Tag: New England Weather

Sometimes There is No Winning

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, OCF, photog's Corner , ,

I mentioned the other day that we were getting a foot of snow.  And in the current political environment, that means the state is shut down.  Even First Selectman Cthulhu shut down the Dunwich government and spent the day eating the road salt that the state provides for town road clearance.  He really likes salt even though it’s bad for his blood pressure.  His doctor told him to keep it below 10,000 atmospheres over 6,000.  But what can you do?  He loves him some salt.

Now I decided not to start clearing the snow until today (Tuesday) because they said the snow could continue until 7am.  And even though that turned out to be incorrect (it was a cloudless sky this morning) I was undismayed.  I had nowhere to go today (everything is closed) so I had all day to blow the snow off the top driveway.  I had a leisurely breakfast at 7am and by 9:30 am I sauntered out and started up the snowblower.  And it turned over like a champ and I put it in gear and moved it to where I wanted to start the clearing.  Then I turned the chute in the direction I wanted it and squeezed the trigger to start the auger.  And horrible noises proceeded from this possessed contraption.

Long story short; my snowblower is on the sidelines.  And so, what started as a leisurely day of snow removal became the Bataan Death March.  A foot of snow is kind of a lot when you have as much area as my driveways and other areas add up to.  In the words of every action hero that reaches that golden age, “I’m getting too old for this crap.”  I performed a mental triage of what did and didn’t have to be cleared to allow us to get out on Wednesday morning.  I cleared the area in front of the garage.  I cleared a path from Camera Girl’s car to the upper driveway and I cleared the whole upper driveway including the thirty inches of compacted snow and ice that the plough trucks sealed my driveway in with.  That last part was rough.  I abandoned the lower driveway altogether.  I left snow sitting close to the front door and I didn’t even clear the area around the shed (other than a path to get in and out of it).  And even with these omissions I didn’t get finished until an hour after sunset.

And now I ache in every joint and every muscle.  The piles of snow have gotten so high that I had to pitch each shovelful with all the force I could generate by rotating the shovel in a long arc.  If there were an Olympic event in snow tossing, I might have broken the world record.  So, I got in and there was a very nice dinner waiting for the “conquering hero.”  But then Camera Girl mentioned that the forecast had changed and now they’re talking about snow in the morning.  And more snow on Thursday.

Sometimes there is no winning.

Now You See it, Now You Don’t

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, photog's Corner ,

After any significant snowfall we now experience an obligatory freezing rain follow-up.  So, I wake up this morning to both driveways essentially skating rinks.  For fun I took a shovel as a rudder to keep my balance and stepped onto the steep top of the lower driveway and allowed gravity to propel me forward.  It was smooth as glass and by the time I got to the bottom, I was moving pretty fast.  So, I leaned over and headed for a snow bank.

I spent about two hours sanding the top driveway (the bottom one was hopeless) and then went out to buy another 360 pounds of sand for the future.  Of course, after lunch it started raining hard and the 45–50-degree temperature melted most of the ice on both driveways.  Well, what can you do?  Basically, I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t so, “Yay New England!”

So that put the kibosh on my plan to get finished with the marketing chores I need to perform for the book launch.  But I’ll get going soon.

I read some more news items on-line.  This is a seriously mixed-up world both domestically and internationally.  But I remain optimistic that the Trump administration can make a substantial difference in the lives of Americans if he keeps his eyes on the factors that are limiting the ability of young people to marry and have children.  If he finds ways to address this; some kind of Marshall Plan for this country I think he can get the Zoomers solidly in his camp.

And I’m not saying that will be easy.  Our economy is seriously distorted by the off-shoring of manufacturing.  But Trump has a lot of levers he can push to force business to do his bidding.  And I think he should use every last one of them to restore the middle-class.  Everyone since Aristotle has known that only countries with a large thriving middle-class are worth living in.  I think he should build houses and pay women to stay home and have kids.  If enough incentives are offered, I think it would change the direction of our demographic collapse and at the same time make this a much more human and interesting place.

Well, we’ll have to see if Donald is up to the challenge of “making America great again.”  And without a doubt I’m rooting for him.  I hope he doesn’t get too wrapped up with his Venezuela project or spend too much time refereeing the Ukrainians and Russians.  I’m satisfied with leaving the Europeans to muddle through that disaster on their own.  There’s nothing but death and misery happening there.

So, as we approach the New Year, I’m still mostly optimistic about 2026.  I think the economy is starting to show signs of life and that could make a big difference for the mid-year elections.  If by some stroke of luck, we hold onto the House and Senate it’s possible Trump will talk the Senate into abolishing the filibuster and just pass a bunch of laws that will make this country normal again (like having a balanced budget!).

Well, that’s enough for now.

Fall Nor’easter

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, photog's Corner ,

Recently Camera Girl was in a phone conversation with one of her relatives.  It seems there was a panic situation over a “Nor’easter” predicted to impact the … well, fittingly, the Northeast.  We were being warned to batten the hatches and hide in the storm cellar.  So, I looked at the calendar and determined it wasn’t late March and went back to sleep.  You see, in early spring a Nor’easter will take a bunch of cold water from the Atlantic and dump it on New England in the form of a thirty-inch snow storm.  When this happens in early April it’s just a barrel of laughs.  Wet snow like that is so heavy that clearing it is a nightmare and so disruption of normal activities is almost inevitable.  A spring Nor’easter is reason to pay attention to the weather.

An early fall Nor’easter is not the same animal.  The water in the Atlantic is warm at this time of year and the potential for snow is essentially zero (except on the tops of the White Mountains in New Hampshire).  So, what are we talking about?  Well essentially rain and wind.  Alright, rain and wind can be bad.  Ask the folks down in Florida and the Carolinas.  They have a whole lifestyle that revolves around the existence of things called hurricanes.  Wind and rain can do lots and lots of damage and under certain circumstances can kill people.

According to my local forecast over the course of Sunday through Tuesday we’re predicted to get two to three inches of rain.  And on Monday there are predicted to be 25 mph winds.  I don’t know.  That doesn’t sound bad at all.  Now granted, Dunwich is not on the coast.  Maybe the costal areas are going to get a bunch of storm surge and that could cause some unusual flooding which in certain areas can be disastrous from a property damage perspective and also could create a drowning risk.

But I think people are starting to get a little too safety conscious.  If it was ten inches of rain and sixty mile an hour wind, I’d be a lot more concerned.  I’d start collecting up the lighter yard equipment and store it away.  I might even leave the shed near the swamp unlocked so the lycanthropes could take shelter there during the storm.  But three inches of rain and 25 mph winds is just not that frightening.  Now one thing that is worth taking into account is the chance of losing power.  The electrical grid in New England has become increasingly fragile since the green energy boondoggle has been made a permanent facet of life here.  For the smallest fluctuation in conditions or for no discernible reason whatsoever we get power outages almost routinely now.  And it could last a second or a minute or a week depending on factors like weather or some act of God (like a spring Nor’easter).  So, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the power goes out Sunday night or Monday during the day.  But that’s what the generator is for.  The thing kicks on after ten seconds and runs for as long as a couple of weeks if needed (or longer if I get a propane refill).  So, actually, my most reliable power is when the grid is down.

So, Nor’easter.  I think we’ll be fine.

 

Update:

TomD

No current events here in the Florida Panhandle. But there have been some doozies since we’ve lived here. One non-hurricane May rain event about 10 years ago dumped over 20 inches of rain in 24 hours, most in 10 hours. It was apocalyptic, it took years to repair the damage.

For fun times, about 4 years ago, a new replacement multi-mile long bridge was in construction connecting Pensacola to Gulf Breeze. That is a MAJOR local corridor. An October hurricane came through and the bridge contractor hadn’t adequately secured the numerous construction barges. Several barges broke loose and destroyed a number of bridge spans, necessitating a 50 mile detour for any of the many 10’s of thousands of people a day.

Pict below taken from old bridge. When they completed two lanes of the new bridge, traffic was shifted there and the old bridge was demolished. That was when portions of the completed 2 lanes of the new bridge were destroyed.

DSC02157
DSC02157

Update:

TomD

Picture of the Pensacola Beach fishing pier as a tropical storm comes onshore. No surfing or swimming that day for some reason. Spoilsports!

On a normal day, the pier is 25′ above the water.

DSC1309t
DSC1309t

 

Update:

Tregonsee

I’m out here on the North Shore of Massachusetts near the coast, unlike Dunwich that’s way over to the west (and can have a little bit of elevation if you’re anywhere near Greylock). At present (early afternoon Sunday), it’s a lot of nothing. Mild breeze and occasional showers. Expected .5-1″ inches of rain and wind in the 20’s tomorrow. If the wind were to tag 45+ for extended periods it might be an issue with the leaves still on the trees it might take some branches down. It’s a rain storm with a mild cyclonic pattern. As Photog noted if this were March or February it might be an issue. True Nor’easters are rare in December or January as the Gulf stream is cooler and the storm really doesn’t pick up the moisture it needs to be a nuisance. Big bummer is it interferes with doing anything outdoors on Columbus day which is often the last warm weather for a while

 

photog Reminisces on New England Hurricanes

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New England is a benighted region.  It’s not coincidental that H. P. Lovecraft was from here.  Even though I’m not a native New Englander I have now lived the majority of my life here and so I had the honor to ride the Hurricane Bob Express back in 1991.  Bob was the last hurricane to actually make landfall as a hurricane in New England so it’s remembered fondly.

Back then I was a hot-shot process engineer working for an engineering company that had been purchased by one of the major defense contractors and therefore had plenty of money for plane fare.  We had a processing plant in Cape May NJ that needed an operational audit prior to submitting a proposal to modernize the plant.  You would have thought that a hurricane coming up the east coast was a good enough reason to postpone the trip.  You would have thought wrong.

So, there I was early on the morning of August 19th 1991 sitting on the tarmac of Boston’s Logan Airport with several of my associates waiting to take off for the relatively short trip to southern New Jersey.  Several of the passengers including the fellow sitting next to me on the flight were nervous.  I on the other hand have always felt that since I have virtually zero control over what happens once I sit down in a plane, there’s really no sense in worrying.  So, I was reading a book.

There was a substantial delay on the tarmac while the tower decided whether to cancel the flight.  We could see that the wind and rain were pretty awful outside the plane.  Finally, the decision was made to take off and away we went.  The stewardesses began moving down the aisle taking drink orders when we hit the brunt of the storm.  The sensation was like a mechanical bull.  The plane bucked up and down for several minutes with even a little lateral motion to make it really interesting.  I experienced a giddiness like you get on a roller coaster and actually found myself laughing out loud.  The personal experience of the other passengers definitely varied.  There was a good amount of spirited screaming.  The poor stewardesses got the worst of it.  They were flung out of the aisle onto the passengers.  Their heavy metal cart jumped around but stayed right side up.  The girls eventually beat a hasty retreat to the end of the aisle and stayed there.

But the funniest thing was that the passengers kept hitting their call buzzers.  They wanted their drinks.  Apparently, they needed the booze right away.  Finally, the head stewardess starting screaming over the PA system to order them to stop hitting the buzzers.  It was quite a scene.  I think my neighbor was praying.  He had his head down and his eyes shut.

Twenty minutes later we were back in the sunshine and when we landed shortly after that it was hot and sunny.  The hurricane seemed to have scrubbed everything clean and it was a beautiful day.  We did our work and caught a flight home that night.  Hurricane Bob was long gone but he had left his mark.  There was no power or phones and the bus I was supposed to take wasn’t running.

I ended up taking a subway train to a commuter train to a bus station and took a bus to a stop where I could walk down a road for about two miles to where my car was parked.  By the time I got home Camera Girl had given me up for dead but was willing to break out some food and drink for the conquering hero.  Thus ended my adventure in hurricane bronco busting.  Not exactly Pecos Bill material but highly entertaining.

So now Hurricane Henri is teed up.  Once again, it’s a hurricane with a guy’s name which is sort of disreputable to start with.  And it’s French which adds insult to injury.  It’s going to be a Category One Storm so far.  But the track is going to be dead center on target to where I live which kind of stinks.  But we’ve got a generator, plenty of food and water and an emergency of this sort provides a manly man such as myself with the opportunity to impress his damsel in distress with his prowess at fighting the raw power of nature head on.  Plus, we have pop-corn and a DVD player if things really get dicey.  Well, here’s to survival.  At least I’m not in Kabul.

20AUG2021 – OCF Update – Hurricane Henri Takes a Bead on Us

photog Current Events, OCF

As usual, the Weather Service has decided to mess with me.  Instead of heading for Nova Scotia this crummy hurricane with a Frenchman’s name is going to annoy me this Sunday.  I think it’s going to be 85 mph and they are talking about 3-5 inches of rain.  Sure why not?  We’ve had about twenty inches of rain so far this summer.  Why not five more?  The local government is talking about it like it’s the apocalypse and as usual everyone is loading up on toilet paper and canned food.  My generator is good for about a week of running so I guess if all the wires go down we’ll have power but it may interfere with my internet access so that would stink.  Ah well.

 

 

 

09JUL2021 – OCF Update – photog’s Ark

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Forty days and forty nights of rain has pounded my brain into mush.  Seriously, we’ve had a phenomenal amount of water falling out of the sky on us for the last week or so.  Based on the amount of water I’ve measured in the water bucket I have out in my yard we’ve had almost thirteen inches of rain so far and it’s not letting up at all.

Right now, the rain is torrential and I see no indication that it intends to stop until this whole corner of New England slides off the mainland and deposits itself into the Atlantic Ocean.  What I’m waiting for is the idiot on tv to tell me about the drought condition that we’re currently suffering through.  It’s inevitable.  Apparently, the morons who run the water supply are incapable of understanding that doubling the population of the state means that it will be necessary to increase the water supply to compensate.  Granted that is a monumental task but it has been done in the past and a supposedly progressive state won’t shy away from stealing people’s lands for a state boondoggle.  But in our current Gaia worshipping mood the solution is to ration water until people decide to voluntarily die of dehydration to “save the planet.”

Well, I’ve snapped out of my Stasi induced funk and I once again feel that I’ll outlast these buggers.  I’m an inherently optimistic man and I still believe that knuckling under to these cretins is a mistake and one way or another I’ll escape them and live to see their nightmare system come crashing down.

So, unless I drown in the biblical deluge that we’re currently experiencing I intend to send out a few more rants and other words of scorn at our sad pathetic elites.  Long may they whine and cajole and to no effect.