2024 Weather

I don't do cold. Winter is colder than fall, so it's worse. End of rant.
Born in Cleveland Ohio. Spent 9.5 years there, 24 inch snow overnight wasn't unusual. Family moved "home" to WV mid 67. I left WV Jan 2nd 1996. Absolutely LOVE NC Raleigh area. Big enough to have excellent medical care and yet small enough traffic isn't absolutely horrible long as you aren't a clock pusher. I define clock pusher as someone that gets to work 2 minutes before start time. I'm a get there at least 20 minutes early guy. Got in habit of leaving 40ish minutes early for a 20 minute drive. Cushion.

Fact we have basically no winter here except for maybe 20's in Jan/Feb, but only few nighttime hours, makes it perfect. Don't get me wrong, I like 70 degrees 24/7. Place that has that is waaaay too expensive. We rarely get more than 4" snow at a time. Just enough to look beautiful on the pine trees.
 
It's raining for the first time in a month. 🙌

Not enough to really help though.

One thing I really hate about Coastal NC weather, one extreme to another. We go months without rain, then get a year's worth of rain in a few weeks, then another few months without rain.
 
The past couple days have been great. Cold mornings, cool afternoons.

Unfortunately, this weekend, it shifts back to temperatures in the 80s, and the warm trend is expected to last for several weeks. No rain expected for the rest of this month and into next month.
 
The past couple days have been great. Cold mornings, cool afternoons.

Unfortunately, this weekend, it shifts back to temperatures in the 80s, and the warm trend is expected to last for several weeks. No rain expected for the rest of this month and into next month.
Eh, it's been a bit chilly for my tastes the last few days. I'm looking forward to the warming trend.
 
Absolutely LOVE NC Raleigh area. Big enough to have excellent medical care and yet small enough traffic isn't absolutely horrible long as you aren't a clock pusher.

Fact we have basically no winter here except for maybe 20's in Jan/Feb, but only few nighttime hours, makes it perfect. Don't get me wrong, I like 70 degrees 24/7. Place that has that is waaaay too expensive. We rarely get more than 4" snow at a time. Just enough to look beautiful on the pine trees.

We moved from northern New Jersey and were used to heavy snowfalls.
We relocated to Wake Forest and January 25, 2000, 18" of snow fell in 24 hours, totaling 22" when finished. We were living in our motorhome at that time as we were renovating the house and the morning after the snowfall our corgis stepped out of the motorhome, promptly sinking in the snow. I had to make a path for them to take care of business but they loved trying to run in the snow.

A couple of inches of snow at our home in Raleigh. Note the trees are mostly covered in ice. That year the ice on top of the snow brought things to a standstill for a few days. Few things are more picturesque than a layer of fresh snow

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picturesque than a layer of fresh snow
 
I just stayed in the house. Feels great.
I can only see a limited number of birds out the sun room's windows.

I went out with a group of eight yesterday. It was too cool and windy to be comfortable, but we came across a spot with too much bird activity to even think about quitting. We had a hard time locating all the warblers and sparrows because the multitude of bluebirds kept getting in the way. We eventually abandoned the relative comfort of that tree-screened area for an exposed waterfront to check for migrating shorebirds. All told, four of us got new 'lifer' birds (species you're seeing for the first time in your life; a big deal for birders).
 
The past couple days have been great. Cold mornings, cool afternoons.

Unfortunately, this weekend, it shifts back to temperatures in the 80s, and the warm trend is expected to last for several weeks. No rain expected for the rest of this month and into next month.

You’re halfway across the country, but our weather is always so similar. I actually used an extra layer of blankets for a couple of nights. But we have three 80+ days along with a couple near 80 days over the next week. They mentioned something about rain and thunderstorms on Monday. Curious to find out what this rain stuff is.
 
We moved from northern New Jersey and were used to heavy snowfalls.
We relocated to Wake Forest and January 25, 2000, 18" of snow fell in 24 hours, totaling 22" when finished. We were living in our motorhome at that time as we were renovating the house and the morning after the snowfall our corgis stepped out of the motorhome, promptly sinking in the snow. I had to make a path for them to take care of business but they loved trying to run in the snow.

A couple of inches of snow at our home in Raleigh. Note the trees are mostly covered in ice. That year the ice on top of the snow brought things to a standstill for a few days. Few things are more picturesque than a layer of fresh snow

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picturesque than a layer of fresh snow
I got to Chapel Hill in mid/late Jan 96. 70 degrees and woke up to big snow for here. Then would hard freeze every night. Took 3 weeks for everything to start thawing out. So...not impossible to get snow here just unlikely. Maybe.
 
Another long range outlook released today, which shows the same thing: Record high temperatures and no rain expected through early next month.

This is the driest October on record.
 
Record high temperatures (low-to-mid 80s), cools down a tick later this week before returning to historic highs.

And most everyone around here still thinks climate change is a hoax as we appear destined for a seventh consecutive hottest winter on record.
 
Just sitting in my living room last night waiting for the rain to come. It came, but it was accompanied by some pea sized hail. It was nice, but time for another 2+ weeks of no moisture. ☹️ Oh, and today is forecasted to be a record high of 88 degrees. Our average high is 69 degrees!
 
Just finished power washing the lanai and lanai screens, carport, concrete floor, ceiling, vinyl siding on one side of the house. Amazing how much dirt accumulated as a result of two hurricanes within two weeks. Tomorrow will do the concrete drive and sunroom siding. A little each day. Gonna take me five days to do the entire house, but hey!! I'm eighty-eight years old and things take a little longer plus everything is so dirty it takes awhile. The siding is encrusted with salt and black dirt. Not sure where the black comes from but we got it.
 
Just finished power washing the lanai and lanai screens, carport, concrete floor, ceiling, vinyl siding on one side of the house. Amazing how much dirt accumulated as a result of two hurricanes within two weeks. Tomorrow will do the concrete drive and sunroom siding. A little each day. Gonna take me five days to do the entire house, but hey!! I'm eighty-eight years old and things take a little longer plus everything is so dirty it takes awhile. The siding is encrusted with salt and black dirt. Not sure where the black comes from but we got it.
The dirt could have come from the many tornadoes. They were saying they had found many more tornado tracks than were originally reported. Glad your stuff is still standing.
 
My Bride showed me an article in the daily paper that stated Hurricane Milton did six times more damage in Charlotte County - Charlotte County line is two road miles from our home - than Hurricane Ian of two years ago. Ian is the one that created the greatest loss to our place while Milton did very little.
Wind forces from Milton came from a different direction than Ian making wind less of a factor to us even though we had recorded wind gusts of 100 mph and sustained winds of 75 mph with recorded wind speeds in the gulf, before landfall, of 185 mph. The most destruction was the result of the storm surge and this all occurred in an area 30 miles south of where the eye of the storm made landfall.

Seventy-nine homes were totally destroyed by wind and storm surge on Manasota Key and many of those standing had complete walls removed leaving only a roof while others were decimated completely. Several of those homes were properties handed down by generations of families and had been built to standards in use over a half century, or more, ago. Sadly, many of those people have no insurance, no money to rebuild and nowhere to go.

I suppose some might wonder why we stay here, a question we ask ourselves.
Perhaps the answer is simple to a few and crazy to others. While we were in North Carolina avoiding the angers of the storm we visited other over 55 communities and got the lay of the land. We expected our return to Englewood would result finding our home a shell, or possibly, nothing remaining at all other than a debris filled lot complete with fallen oak trees. Quite a picture in our imagination. Then receiving a call from a friend telling us we pretty much escaped unscathed considering all the dire reports of damage to Manasota Key. A barrier about a mile from us as the crow flies

The first day of our return, as we were enjoying a cup of coffee together, we looked across the table at each other and both felt and expressed our thought; this is our home, We like it here and we like the community. Besides, if we were going to leave it would be because of Florida politics and as of now, not the weather. I suppose it explains why so many in North Carolina who are dealing with the destruction wrought on them by Mother Nature have indicated they would rebuild or somehow figure out a way to stay. In Florida the revised building codes post Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and Hurricane Ian in 2022 have made it impossible for people who had no insurance to rebuild unless they are financially secure to begin with.

In no way am I trying to compare the damage inflicted on our area to the terrible destruction in western North Carolina. While it was the same storm it attacked in a different way and both areas were the victims of the massive force of water.
 
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I'm stunned we're not in a drought in Coastal NC. One of the meteorologists said this is the longest stretch without rain ever recorded in this area and the long term trends hold with record heat and record dry conditions.

Good news for the folks in Western NC though.
 
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