September Discobs 2025

[vastateofmind]

Welp, planned to mow the front lawn early-mid afternoon, started getting Rain Alarm alerts almost an hour ago. I scoffed at them...because I sometimes get false-positives from that particular app (e.g., fog, low lying clouds, etc.) plus, it's supposed to be gorgeous this afternoon, and has been all morning and (up until) the past hour:

Get about two passes in on the front lawn...and the sky opens up, heavy downpour, can't hardly see across the street. That started about 40 min ago. Call me a cynic, but I didn't see this reflected above, nor in the morning disco, at least not for close-in NoVA burbs:

These are the kind of whiffs in forecasting that really piss me off. Can I mow tomorrow, or early next week? Yeah, I can likely fit it in with all of the other life crap. But c'mon...can we get at least a bit more of a heads-up in the disco (which is usually what *I* pay attention to)?? Yeah, precip might not happen (and THAT'S usually in hard winter around here)...but this is annoying.

Ironically, we had a small picnic planned for our back patio/yard for midday today but had to cancel last-minute...thank God we did, or it would've been one helluva fire drill.

P.S. -- it's STILL raining almost an hour later.  

[MN Transplant]

23 minutes ago, vastateofmind said:

Welp, planned to mow the front lawn early-mid afternoon, started getting Rain Alarm alerts almost an hour ago. I scoffed at them...because I sometimes get false-positives from that particular app (e.g., fog, low lying clouds, etc.) plus, it's supposed to be gorgeous this afternoon, and has been all morning and (up until) the past hour:

Get about two passes in on the front lawn...and the sky opens up, heavy downpour, can't hardly see across the street. That started about 40 min ago. Call me a cynic, but I didn't see this reflected above, nor in the morning disco, at least not for close-in NoVA burbs:

These are the kind of whiffs in forecasting that really piss me off. Can I mow tomorrow, or early next week? Yeah, I can likely fit it in with all of the other life crap. But c'mon, mets...can we get at least a bit more of a heads-up in the disco (which is usually what *I* pay attention to)?? Yeah, precip might not happen (and THAT'S usually in hard winter around here)...but this is annoying.

Ironically, we had a small picnic planned for our back patio/yard for midday today but had to cancel last-minute...thank God we did, or it would've been one helluva fire drill.

P.S. -- it's STILL raining almost an hour later.  

It does say "a few showers making it as far east as Southern MD".  90% of the area is dry.  They probably should have put a 20% POP in, though..

[vastateofmind]

19 minutes ago, MN Transplant said:

It does say "a few showers making it as far east as Southern MD".  90% of the area is dry.  They probably should have put a 20% POP in, though..

To your point, LWX has suddenly and retroactively changed their tune (though not necessarily in the PM disco update):

I appreciate your observation...and honestly, your personal inputs here over the years. And please believe, I defend your profession more than you know....I only approach this from a hobbyist standpoint, but twice already this afternoon, I've had two neighbors ping me -- "yo, man...IT WASN'T SUPPOSED TO RAIN THIS AFTERNOON, WTF??"    I got nuthin.   

Who knows...maybe we may have a microclimate thing going on here? This is anecdotal, but I'd say we've had exactly this kind of "blow-up" very localized shower/storm over the Hayfield/Kingstowne/Franconia area several times over the past two years, where almost no other locales in the close-in-NoVA burbs had nothing. And it's like it blows up...and rains/storms like hell...and then dissipates very quickly. That happened this afternoon, and at least a few times over the past two years.

I (along with a couple neighbors) were astounded when the sky opened up about two hours ago. It didn't even LOOK that showery/stormy if you looked to the west/NW (unless you looked at radar) but boy-howdy...did we get a good gully-washer for about an hour.

[MN Transplant]

3 hours ago, vastateofmind said:

To your point, LWX has suddenly and retroactively changed their tune (though not necessarily in the PM disco update):

I appreciate your observation...and honestly, your personal inputs here over the years. And please believe, I defend your profession more than you know....I only approach this from a hobbyist standpoint, but twice already this afternoon, I've had two neighbors ping me -- "yo, man...IT WASN'T SUPPOSED TO RAIN THIS AFTERNOON, WTF??"    I got nuthin.   

Who knows...maybe we may have a microclimate thing going on here? This is anecdotal, but I'd say we've had exactly this kind of "blow-up" very localized shower/storm over the Hayfield/Kingstowne/Franconia area several times over the past two years, where almost no other locales in the close-in-NoVA burbs had nothing. And it's like it blows up...and rains/storms like hell...and then dissipates very quickly. That happened this afternoon, and at least a few times over the past two years.

I (along with a couple neighbors) were astounded when the sky opened up about two hours ago. It didn't even LOOK that showery/stormy if you looked to the west/NW (unless you looked at radar) but boy-howdy...did we get a good gully-washer for about an hour.

Yeah, it’s tough when the result is this

[dailylurker]

If that rain in PG county was a few miles more east it would of cost me a lot of money today. I wasn't expecting training tropical showers. Thankfully it missed my work site in Crofton. The summer of rain won't stop in the lowlands. 

[wxdude64]

Picked up about 2/10ths around an hour ago with a thunderstorm, now that is back-building towards me and I can hear thunder again, maybe a bit more? 

[IronTy]

Tons of thunder moving in from the west at DCL.  It hasn't reached us yet at the cabin but it's getting close.  Breezy and 67F.  Need the rain here so I hope it makes it.  

[wxdude64]

1 hour ago, wxdude64 said:

Picked up about 2/10ths around an hour ago with a thunderstorm, now that is back-building towards me and I can hear thunder again, maybe a bit more? 

Yep, way over 1/2" and still raining pretty good with T&L. Nice 2nd storm of the evening  

[Jrlg1181]

17 minutes ago, wxdude64 said:

Yep, way over 1/2" and still raining pretty good with T&L. Nice 2nd storm of the evening  

Nice... can definitely see a nice light show back your way... In fact could see lightning high in the sky from just west of Charlottesville near Ivy driving home a hour ago...

[Jrlg1181]

Waiting to see if this essentially non moving storm about a half mile to my south can drift north.... 25 minutes now of T&L with the smell of rain in the air , but no rain yet..

[KAOS]

On 9/19/2025 at 8:08 PM, Eskimo Joe said:

Your work is valuable and I like it

Perhaps... after taking a closer look I see they do not emulate my version of IntelliStar. The most "advanced" version of IntelliStar.

https://www.twcarchive.com/wiki/IntelliStar_2_XD

https://kaosfactory.github.io/desktopX1.html

I also have this...

https://kaosfactory.github.io/wxblox/geo.html

But this is really good work...

https://xl.weatherstar.dev/

Still kinda jealous.

 

 

 

 

 

[Jrlg1181]

Most surprisingly this has turned into a legit stormy overnight down here.... Over 2 hours now of continual thunder and vivid lightning... Occasional rain about 0.4 now..