The Long Island Blog

Winter on Long Island is off to a slow start. We’ve had inconsistent temperatures and too many warm days for me to even begin to take Old Man Winter seriously. With temperatures above freezing and rain in the forecast what he threw at us yesterday will be gone by tomorrow night, and everything will look like you know what again.

Meteorologists say La Niña and the Atlantic and Arctic Oscillations are responsible for the weather we’re experience this winter. In a nutshell…

Colder Pacific Ocean temperatures caused by La Niña result in less moisture in the air. The Atlantic Oscillations and Arctic Oscillations are in a phase that allows that dry air to flow easily over the country to the east. Less moisture in the air means less snow. With less snow on the ground to reflect solar radiation winter temperatures rise.

I had to work yesterday so I couldn’t enjoy the snow while it was falling, but I did manage to snap a few pictures on the way in. The roads were so slippery that I couldn’t go past 30mph without feeling the car slip–and that’s with snow tires.

The roads were VERY slippery.

Everything looks so good covered in snow.

Driving conditions were really bad at the end of this ramp.

Snow plows to the rescue!

Just a quick post with some pictures from the annual Halloween boat burning at the Long Island Maritime Museum.

Live music all night long.

The burning boat is spectacular and keeps everyone warm.

This was a 40' sport fisherman.

Huge clouds of smoke filled the air.

Good food from the truck, and trinkets for sale under the gazebo.

A handsome rowing skiff is the raffle prize.

Kathleen Prokesch, director of special events, announces the lucky raffle winner.

Sunday was a great day on Long Island. Beautiful weather assured success for many of the festivals scheduled and many Long Islanders, including myself, managed to get out of the house to enjoy what was probably the last warm day of the year. And at 85 degrees, it was record breaking warm.

My choice for the day was the Snapper Inn, one of my favorite restaurants. It’s on the water, it’s very close to where I live, and it’s real good.

After enjoying that one last, hot, summery day, I feel like I am finally ready to embrace Fall.

I really did, at the Long Island Maritime Museum’s annual seafood festival.

Blue Island Shellfish Farms was a sponsor and they served up Naked Cowboy Oysters all day long for only 1$ each.

The festival was great fun and I actually got to meet the Naked Cowboy (or one of his clones). Click the link above or image below for the full story and pictures.

I took a book down to the Sayville Beach yesterday afternoon to relax a little before starting the grind on Monday morning. I don’t know what it was about yesterday, but it seemed like everyone had the same idea. Maybe we’re all trying to enjoy the last licks of summer before fall starts on Friday.

Lots of folks on the beach enjoying the late afternoon sun. Behind them is a sailboat and the Robert Moses Bridge.

A look through the zoom lens reveals the Robert Moses Bridge like a giant eye watching over the little boat as it blows around the Great South Bay.

Back in February I went  ice fishing on Lake Bemidji, Minnesota. The weekend included a live performance of A Prairie Home Companion and a walleye dinner.

Don’t ask me why I was inspired to write about it now, I couldn’t tell you, but here’s the story, my adventures ice fishing on Lake Bemidji.

It all starts with a hole in the ice.

I haven’t thought much about the disaster that struck New York City 10 years ago. Not that I’ve forgotten, I never will, but there is enough pain and discomfort associated with those memories to make one want to avoid them. I can’t even watch the footage that they’ve been playing way too often on television this past week.

Everyone who lives on Long Island either lost someone or knows someone who lost someone on that day. September 11^th is as much a Long Island tragedy as it is a New York City tragedy and a national tragedy.

Just a short note then to acknowledge and remember the victims and their families, the police, firemen, and all other rescuers and volunteers on the scene that day and the days and weeks after. You will not be forgotten and you have the gratitude of everyone in this great country.

If you’re riding the ferry today please take note of the new schedules. They can be found  here: Fire Island Ferry.

I stopped by Flo’s yesterday for an early dinner and was pleasantly surprised to see that they’ve added a small bar.

The original intent was eat & run, but we ended up staying for about 4 hours. That’s the power of good food and good service…

Continue reading the full review of Flo’s Famous Luncheonette.

What’s good about hurricane Irene? I can’t think of anything good, at least anything good enough to make up for the bad and the ugly side of hurricanes. But there is at least some good and I’ll get to that later, but first the ugly and the bad.

The Ugly… People were killed by this storm. It doesn’t get any uglier than that. When I was a kid I’d look forward to hurricanes, blizzards, hailstorms, all sorts of bad weather. It was exciting and I had no real understanding of the consequences. As an adult I still enjoy a good storm, but now I understand what the word storm really means.

The Bad… The economic damage caused by hurricane Irene is enormous. A lot of people are still without power this morning and have thrown away everything in their refrigerators and freezers. Aside from the cost of physical damage there is an almost immeasurable amount of business lost due to damage, loss of inventory, no electrical power, or lost productivity.

According to an article in Newsday it looks as though the majority of Long Island tourism businesses in wine country, Fire Island, and Montauk Point will be in good shape for Labor Day weekend, but will not recover the losses incurred last weekend. Greenport was one of the first areas to have power restored, so I expect that businesses there will be in very good shape.

The Good… Well aside from neighbor helping neighbor which we see plenty of during disasters like Irene, I discovered one benefit of not having electricity. This is something that very few people would appreciate, but to a geek like me it was pretty cool.

No electricity means no lights and no light pollution. The sky was dark. Dark enough to see the Milky Way.

Unless you live on the east end where the sky is a lot darker than is it here in western Suffolk, this is a rare sight. Maybe it’s hard to appreciate a dark sky when everything in your refrigerator is going bad, but there is an old saying about making lemonade–and it really is a good way to deal with bad things. I wish more folks would look up. Even when we do have electricity and the sky is lit bright by the torches of civilization there is still plenty to see.

Here’s a picture of the Big Dipper hanging low in the north western sky that I took in the dark on Sunday night:

Keep looking up…