May 2026 Obs/Discussion

[OceanStWx]

25 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

 Bring back may 06.

What a gorgeous stretch it was in ITH for a change.

[weatherwiz]

The word drought and New England should never be used in the same sentence. 

[CT Valley Snowman]

8 years ago.  Wild day for SW CT.  Thankfully I outran it and missed driving through it coming home.  

[Layman]

1.11" yesterday and 0.05" from midnight through now.

[Typhoon Tip]

12 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

OT, but just for awareness.

A- on the outlook...one of my better efforts.

yes it was!   And I don't have any faith in seasonal outlooks so you've manage to penetrate my cynical lead on this one.  Ha... 

I nailed the first 1/2 of winter; didn't do so good in the 2nd.    Having said that, I also did not formalize any outlook so ... heh. I guess it doesn't count.   Maybe if I had put the time in I might have thought differently about the back half but I bet I would have had trouble getting out of my own way.   See, for NINA-decaying springs - according to my own linear eval of correlations of other ENSO of past vs the cosmic dildo - there's an interesting 2ndary offset mode for bombastically warm AMJ.  As 2ndary implies, it's not the leading mode. But there's a cluster. So they don't always happen, but the ones that did went impressively warm.  

I felt 'hot' on the dice roll.  I took a rather quick and glib gamble that CC would team up and weight the die - this could be one of those years to see an early spring. And for those of us that covet bombastically decisive endings and warm flips ...yay.   Didn't really pan out.

But here's the funny thing... as an after thought, CC is fucking up the analysis, anyway.   See, we keep cooking up positive anomalies in the relative comparisons of just about everything. That makes is hard to parse out what is happening because of what.  Example, March and April we regionally were above normal relative to climate... during a colder pattern construct.  Oops.  We did however bottom of the barrel below the results relative to the whole U.S., so pattern still expressed.   It's like we have parallel processes going on. 

[dendrite]

1 hour ago, OceanStWx said:

What a gorgeous stretch it was in ITH for a change.

Bought this place Apr 06…moved in Jun 06. Road washed out in between.

[dendrite]

Back dat azz up

[tamarack]

1 hour ago, tunafish said:

I know it feels like 90% of connective storms fizzle by the time they reach the coast, but I don't think that's a new thing, or that it's gotten worse in recent years.  Missing 0.20" on a single cell a dozen times a year isn't going to make that much of a difference, I don't think.

But your overall point is clearly accurate - the coastal has experienced more dry conditions than most places in the state.

We're far enough from salt water to avoid significant marine influence.  However, with a warming climate one might expect more convective events, but the opposite has been occurring.  Our average for thunder days is 15 but in recent years it's been lower, and just 5 days last year, only the 2nd year below double digits (8 in 2010).  Met summer had only 2 instead of the average of 10.  Merely stochastic variation?  (SSS - we moved here 28 years ago on May 15.)

Had 1.28" between 9 last evening and 7:30 this AM, a very pleasant surprise given the modest forecast yesterday afternoon.  With that drink, the coming 70s should bring an explosion of growth - leaf out here is a bit behind the average.

[tamarack]

56 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

The word drought and New England should never be used in the same sentence. 

You're too young to have experienced the 1960s.  

[Typhoon Tip]

21 minutes ago, tamarack said:

We're far enough from salt water to avoid significant marine influence.  However, with a warming climate one might expect more convective events, but the opposite has been occurring.  Our average for thunder days is 15 but in recent years it's been lower, and just 5 days last year, only the 2nd year below double digits (8 in 2010).  Met summer had only 2 instead of the average of 10.  Merely stochastic variation?  (SSS - we moved here 28 years ago on May 15.)

Had 1.28" between 9 last evening and 7:30 this AM, a very pleasant surprise given the modest forecast yesterday afternoon.  With that drink, the coming 70s should bring an explosion of growth - leaf out here is a bit behind the average.

You know this reminds me ... I was just reading an article at phys.org ( paraphrasing site for deeper dive science papers ) that shows CC precipitation distribution is doing two aspect concurrently, world over.   Water boarding gasping rates where it actually rains, while simultaneously ...everyone is getting drier ( on land of course..) in the general layout.  I guess implying less opportunities.

Intuitively this is probably more true in the interior of continents than it is around the seagull's range from the coasts.  Anyway, what you described fits how a location might express the same.  I guess wait until you get a slow mover in late June and the babbling creek under the street down the way suddenly flows over the road, scouring it completely away off a weather forecast for isolated thunder but primarily just partly sunny warm, high of 87

[tamarack]

12 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

OT, but just for awareness.

A- on the outlook...one of my better efforts.

Outside of the upslope sites, NNE did somewhat poorly, especially CAR.  Their 86.4" ranks 74th of 87 and failed to have a 10"+ event for just the 4th time in 60+ years.

[1985 Polar Bear]

8 minutes ago, tamarack said:

Outside of the upslope sites, NNE did somewhat poorly, especially CAR.  Their 86.4" ranks 74th of 87 and failed to have a 10"+ event for just the 4th time in 60+ years.

Maine seemed to have fewer juicy SWFE this past winter (just the one big one), which can be jackpots for western / northern areas.

[IrishRob17]

53 minutes ago, CT Valley Snowman said:

8 years ago.  Wild day for SW CT.  Thankfully I outran it and missed driving through it coming home.  

I needed roof repairs and a new window after that day, not fun.

[Typhoon Tip]

90 Sunday in the interior if these new NAM 12z grid numebrs are right.

I don't think its profile over Logan is right 18z+, tho.  NAM is spuriously cooling the 850 mb level where it should be roasting them because that day has a westerly wind burst in the BL to 20 kts coming down from 280 degree direction, under superb solar max heating (off a high launch no less...).   The mixing quotient should have that level closer to what it's doing over LGA, rising a couple clicks...not falling.  So, it keeps the exit temp in the 82 range via adiabats when it should be about 91 given so going to toss ...

It will be interesting to start delving into these kind of OCD inspections when the new model versions cripple the forecast community in a couple of months.  HAHA

[tamarack]

54 minutes ago, 1985 Polar Bear said:

Maine seemed to have fewer juicy SWFE this past winter (just the one big one), which can be jackpots for western / northern areas.

The one big event, Jan 25-27, parlayed a modest 0.77" LE into 19.6" of fluff, ratio 25:1.   Next biggest was 8.5" on Christmas Eve.
Only once before have I recorded a storm of 15"+ with ratio above 16:1, at Fort Kent in December 1981 - 15.5"/0.68" for 23:1

[Lava Rock]

2.04"

[dendrite]

Sun

[TauntonBlizzard2013]

Finally turning the corner for good tomorrow. This spring has kind of sucked.

My mom has pics from this time last year and it looked like deep summer out there. Definitely behind 

[HoarfrostHubb]

Mid 90s for some Tuesday... similar Wednesday?

[Typhoon Tip]

33 minutes ago, dendrite said:

Sun

fascinating ... you can kind of see the weakening - don't have to wait for this to rotate away per se, it's seems to be losing identity at the same time.

[mreaves]

3 hours ago, weatherwiz said:

The word drought and New England should never be used in the same sentence. 

Isn't drought relative to a location?  While not being like the Atacama, last summer and fall definitely had impacts on agriculture, people's wells, surface water and some municipal water systems.

[Damage In Tolland]

8 minutes ago, HoarfrostHubb said:

Mid 90s for some Tuesday... similar Wednesday?

WTTTE

[weatherwiz]

13 minutes ago, mreaves said:

Isn't drought relative to a location?  While not being like the Atacama, last summer and fall definitely had impacts on agriculture, people's wells, surface water and some municipal water systems.

ehhh I'm more looking at there's a difference between drought and just abnormally dry. But drought can certainly be relative to a location (particularly a region). I just think the word drought is just being hyped up and tossed around like crazy. No doubt many places have been quite dry and have had some local impacts, but those impacts haven't been dire to the point where there is critical concern (sure we've seen some restrictions at times and recommendations on water usage) but save the word drought for if/when things are truly dire.  

[WinterWolf]

13 hours ago, dendrite said:

It’s at the airport where it has been for almost a century.

I must be thinking if where they measure their snow then…