Endless Summer

[dryflyguy]

Fall is one of my favorite times to be on the water.
In my experience, usually starting around mid september, air temps start to cool down. Dropping the water temps, and perking up the fishing again.

That certainly hasn't been the case so far this year though.
Air temps have stayed for the most part, uncomfortably warm and humid.
And the fishing on my usual haunts hasn't been very good at all.

I haven't seen a good BWO or slate drake hatch yet.
Most of my hookups have been on terrestrials.

The worst part though, has been the mosquitoes - especially along the Little Juniata
I really can't recall them ever being so bad, this late in the year.
I've taken to wearing a head net the last few weeks.

I'm guessing that the late summer high water events, left a lot of standing water along the streams. And giving ideal conditions for their reproduction.

Wondering how the rest of yinz are doing out there

 

[Acristickid]

Certainly warm. Ready for cool, rainy and overcast.

My gripe is it will go from high’s of 77 to highs of 59 in like a weeks time. I would enjoy a few weeks of highs of 65-70 but probably just go from hot to cold.

Anecdotally, seems to me that there is at least one full month of warmer weather than there used to be when I was a kid 45 years ago.

 

[Mike]

Acristickid…temps are changing. From a fishing standpoint, I have noticed it most with ice fishing in Berks Co…for consistency of observational times and location over a lifetime. We used to get on the ice most frequently between Christmas and New Years. It was a rare event to not have fishable ice on New Years Day. No longer the case.

Leaf color change: October 12 used to be about the peak of color in Central Berks Co. For at least a couple decades it has been at least a week later. Oct 12 was my sister’s birth date in 1954 and my father said that her birth date was easy to remember because it was always the peak of fall coloration while he said that mine was the peak of the spring warbler migration. It was nice to come from a family that “told time” through natural events. Now that clock is really fouled up.

 

[dryflyguy]

I also think that the leaves are changing later than they used to.

On a side note to that:
The lilacs in my yard are in full bloom. They started a few weeks ago.
I've lived n my house for 43 years now. And can't recall ever seeing that before.
They've always bloomed in spring.

 

[salmonoid]

I noticed one of my apple trees had new blossoms on it - this past Saturday. If we can get another four more months of warm, I may get a second crop.

 

[drakeking412]

one thing i have recently noticed in multiple western pa areas is that many leaves are not going through the color change and are just turning brown and dying off. kinda lame. i did take a nice ride around the mountains in somerset saturday though and it was really pretty

 

[McSneek]

Dryflyguy - I echo your thoughts that fishing seems off this fall. I was on Penns last Friday. Water levels looked perfect for May. Not complaining after how low it was a year ago but it didn’t seem to help the fishing. Managed a couple that were taking sporadic caddis and a couple small ones on a walts worm. Really disappointing. My few trips on a local stream with wild fish have been disappointing too. The numbers of fish don’t seem to be there which has me concerned. Still need the bug spray too.

Conditions will finally change to consistent fall temperatures this weekend it looks like.

 

[tomgamber]

salmonoid wrote:
I noticed one of my apple trees had new blossoms on it - this past Saturday. If we can get another four more months of warm, I may get a second crop.

I HAVE ONE APPLE TREE THAT WE HAVE NEVER GOTTEN MORE THAN A DOZEN APPLES ON BEFORE THIS YEAR. WE GOT A TON THIS YEAR. WE EVEN HAD SOME 80 Y/O GUY STOP BY AND ASK TO PICK SOME ONE SATURDAY MORNING. THEN LEFT HIS PICKING POLE BEHIND FOR US. WE HAVE LOTS OF APPLESAUCE AND APPLE BUTTER THIS YEAR.

 

[JasonC]

Let's not kid ourselves, we have surpassed the tipping point where climate change can be halted and reversed. Also keep in mind pole reversal and the role that has on climate conditions and remember that is a naturally occurring process that is not affected by anything we can do or did. I feel terrible for my children and what they might experience in their lifetimes.

 

[JeffK]

Ida seemed to have knocked the bugs out in the Lehigh Valley in my experience. The fish are still there, but tricos vanished after Ida (went into November last year) and except for an occasion midge or microcaddis I haven't seen much to bring fish to the surface. Some sections of streams changed by the huge flood for better or worse. Silt cleared in some areas, but then dumped in others. More erosion down to bedrock.

BTW, my daffodils are coming up. Warm weather is having odd effects.

 

[rrt]

Unlike some, I had a fine September of fishing. However, it has not continued into October. I look for afternoon dry-fly fishing in Oct., and it has been poorer than mediocre. I didn't even think about it today. After coming home from the dentist, I washed/waxed my 1-yr-old Ranger, my fishing truck. I am now sitting out the rest of the afternoon with a book after I am done looking at paflyfish. It's supposed to cool to normal temps next week: Maybe that will get things going?

 

[rrt]

Actually, it's an 11 (eleven) year old Ranger. I don't know who can afford the new ones.

 

[dryflyguy]

Finally getting some fall weather now.
Supposed to stay cool for the next few days, then warm back up again.

Although yesterdays rain raised most stream levels - and supposed to be quite windy.
Maybe it will blow some of those mosquitoes away.

Another odd thing I found along the Little J recently - wild strawberries ready to eat.
They were delicious. But I seem to recall only finding them around in June.
Makes me wonder what these normally spring blooming plants are gonna do next spring.......

 

[CRB]

We have to stop talking about the weather in 2-3 weeks first snow will be falling. :-x
Up to this past week it has been bonus. :-D
Now lets talk snow blowers. :idea:
int:

 

[wgmiller]

It seems as though the "transition" seasons (fall and spring) are getting shorter and shorter. We'll go from warm weather to cold on a moment's notice it seems, and vice versa. Much like many of you, I enjoy the cool, crisp weather that fall generally brings, but that certainly hasn't been the case in many parts of the state this year. I guess I'll just break out my cold weather gear for when we go from the 70s to the 30s at the flip of a switch!

 

[pcray1231]

Statistically, here in PA, our average temperatures have not changed much yet. Nor have winters gotten worse, etc. We're at the mercy of our mental expectations.

- We anticipate fall and expect it to get colder on cue. We anticipate spring and expect it to get warmer on cue. Both end up coming later than we expect usually.

- We see the "average" high is 65 or whatever, and expect a lot of days like that. That's not how it happens or ever has. The jet stream. If above it it's warm, if below it it's cold. And it's a step function of 20-30 degrees with sharp gradients. If you see the average is say, 65. It's rarely actually 65. It's a day of 50 then a day of 80. As fall wheres on the 50's become more common.

And that's when you're flirting with the southern jet. When those jets slide south enough that you're flirting with the northern jet stream, then the swings are between 30 and 50.

 

[troutbert]

pcray1231 wrote:
Statistically, here in PA, our average temperatures have not changed much yet.

Let's see those statistics.

 

[afishinado]

troutbert wrote:

pcray1231 wrote:
Statistically, here in PA, our average temperatures have not changed much yet.

Let's see those statistics.

Here are some stats and articles on temperature changes I found >

https://www.inquirer.com/science/climate/fall-2021-weather-climate-change-philadelphia-20210918.html

https://www.geo.umass.edu/climate/stateClimateReports/PA_ClimateReport_CSRC.pdf

https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-09/documents/climate-change-pa.pdf

 

[UncleShorty]

Don't believe the climate has warmed?

Ask a PA ice fisherman... if you can still find one...

 

[pcray1231]

Just historical records, SE PA has warmed, especially Philly, although Philly itself is largely a heat island effect based on the location of NOAA's gauges, as it is anomalous compared to the surrounding area (Chester County has cooled, for instance), and as such would generally not be used in a proper model.

NC/NW PA has been about/slightly below average in the last 30-50 years or so, although still higher than the mid 1900's. There was a jump around 1970, but kind of stable before and after. That's just mean temperature, I'm not breaking it down by winter, summer, coldest streaks or hottest streaks. If you want to do that it looks like summers have been cooler and winters warmer, but drawing any conclusions on a specific spot is tentative at best.

That's not making any prediction whatsoever for the future, there are models that say any number of things. And yes, the earth has warmed and will continue to do so, I'm not a climate denier, in fact I was a climate researcher and statistician in a past life for NOAA. i.e. making sense of the data that's used in those models.

It's real difficult to discern ANY state/local effects, it's just noisy. There's one gauge in a county sized area, and if someone builds a parking lot next to it or a tree grows taller nearby, it skews the numbers a ton! The way you verify a small signal in a noisy system is simply gather a ton of data in multiple ways, and average it out. We have a ton of data. It can be conclusively said that on a global scale, the earth is warming. More likely than not PA will warm as well, because, more places will warm than cool.

And better evidence than any land based temperature gauge is sea surface temperatures measured by satellite. It isn't skewed by human land use changes around gauges. The sea is warming. Polar ice extent is another. It's diminishing. Sea level rise. It's rising. These are the best indicators of GLOBAL warming and measurement of how much. Yes, the average of the land based gauges tells the same overall story if you average out every station in every location, but it's SUPER common that on land based gauges to get one that's warming super fast and another 20 miles away that shows cooling. And how do you reconcile a 100 year temperature trend of an area when there were 3 reporting stations in that area in 1921 and there are 75 today, with each of them telling you something totally different? You can't.

I am not a climate change denier. Just a statistician. And the stats say don't draw conclusions based on one gauge or trend on a local level, because the signal to noise ratio sucks. Trust less noisy systems like the ocean. Or if using a noisy system, take an average of lot of locations and draw an overall conclusion rather than one for your one location.