Taught science/technology NC public schools 20 yrs, Interests:photography, weather, nature, Irish heritage, my schnoodle dogs, Christmas Trees/farming.🇮🇪🎄
Joined April 2009
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It’s actually a pretty comfortable morning in the mountains with temperatures that dipped into the upper 50’s early this morning. It has stayed dry so far this weekend in Valle Crucis since that brief shower we had Friday evening. #ncwx
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I see a break from the heat!
Temperatures and humidity should temporarily drop early next week behind a cold front.
It doesn't look like much, but temps in the 80s and dew points in the 50s should feel like heaven compared to the 97° high we posted yesterday. #NCwx
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Jun 11
Drought Monitor: D4 Exceptional Drought returns — now in the Triangle. Alamance, Durham, Granville, Orange hit highest classification. D3 holds at 37 counties. High Country unchanged. All 100 NC counties still in drought.
wataugaonline.com/drought-mo… #NCwx #HighCountry #DroughtMonitor #Boone #WataugaCounty
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A drama queen snake lol 🤪
The scary snake in your yard is putting on an act, and that's all it is.
The eastern hognose puts on a whole one-snake horror show. Step near it and it flattens its neck into a cobra hood, hisses, rears up, and strikes at you. Usually the strikes are bluffs, and many come with the mouth closed.
If the cobra act fails, it switches tactics. It flips onto its back, gapes its mouth open, lets its tongue flop out, smears itself in musk and poop, and plays dead. Flip it right side up and it often indignantly rolls back over.
And the punchline: it's harmless to people. A specialist on toads and frogs, it also takes salamanders, lizards, and the occasional mouse. The worst it's likely to do is give you a minor bite.
Hognose snakes are drama queens, but they're a valuable part of the ecosystem. Ignore the performance and let the actor exit stage left.
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Yesterday was our hottest day of 2026 too here in Valle Crucis with a high of 87. It was a beautiful looking day and we barely had a .01” of rain late evening.
Jun 13
Greensboro hit 97°F yesterday afternoon—the hottest day of 2026 so far, and the hottest we've been since July 2024! #NCwx
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Stormy
Jun 13
🌩️ Virginia got rocked by some FEISTY storms today! While things are calming down tonight, the risk returns to the Northeast on Sunday, where we could see more feisty storms.
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Jun 13
Groundhogs get a bad name
You think of the groundhog as the thing wrecking your garden, but much of your local wildlife depends on them.
A groundhog digs burrows that run up to 40 feet of tunnel with multiple rooms, and when it moves out, half the local wildlife moves in.
Foxes raise their pups in old groundhog dens. Rabbits, skunks, opossums, weasels, chipmunks, and snakes all shelter in them. One Wisconsin study found 20 different species using woodchuck burrows.
And all that digging churns and aerates a huge amount of soil, pulling subsoil up, mixing in nutrients, and opening the ground so rain soaks in instead of running off. It does for nothing what gardeners pay a tiller to do.
It might eat your lettuce, but it also built the den your fox family lives in. Let the groundhogs do their thing.
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Storm damage in Mount Airy. Looks like a microburst hit the area right around 7pm on the south side of town.
This is Hwy 52 by 601.
Video: Hanna Smeltzer
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Jun 13
It was a warm day today! Both Raleigh and Fayetteville broke daily record highs set back in 1914. #NCwx
ALT KFAY hit 101 degrees last set in 1914.
ALT KRDU hot 103 degrees last set in 1914.
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Jun 13
Beautiful sunset tonight in Valle Crucis. We had a brief shower that didn’t really affect the VC music in the park 👏. The Jeff Little Trio put on a great show. #ncwx
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Jun 12
Today was the hottest day of 2026 at my weather station in Valle Crucis, NC. High today was 87. Never did see any cooling showers and nothing nearby on the radar at the moment. Closest radar returns are over by Johnson City, TN. #ncwx
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John Downs❄️❎ retweeted
You can pick up a baby bird and put it back in the nest. The parents won't smell your hands and abandon it. Songbirds barely smell anything, and that old "the mother will reject it" line is one of the most worst wildlife myths going.
If you find a naked or barely feathered chick on the ground, it fell early and needs to go back. Find the nest, set it back in, walk away. The parents will come back.
Call a licensed wildlife rehabber if you can't find the nest, the bird's bleeding or cold, or a cat got it. Don't feed it yourself. Find one through your state wildlife agency.
If it's fully feathered and hopping around, that's a fledgling, and it's supposed to be there. Mom and dad are watching from a branch and feeding it on a schedule. You can leave it be.
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John Downs❄️❎ retweeted
That mirrored gazing ball in your garden might have a bird wearing itself ragged against an enemy that doesn't exist.
Male cardinals, robins, mockingbirds, and towhees defend their territory hard, wired to drive off any rival male they see. A reflective ornament hands them one that never backs down.
The bird sees itself in the curved glass, reads it as an intruder sitting in the middle of its nesting territory, and attacks. It can go for hours a day, for weeks, right when it should be feeding a mate and raising chicks. All of it burns energy the family needs, against a rival that never leaves.
Smaller birds can also collide with the sky reflected on a large mirrored surface, the same way they hit windows.
You don't have to toss it. Move it where birds don't patrol, tuck it low in dense foliage so it doesn't read as open sky, or bring it in through the spring breeding season and set it back out after.
The bird thinks it's protecting its family. It's exhausting itself against a threat that's only ever its own reflection.
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💯💯💯
Jun 12
The 90s are very normal here, with an average of 44 per year. 95° not as much, but we usually get a week's work or so. 100° air temperatures are rarer than snow in #Charlotte, which is shocking to many. We average about 1 per year, but in many years we have none, which is why last year's 4 was crazy high. Now, 100° heat indices are very common. #cltwx #ncwx #scwx #wcnc
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John Downs❄️❎ retweeted
Jun 12
The 1pm observation at RDU was 100 degrees, breaking the daily record high of 98 degrees set in 2002. Since then, the temperature has risen to 102 degrees. A preliminary climate report will be issued between 4:30 and 5pm.
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John Downs❄️❎ retweeted
A family of barn owls eats around 1,000 rodents a year, some studies say up to 3,000. When we put out rodent poison, the owls eat the poisoned mice, and they die too. Without the predators, the mice come back worse. Skip the rat poison, put up an owl box.
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Jun 11
😍
Jun 11
We've got a good view of the only storm in town at the moment.
A little downpour rolling just north of downtown Winston-Salem. Heading east.
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Jun 11
👏
It may be hot in the valleys, but here at Grandfather, guests are enjoying a cooler spring-into-summer season.
Did you know that temperatures here are usually 10-15 degrees cooler than the foothills below?
Book your trip at grandfather.com/tickets.
📸: Will Sales Photography
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Jun 11
Heading to Winston this afternoon for a quick trip— I dread it.
Jun 11
VERY HOT for our Thursday.
Low 90s in the Triad this afternoon, likely feeling like the upper 90s.
Take care and stay cool the next few days! Friday is looking even hotter...
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