Bogieblog

Excitement in Town - Shelter in Place for ELVD

Well, my town has had it's share of exciting stories the last month or so. Several car chases of up to 100+ mph, a couple of alleged child porn creators/possessors arrested (one from Deering) and more. But, the big news is that lst night around 9pm (after I was asleep) we had a fugitive man hunt going on in the ELVD (Emerald Lave Village District) over at Fox Forest following a car chase. They had a Shelter in Place order for ELVD (links are to local PD website).

The man is a wanted felon from Oklahoma and is thought to be armed and dangerous. Here is a news story from the local TV station, WMUR (also has video that said US Marshals and State Police were also involved).

According to local FB pages, they had helicopters and at least one dog out, but have not caught up with the guy yet. However, they have lifted the SiP order as of a couple of hours ago - but they warn everyone to remain vigilant.

Screen shots are from the local PD and are in links above (the ones not marked from WMUR).

Just to assure everyone - ELVD is a couple of miles from me and last they knew he was on foot (he ditched or crashed the car in ELVD - probably because that area is full of dead end roads that he didn't know). Even though he hasn't been found yet, it is unlikely that we will cross paths as I would expect him to either follow the highway, or at worst, stay away from the developed areas like where I live.

UPDATE: 45 minutes later. Local schools have closed for Friday 13, 2024 because of this. Let that sink in - Friday the 13th :)

Passing Along for a Renewed Purpose

Sunday morning there was a post on the local swap FB page asking for a small bookshelf. I happened to have a small bookshelf that I have been using to hold acrylic paint bottles, and a few odds and ends, for the last 8-9 years. All that paint is 7-9 years old and hasn't been used in 5-6 years. The teacher's need spurred my to gather the paints into a bag (to be gotten rid of) and pass it down. The bookshelf started out blue, and back in the early 80's I scraped off the paint and stained it.

Fall is starting to make itself felt with nights in the 40's. One of the maple trees out back starting to turn and pincushion flowers are blooming.

[Imagine that, it took until Tuesday for Typepad to allow me to upload those two pictures although it was happy to let me upload the first to pictures the first time]

These are the nice days, where the days are cool enough not to need AC, warm enough not to need heat, the mugginess leaves the air, and letting in the solar gain in the afternoon warms up the house enough that the house is just the right temperature in the morning. We will still have some "hot" days but then we will inevitably slide into winter. It remains to be seen how fast that slide is and how soon we see snow.

Rain is a Good Thing Here

Updated with pictures 8/12/2024

Finally got a good amount of rain, so my dry spell is over for now. I got about 4" of rain spread out thru last week, so no flooding issues. Even the remnants of Debby only put down about an inch since I was on the west side.

I was able to mow Thursday evening, after the first 3" of rain, but before Debby hit. I still didn't have to mow the part between the house and the rhodies. That section also extended down to between the driveway and the rhodies (except a couple of tall weeds), but I did mow everything else. That was the first time since July 2 - so 37 days (except the drainage ditch which was mowed once between those dates).

The Clethra (Summer sweet) busted the blooms out after most of the rains and the air is full of its sweet scent. Various insects are enjoying the blooms. I've seen bumble bees, honey bees, blue mud wasps, and a bunch of others, including this beauty.

Well, okay then - I can't upload pictures again, so I'll try again later. I also need to upload my first Rose of Sharon bloom since I planted them fall of 2020.

RoH - the bud apparently opened during some of the pouring rain, so isn't in the best form. But, It is the first flower from either shrub since planted, so wanted to document it

The Proof Reader Had One Job

The town instituted a sticker program for the town Transfer Station this summer. It has been in the works since last year and they put it off once that I know of. Residents get stickers when they register their vehicles. Others, such as those who have summer houses can ask the town for a sticker. Oh, and the Transfer Station services a couple of towns around us too.

So imagine my surprise when a post came up on a (civilian run) Hillsboro FB page

People, there are 7 words on that thing. How can "Hillsborough" not be correct?

Was it Only a Couple of Weeks Ago?

On June 23, 2024 NH experienced its first tornado of the season which I posted about.

Storms came barreling thru Tuesday evening (7/16/24). The leading edge was super windy at 50-70 mph, depending on which part of the edge you were on. I experienced deep, rumbling thunder, frequent crackling lightning and heavy rains for about 15 minutes and then it settled down to a gentle rain for a few more minutes - which added up to about 3/4" by my rain gauge (much needed rain BTW, it has been very dry in my area).  About 20 minutes later the sun could be seen on the western horizon.

Yesterday, the National Weather Service has confirmed that there was an F1 tornado produced by the storm that was on the ground for just under two miles in Lyme, NH. This is the second tornado of the year - and our average is 1 or 2 so we have hit our quota. Although some areas (including mine) were under a tornado watch and the possibility of straight line winds, no tornado warning ever issued. I'm not knocking the NSW - it is super challenging to "see" rotation especially in hilly terrain, where echos may not be accurate and some places are "blind" to the radar.

There were also a couple of confirmed micorbursts/straight line wind events, with wind speeds of 90 mph in a couple of different areas of the state confirmed. Between the all the events (tornado/wind), around 7 houses are uninhabitable, several more severely damaged, and lots of trees down and thousands experienced power outages.

Some people were mocking the severe weather watches on social media saying that "again" the news stations were hyping up the weather for ratings. I would rather be prepared / aware of potential issues as to have them blindside everyone (which then they would be calling for heads to roll).

First Tornado of the Year

Yesterday evening I was in the tornado warning area. Rotation was indicated on radar and then it was confirmed visually (short video). No, it wasn't much by Tornado Alley standards, but still exciting since we don't get that type of activity here very often. The rotation did stay for quite some time, starting in Swanzey, going over 2 towns that abut mine and thru Manchester.

Had the kitties in the cat pen for about an hour in case I needed to wheel them into the hallway (a much safer place than the basement since I don't have a containment system for them down there.

The lower cell is the one that produced rotation. The upper cell went thru my town but wasn't bad.

Friend of mine in New Boston was in her basement with her dog as that system went right over them. She and her horses are fine.

And interestingly, my FB memories yesterday popped up that in 2015, on June 23, my area was under a tornado warning - so apparently that is a bad weather date :)

Keeping Kansas AFB Planes Safe

The Plains States, along with other areas of the country, has been experiencing a lot of damaging weather lately in the form of tornadoes. On 5/6/2024, my ears perked up when the local TV station, WMUR (link to story), said that Pease was hosting a half dozen planes from McConnell AFB to keep them safe during this time. Pictures actually taken on 5/7/24 as I wasn't fast enough to catch them during the evening news on 5/6.

Eclipse 2024

Monday, April 8, NH was in the path of the total eclipse. Unfortunately, my area is not in the path of totality, but I was at 95-96% range. A gajillion people from both NH and other parts of the USA headed up to the northern part of the state to view this celestial event, but I was not one of them. (source for graphic below)

Fortunately, the event was scheduled to occur shortly before 3:30pm, and the skies were for the most part clear (for a change - sun has been hard to come by since last year). I logged off work a little early and sat in front of the shed to view the event - using appropriate solar glasses of course.

Unfortunately, I didn't think to study how to get my phone or camera to capture the eclipse. After taking a couple of pics that just showed a big red/yellow disk, I decided to just give up and watch the show.

Even at the relatively little light we experienced at the greatest coverage of the sun, it was still quite bright out. Shadows were still crisp and no wildlife showed signs of calling it a night. Part of that may be because it was literally still lighter than the heavily overcast skies we have experienced regularly.

My solar array did show a cool progression. The moon started sliding over the sun at about 2:30, and had completely passed the sun about 4:30. Production is recorded in 15 minute intervals:

 

Compared to an overcast day, on 4/10/2024, which at times gave the same low input of 0.3kwh as the fullest part of the eclipse my area experienced.

All-in-all, cool to see.

April 2024 Nor'Easter

Wednesday, there was an awesome sunrise which foretold the weather to come (you know the old saying) - predictions from different sources were saying I was in the range of between 12 and 22" of snow.

When the storm first moved in, it was too warm to really support snow, so after a bit of rain, it turned to sleet for several hours. Pic taken about 7pm on 4/03/2024

Then it turned to snow, then sleet, then snow, then sleet then snow - all of which made for a very dense, wet snow pack of almost 8" by Thursday morning.

By 10am, the crabapple tree was not happy and this branch is the lowest I've ever seen it.

At 1pm I went out to feed the birds (again), I noticed how cool the snow patterns on the fence looked - and from straight on, how the fence was basically a privacy fence (you should be able to see a boulder and tree trunks behind it))

Fortunately by 3pm, the crabapple's branch had been able to shed enough snow that it had lifted itself up.

After work I attempted to snow blow. I was able to get the driveway done (I'd had someone come and blow out the berm from the road plow), but it was very slow going. I tried to create a path thru the yard, but going up even a slight incline was a no go and the wheels just dug into the ground. I did shovel off the ramp to the shed, around the fence gates, and the path from the north gate to the back porch stairs. While I was working on the driveway, I happened to notice the Rhodies weren't happy campers either - I have never seen them look like this, they are 5-6' tall instead of their normal 12'+

For comparison, here is a picture of a pretty good snow from December 2022

Overnight we got several more inches for a grand total of around 16" (pic taken 4/05/2024 about 3am

Oh, and yesterday morning the roof shed the snow in a big way. I heard a massive rumble as a huge amount came down at once. The weight of the snow made the pile vault about 5' before dropping. In the picture, the pile on the left is usually where the dumpage drops (slowly, not all at once - the ground was bare before the Nor'easter hit) and the pile on the right is from the huge dumpage.

The good news is I never completely lost power, although the UPS's I have on the pellet stoves and my modem/router got a good workout from the flickers. There were several times that there were multiple flickers in a row (on/off/on/off/on/off/on) and they performed admirably. I never lost connectivity to the server while I was working.

20% of the state was not so lucky and lost power from falling trees and or poles taking down lines. I heard that at one point, Antrim (a town abutting my town) was 50% out. A friend who lives in Henniker (another abutting town) said she finally got power back Friday afternoon. Many in NH won't get power back until today or tomorrow.

In Like a Lamb, Out Like a Lion

Well, March was interesting. We had a mild February and March seemed to be more of the same - until the 2nd half of it. Last weekend, was a mess. I received about 6" of snow, then several inches of sleet/rain, then a couple more inches of snow. Other areas, got more than 2' of snow (no ice/rain).

A lot of people lost power and in both my town and surrounding areas, a large amount were without power for 3-4 days. Between the heavy snow and wind, trees were coming down left and right taking down power lines, poles and blowing transformers. Didn't help that the weather forecast didn't call for nearly as much ice accumulation, so the power company didn't stage as much material or out of state manpower as they normally would. Oh, and temps went down to the teens so everything froze solid

It was such a mess that I actually paid someone to plow the berm at the end of the driveway that evening. I hadn't done any clean up of the driveway or paths - although I did have the foresight to clear the gate fences. So, the next couple of days, I was chipping away all the ice from the driveway. Getting my truck bare of snow/ice took over an hour - and I use a windshield cover, so that was the easy part.

Icy trees the morning after the storm (3-24-2024)

Despite a bright, sunny day after the storm, at 5:30 pm the trees were still iced up

And look, here come a Nor'easter for Tuesday into late Thursday (from New England Weather Guy FB page)

Keep in mind that I am more likely to receive what the color coating states (12-16"). But higher terrains may get a couple of feet. Of course it is always possible I could be in those higher ranges too, just unlikely.