May 2026 Obs/Discussion

[CoastalWx]

Today kind of sucks 

[Brian5671]

6 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Today kind of sucks 

Destructive sunshine day

[powderfreak]

14 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Today kind of sucks 

I didn’t realize how cold this trough would be.

It’s been flurrying and spitting snow all day out of slate gray skies around 40F at 1,500ft with steep lapse rates.

I figured it would try to warm up but not really at all.

[metagraphica]

2 hours ago, weathafella said:

My buddies and me did the Franconia Ridge in early May 1975 with snow showers at the base but thankfully dry on the ridge.  Quite the slog through areas of deep snow in the way up via the falling waters trail.  Of course a few months later we had legendary heat.  Some of the guys are gone but most still here albeit many in steep decline.  I’m enjoying good fortune while it lasts although my spinal stenosis and aches and pains in joints occasionally plague me.  My philosophy is push through what you can…

Old Bridle path up and Falling Waters on the way down was always one of my favorites. Haven't done it since about 1990 though.  Did the whole Pemigewasset loop in the early 2000's. Beautiful place to hike.

[SouthCoastMA]

57-59 today. I would've taken this a week ago, but after a few days in the mid-upper 60's it feels coolish. Next week looks like rubbish, but hopefully things turn around by the weekend and beyond. 

[metagraphica]

Meanwhile it's raining. 

[dendrite]

Variably cloudy here with upper 50s. A little cool, but not too bad. Better than E flow scat.

[dendrite]

2 hours ago, vortex95 said:

26 BML.

Yeah we’ve been overperforming a bit on  night 1s of CAA. Usually it’s still too mixed to really bottom out here in my hill, but I suppose it’s that time of the season where it’s a little easier to decouple with weaker flow. 

[powderfreak]

2 hours ago, weathafella said:

My buddies and me did the Franconia Ridge in early May 1975 with snow showers at the base but thankfully dry on the ridge.  Quite the slog through areas of deep snow in the way up via the falling waters trail.  Of course a few months later we had legendary heat.  Some of the guys are gone but most still here albeit many in steep decline.  I’m enjoying good fortune while it lasts although my spinal stenosis and aches and pains in joints occasionally plague me.  My philosophy is push through what you can…

 

14 minutes ago, metagraphica said:

Old Bridle path up and Falling Waters on the way down was always one of my favorites. Haven't done it since about 1990 though.  Did the whole Pemigewasset loop in the early 2000's. Beautiful place to hike.

I just read “The Last Traverse” book about a winter death and rescue on Lafayette and that  was a good read about that area.  Rescuers find two bodies on the ridge frozen.  One is barely alive and they save him, lowest body temp recorded in the U.S. to survive…. One survivor to tell the story, and those National Guard guys are cowboys in the blackhawks up there in 70mph winds at night.  I’d recommend if anyone is looking for a quick but intense read.

[dendrite]

4 minutes ago, dendrite said:

Variably cloudy here with upper 50s. A little cool, but not too bad. Better than E flow scat.

East end boy likes west end flow

 

[Ginx snewx]

10 minutes ago, metagraphica said:

Meanwhile it's raining. 

My super ensemble had rain for you 

https://synoptic-weather-lens.base44.app

[weatherwiz]

HRRR did pretty well yesterday having these showers moving through 

[metagraphica]

26 minutes ago, metagraphica said:

Meanwhile it's raining. 

 

14 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

My super ensemble had rain for you 

https://synoptic-weather-lens.base44.app

 

14 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

HRRR did pretty well yesterday having these showers moving through 

lol....It's almost like someone was reading the conversation in here...

[Typhoon Tip]

heh...12z Euro ends that run way out there in a deep summer vibe.   

 

[Typhoon Tip]

I'm wondering if this rain for tomorrow ends up being more like a 3,500' evap level virga sky

[weathafella]

5 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

heh...12z Euro ends that run way out there in a deep summer vibe.   

 

That signal has started to show the past few days.  It is growing legs.

[Typhoon Tip]

1 minute ago, weathafella said:

That signal has started to show the past few days.  It is growing legs.

yeah, I mentioned it a few days ago too.

Thing is,  .... ugh this is gonna turn some eyes but we're getting some of this seasonal lag business that was papered. It's more and less evidenced year to year.

It's because of CC's speeding up of the jet stream in recency.  It lends to extending the wave lengths deeper into the springs, which causes the aberrant cool "excursions" - the paper refers to these as unseasonable jet meanders.   In winter as well, with unusually deep cold intrusions to mid latitudes, setting up very extreme temperature gradients which in turn speeds up the jets... It's a status of where we are, not necessarily where we are heading in the grand scheme of things...

Sensibly it's well footed.  There's also empirical data.   I can tell you more than merely anecdotally, prior to 2000 I observed snow between Kalamazoo MI and Boston MA, twice in 31 years.  Since?  about 1/3 to 2/5ths of the years have had snow in May or an atmosphere supportive of snow at the synoptic scale/mass.   This is also true at the other end of the dial in autumns. 

Where I'm going is two fold: 

A,  this lending to a kind of forgetfulness about where things could be if this were not taking place.   It's no one's fault per se.  We get conditioned/acclimated...  But really we've been colder than the back ground since last autumn, and now the jet is meandered to extend things further - that's what this really looks like...  -refer to annotated post I provided several hours ago. That is an anachronistic SPV

B,  when does this break down?   The hints we're seeing may be seeing the end.