Not Another October Storm!

Storms in my neck of the woods in late October are becoming as reliable as the sunrise itself, because, as fate would have it, the greater New York area could very well see another nor'easter toward the end of this month.  This storm is not expected to be anywhere nearly as bad as either the 2011 Halloween nor'easter or 2012's Hurricane Sandy, but with a lot of rain predicted along with wind gusts of up to forty miles an hour or more, it could be bad enough.

And if that sounds like something I said this time last year, it kind of is . . . I said something similar just before a storm hit our area in late October 2017 (although we emerged unscathed from that).

The bright side of this year's potential storm is that it will be a rainstorm, not be a snowstorm like the 2011 "event," so we won't have to worry about snow bringing leafy tree limbs down.  The down side is that not only have most of the leaves not fallen where I live, most of them haven't even changed color - ironically, due in part to the summer rains the trees soaked up.  And any gusty winds we get in this potential storm could make the leaves act like sails and blow lots of trees over - because, despite a much-appreciated dry spell of late, the ground still hasn't dried out enough for the tree roots to re-stabilize.

I've already had two power outages this month - both on the same day! - as a result of rain that wasn't supposed to be all that bad despite its association with Hurricane Michael (which, of course, turned out to be worse than most of us originally thought it would be).  That makes 47 outages since November 2009 by my latest count.  Now we could get an even four dozen outages in total as of this time next week!

I'm beginning to really, really hate late October . . ..   

What Could Be Worse Than Three March Nor'easters?

How about four March nor'easters?

Yes, another coastal system his headed up the American East Coast, and yes, it will be a nor'easter (forecasters are calling this fourth nor'easter a "foureaster"), with winds gusting at speeds just above tropical storm force - inland as well as along the shore.

This storm was expected to pass south of the New York City area, and part of will do so tomorrow, but a second part is expected to come up the coast on Wednesday - the first full day of spring - and Wednesday just happens to be the only day this week where temperatures won't make it comfortably above 32 degrees Fahrenheit, meaning more snow than rain.

If there's any good news here, it's that accumulations in northern New Jersey, as these maps from the National Weather Service indicate, should be modest - two or three inches, which is the equivalent of a quarter of an inch of rain - and that the sun angle resulting from the vernal equinox should prevent much of it from sticking.  But I'm concerned about the winds.  The ground is so moist and the wind gusts are expected to be strong, and my neighborhood has been subjected to mass deforestation as a result of the previous storms.  At this point, I'm tired of all this and I am patiently waiting for spring weather.  I feel like I'm waiting for a moment that just won't come.

I hope March goes out as quietly as it came in ferociously, but we shouldn't be too sure of that. :-(  I've said it before, and I'll say it again:  This month wasn't named after the Roman war god for nothing.       

What Could Be Worse Than a March Nor'easter?

How abut two March nor'easters?

The National Weather Service is predicting another coastal storm for the American Northeast to strike tomorrow.  I got through the last storm this past Friday without a blackout, and because the wind is not expected to be severe as last time, the chances of a blackout from wind in this next storm are much less likely.  However, because we could get an average of ten inches of snow, and because the snow is of the heavy and wet, not powdery and dry, variety, it could still do a number on our electricity by accumulating on the power lines.  True, wet snow has knocked our power out only once before in a snowstorm between early December and late March, but if there's always a first time, there's always a second time as well.  And that means that Donald Trump could get re-elected President.

Oh yeah, a third nor'easter is possible next week.  And, truth be told, the last nor'easter wasn't supposed to be as bad inland as along the coast; in fact, inland northern New Jersey suffered the most blackouts and the greatest damage in the state from it. 

For personal as well as meteorological reasons, this is turning out to be my worst March in years.  Sometimes I wish I were more like Alice Cooper, whose image is in the meme above (stolen from the 1978 Sgt. Pepper movie).  Do I mean that I'd like to have a No-More Mr.-Nice-Guy, take-no-prisoners approach and just laugh at all the horror around me?  No, I mean I wish I could just dunk my face in a pie and sleep through everything! :-D      

In Like a Lion . . . Again

The weather will be rocking and rolling in my neck of the woods to start off March.  The American Northeast is about to be subject to a nor'easter, and not only has confidence been growing in the forecasts for a big storm, predictions for how bad it will be have progressively worsened.  After a hopeful sign that the storm, expected to begin tomorrow night and produce two inches of rain, could be gone by late Friday, it is now expected to linger into Saturday morning.  And after early signs that the winds would be at a manageable 20 to 25 miles an hour, they could now be as high as 35 mph, and that's just inland - not at the coast, where winds could be higher still and cause flooding at high tide under a full moon.  And oh yes, the heavy rain could turn to snow just before it tapers off.

We're going to get everything.

And how will this affect my electricity, which has gone out over forty times in the past ten years?  I don't know yet, but right now I'm cautiously optimistic, because it could be worse.  Tempering that hope, of course, is the fact that the forecast has been getting worse.  As always, stay tuned - I may be back.  

A Big Storm?

In the United States, tropical moisture from the Southeast and an approaching low-pressure system from the Midwest are conspiring to produce a nasty storm for the Northeast this coming Sunday.  It's being referred to by some as a big nor'easter, but to call it so and leave it at that would be a major understatement, as the storm itself is predicted to be major.  And on the sixth anniversary of the October Surprise snowstorm and the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Sandy!

Well, this storm is not expected to be anywhere nearly as bad as either of those two "events," but with three inches of rain predicted along with wind gusts of up to forty miles an hour or more, it could be bad enough.  Don't be surprised if you don't hear from me any time after Sunday, which would mean Power Outage #42 . . . . and if you do hear from me, that may be because I'm blogging from my library.  I hope to get through this storm as I've gotten through any other, the preferably not with a three-day outage (October Surprise) or a six-day outage (Sandy).  Any outage I get, I hope it's measured in minutes or hours (but preferably minutes) rather than days.   I'll keep my fingers crossed . . . while hoping that storm damage isn't so massive throughout New Jersey that Chris Christie puts Lieutenant Governor Guadagno in charge of disaster coordination that leads to her doing such an impressive job that it changes the course of the gubernatorial election and allows her to defeat Phil Murphy for the governorship in an upset.

Sorry, I'm fatalistic . . ..     

STELLA! STELLA!

The snowfall that hit New Jersey this past Friday was named Reggie by The Weather Channel, leading me to suspect that one day we'd get a winter storm named Jughead.  But the next one that's coming tomorrow will be named after a character in A Streetcar Named Desire.

Whatever.  Anyway, this storm is expected to dump almost as much snow as the January 2016 nor'easter, if not exactly as much . . . or even more so.  The only weather computer model predicting less than a foot for my area was the GFS, until early this morning, when it joined all of the others.

The map above is from the latest Canadian model, showing the storm at 2 PM Eastern Time Tuesday.  It looks pretty bad. It could be worse.  No, really, it could.  And once again, despite the fact that I've only lost electricity once in a snowstorm that took place between December and March, I'm antsy about a possible blackout tomorrow - after 38 blackouts of varying duration since November 2009. 

I hope I and everyone else affected makes it through the storm all right.  But as far as I am concerned, every weather geek online who was wishing for a blizzard when this storm first became a possibility five days ago, are peeing in their pants in excitement over this storm, and are rooting for another snowfall next weekend (as some computer models are apparently pointing to) should be drawn and quartered, and anyone who happily yells "BLIZZAWD! BLIZZAWD!" in public has a special place in hell reserved for them. 

Stay tuned, I may be back . . ..     

Blizzard Blues

Winter has barely begun, and the first snowstorm of the season is a full-fledged blizzard - a classic nor'easter in every sense of the word (and the winds to match). I've already had to shovel the snow in our two-car driveway thrice (three times), and I've only been able to do our front walk once.

Oh yeah, we live on a corner and the driveway is on our side, meaning our front walk goes all the way to the sidewalk. And to think my mother bought our house in the month of December and didn't once contemplate the consequences of snowstorms.

I'm still reeling from the big snowstorms that hit my neck of the woods this past February, the kind of snowstorms people were calling "Snowmageddon." One knocked our power out - the first time our electricity had ever been knocked out by a  snowstorm. But you already know about that.

I hope this Boxing Day blizzard is the worst storm we get this winter. A six-inch snowfall will seem like nothing compared to this.

The Mother Of All Storms

I can't remember a winter storm being this bad. The nor'easter that hit the greater New York area this past weekend didn't produce any snow, and there was no winter storm warning, but it was still a winter storm (spring hasn't officially begun yet), a storm full of howling wind and driving rain, and it was a doozy. The storm left over 300,000 houses without power, my house included. But that's just part of the story. My cable service went out. That meant no telephone service, no television, and no Internet connection. The power was only off for five hours - some people are still experiencing outages as I type - but my cable outage lasted nineteen hours. The service finally came back on at 11:00 PM last night.

Then, overnight, it went out again.

And now? I'm typing this blog entry from a computer in my local library. You can guess the rest.

How long will I be without any form of communication at home? Speaking of guessing, I can only guess that, too.

I can't wait until spring.

Gore Gored

With Washington, D.C. having been hit by two blizzards in a week, Republican lawmakers have been needling Albert Gore for his insistence that global warming is a real threat, with one Republican hoping that it snows until "Al Gore cries 'uncle.'" The daughter and son-in-law of noted global warming denier James Inhofe even ridiculed Gore by building an igloo in the middle of downtown Washington and calling it Gore's "new house."

Again - severe snowstorms, not even blizzards in areas that normally don't see such weather, aren't indicators that global warming doesn't exist. In fact, they may be an indicator that what should be called "climate change" does exist. Warming in some parts of the world may have an adverse effect of causing more precipitation and even colder temperatures elsewhere. In Britain - which saw tremendous amounts of snow last month - people could see a new ice age as melting ice caps in the polar regions disrupts the Gulf Stream, which keeps the British Isles temperate and mild enough for human settlement. And by the way, the United Kingdom and Ireland are as far north as Labrador in Canada is.

Environmentalists shouldn't get upset over Republican ridiculing of Al Gore. If so many Republicans are making fun of him, that only shows how popular he is. When the only Republican making fun of Al Gore is a county clerk in Wyoming, then he'll have a problem.

Snow 'Nuff

Central and southern New Jersey, Washington, D.C. and many parts of Virginia and West Virginia are under a blizzard warning, with up to thirty inches of snow expected in and around the nation's capital. The New York area is likely to be spared the worst of this storm, but may still get hit with a similar nor'easter later - possibly as early as the middle of next week.

The esteemed New York disc jockey Pete Fornatale once mused on the air why winter songs played during the Christmas season - "Jingle Bells," "Winter Wonderland," and similar songs that don't mention Christmas by name - are never played on the radio in January or February, when most winter weather occurs. This is because when you hear these heartwarming depictions of winter - lyrical vignettes that really nearly are like a picture print by Currier and Ives - during the Christmas season, winter is just beginning, everyone is in a festive mood because of the holidays, and the idea of sleigh rides and glistening snowscapes sounds romantic. By January, and especially by February, many people have strained their backs shoveling snow, driven at three miles an hour through driving hail, possibly lost power in an ice storm, and gone through a lot of other horrors. They're in no mood to build snowmen and pretend they're ministers or clowns, or frolic and play the Eskimo way. They're too busy waiting for spring.

And while we're on the subject, when was the last time anyone went for a ride in a one-horse open sleigh? Or met anyone who did? Dude, I've never even gone for a carriage ride in Central Park.