in the Alps have much more vertical than any place in N. America.  In Zermatt you can ski 8500 feet of vertical in one run.  Yes, that's 2x the max vertical in N. America which is either Whistler or Jackson Hole who vie for the title.  Go to the top of the Klein Matterhorn at 13,500, ski down to town at 5000 feet and repeat and you've covered a full day and a hard day with some great slope side cuisine options along the way.  Can easily interlace on-piste and off-piste runs if you know where to go.  For those focused solely on the back-country experience the hut route from Zermatt to Sass Fee is a memorable experience.  If you go off-piste in Europe separate ski insurance is a must.  Being evacuated from an off-piste location is incredibly expensive.  

   Then there's the South Island of New Zealand.  Spent two weeks there heli-skiing when I lived in India.  The Kiwis are truly some of the kindest and most hospitable people you could ever hope to meet.  Not overly developed resorts, great back-country, reasonable heli-skiing options.  Just have to watch the high altitude parrots, which love hats and gloves (not joking, its a very real threat - haha).  Everyone there takes extra gloves and hats when they hit the slopes because it's not a matter of if you'll be the victim, it's when.  

1.70" yesterday - 6.68" for Nov and 54" for the year.  However, the 54" is low - had a clogged rainfall collector for awhile and missed some data.  Sacrilegious, I know...   If only yesterday had been a few degrees cooler aloft.  We would have had some serious rates and all would be in sheer bliss today... 

1 hour ago, frd said:

Volatility.................... 

It appears the newer run pushes the idea of a split flow more too.  If we can get the southern stream to do its thing and tap into the GOM, that would BODE well, provided it's not too suppressed of course. 

1.60" so far here just NW of Vienna and still pouring.  Temp up to 40/40 from 37/36 just an hour ago.  Looks like maybe another couple tenths to go before the it ends - western cutoff is along Rt 15 now.  Our front yard is a solid sheen of wet reflected in the lights.  Ground is totally saturated.  Going to be a mud pen for awhile.  

9 hours ago, showmethesnow said:

Worse part about the whole thing is that I now have the Eagles 'Hotel California' playing nonstop in my head. And I kid you not, the hotel key card has the phrase, 'It's time to let me go' written in big bold letters on it. It feels like an episode of the Twilight Zone we are living through.

Nail clippers. Check. Nail file. Check. Tweezers. Check. Pen. Check. And yet I still could not break us out. Macgyver is very disappointed in me. 

I believe something busted that was jamming the mechanism not allowing the latch to pull back in. Had just enough room to wedge tweezers, cards, nail clippers, etc... into the gap to try and force the latch and yet it seemed to be pretty much frozen. Even when I pulled the cover plates off to access the interior to try to pull the latch in it was frozen. As far as the hinge pins? Yeah, hex wrench needed to release the pins holding the hinge. Problem with that though was with the one hinge the release pin was recessed into the hinge so I could not get to it to pull it out. Didn't matter though because the other hinge I could not pop out anyway. Needed a hammer to pound it out when all i had was a small wrench he was able to get underneath the door. He eventually spent almost an hour using a drill and hand held grind stone to cut the whole thing out.

If anything, this whole episode has taught me to be more like Tim, 'The Tool Man Taylor' and take tools with me everywhere I go. And the more power, the better.

Sounds like a great learning opportunity.  Hats off for the effort on your part.  Suspect the third recessed hinge pin may have been the spring loaded hinge that serves as a door closer (just a guess).  Too bad the environment was not conducive to a little Semtex, Flex-X, or even plain ole Det Cord.  Would have made quick work of those hinges and/or the latch (latch is an easier target).  

Was the door a std solid core wood door or a steel faced door?  A couple of holes and a sawsaw should have taken care of either.  Cut from the bottom up on the latch side to make a doggy door big enough to get everyone out, plus bags of course.  Only 2 cuts needed.  

6 hours ago, showmethesnow said:

Success, 2 hours later and we are out the door. So much for our plans though.

Sorry to hear about the malfunction and messed up plans.  Good to hear you were evenutally bailed out, albeit at the expense of your forfeited plans.  Sounds like it took way longer than it should have.  Wonder what sort of lock system they have on their doors?  The electronic key card activated systems are typically designed so they only engage the lock electronically for egress from outside the room.  The action to leave the room is supposed to be strictly mechanical because it has to perform the same feature as a panic bar on emergency exits.  Fire and building codes are the main drivers of course.  

No doubt as detailed as you are on analyizing our collective favorite pastime (WX) you've got some mechanical skills.  Did you happen to take any pictures?  Good thought on removing the hinge pins.  Sounds like that was a no-go too.  Some of them take a hex wrench to release the hinge pin.  Plus, some are spring loaded to close the door and can be tricky.  

Welcome back to the free world again.  

After a lull the parachutes are back.  29/28 - not gonna get colder, but that's cold enough.  Hope mother nature punches the warm nose with a right hook to keep it away...  

sn-/sleet now - little breezy out from NNE.  Temp dropping - 33/27

1 hour ago, Bob Chill said:

Totally agree. I really like sleet except when it happens unexpectedly during a snow event. Forecasted sleetstorms are great. Especially in deep winter when it's below freezing. Nothing has the staying power of glaciated sleetcover.  Feb 07 was the epitome of glaciation

I'm ready to set my bar for this event in my yard. I'll go with anything at or above 1" measurable as a huge success. Don't care if it's snow/sleet/grauple/mangled dendrites or anything in between. I want to measure 1"+ on my patio table and call this event a huge success. 

Will never forget the sleet fest Feb 07 - was on 13/14 Feb.  Had many inches of sleet in NVA and it shut down everything.  We were scheduled to depart IAD circa noon on the 14th to move to Thailand.  Not a vacation..., we moved there.  IAD was closed the 13th and the morning of the 14th, but was scheduled to open mid-morning.  So we checked out of the hotel that morning and crossed our fingers.  Had ordered a van taxi that night before for the 3 of us and our 9 big suitcases.  When the van arrived that morning at the Intercon there were a lot of other folks who thought it was their taxi (not much was moving, but our van was there and only an hour late).  I bellowed out the fact it was our taxi and the terms were non-negotiable - and the other would-be fares backed off.  

We got to IAD w/o much issue just as IAD opened one runway - just one.  Huddled around the overflowing United end of the terminal with hundreds of anxious travelers to hear the announcement that only one flight was still going - that being our flight to Tokyo to catch the connecting flight on to Bkk.  After the near riot subdued we were still 2 hours late departing IAD, but we departed.  Missed the connection at Narita and had to stay over night in a hotel nearby.  With 3 of us and 9 bags in a way too small Japanese hotel room we only got a couple hours sleep before it was time to get up to catch the alternative flight on to Bkk.  Arrived in Bkk to tropical humidity and mid 90s.  What a shock to your system...

It was my 5th assignment overseas, and 3rd with a family and one we'll never forget.  Sleet?  I'll continue to worship snow and only resort to sleet as an alternative under the most dire snow starved situations...

3 hours ago, losetoa6 said:

Is the Washington post page a pay site now ? Tried the link to CWG but asks for subscriber log in.

CWG has been a pay-site for a while now - sort of.  A visitor/non-subscriber gets X number of free views per month.  To view more than X you need to subscribe/logon or wait until the next month.  You can view the main CWG homepage all you want.  Can only view X number of articles.  Don't remember what the X number is...   

Got down to 24 here.  Only 25 with a 23dp now.  The dry air should help dry things out some so we can mulch more leaves...   Never ending saga every Nov around here.  

1 hour ago, mattie g said:

Hit the “+” in the bottom left of the post you want to quote. Then when you get into the thread you want to quote, click in the reply section and click “Quote 1 post” and the quote will appear.

It’s that easy!

Thanks much - tried to do that a few times before and got it all mucked up...  Will keep this for the next time I try to quote something across threads.  

1 hour ago, George BM said:

Just press the "+" button next to the "Quote" button. A box saying "Quote 1 post" will appear at the bottom right of your screen. Ignore it and go to the thread where you want to quote that/those person/people. The box will reappear in the bottom right of your screen. This time click the box and the person's post that you're quoting from another thread will appear in the comment box.

Thanks much - appreciate it.  

3 hours ago, BristowWx said:

Wasn’t 11-8-87 the big snow for Vets day? It was 11-11-87...still the set up had to be there

Indeed - that 11-11-87 shellacking was memorable.  Had 13" in Lorton.  Posted the below earlier today in the digital snow thread.  Haven't figured out how to quote something here from another thread yet.  

Begin quote

That MAY be the storm you are thinking about, but we also got nailed on 11 Nov 1987 - Veterans Day.  I moved to NVA from Ohio in 85 and remember the Nov 87 storm well.  It snuck up on everyone and crippled DC.  Had an ULL that generated its own cold and a lot of fatties.  The rates were intense - and the bullseye was the proverbial "DC Snow Hole" with as much as 15".  I lived in Lorton at the time at Pohick and Rt-1 and we got about 13" there.  

Here's a couple of articles about it:

https://www.weatherbug.com/news/Washington-s-Veterans-Day-Storm-Remembered

https://dcstorms.com/2012/11/11/veterans-day-snowstorm-of-1987/

1 hour ago, showmethesnow said:

Room? Are we talking...

That's close...   It just needs to be a round room with instructions to stand in the corner.  Will keep em both occupied for a while and hopefully distracted from posting further... 

23 minutes ago, Vice-Regent said:

All I can say is keep dreamin'. Do you realize the PV is decoupled completely from the troposphere? Sure the signs are still subtle but this is the beginning of the end for winter in DC.

Please spare us all another season of your disjointed nonsense.  The remotely entertaining value was lost long ago.  

On ‎10‎/‎22‎/‎2018 at 10:31 AM, BristowWx said:

The WPC watches and warnings map is a sight this morning.  practically nothing going on any where of any kind in any part of the US.  October calm I suppose. 

Practically nothing again today nation-wide, apart from some off-shore stuff on both coasts.  Hope this the proverbial calm before the storm/s and I'm not referring to this coming weekend.  We need an active pattern with split-flow and some phasing to juice things up... 

31/31 here at 0700 (not going below that).  First frost of the year...  Bring on winter!!!

New cells just popped over Leesburg and MOCO.  Looks like the srn edge of the line jumped south and is reforming along the Potomac

Very rare to see the dark purple rain intensity show up on the Accuweather radar grid.  There was several larges areas of it in the 8:06 radar shot around and just to the west of FDK.  The slow progression, rates and hail (clogs up drains) are gonna make a mess IVO FDK.  This could be akin to what Ellicott City experienced a few years ago.  If this keeps inching S as it backbuilds to the west Leesburg and MOCO are next...

On 1/30/2017 at 10:26 AM, psuhoffman said:

Yea it's a lot more complex then I got into. And someone else (like you) is probably better then me for those that really want to get into the fine details of this.  I did get into some of that stuff in my meteorology classes but I haven't used it all that much and that was 18-20 years ago now.  

Most of us including me probably aren't pouring over all the plots needed to get into each meso scale factor. Wish I had that kind of time. The h5 vorticity is a good poor mans way to get a basic quick look at what's going on. 

Plus usually when we hear a lot of vort max talk it's because we're dealing with a pretty pathetic surface system (like last night) and we're relying on the lift associated with the h5 vort to give us a little something. In this case to pop a weak surface reflection and a very small band of precip. 

I love this stuff. I've wasted days reading through my old textbooks on meso stuff. Of course it's funny cause when it comes to looking at longer range stuff which is usually what I'm doing this year (ugh) the meso stuff could be a waste of time. Even from 48 hours I could spend time looking at where the best lift is based on meso features then the whole synoptic setup shifts 50 miles and it's pointless. 

Really want to go back and finish my meteorology degree but I'm not sure how I would use it. I like teaching (assuming I don't lose my job due to the current financial crisis in Maryland) and have a family to consider. It's probably something I'll do later on just for my satisfaction. Perhaps then get duel certified in science and find a school that would let me teach it as an elective or as a major unit in earth science. 

PSU -  You and I exchanged notes some time ago about finishing your degree.  Go for it!  Do it now and don't look back.  No doubt I'm not aware of your particular family situation.  And you're obviously thinking about them too.  Just think of this...  how will you feel 20 years from now if you don't finish it? 

Up until my sophomore year at Wright State U. my full intentions were to become a pro met.  It was what I wanted to do since the age of 5 or 6, other than be a fireman like my dad, which all young boys want to be.  Half way through my sophomore year I spent the night shift with a pro met at the NSW office at Dayton Airport.  The Met who allowed me to shadow him was nice, but he told me several things that did not paint a rosy picture.  At that time nearly all NWS work was 12 on, 12 off 4 days a week.  (that's ok - often worked 12 hour days in my career including one 65 hour stint - not advisable)  Then he said I had to get your MS - (that was ok as I planned to transfer to PSU).  Then the kicker...  and this was circa 1982.  He told me the NWS was closing 50+ weather stations in the coming years as part of a large computer consolidation program (maybe Wes remembers that...).  Most the positions being impacted were going to be cut through retirements.  So the job outlook was not so great.  Since I could not see myself on TV, thought I better find something else for a career.  So I became an engineer. 

Even though I didn't go the Met route, my career took me to various posts overseas where I was able to experience some of the "best" Mother Nature can muster, wrt the weather.  From 3 meter snows in the Swiss Alps, to monsoon rains in Delhi to incredible thunderstorms in Bkk, to 60 foot snows in Japan and skiing down a snow capped Mt. Fuji,... I've been very fortunate.  However, I've never stopped wondering - what if....   Would love to have the creds to spend a winter month in the Mt. Washington station.  But that's likely never to happen.  You are still young enough you can do this.  With the following you have in the forum, you could make weather a full time gig.  Go public, start your own web site and incorporate. (it's very easy to start a S-Corp or LLC).  No doubt others in the forum would be very supporting and help promote you for all you've given the forum.  No doubt as well you've be heads and shoulders about our oft referenced famous JB (or infamous - haha). 

Speaking of my dad, he's a good example of never too late.  My dad was an electronic technician for his work - retired from Wright Patterson AFB.  Was also a volunteer fireman for over 50 years and in the first graduating class of paramedics in the state of Ohio.  He did all that with an 8th grade education.  Went away from home at the age of 15 to work, and then joined the AF at 17.  But he always regretted not finishing High School.   So in his early 70's he got his GED.  One of the proudest moments of his life!  Just a little analogy about it never being too late.

Please forgive the long winded note.  I really hope you find the way to finish up those last few classes.  Then if you do go pro and go online, I'll be among the first to subscribe and proudly so.  Take care, Rob

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.