On November 2 I was driving home and stopped to take pictures of the swamp fog at Perkins Pond In Weare. Pictures presented in order taken. Weird how the two that are almost the same vista show different lighting even though taken with the same phone, from the same place (my truck), within a minute of each other.
And just for fun, because I rarely retouch photos except for cropping, I decided to let the computer correct the colors.
On 11/3, shortly after noon I snapped a couple more pictures of the October Glory Maple.
Good thing I got those pictures as a couple of hours later both it and the burning bush were bare of leaves from strong winds.
The next day I snapped these photos of the yard - how it has looked pretty much since September (besides the leaves)
The side of the yard by the swamp is also under water. I didn't bother taking pictures as there are so many leaves on top, it isn't obvious in pictures. Sunday afternoon I scooped all the leaves out of the culvert between my yard and the trailer to help the pond there drain. The culvert wasn't clgged and was running well, but I figured that being proactive wasn't a bad thing.
Previously, on Sunday morning, I had been driving to Concord to attend a HOG meetig and turned around to take these pictures.
It is not unusual for the High Tide to flood during the spring when the Contoocook River runs high from rains and snow melt. But it rarely floods during the fall. On my way back home, going over the bridge on Rt 149, I saw the river was nearly as high as I'd ever seen it and close to lapping over the stone wall that some apartments are built on. Those apartments are in an old mill building that was designed to let flood water thru, so there was no danger there, but was startling to see.
NH is still very fortunate that we aren't in drought and dealing with fires, nor is there much true, life-altering flooding, and my basement has stayed dry, so all is good. The biggest danger is we've had high winds for the last couple of days, which can take trees down because of soil saturation not allowing the tree roots to hold itself in place.
Once again I worked from home during a Nor'easter. I split the snow blowing into two sessions, and the snow was a little lighter, so it wasn't as hard to deal with. We got about 14" then another couple of inches the next day. Due to some settling and a bit of meltage, the snow pictures don't look much different from the previous storm.
We were due for a 4th Nor'Easter this coming Tuesday and Wednesday, but the weather models now say nope, it will pass out to sea. Thank goodness since there will be little melting with daytime temps in the 20's until the middle of next week and night time temps in the single digits. Of course, there are still several days to go before the storm arrives, so it could still change its mind and hit us for grins and giggles.
New England has experienced two Nor'Easters in less than a week. The first was during astronomical high tide and affected 3 or 4 tides to devastating affect on the seacoast of several states. Parts of NY got 2+ FEET of snow. Boston experienced 80+ MPH gusts. Tens of thousands of people lost power for days. Yes, Mother Nature came in like a lion.
I was lucky and only got a bit of snow and a bit of wind. Nothing unmanageable and I never lost power. The second Nor'Easter came 5 days after the first one - starting Wednesday evening and winding down on Thursday. Some of the people that had lost power in the first storm, still didn't have power back by the time of the second. The forecasts were all over the place. Depending on the source, my area was to get 5-8", 8-14" or 18-24" of snow. The day before the second storm hit, Red-winged blackbirds massed in the trees behind the house. Here is a crappy phone picture on max zoom because my camera's battery was dead. Everything that appears to be a leaf is a bird. The racket was almost deafening.
I chose to work from home on Thursday as did many people I work with. By 5 AM I had the ramp cleared of roof dumpage and logged in to work for an hour before snow blowing (I was being nice to the neighbors). At 6 AM I grabbed the snow blower and started clearing the driveway. The snow was heavy and snow blowing was slow dealing with wet snow that liked to just pack and push instead of going into the blades. I had to do everything in first gear and even stopping and starting progress to get the snow to cooperate.
Usually I can accomplish all of the clean up with one tank of gas. However, this time I ran a tank out after only getting the driveway, parking pad and to the mailbox clear (clear is relative since it was still snowing). I also got about 2/3 of the path to the tent garage cleared.
After running out of gas I took a break then filled the tank again and started working on the paths. After 2 hours, my job was complete. Or so I thought until I opened the back door to throw out seed for the birds
Once I got the ramp cleared and fed the birds I got back to remoting in to work.
That afternoon I took pictures around the house
Those at the coast again suffered massive power outages, many are still out and the power companies are saying that they will have power back by tomorrow evening. Although the tides were not astronomical highs this time, the previous damage to the seawalls was bad enough that more damage to homes was sustained. Part of I-95 was shut down for 3 hours because of power lines down across the highway. Although my area got more snow, again I didn't not lose power.
And now a 3rd Nor'Easter looks to be in the works for Tuesday and Wednesday. We are paying for the mild February :O
On January 2, NH1 posted this forecast on their FB page. I got chit for posting this. As on person wrote,"I didn't see that on Channel 9".
This is the forecast from Channel 9 on January 3 (posted on their FB page)
And this is the updated forecast early morning 1/4/18
Well, my area got hit with 14" of snow as did a whole lot of the state. Hmmm - 'nuff said.
Okay, okay, I hate the cheesy special names they occasionally come up with for storms. The "bomb cyclone" name just makes me cringe. It was a Nor'Easter. Even a Nor'Easter is a special name, but it is different from a regular snow storm as it barrels up the coast, and causes not just snow, but has the potential for flooding - especially if there is a high tide. This event timed in the MA/NH area during astronomical high tide and massive flooding, along with the snow occurred.
Thursday morning started like any other morning; I went to work in the wee hours of the morning. Many production people had made it in even earlier so they could get in 6-8 hours of production before the worst of the storm was expected to hit. I was of the same mindset - arrive at 5:15 am and leave sometime before noon.
Even leaving work early, it was a tough commute home. Many schools closed for the day so at least the traffic was light. However, it was snowing heavily - albite very small flakes, but they made up for very limited visibility. While I was on main roads, at least there were tracks in the snow to follow (they were plowing so tracks stuck). However, once I hit RT 149, 12-13 miles more to go, they had not plowed at all. With the heavily overcast skies, heavy snow coming down, and 4-5" of snow on the road obliterating tracks, it became very challenging just figuring out where the road was, much less where your lane was when passing vehicles going the other way.
I got home about 1:30 and there was 5+" of snow. After taking care of a few things, at 2 pm I went out to take a first pass with the snow blower.
While I was at it I roof raked the edge of the roof over the propane tanks (It has been so cold that the roof hasn't dumped since a week or more before Christmas). I finished just before 4 PM and by that time we had about 10". The wind had whipped up quite a bit and was re-depositing snow in the snow blown areas. Plus, it was still snowing heavily.
Friday I got up at my normal time and saw that there were some decent drifting (even the ramp to the back door, which is under a 3' eave, had 18-24" drifts on it). Additionally the road plow had made several passes leaving a good size berm at the end of the driveway. After taking care of the animals and making coffee, I logged in remotely to my work computer at 4 AM and sent an email that I would be working from home that morning. Then I started working on projects. At 8:30 I went out to face the wind and cold and started snow blowing the driveway and to the tent garage. I made it to work by 11:15 am and stayed late.
The wind has been ferocious since then so I have not done anything besides clear the tent garage of snow. Today the wind should abate some, plus it should get over single digits, so I'll snow blow the paths and other areas that have drifted over (mostly those places I had not touched on Friday morning). I also need to roof rake eaves on the other 3 sides of the house - although it is supposed to warm up toward the end of the week and hopefully it will dump by then.
While the rest of us were severely overcast, rainy and snowy, Mount Washington Observatory had and awesome sunrise. This picture was posted on FB. The bigger it is viewed, the more astounding it is (click to enbiggen).
We usually have a thfebruary thaw, but this past week was just gorgeous! Many days were in the 50's or 60's and all of our larger cities experienced record breaking warmth Wednesday thru Friday. Despite all the warm weather, I still have a good snow pack although the iced up paths are now clear and have gotten wider. These pictures were taken yesterday morning.
Last night we had rain, and coupled with temps in the 40's there was more meltage. However, a cold front went thru last night, behind the rain, so we'll see what future systems do for the white stuf.
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