"Once upon a time..."

(NOTE: having some editing issues as blogger formats have changed...can't get pics to enlarge when you click on them, so bear with me a few days as I sift through the details...)

Long time no write, eh? Long time no get dead motherboard repaired was what it was. Been researching where Money Trees grow, but have had little success. Actually, that should be 'no success'. Been limping along on an old Dell laptop with a Pentium 4 chip...not quite the "8-track" of chipsets, but multi-tasking and overall speed was a bit lacking. While I could have blogged long before now, suffice it to say 2010 went down as one of those years I was happy to see come to a close. Like my art and flutes, if I'm not inspired to do something, might as well hang it up.

Alas, I finally found two nickels to rub together, and had the laptop motherboard repaired (video chipset issues). At the moment, it's working fine, but it was not returned that way...another story for another day. Maybe it's own chapter in my book I stopped working on, come to think about it.

So, whereinthehell do I pick up and begin? How about "ENOUGH ALREADY WITH THE SNOW!!!" ?

Molly, who LOVES all the snow....

Last winter was a doozy for snow hyar in these hills, and in October I pulled the long-range winter forecasts f

or my homeowners group for this winter....'above average' in temps, and 'below average' in precipitation. Those maps could not be farther off the mark, and they are maps I've never put a lot of stock in, anyway. December was one of the coldest on record, and if you don't believe me just pay my fuel and electric bills.

The White Christmas was really neat, and it being my birthday was the 11" icing on the deck. Since Christmas Day I've had 34" of snow. Now you get a glimpse of my disdain for that 4-letter "S" word.

11.2" Christmas Snow 2010

It would be nice if temperatures would get out of the freezer stage, but that hasn't been the case. Having to sled su

pplies to the house is getting old, and I absolutely have to get a 4x4 vehicle, one way or another. See first paragraph above. My biggest problem was that for the last snow (10"+) I'd taken a few days of work at News 14 to help with their weather forecasts for the Triad. I've come to understand fully it is better to get snowed 'in' than snowed 'out', which is exactly what happened.

While I do have chains for my front wheel drive wagon, I was coming up last Wednesday and, in a thick super-slushy patch, lost tire grip, and I spun the wheels. FYI, chains do not cotton to being spun. Yet another lesson learned the hard way as one of the chains snapped and created a bigger problem. Nothing that AAA and a 1.5 hour wait couldn't fix, though. Now waiting for my new chain set to be delivered...oh, wait, they can't deliver with this snow-covered mountain road I live off of. Setting aside the copious snows, I'm guessing that since the Christmas snow I've had no mail/package delivery for 15 or more days.

at least I have a foot path!

And winter has a long way to go. I'm sure before too long I'll look back on all this and it won't seem as much a pain as it has surely been. I am not alone in asking, "Is it Spring, yet?"...I need the greening of the trees so I can get back to identifying Money Trees more easily.

I'm feelin' the excitement already...

"Spring has done sprung..."

Just 15 minutes after saving the radar scan below, the Vernal Equinox passed. It's Spring, saddle pals! With a little more rain in our coffers from the past few hours, the grasses and plants and puddle-flapping birds will be happy little campers today.

And we got our modest rain shot it in a 'good' way...the driving center of low pressure lifted up through eastern TN yesterday, taking with it the bulk of the severe weather. Rains were not that heavy, but the PTI airport had picked up right at 0.40" total at last check, with the last of the last falling. Not too shabby.

This is my radar scan from ~1:33 AM, and there's our cold front passing, showing up via the linear bands passing down through the Triad. "Official" almanac data has yet to be processed this morning, but on the preliminary report I did see a peak wind gust of 40 mph with highest sustained speed at 33 mph, so that verified. Best part of all was not dealing with severe weather and getting a nice soaking rain.

Big weekend ahead for travel, outdoor plans, family gatherings, and lots of special new outfits catching a breeze Sunday. Late yesterday afternoon I was trying to look and plan ahead for post office and bank holidays this weekend...and maybe I've just been asleep at the switch, but I was really surprised to see that neither Friday nor Monday is a holiday for either. Now, I'm sure some of you knew this all along...I guess with a lot of school holidays around this time, I assumed Easter was in some way on the Federal Reserve's official holiday schedule - but it's not.

I put this information in my weather forecast write-up yesterday for the Triad and thought you might like to know about "white" Easters, since it's so early this year (March 23). With Easter's date hopping around like Petey Cottontail, I never found specific data for snowy Easters...but I did pull some interesting tidbits from the records kept at Piedmont Triad airport since 1929:

Greatest snow total for March 23:
4.6" (1981)

Latest measurable snow:
March 30 - 1.2" (2003)

Latest 'trace' of snow:
April 24 (1955)

Why the talk of snow? For several days several models have been doing an even bigger Hokey-Pokey than normal with next Monday's forecast. Today through Saturday will be sunny and pleasant in the 60s, maybe even 70 by Saturday...then a strong cold front drops Sunday's highs into the mid-upper 50s, with a Gulf low quickly riding up along that front and making for a crashing cold and rain-snow mixed Monday (40s for highs) before quickly pulling out Monday night. That's been the gist of it.

Not surprising to see forecast runs flip-flop given the volatility of weather at this big change of seasons, and one of my favored numeric models this morning has Monday warmer and drier...will be interested to see the 06Z runs later this morning to see if others have taken their left leg out or it they're shakin' it all around...that is what it's all about.

Nice thing about this time of year is that really cold temperatures can't hang around too long with the ever increasing sun angle and southerly jet getting stronger. And though there are some forecast lows that flirt with the freezing mark, we don't have the set-up for something like last year's record killing-freeze Easter morning.

Time to hoof it in...and get that &*$# "Hokey-Pokey" song out of my head...

You're missin' it, pups! Good ol' wintry weather has beset parts of the Carolinas, and with roads already slick and snow-covered where I am, I need to forego my blog and get on into work. It will be a ferociously busy day for me, so I'm doubtful about getting a blog posted.

Enjoy and be safe, y'all!

"Ho, Ho, Snow!"???

You will need to click on these maps to enlarge them to see the features I wanted to bring to your attention. These are images taken from the 6Z run of the GFS forecast model. There are many sophisticated models, and you never write forecasts from them in stone. In fact, I've seen the GFS go from 2 inches of rain for day 6 in one run (4 runs daily) to no storm system at all on day 6 in the next run. You always take these maps with a big grain of salt...

Understand at this moment the National Weather Service office in Raleigh has "mostly sunny" for Christmas Day in the Triad. Below, the map indicates rain switching over to snow by the end of Christmas Day.


The one line of interest is "the 540 line", which is a general rain-snow demarcation. This storm is tapping both the Gulf and Atlantic, and on the northwest side is pulling down pretty cold air...cold enough for snow. The top map is for Christmas morning, and the bottom one is for Christmas evening.


The 540 line is down into the Foothills, and would naturally move east and then north. The precipitation would end in the night...and these were the last two frames in the 6Z run, so I can only interpolate out from 'em.

Remember: these are only models and come with zero guarantees...except the guaranty that it will most likely change in the next model run!

"Travelogue: Lead, S.D. 1994"

Well, I've basically exhausted my good travel photo files, and of late haven't been taking many shots...scraping the proverbial bottom of the barrel. At least for this Thursday's post I thought you'd like to see a little bit of snow from the Black Hills of South Dakota...one of those "you'd better be careful what you wish for!" kinds of things. Part of a record setting year for snow, I might add...


These are not my photos...a viewer whose name I have long since forgotten had brought the photos by the station for me to scan and use.

To set the stage, Lead (long 'e' as in leader) rubs elbows with the more famous Deadwood in the northern reaches of South Dakota's Black Hills. Very colorful history, Deadwood, made even more infamous with the so-named HBO series. They are known for notoriously monster snows, and these pics came from one of those dumpings back in 1994.


In fact, the 1993-1994 winter was the snowiest on record in Lead, totalling 364.7". They annually average close to 193" as it is. That's a lot of snow to be living in.

Think Snow! Heck, Think Precipitation! This is no time to be picky!

"Travelogue: May 11-12, 2005 Snow, Rapid City, SD"

Talk about your wild nights...I was working my usual night shift at KEVN Fox 7 when we had a bona fide late spring snow system upon us...complete with thundersnow, which for the uninitiated means unusually heavy snowfall in lightning and thunder....and it wreaked havoc for thoseof us trying to get off the mid-city ridge where the TV station was...I, personally, had to get a ride with someone in a 4WD vehicle since mine was NOT going to make the slushy passage...

At daybreak, after the heavy wet spring snow outbreak, the scenes in Rapid City were gorgeous if not surreal, considering it was May and not January....most locations in Rapid City got 9-11 inches of heavy wet snow...

...and yet, it was beautiful beyond words, this placid stillness in May, juxtaposed against the vast greenery that was out in full force, including flowering foliage. Unfortunately, with such foliage and flowering well in progress, the sticky snow made the branches too heavy, and through the night you could hear the loud "craaaaack!" of trees splitting or distant "kabooms!" from transformers blowing out...aside from the power outage issues, it was a glorious 1 to 2 hour window before the May sun began its melting power...

Since I'd gotten a ride home, my car was stuck up on the ridge just 3 miles away...I trekked through my neighborhood early that morning and snapped these shots...

When you have the right apparel and gear something like this is a novel idea for some unusual fun...of my (then) 2 pups, only Mercy wanted to get her paws snow-soaked in it all, hence inspiring my 'line' in the video I've posted on YouTube.com below...

Even the fence looked formidable in that heavy wet accumulating snow...again, within 2 hours of sun-up the melting had begun in earnest, forever erasing such scenes as the fence above or the branches below...

Mercy thought it was all the coolest thing since sliced bread....

You could immediately tell the good drivers from the bad...that was painfully obvious! Eventually that afternoon, I got a ride to the station and resumed my normal duties and got my car home safe and sound...

As I sing in the video, "that here in May it can look like December...!" A-HO!!!

Oh yeah, the video link...one of my more 'creative' ones:
Bob's Rapid City May Snow video from 2005

It's my only non-flute-playing video postcard, though I played and sang the 'music' to it...adjusting the lyrics to fit the scenes...enjoy and send it to others! It was TOO much fun to create to keep it hidden!

"There's (s)no(w), business like snow business like no business I know..."