Sandy Update

Sunday night at 8 PM

A bit of a zig-zagging going on with Sandy as she moves up the coast and heads inland. 

The Aerie is between the two tropical storm circles (2 PM Tue and 2 PM Wed) right near the PA-NY border. While the winds will have dropped from hurricane force to "mere" tropical storm strength, the slow moving nature of the storm in this particular leg, will mean there will be lots of rain and the long duration of the winds also means lots of trees will be uprooted. 

Uh-oh!

AccuHunch has some sobering words for all in the New England states hard hit by the current loopy storm: The Fat Lady Hasn't Sung Yet:

Exhibit Number One:



Exhibit Number Two:



Of course, they include all the weasel words: "It's too early to tell," "a shift one way or the other," etc. Still, it doesn't look pretty.

Maybe they should have had the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid this year. Or perhaps run the Iditirod from Baltimore to Bangor. (Okay, they'd have to make the race a there-and-back-again event to cover around the same distance, but still....)

I asked my neighbor and the post mistress if they knew the phone number to call to make it stop. Neither had a clue but wished they had it on speed dial.

Can we just skip to April May...please?

New England digs out after record snowfall

Boston got 10 inches of snow. It normally gets just over 7 inches in the month of December.

And the weekend has only just begun.

One Down, One to Go

Note the temperatures in the table at the bottom of the report. It’s going to be quite cold.

Here we go again!

(I've used that title before but it's appropriate.)

Yesterday I mentioned how the warm air swept in and melted all the snow off the ground. THIS morning we woke up to a scene from Holiday Inn. You know, the one at the end of the movie where they throw open the doors to look at all the snow falling as they sing "White Christmas."

Yeah, it's a scene right out of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." I stood on the deck and watched the snow fall--not with a light little flutter but with a "KA-THUNK!" It was a white-out situation without any wind.

The temperatures are currently hovering around 25 degrees so there's not much chance of the snow switching to sleet or rain. No, we're forecast for as much as 2-3 inches--and hour. And perhaps 6 to 10 inches total before it ends late this afternoon. When it does end, it will be time for the snowblower, I'm sure.

Oh, and did I mention we'll be getting more--perhaps just as much--on Sunday?

Yep, sure am glad we built the Aerie last year!

At the Bolt Hole for the week

Fall is definitely in the air here in the Adirondacks. The temperature last night fell to the upper 20s and there was a heavy frost on the ground at sunrise this morning. All day the temperature never got above 58 degrees.

One thing I miss up here is high-speed internet access. Using dial-up to surf the net or make any sort of download is a time consuming process. Forget about listening to a football or baseball game via the internet. Plus, being on the end of the telephone line, should there be any problems with the lines, static fills the circuit and knocks me off line in a blink.This happens at least once a year when there's an ice or wind storm.

I've been able to walk the woods the last couple of days and the number of uprooted trees or trees that had their tops snapped off during the mesocylcone in late August is amazing. The entire character of the woods changes when that happens. Trails are blocked that were open during the summer. New "open" areas are created where sunlight can now reach the forest floor. It's a learning process when you want to walk the woods. As you may know, the Adirondack Park (that is the state land within the Blue Line) is considered "forever wild" which limits what can and can not be done within its boundary. There will be no clearing of storm damage on state land. I will, however, plan on how to either drop the leaning trees to the forest floor or fell those that I can for the purpose of harvesting firewood or speeding the decay of the dead and dying timber. Already I can see that it will be a good deal of work.

More Storm Damage Photos from the Bolt Hole

Terry and I had intended to walk further up the road at the Bolt Hole to a couple of camps so we could take a peek at the storm damage from August 27 but when we woke up this morning it was raining and the forecast was for even more. We wanted to get back to the Aerie with the trailer in tow before dark so when a break in the rain occurred, we got everything hooked up and hit the road.

We drove in rain as far as Syracuse and then the weather improved as we drove south until you would hardly know there was any precipitation at all for the previous week. (In fact the Southern Tier of NY had some torrential rainfall just three days ago.) We made it safely back to the Aerie where I discovered we had gotten 1/10th of an inch of rain since we left Wednesday morning.

In looking over my picture files I came across some of the photos that Mark took on August 27 just after the mesocyclone struck the area.

Here is the large cherry that crashed into the gate at the Bolt Hole.

And here are the two smaller cherries that came down in front of the garage.

Mark’s property and right of way didn’t escape either. There were numerous trees that snapped off or were blown down. His power and phone lines were taken to the ground.

Looking down the driveway, you can see a few downed trees and several leaners that had to be cut down.

Several large trees were uprooted but, luckily, didn’t fall toward either Mark’s cabin or his driveway and power lines.

Looking along the power line from Mark’s cabin it is clear that the line is down.

You can see a fir tree that blew down across the power line.

I’ll be going back up tomorrow and will post some more pictures of the storm damage when I get to walk around a bit more.