gravitylover

Nothing burgers for the win.

I saw a few crystalline entities drifting lazily down around 1:30-2am but nothing that mattered. I'd much rather have a nothing burger than ice.

That rainstorm was just part of a much bigger picture. It started snowing at 1am on 12/5 and only stopped for a day or two here and there. By January 28th we had more than 30 feet in town. The base (settled snow) at mid mountain at Kirkwood was over 240" and Squaw was well over 200". At one point several of the ski areas couldn't turn their lifts off for several days straight or they would have been buried. The snow was coming in bursts of 2-4 feet at a time. Before we left home we'd make notes for the things we needed to do because you couldn't make left turns out of parking lots so you'd go to the end of town and turn around in the KMart parking lot then go back towards home. The banks along US 50 (the main street through S Tahoe) were 10 feet high up the center suicide lane and higher where the sidewalks used to be. Nearly every day the town and state would come through with huge blowers and dump trucks and cart the stuff off to a snow dump that still had 20 foot high piles on July 4th. Homes along side streets had their front windows boarded over so the blowers wouldn't take them out and many homes used their second floor entrances for weeks at a time because the first floor was 10 feet under. The biggest storm of the season was 128" in 30 hours in my driveway, 12 straight hours of shoveling, a case of beer and a big bag of weed got me through At the time it was a state snowfall record for Incline Village at 15"/hr for nearly 4 hours straight.

I initially left in 1984 but was back for a few months late 85/early 86 then again from late Nov 93 to April 1 1994 so I was on LI for that winter. I worked at the old ski shop that was on Northern Blvd in Little Neck so got to commute from the no zone to the snow (ice) zone 4 or 5 days a week. That winter of 93/94 was pretty amazing for the NY Metro especially after the wonder of the 70's and 80's. I saw more rotten weather in the space of a few weeks than in the years I lived in VT and CO before that, obviously not more snow but more unpleasant and ugly weather. If I didn't drive an old Jeep that winter I'd have hated being there. Because of that Jeep and the job I had I could get out skiing often and for little or no money. I skied some of the best powder of my life on night at Vernon Valley (Mt Creek now), it was frzg rain early afternoon in Queens and when it flipped to snow I jumped in the Jeep and headed there. When I got there it was already nearly knee deep and just got better all night. The liftie at South tried to shut the lift down twice so I had to smoke the guy out to keep the chair running for me Whoda thunk, balls deep fluff at 14* in NJ. Anyway... that winter had the worst ice storms and driving conditions I had seen in O'side and that included some of the other great ice storms of the late 70's because it was constant and long lasting rather than those because they never had any real staying power (that I remember). Now, I have seen considerably worse weather in Tahoe, try torrential downpour into a 15 foot deep snowpack at 28* and when the rain ended the wind did it's thing and the temp dropped to 4*. The whole place locked up solid. It was awesome

I see all this ice/sleet/freezing rain stuff written and in my head I hear lalalala more snow

I have light snow falling now. It's mighty dry out there with a 16 degree spread for it to be snowing but there it is.

Those first 5 months or so of 1969 were incredible in New England. I think that's the year that the snow depth in Tuckerman Ravine reached 100 feet and they were skiing right through the summer and into the next year. I distinctly remember this at 7 years old in Oceanside where I grew up. I have hazy memories of earlier snowstorms but this ice storm knocked out our power and made life difficult and kind of scary to a little kid listening to trees exploding outside the window at night.

23/7/NNE2/OVC The ceiling appears to be lowering slightly but that may just be pollution getting trapped underneath. Being up on a hill I have a fairly long view and get a different perspective on some stuff than if you're down on the flats.

I do it for the cookies. @wdrag yup, 19 degree spread here right now also.

Oh man, you're right but I just shaved most of the banks for visual appeal yesterday. I'll just use the pusher shovel and put it all in the street

26/7/N1/OVC We have eggs, bread, milk and beer. We're good.

Boy I hope so. I really don't feel like dealing with ice and power outages and all of that. Maybe I should go wash my car

I spent two hours yesterday moving deep snowbanks away from the house preparing for the incoming ice and wetness. I still have at least 4-5 more hours of the same. I'm sore but it feels good to be outside working hard. This covid thing and not being out working and doing stuff is wearing on me. I do what work I can do sitting at my desk, sometimes walking around the living room while on the phone, that's not sufficient movement and I'm going stir crazy enough to be truly enjoying shoveling snow. That's fkd up. I also shaved the driveway banks yesterday to make them look better haha

Lets just scoot this puppy a bit south. I want to go totally over the top for a monthly record.

I forgot to post, I ended with 1.5" of pure fluff. Blow on it to clear the windshield kinda stuff. Temps were in the teens during the bulk of it and stayed in the low 20's for a while after. It added to the driveway bank height nicely

The big storm I had 2 sleet periods. I had to dig a path across part of my front yard today and there are two layers in there.

In a way I won't mind if we get a (very) little bit of sleet. Adding ice layers to this snowpack will help it last longer. Big picture, I'd rather not because it sux to shovel and with 5' driveway banks it's even worse.

I woke up to check and to my surprise it's snowing. I had reserved myself to being happy with flurries but this is/was the real deal. There looks to be at least a half inch of fluff. 21/18/ENE3/SN-

In a deep valley along the river bank high in the Rockies of NW CO. They meet at -40

Really? The lowest air temp I've seen is -57°F. It's not much different from -20

What about us up here in the northern hinterlands? I'm thinking I should prepare for an inch or less.

Yes but it has to be, or have been, sunny enough to cause evaporation and really still air too so that the crystals can form and precipitate out.

You'll be fine. I'm hearing that it's in great shape there right now.

Final lazy flakes are floating down now. Final is 3.5-4 so spot on what Upton had me at. I'm still a few inches shy of average for the season but I don't keep formal records or do the most accurate and proper measuring so, yeah. I stuck a yardstick in the ground in a bunch of spots and got between 12-15" so not too bad considering how windy the big storm was and how thin things were right after it and with head high driveway banks it really looks like deep winter. I just checked the P&C and it looks like Thursday is off the table and the weekend is just low chance. What do we think about that?

Nope, today was spot on. Upton had me at 2-4 and got 3.5. This was also forecasted to be a much shorter duration, it has been snowing for 11.5 hours now and never went above 28*. Sunday was a good bust and the big storm was the best bust in years.