Layman

Over the past weekend I ended up north or Concord, NH and also down into eastern CT. Even though it was gray and rainy most of the time, it looked like normal Fall throughout with nice colors everywhere. It's still a little drab around my property and always feels "late" for some reason, but based on past pictures I have it seems to be right on schedule.

FTA: "I may have cut too far..." "A few days later, state officials performed a site inspection and found that Tremonte had cut 839 trees on state land. " That is some serious commitment to creating glades!

I remember thinking that at least the wind component was unexpected. Either I was too distracted at the time to pay attention to what the weather was going to be or it simply wasn't broadcast as being as potent as it ended up being. While I don't like the high winds and potential damage, that is the part of weather that remains intriguing to me - regardless of what's forecast, it can change up and deliver something unexpected.

I thought this was an October event, but I'm not so sure...Maybe some of you will know when this hit: Highly confident it was 2010. Thought it was October but when searching it looks like it could've been February 25-26, 2010. Some storm rolled through this area and I was awake for the strongest, longest and loudest wind I have ever experienced. Fully convinced the roof was coming off my house. I know there's an affinity for some here that enjoy, encourage and wish for damage but that's no beuno for me, especially after experiencing this particular event. I was laying in bed, don't recall the time, but the wind was absolutely howling outside. A constant buffeting with house shaking gusts. We built only 5 years prior so we weren't dealing with an old New England farmhouse rattling around or anything like that. Regardless the house was taking a beating. At some point I heard a big gust coming. It started off like a typical strong wind does when you can hear it, it builds, then peaks and relaxes. This one built, and built and continued building, shaking the whole house until it seemed to me the roof was shaking. I was 100% expecting to see it lift up and fly away and be staring at the sky like in a movie. It seemed like forever that the wind kept blowing and it finally subsided. Power was already out at that point but I found out the next day how bad it was. Somewhere afterwards I saw that a 90mph gust was recorded either at Pease Tradeport or Adams Point. That gust tore across Great Bay and passed within a short distance from my house. The trees are still all uprooted in it's path and you can see them from the road where they were simply cut at the edge of the road where they lay. Took down power lines and poles along my whole road. Six full days without power. No access out of the road until late in the afternoon the day after. I remember it being cold but don't really recall snow. I thought this happened in October but maybe it was February? I joined some neighbors with an army of chainsaws to try and cut a path out of the road. We did what we could on our end but there was a massive pine that came down that no residents had the equipment to deal with. Not really sure how other states faired during this storm because we were focused on getting power back and didn't really hear much outside news. Anyone know for sure when this might've been? October, February or ???

33.3

The entirety of my weather memories are fragmented. That's one of the reasons I like reading the threads here - so many of you have clear data or recollections of specific storms, months, winters, etc. Unless I've got pictures or something major happened, it's tough for me to put a date on it. I've seen a lot of mentions of the deep cold and snow drought of the 1980's. My biggest memories are that Thanksgiving where we had deep, plowable snow and multiple years from 1986-1988 where I would go snowboarding at Pat's Peak on the Blue Eastern Hardpack (ice!). Pat's Peak was one of the only resorts allowing snowboarding at the time and my Burton Woody Performer struggled to perform in those conditions! Back at home I remember having lots of months with no snow to speak of and the bitter cold.

I recall one Thanksgiving in the 80's where it felt like deep winter - must've been 1986. Being young enough at the time to still be impressionable, that time period unfortunately programmed me to believe for far too long that we should have serious snowstorms throughout November.

You (and others?) may find this data interesting: Localized New England power generation by source. It gets even more granular than this, but the data provided encompasses the top level categories: https://www.iso-ne.com/about/key-stats/resource-mix Photovoltaic comprises 3% of total generation. To meaningfully affect the residential rate, you're going to need hundreds of millions of dollars in rebates, not also subsidized by the federal government to have an impact. For example, a project in NH that I had some familiarity with that cost approximately $130 million added somewhere around $0.005 per MWh to the residential electric rate. While the electric companies are considered private, between the FERC, ISO's, PUC's, etc they are so embedded in government and regulation they may as well be wholly controlled by the government. A very recent IEA paper looking at the logistics of transitioning to a renewable based electric grid in the coming 2-3 decades: https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/70f2de45-6d84-4e07-bfd0-93833e205c81/ElectricityGridsandSecureEnergyTransitions.pdf An interesting takeaway was that to reach current stated goals by 2050, about 50 million miles of the electric grid would need to be refurbished and added to. This amount is equal to the entire existing global grid. Anyway, it's a lot of data on a topic you seem passionate about and you may find useful/interesting. How about that Northern New England snow?! It's coming...

It's a little known fact that some of the deepest and darkest shades of blue and red we know today were created in November 1879.

Do the squirrels consumption of acorns affect total expected snowfall? i.e.: 5" of acorns left un-vaccumed on the lawn, minus 2" of acorns due to aggressive squirrel consumption, equals less snow IMBY?

Will the Balsams project ever get finished? I've been following along for a few years and would love to see it reopen but it's tough to say if it'll come to pass. The planned phases seem too big from my perspective. If it was chopped up further, requiring less financing up front, they could potentially scale into the full project over a longer period of time rather than trying to lock it all in at once.

Leaf/color status from here on 10/13. The colors are a little more vibrant in the sun when viewed directly - the camera seems to dull it a bit. This area is mostly pine, birch and maple. Still lots of leaves and green out there.

Looking forward to the first frost to tamp down all the bugs. They're coming out in full force now which feels backwards for this time of year. Problem is, when that first frost hits, the ladybugs begin their home infiltration for winter.

Bright, sunny, warm and the lawn is still lush. Looking like a good day for a mow out this way.

The last 3 years here have been warm and rainy and whenever we did have snow, regardless of how cold it got, there was ice and rain mixed in. Not really a fan of the La Nina precip types.

Thanks. Was last year considered a weak Nino year? I seem to recall it may have been or at least a transitioning year. Those storms that tracked west along the NY/VT border weren't fun to clean up out this way. Snow, ice and rain at 28 degrees made for some sloppy conditions in the driveway. Does a moderate Nino winter promote Nor'easter type storms or more northern tier storms? Are there tools or metrics to assess the "strength" of the potential El Nino this winter? Curious if there are ways to compare to 2015 or if it's a fools errand at this lead time.

Are there any specific bullet points for what typically happens, or at least can happen in Nino winters?

What's a "mega ski pass"? Something valid at numerous locations across the country? I've been out of the game for some time...

37.0 for the low this morning. Colors changing now but still plenty of green. A couple mows still left in the season and then the mid-November leaf mulching before the switchover to blower and plow. Absolutely not complaints about these temps but it still feels a little too warm for stacking the firewood.

Does this have a known effect on New England weather in the fall/winter? If so, how?

Lots of green still in my area. Feels late, but as we look through pics from prior years it seems to be right on schedule. Pic taken just now. This ancient oak is always the last to leaf out.

Thanks for the link - that's neat to see. The 1993 to 2001ish time frame is when I spent a lot of time trying to get on the slopes (the pre-kid/family years!). Those first week of October opening dates are what really stand out to me. We'd still be getting decent weather and temps on the Seacoast but you could sneak off to get some early runs in to build up the anticipation for the season to come. I'm trying to recall how we'd get updates for openings and conditions back then in the early internet days. Something makes me think there was a number we'd call to get a recorded message each morning. It was about a 2.5hr ride for us to Killington so we definitely wanted to ensure we had good data on what the conditions were. Gas was cheap, time was plentiful and priorities were properly adjusted to the important things at that time

Interesting, thanks for the details. We didn't realize at the time how special some of those winters would ultimately end up being. Fortunately we had the time and ability to capitalize on spending many hours on the mountains back then. My brother and I stayed in this closet-sized room at the Turn of River Lodge over there one night, with the windows rattling all night long, and got first tracks top to bottom on Great Eastern the next morning zipping along the corduroy on our first year Custom 55's (must've been 1996? The ones with the butterfly graphics). Awesome memories. Might have been the first year the Skyship went down to the base. Can't recall because it was so long ago now! The Killington Double was still operating back then. What a slow, frigid, horrible ride that was! Looking forward to seeing the temps drop and the first signs of white showing up on the cams over there.

Is there a known average date when Killington is typically able to fire up their guns? I remember getting over that way pretty early in the season a couple times in the early/mid 90's. Shouldn't be too long now until the cams start showing the whitening up for Superstar.