May 2026 Obs/Discussion

[ineedsnow]

Just now, Damage In Tolland said:

Who would use an app / station for a forecast ? People use meteorology and modeling . You seem to not grasp this 

Brutal

[ineedsnow]

heater

[Damage In Tolland]

Why not post Tuesday and Wednesday?

[BrianW]

25 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

To be honest, if I had to put window units in, I’m probably letting this stretch ride with 60s/40s back in the forecast right after.

I think having every window blocked up for the foreseeable future every day its in the 60s might annoy me more than a couple nights without A/C.

But I have a deep disdain for window units.  Now just flip the remote to the snowflake icon for a couple days.

Yeah. Heat pumps for the win. Just press that snowflake and enjoy the cold. Sounds like someone has some Mitsubishi Electric heat pumps?

[ineedsnow]

2 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Why not post Tuesday and Wednesday?

your right pretty much only Tuesday sucks.. its not going to help your claim of a big 3 day torch with Wednesday trending cooler with a quicker frontal passage

 

[Torch Tiger]

58 minutes ago, ineedsnow said:

It's literally cool out with a nice breeze.. tuesday might be a different story

I'll give you it wasn't "uncomfortable" earlier, just very warm.  Yeah it'll cool down tonight before the retorch

[powderfreak]

17 minutes ago, BrianW said:

Yeah. Heat pumps for the win. Just press that snowflake and enjoy the cold. Sounds like someone has some Mitsubishi Electric heat pumps?

Ha, raises hand.

I feel like those are pretty universal though on electronic displays… sun or flame and snowflake.

[ineedsnow]

1 minute ago, Torch Tiger said:

I'll give you it wasn't "uncomfortable" earlier, just very warm.  Yeah it'll cool down tonight before the retorch

it was hot when I was in Agawam then went to red rose in Springfield by the casino and couldn't wait to get home.. much cooler here

[Torch Tiger]

4 minutes ago, ineedsnow said:

it was hot when I was in Agawam then went to red rose in Springfield by the casino and couldn't wait to get home.. much cooler here

Yeah I lived in a similar spot a few years ago...not quite as high but 1k, it'd be like 88 at MHT and 81 at home 

[powderfreak]

13 minutes ago, Torch Tiger said:

Yeah I lived in a similar spot a few years ago...not quite as high but 1k, it'd be like 88 at MHT and 81 at home 

I feel like SNE has some of the most drastic low level lapse rates between like 200ft and 1,000ft elevations.  We get it in NNE a bit but not like down there.  

It has to be going from like peak urban heat islands to forests and fields, mixed with the elevation changes.  

[Damage In Tolland]

3 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

I feel like SNE has some of the most drastic low level lapse rates between like 200ft and 1,000ft elevations.  We get it in NNE a bit but not like down there.

It has to be going from like peak urban heat islands to forests and fields, mixed with the elevation changes.  

Definitely true. There’s typically a 5-8 degree difference in highs between here and HFD/ BDL 

[kdxken]

30 minutes ago, Torch Tiger said:

Yeah I lived in a similar spot a few years ago...not quite as high but 1k, it'd be like 88 at MHT and 81 at home 

Lawrence or Lowell?

[powderfreak]

20 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Definitely true. There’s typically a 5-8 degree difference in highs between here and HFD/ BDL 

Yeah even from Southbridge/Sturbridge to Woodstock… elevation is only like 250ft to 750ft (but urban to cornfields/forests) and it’ll go from 90F to 83F.  Lebanon Hill Road drops like a degree every quarter mile, ha.

[mreaves]

What a beautiful day. From the 14th at my home golf course. 

[Brewbeer]

45 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

There’s typically a 5-8 degree difference in highs between here and HFD/ BDL 

you don't say ... 

[Typhoon Tip]

Not worth a conversation once you get these compressors installed… Microclimate your house with mini splits to switch between as needed and be done with it. No conversation required.

not getting dragged into, but I will say it’s odd. You guys spend so much time worried about whether other people manage their thermal aversions.

[vortex95]

On 5/16/2026 at 10:55 AM, tamarack said:

The 1960s drought in the Northeast 'peaked' in 1965.  Thay year was the driest on record for all 3 SNE states, plus NJ, PA, DE.  NY's record occurred in the drier region in the Allegheny Plateau, but the NYC records picture the drought clearly:
1931-60 norm:  44.24"  
Driest ranks, 1869-on:
1962   37.15"    21st
1963   34.28"   5th  (4"+ event in November prevented a new record.)
1964   32.99"   2nd
1965   26.09"   1st   (Remains of Camille doused one VA town with that much in 5 hours.)

1966 was tracking close to 1965 thru August.  Then 5.54" fell on 9/21/66, the beginning of the drought's end.
           JAN-AUG    SEP-DEC
1965     19.05"         7.04"
1966     19.79"       20.21"

Thanks for quantifying it w/ hard stats.  I had never looked them up.

So clearly the driest period in the last 60 years in the NEUS?

[vortex95]

15 hours ago, dendrite said:

 

 

[vortex95]

On the topic of the NAM going away and all the "consternation," remember what it can do w/ TCs.  Look at this from Barry in 2019 (attached). 866 mb?  Yeah, right.  And you'd get hype-masters out there posting such as if it could happen!

Barry ended up a min hurricane, but even that was really pushing it!

Saw this...
NAM 3km no longer turns off latent heat fluxes when RH approaches 100% at the lowest model level (as of 2017?). Despite the decrease in thermodynamic disequilibrium that happens in near-sfc air mass approaching saturation, hurricane-like conditions coupled with the model sfc parametrizations still force an unrealistic amount of evaporation into the boundary layer (you can guess what that does for TCs in the model . . .) . Capping those fluxes would be an artificial way to stymie extreme TC intensification rates, but it'd keep the model closer to reality. I believe they removed the global capping to improve forecasts of west coast marine fog, they weren't concerned with TC forecasts.

So you can't have it all ways when it comes to mesoscale models/CAMs.  There are aspects of the RRFS that performs better than previous models, and some that do not.  Par for the course these days b/c it is not a linear challenge (more exponential) as you get more resolute and directly simulate atmospheric processes instead emulation/parameterization.

And for the two big snowstorms this past winter, RRFS was not out to lunch.  It did well and shows some mesoscale features in one of the storms that verified that no other model had.  Shouldn't that be enough for ACATT?