A recent storm produced DVD size hail
After highs in the upper 90s over the weekend today’s high is forecast to be 67. Yesterday was really nice in the low 70s.
Heat wave, shmeat wave.
I emptied out my shop vac today because garbage day is coming up, and did it outside because of all the loose dust. Didn’t think it would be much of a big deal but it took longer than I thought because I’d forgotten how to change the filter. I was out there about half an hour cleaning it out and figuring out how the filter comes off.
And … I’m lucky I didn’t die of heat stroke. I’m sensitive to heat to begin with. The temperature was 34.4C, or 94F, and the humidex (“feels like” temperature equivalent) was 111F. The UV index was at maximum. I’m back inside and I ain’t going out again for nuthin’ and nobody. Not sure what I’m having for dinner but it won’t involve going outside, not even as far as the barbecue. Right now I feel like having ice cream and iced tea, with some ice cubes on the side!
We got snow Monday night…
Beautiful and green now–we leave for Burlington VT tomorrow, so that’s going to be a change.
It’s kind of gloomy and drizzly right now and I have contractors coming later to do some outdoor work, so I checked the forecast to see if it’s going to be clearing. Ha! From the forecast:
RAINFALL WARNING
Extremely heavy rain is expected. The ground, already near saturation, has little ability to absorb further rainfall.
Hazards:
Rainfall amounts up to 125 mm.
Rainfall rates of 40 mm an hour.Timing:
This morning into early this afternoon.Discussion:
Heavy rain continues with showers and thunderstorms. Total rainfall amounts of up to 125 mm are possible with rainfall rates of 40 mm within an hour. This extremely heavy rain will gradually taper over the next few hours.Rapidly rising rivers and creeks can sweep away bridges, culverts, buildings, and people.
Abandon stalled cars if water is rising rapidly. Keep children and pets away from creeks and river banks. Consider moving valuable items to higher levels.
Sounds like a lovely day for a picnic! 
A very weird weather pattern has taken hold of pretty much the entire NE part of the country, as of earlier this week. Normally this time of year there is a steady parade of cold fronts coming down from Canada, more or less every 3-5 days.
Not this year. The last front was this past Sunday the 8th. I just checked the extended forecasts, and the next one will apparently NOT arrive until the following Monday the 23rd, a mind-boggling 2 week gap. This means the local air will just slowly but inexorably get staler and staler and more polluted (I went out and sampled it last night, and ugghh), at a time of year I often anticipate enjoying the outdoors with the cooler crisper weather.
Checking the jet stream, which is what drives these fronts, I see right now that there is a massive 2,500 mile tear in the thing. I also don’t know how the higher temps will affect when the fall colors will come out.
Just checked the current forecast. A front will make it to the area [Ohio] on Wed, but it is seasonally weak and will only cool things down a few degrees [77] on the high end, never even reaching the 50’s on the low end. The first relatively brisk front of the fall is forecast to move through on the Tuesday of next week, the 1st of October.
Which means that, for the entire north-central and northeastern US, we will have NOT seen a strong cold front for 23 days, to the end of September. The main branch of the jet stream hasn’t simply been weak over continental North America, it has been nonexistent.
Meanwhile, it is somewhere far away which is getting all that missing coolness and such:
Figured I would put this here and not the existing hurricane thread.
The jet stream will remain so weak if not nonexistent that the remnants of Helene are forecast to stop dead somewhere east of St. Louis and spin in place for 3 days or so. I’ve never seen a hurricane after making landfall in the Gulf somewhere do that-99% of the time the westerlies will quickly whisk it off the Eastern Seaboard.
I have to go to my accountant today to take care of my taxes from April-I was about to go put on my clothes and walk out in what were partly cloudy skies, when I heard rain falling suddenly outside, but falling HARD.
Went out, and saw BB-sized round pellets all over the place, which given that it is 45F right now would most likely be sleet and not hail. Haven’t seen that since I was a kid living here (NE Ohio). I have summer tires on my car so won’t be able to go out until I am sure it has all melted. Likely lake-effect precipitation too.
Graupel.
Exactly. Sleet, at least around here, fuses into a sheet of ice. Graupel is like very loosely packed hail and does not fuse like sleet. I have only seen it in very cold weather, though.
But it was almost undoubtedly below freezing at cloud level (temperature drops with altitude).
Quite possibly. Unlike sleet, graupel is softer (it reminds me of the little styrofoam pellets that they used to use to fill beanbag chairs). It’s caused when water droplets freeze around falling snowflakes, and it’s probably already cold enough up in the clouds for snow to form.
Did they look like this?
Kind of, but rounder, harder, and less fuzzy around the edges.
Bump, because unless I am very BADLY reading this pollution map wrong…
I am seeing green all over the midwest and into south central Canada, many stations reporting 1’s and even zeroes. A front is currently crossing Lake Erie, note, so if that holds I’ll be out tomorrow finally enjoying a reasonably cool haze and smoke free summer day.