jculligan

Very concerned about the icing potential from Bartlett into Jackson and Conway east to Maine tomorrow morning. Looks like a pretty good slug of QPF early in the day (0.50"+) when temps are almost certain to be below freezing at elevations lower than 1500 feet. With a few very cold days leading up to the event, it looks like a prime setup for freezing rain with efficient ice accrual. Some of the QPF will likely run off, but I would imagine 1/4" of ice isn't out of the question in the notorious cold pockets.

Wind potential tomorrow night looks fun too. I'm sure it'll be roaring up at my cabin, but I won't be returning north until Sunday morning...so I get to miss all of this. Hopefully the mild air can work its way into the valley before the wind kicks up.

Another half inch of pure fluff overnight, so I'm calling it a 2.8" total here. 16 degrees with big fluffy flakes slowly floating down at the moment. Pure winter.

2.5" final in Jackson NH

2.5” on the nose here. Beautiful night with fresh snow, light winds, and a temp of 19F. 

25 minutes ago, alex said:

I’ve never seen more freezing rain in my life than when I lived in Bartlett. It happened for almost every cutter 

The cold air damming in that location is astonishing. While most populated areas in New Hampshire went into today's event with bare ground...there was still an inch or two of old snow on the ground in the Jackson, North Conway, Glen and Bartlett area since the low levels never quite mixed out in that location Monday night. If they went above freezing at all, it was only for a couple hours. Prior to today's event, it was weird driving from my place at 1500' which was completely bare down into the valley which remained white. I anticipate a similar situation this coming weekend.

Measured 2.2" at 4pm today and we haven't had much accumulation since, but it appears we are getting another burst now. Both the NAM and the Euro seem to indicate a more substantial burst beginning around 10pm tonight, so perhaps we can even approach 3" by the time all is said and done.

Looking ahead to the next event; starting to think there is potential for a significant glazing from the Mount Washington Valley east to tamarack's neighborhood Saturday morning. The raw freezing rain output on both the Euro and the Canadian are suggesting pockets of 0.50"+ which is usually overdone, but it looks like a nasty icy morning either way. I'll be down in Massachusetts tomorrow through Saturday, so I'll be fortunate to miss out on that...

2.2" in Jackson NH. 20/16 with -SN continuing.

I thought this event was essentially done, and we even had some dim sunlight peeking through about 45 minutes ago...but suddenly we are getting the best snow of the day right now. Perhaps we can eek our way to 2" after all.

1.2" so far in Jackson NH. 22/19 with light snow currently.

Just shy of 1" here in Jackson as of noon. We had about an hour of decent flake size from 9:30 to 10:30 but otherwise it's been very fine almost "snizzly" type snow. Definitely our coldest day of the season so far at 21F.

8 minutes ago, alex said:

Pretty pathetic to have such lack of snowcover in NNE in December, but I would take it in a heart beat if we could trade it with a good pattern for the holidays. Interestingly this stuff used to stress me out to no end. Now that I know how long winter really is up here though, it seems ok. Even in a crap pattern we see more snow than most others do on a good year. Only thing that truly sucks is the delayed opening of the glades. But we wait…

Agreed on all counts. Last year I had a 6"+ snowcover from 12/5 through 12/23 only to see it all go in the obnoxious Christmas Eve cutter. That left us with bare ground for the entire stretch between Christmas and New Year's. I'd rather have the snowcover during the actual holiday stretch.

Light snow started here maybe 20 minutes ago. A dusting down so far. Anything more than 1.5" and this will be my biggest snowfall of the season so far. Bar has been set pretty low lol.

Drove through squalls on my way up to skin an early lap at Wildcat this morning. Not much accumulation but Route 16 was definitely dicey and visibility was not good. In typical Wildcat fashion, the new snow pretty much blew off the trails exposing the boilerplate conditions underneath. Much different from the soft edgeable conditions at Bretton Woods yesterday lol.

Only a dusting here in Jackson, and it's currently 28F with mostly sunny skies. Tomorrow's event still looks like a general 1-3" type deal on most models. The pattern of nickels and dimes continues, at least for now.

31 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

The 18z EURO looked like a fun little event for our NH/ME crew... Gene-Dendy to Alex-Phin to Dryslot triangle?  Tamarack to Culligan foothills?

But that inverted trough QPF right on the coastline is interesting too... those IVT are like lottery tickets, but it's been there on the models and who knows, maybe someone around the coast or immediately inland gets into something more significant?

It would be consistent with our "inch every other day" pattern. I still had a solid snowcover at sunset this evening, but the last 5 hours have completely wiped the slate clean. Hopefully Wednesday's event pans out.

Sounds like quite a wind event in favored downslope areas today. Phin already mentioned gusts to near 60 mph in his area, and a friend of mine reported "lots of downed trees" on his drive from Bethlehem to Lancaster NH this afternoon. Bretton Woods wasn't operating their gondola, which is very rare. Fortunately I went there to do some uphill.

Wild temperature ranges across the White Mountains right now. I made the trek over to Bretton Woods this afternoon around 1pm and it was 36 when I left Jackson, dipped to 34 as I entered Crawford Notch then shot up to 46 when I arrived at Bretton Woods. An hour later it was up to 53 at Bretton Woods, but still 34 in Bartlett and 36 in the village of Jackson. Climbing the hill back to my place, the temperature shot up to 46.

I'm not sure how accurate this PWS is near Randolph Hill, but it logged a high temperature of 65 this afternoon with a peak wind gust of 65 mph:

https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KNHRANDO11

11 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

Up to 44 with bits of sun breaking through. LOL

Basically zero liquid precip here so far.

Still holding at 33 with steady light rain here. Glazing is done and dripping has commenced. I love how the notches become mesoscale weather boundaries on these types of days. The southerly flow is a bit stronger today compared to last Thursday, when we never really mixed out...so it'll be interesting to see if/when we bust into the warmer air today.

Even though today is a bit of a bummer, I can't really complain about the frequency of snow events in this pattern. I have received 1"+ of snow every other day since last Thursday (1.0" Thursday, 1.5" Saturday, 1.0" today) and it looks like both the GFS and the Euro have arrived at a consensus on events both Wednesday and Friday of this week as well. No, we aren't exactly getting any synoptic bombs...but for those of us that depend almost entirely on synoptic scale events, it's not often we get a refresher every other day! We might be waiting a while for the first 6"+ but I'll take this for now.

1" of new snow and a pretty decent glazing out there right now. 32 degrees with freezing drizzle.

28 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

I was wondering about your area.  Radar seemed to show the core of the squalls skirting west then south of the Presidentials.  Some 30dbz cores in there seemed to track from Crawford Notch towards you.  Looked like another pretty strong area lifted through northern Coos and into adjacent Maine.  Not sure where Sunday River is exactly but figured it had to be in that neighborhood for the northern squall.

I was wondering how that played out just south of the Presis.

Ended up with 1.5” here. I was expecting a dusting, so this is a nice surprise! I’m headed to Sunday River tomorrow so I’m hoping they caught this as well.

Snow started here in Jackson around 5pm and we've picked up an inch of fluff so far. Still coming down at a decent clip. Expectations were very low, so I'm quite pleased!

Yesterday's CAD allowed us to survive with almost no snow loss, so yesterday morning's 1" snowfall remains on the ground. The wind is something fierce this morning. Rooftop anemometers in a location as heavily wooded as mine are never accurate, but this morning's peak gust of 43 mph is actually higher than what I measured during the severe March wind storm which left me in the dark for two days. Since my anemometer isn't at the standard height, and I am surrounded by woods...I would estimate the wind gusts are substantially higher than what has actually been measured.

Currently 28F with a combination of sun and constant flurries.

1 minute ago, PhineasC said:

Nice!

Let's hope for some more synoptic events. I know upslope doesn't really work over there.

Yeah, when I moved to this location I thought my elevation might help a little bit...but upslope is essentially absent here. Being in the immediate shadow of a range of 5000-6000' peaks with a southwest-northeast orientation pretty much squelches any opportunity. Last weekend was a tough pill to swallow as we were too warm for the synoptic portion of the event, then when temps finally tanked the event transitioned to purely upslope. We didn't even get a dusting last weekend.

Looks like Saturday is our next shot for at least a coating of snow, then the middle of next week probably holds the best potential in the near future. It's been tough to put too much stock in the models outside of 3-4 days so far this season, but the event next Wednesday has been pretty consistently flagged as a legitimate storm threat for at least a few days now.

First inch of snow this season at 1500' in Jackson! That's three days earlier than our first inch last year (12/5). Interestingly enough, my friend in North Conway is also reporting 1" of new snow this morning...which is 15 days earlier than the first inch in the valley last year! The Mount Washington Valley was really hosed last season with the first inch occurring on 12/17.

Looks like several more opportunities in the week ahead. Fingers crossed!

Looks like some heavy squalls have been rolling through the White Mountains this afternoon. The remote site at Hermit Lake (3900') on Mount Washington is now reporting a snow depth of 8" which is an increase of 3" since just noon today. 

I'm visiting the gf down in Boston, but my landlord texted me some pics from the cabin in Jackson this morning. Looks like about a quarter inch on the grass up there. Enough to go down as the first accumulation of the season there.

Happy to see all of the AMC huts are reporting snow depth once again this season! Looks like 5" OTG at Hermit Lake and 6" OTG at Zealand Falls, both of which should get a couple/few inches out of tonight's upslope event. Perhaps the start of the White Mountain snowpack at elevations above 3k?