RDM

Congratulations H2O! Having a career where we consider ourselves fortunate is priceless. Hats off for living the dream. I too have been lucky - for 33 years now I can't wait to get to work. Sometimes I can't wait to go home, but have been very fortunate to live in many different countries and environments, and experience some of the most dramatic weather mother nature can muster. Gives one all the more appreciation for how great we have it in the good ole USA, and why the visa lines at our embassies are always the longest.

When I read "Season 37" I thought you meant 37th year, but didn't think Survivor came out in 81. That's only a year after CNN started and when I was a sophomore in college - yes, I'm old. Did a bit of research and realized there's been more than one season per year, which is misleading. When I grew up, the term season was equal to a year. Guess that's not the case anymore, which makes a show sound more marketable as having been on the air longer they it actually has. According to Wikipedia, Survivor launched May, 2000, which would make this year and season 27 or 28 based on the traditional measure of what denotes a season. But clearly that sort of traditional measure is dated (pun intended)... sigh. Glad you and other enjoy it - was never a fan. Lived overseas during most of it's early hayday and found the manipulative aspects of the game disenfranchising to the moral gut of what America stood for. But I guess that's part of the game.

Hey gang - don't forget the "U" in "KU" is for Louis Uccellini. Remember when TWC started in 82 - I was a sophomore in college and focused on becoming a Pro Met. Spent a night shift at the NWS office at Dayton Airport and that nixed the idea. Became a mere mortal engineer instead. Remember Kocin in the later years of TWC - think he started in the late 90's when TWC was trying to figure out what it wanted to be. Mods - sorry for the banter...

Good grief - what a profound statement to make. Please spare us the nonsense and go away. Take the hint, please. Plenty for you to do in your own sub. Much appreciated...

4.11" so far for this event starting Friday. Whales are breaching in the front yard herding the krill.

3.24" today - 3.85" for the event including yesterday. Live on Lawyers Road just NW of Vienna and it was closed again today near Hunter Mill for about the.... 10th? time this year? I've lost count. Hunter Mill Rd is closed yet again too just North of the intersection with Lawyers due to overflowing Difficult Run. Our entire yard was a sheen of reflected light from the runoff mid/late afternoon during the heaviest rates of nearly 1"/hr. What a mess out there...

Welcome your insight/suggestions on what to try around here - offline if preferred. In general terms, I'm not a fan of most darks (too bitter). Prefer a good lager/Pils and/or Hefeweizen, in the summer time.

Indeed. Thought I'd check out how they are doing. So sad - should have not wasted the thought. Been a rough year going from 1st in the Div to the basement, and this is going to bore further into the abyss. Not painting a good picture for the remainder of the season.

Hummm... Well, bier is like opinions, everyone has their favorites and believes their favorite (opinion) is the best. While I'll certainly agree many of the US craft brews have come a long way. Can't agree that "as a whole" the American beer is better than German bier. Much of that optic depends on what the taste buds are used to. Assume you've traveled to and/or lived in Germany before? If not, then afraid you've likely not had the real thing. What is brewed in Germany for domestic consumption is not the same as what is sold here under the same brand. For instance, Dinkelacker in Germany tastes different than Dinkelacker sold in in the USA. Same for Heineken, which is very different in Amsterdam etc, although I've never been a Heineken fan. I'm not even going to compare the larger US brews to the larger German biers. On that level of production, there is no comparison. For instance, Bud (gag) vs Romer Pils. All German biers have an expiration date on the bottle. Factoring in shipping and distribution time to the US from Germany, a "real" German bier will have already expended a good deal of its life before it gets on the shelf to be sold here. Thus the additives that many add in Europe to the export product. Then there's bier in India, haha. Try a Rosy Pelican sometime, it's at the bottom of the global scale. Leo in Thailand is not bad, nor some of the brews in Japan. In Japan, just like in Germany, the beers they make for domestic consumption are often different than those for export. The Aussies have some good micro-breweries too, albeit not on near the same scale in volume or variety as here in the US. Had some great samples in Melbourne and Sydney. Wish I could remember the names.

Nice kegerator - looks like some experience went into the design! Love some of the IPAs in the area, but am still partial to good ole German bier. Lived nearly 7 years in Fkt and we used to say the worse German bier is better than the best American bier. The Swiss know how to brew good stuff too. Good to see the industry in the USA brewing some good stuff.

Indeed - been like that all day. TN is barely 100 miles thick N-S. All those reds and oranges across the middle of TN and nada just N of Nashville. Brutal E/W cutoff along a 1300+ mile front.

Amazing at how the precipitation is being suppressed. Earlier this morning the precip line ran right along the KY/TN border - almost the entire length of it. Was gradually pushed southward over the last several hours. Is starting to gain some latitude, but very slowly... Given how much rain TX and LA received, and the deep greens in the flow, the nrn wall is a beast.

Got down to 19 here just NW of Vienna. Up to 21 now. Was a bit nippy yesterday evening with the N wind while outside putting up a few lights. Nice to be cold, but that same wall is keeping our fun away tomorrow. Won't even utter the 4 letter word that starts with "s"...

rotflmao - Well said psu. You'd think he'd get the hint, hint and more hints by now... Then read more and post less,,, or... sleep on his draft posts and then when he wakes up, delete them and save us all the from the anguish. sigh

Is that a trailing closed low (ULL?) on the heels of the first, a double shot? Recall that was alluded to as a possibility earlier today...

Yea, I'm old - feeling older all the time. haha. Followed the previous forums mainly while living overseas. With dial-up in the late 90's, it was slow at best. Didn't have DSL until I lived in Germany 02-05 (second stint there). That said, because if was so slow, posters were more reserved with comments. I still don't write much as I find it hard to contribute anything on par with those far more knowledgeable about the art, hobby, profession and curse that we all share. Read about everything that most everyone posts, other than a few that are not worth the oxygen, effort nor wasted grey matter. Really appreciate all the analysis you put into many of your posts, and the plain ole English in which you describe what's going on. Easy for this mere mortal engineer to follow...

Was on WWBB and then Eastern too. Well... was on Eastern until.... things... happened... Was sad. More focused back then with lots of good discussions w/o so much other "stuff". Was only WWBB for a while in the late 90's using dial up until we moved overseas...

Just noticed someone really started a thread for the Thursday flurry event. Seriously? sigh.... Seen some interesting threads started over the years, but for this? Maybe it's just a test for the Mods? Please tell us that's the hidden motivation. At least we haven't seen a proposal for a radio show to discuss in detail whether we'll get 8 or 10 individual flakes out of it...

I'm with you on the half lit strings... and it seems the bad bulb is always the LAST one that you check. A suggestion - get this little red zapper thingy from Home Depot that is designed to fix bad strings. You remove a bulb, insert the empty socket in the string into the thingy and pull the trigger (it looks like a plastic pistol). The device sends a shock down the line to essentially short across the bad bulb. You may need to zap the string 4-6 times, but in most cases it works. The string comes back on except for the burned out bulb. I was skeptical when I bought it 10 years ago, but it really works well and is worth the investment. It is an integral part of our decorations now. That said, over the past few years we've gradually converted to LEDs. Took advantage of after Christmas sales to support the transition.

Wait a second Bob... You mean, it's NOT normal to stay up, get minimal sleep and worship the models and snow gods to come calling in our favor? Thought everyone knew intuitively what SECS, MECS, HECS and BECS means... Here all along I thought that it WAS normal to portray in this lifestyle and it was my wife who hadn't figured it out yet. Thank god she don't visit this forum to read this. (but no fret, she knows darn well that none of what we consider normal, is anything but totally abnormal).

Hintertux is circa 9-10,000' ASL not too far SSE from Innsbruck as a crow flies. It's along a north facing ridge with a relatively deep valley below. Very popular place for summer training camps for pro and semi-pro ski teams. Club skiing is a big thing in Europe akin to college sports in the US. Can only guess at the time the uplift with a moist boundary contributed to the event. Perhaps the oddest thing to us at the time was how quickly it came in, and left. Was partly cloudy before and after with reasonable conditions for summer skiing. It was pretty warm in the valleys (70s/80s depending on altitude), and relatively humid. The added moisture had to help. We hiked the first day, skied the second and rafted the third. Recall the 3rd day the rafting was accompanied by much colder weather and rain - lots of it. Was miserable on the river with cool/cold temps all day and rain.

PSU - you must be living the dream us other mere mortals can only imagine. After 22 years, my lovely wife still can't relate to the concept of my/our weather affliction. However, she puts up with my endless refreshes during storm mode, lack of sleep, and insatiable appetite for the worse mother nature can muster. Over time, she's actually started to inquire what the weather is going to be when she has a social outing on the calendar. We've gotten to that point in tiny steps, but still no way she'd entertain a road trip just to get a snow fix. You've done well!

That could be the storm I was referring to re the 6" rates. Those are some intense returns, especially the reds interlaced with magenta over CT and RI. But the date stamp shows 13 - ouch... how time flies, assuming that's the event. I seem to recall there was one trained spotter that quoted even higher rates, on the order of 8"/hr. Just don't recall the quote, but it was much heralded at the time in the NE forum and here too in the MA. I realize rates IVO 6" in 20 mins (18"/hr) is difficult to contemplate to some and don't take that concept lightly. How much we actually got with all the wind was hard to measure, but we were buried in it. I may actually have video of it someplace (seem to recall one other in our group and I recorded part of it). Where video is at is another question and if I do, it's on S-VHS-C, which was pretty much state of the art back in the late 80's when this happened. Have tons of video from that era I need to convert to DVD or thumb drive. Some pretty spectacular ski runs in incredible scenery.

Yes re the thunder and lightening, but not a lot. Just a couple of cracks and the lightning lit up the sky. It was a surreal experience unlike any other I've had. Been in some pretty intense snows and so called "white out" conditions. Even the blizzard of 78 in Ohio was intense with the snow and wind, especially at night when it hit. But the "white out" in 78 does not compare to what we experienced on the Hintertux Glacier. We could not see the ground, nor our ski tips or each other. Could talk at a scream due to being in close proximity to each other (the wind was intense), but I lost all reference as to what was up or down. Really didn't sense I'd developed vertigo and was falling over until my body hit the slope. A couple others in our group fell over too and the others in our group had already sat down to wait it out (prompted by the lightning). Don't remember which of the recent winters it was, but there was one NE event that was quoting 6"/hr rates IVO of Hartford, CT. Don't recall if it was forecast rates or actually observed by a trained spotter. Would like to see that and how it compares... Experienced some pretty intense rates in Japan at times, but no idea how they measured up. As for a snow dance, if would help I'd be glad to partake. Heck, I don't put the snow plows on my Kubota (in the avatar) until the snow is on the ground out of fear doing ahead of time will jinx the forecast.

Thanks Jebman, much appreciated. Been fortunate in my travels around the world the last 30+ years to experience some of the most stark weather mother nature can muster. The collective experiences only added fuel to life-long weenie wannabe aspirations. Beyond experiencing the blizzard of 78 in the mid-west as a 17 year old, here's a few memorable examples: 3 meters of snow in 2 days in Saas Fee, Switzerland - yes you can have TOO MUCH SNOW. The powder was so light under a thin crust it was impossible to ski. Snowcats got stuck. Took us 4 hours to ski down one short run. Get on top of the crust from the sun the day before and it was sheer ice with no control. Find a way to break through the crust and you were engulfed by many feet of snow so light it could not support you - like depth hoar. I was lucky being on telemark skis that don't release. Many lost their skis and w/o powder straps it was worthless to try and look for them. A ton of people took off their skis and swam on their backs through the crust to get down. Had to evacuate many with snow cats. Some skiers were evacuated with helicopters. Slopes were only open long enough to create chaos for several hundred poor souls. Was a surreal experience I never want to have again. True white out conditions in Austria: During a summer ski outing on the glacier in Hintertux, Austria our group experienced true white out conditions during a freak snow squall. We saw it coming from miles away over the Alps, but thought nothing of it given the occasional flurries that day. In less than 5 mins it went from partly cloudy, to light snow, to winds about 40mph and extreme snow. My friends and I were only 15-20 feet apart and we could not even begin to see each other and barely hear each other. After several moments I didn't realize I'd developed white-out vertigo and was falling over until my head hit the ground. As an extreme tele-mark skier (at the time) I was at the expert level on pins and seen a lot. Never encountered anything like that anyplace else. All we could do was lay there until it passed. It was over in about 20 mins, but only after dumping well over 6" and leaving carnage on the slopes. It really freaked out a lot of people, especially those with summer ski attire. Several Austrian ski teams were on the glacier that day training and they immediately called it a day... Then there was the heat in India where I lived 3 years. One summer we maxed out at 123F in Delhi after weeks of temps between 112 and 118. Add the humidity when the monsoon rolled in and the heat index was way off the charts, which end around 140-150 or so. Brutal is insufficient to describe it. Had water holding tanks on the roof of my house that were fed from a cistern buried in the ground in the back yard (normal for Delhi). Even in the early morning the ambient water temp in the tanks was much hotter than you could stand to shower in. First thing you had to do was turn on the "cold" water in the shower and drain the holding tank enough to start the pump in the back yard to pump "cool" water into the holding tank from the cistern. Took about 10 mins to cool the water enough to take a shower. Repeat at least 2 times a day - sometimes 3 or 4. They say it was a dry heat? haha - nope. Then the monsoons came and it would get even more uncomfortable. - the only rain I've seen even close to the monsoons in India were the monsoons in Thailand. Delhi would get many inches an hour for hour after hour... The impact on infrastructure was an annual challenge. On top of it, try to imagine a country the size of the USA east of the Mississippi with over 3X our population - that's India. Speaking of Thailand - the Thunderstorms and monsoon rains are some of the most electrifying imaginable. Nearly constant lightening for hours on end. And pouring rain, flooded streets, and shorted out power. Electrocution is a very real danger there. Plus, you had to really watch out walking around in the flooded streets because the manhole covers become dislodged and you can't see where the holes are. It's not mere myth that some Thai simply disappear during monsoon to never be seen again. Then the aforementioned snows in Japan. Truly magnificent landscape with start contrasts in terrain. Can go from the plains and semi-green to mountains and tons of snow in a few miles in some locations. Naeba is pretty cool. Tons of snow, but no issues in town with snow removal. The entire downtown area is interlaced with perforated rubber hoses that leak hot spring mineral water to constantly melt the snow. You get used to the putrid rotten egg smell in a few hours, but it works. Go just outside of town and they don't hardly mess with snow plows. No place to push it. Everything is blown to the extent some of the nearby passes the snow is so high they often can't keep the roads open because the blowers can't chuck it high enough to get the thrown above the snow banks. It's surreal to drive through a narrow gully of snow 60 feet high... If we ever get anything worthwhile here, we'll all get out and have a group Jebwalk in your honor. Hope all is going well for you in TX...