powderfreak

It seems triggering when the topic comes up on here at times but I honestly don’t think anyone is up at night worrying about it. Like it is what it is. Discussing local weather trends on a weather forum. No one has said one thing about a cause of it or taking action because of it. Like if we were talking about a trend of increasing rainfall? Increasing snowfall? No one is not enjoying life by pointing out a trend in temperature data.

Anytime a warm trend in climate comes up…

That’s MVL… BTV is ever so slightly cooler (averaging 1F departure less than the mountain valleys) because BTV doesn’t have as much radiational cooling baked into its climo as much as the others. So BTV is actually slightly lower departures because of that.

It’s been some mild nights for sure. SLK/BML/HIE should be hitting freezing with regularity. I know they’ve snuck it in once or twice maybe? But the radiators are not mounting up lol.

Yeah and to clarify I’m not pointing it out in any way other than to show the data. It’s not alarming or a cause/effect or whatever. It literally is what it is. It’s like when DIT says it isn’t like it used to be, that’s largely true removing all emotion from the context. I know sometimes people don’t want to hear it, but I think statistically it’s very interesting when you keep getting long term data points showing similar trajectories. The mountain summit has largely pivoted from freezes in late August and first half of September, to 2nd half of September and early October. There will be outliers on both sides, but the general picture is what it is.

Yeah and likewise in the Valley at 750ft we have not had a below normal day yet this month and sit at +8. When the trough has come, it’s been cloudy, showery and zero radiational cooling. Record warmth for first half of October. Average right now is 58/36… should be frosty most mornings at this point. We are past BTV’s climo frost/freeze program dates now.

It hasn’t been great and it’s been horrible since the last weekend rainstorm because it’s gone. But we did have a 10 days of good, enjoyable color and largely above 1-1.5K feet. The mid-slope hardwoods. Some tree species went true red and orange. It just came down real fast. It’s kinda like when all of New England sees a tough winter but there’s usually an area that wasn’t as bad relative to normal as others. Maybe it’s putting lipstick on a pig when you get 80% of snowfall while most others get 50%? I know Jim Salge (formerly MWN and big foliage guy) had mentioned the high elevations in NNE lucked out the best with the first wave of color in later September, while the second wave isn’t coming like most years and everything else lower down and south has been almost non-existent.

Mount Mansfield fell to 31F this morning, first 32F or lower of the season and second latest on record (Oct 19, 2021). Some interesting stats: From 1956-2000… first 32F or lower occurred in October only once! It happened in August 7 times. Since 2000… first 32F or lower has happened in October 7 times and 0 times in August. Most eye opening is the 1956-2023 period average 32F or lower date is 9/15. Since 2000 however, that first freeze has occurred prior to 9/15 only 4 out of 23 years. 19 of last 23 years it has after the long term mean of September 15th. Growing season continues to extend in the means.

We had under 3” in September and things dried out very well. Have to wonder if that led to a better first round of color in higher elevations of the Adirondacks into Greens compared to further south? Would 2.75” in September vs 10-15” matter in foliage?

Yeah I guess? I dunno, I still thought there was some good enjoyable color before the big rainstorm. I enjoyed it briefly locally. We had some good color in the first wave that hit higher elevations in the north. Never made it down there to check though elsewhere. It’s completely over and done now. November stick season. Leaves gone.

Pretty rough but there’s always at least a few days with good color.

Smells like a Netflix Docu-series candidate.

Cold season is coming. Definitely can’t lie, had me thinking of the occasional 1/4sm +SHSN rolling through type of day.

Had that classic “cold pool moving in aloft” type feel with numerous fast moving small broken lines of showers. Precipitate for like 3-4 minutes, heavy for 1 minute in the core, then gone lol. Repeat once every half hour.

Had some reports of graupel around these parts today. Saw what looked like accumulating graupel/hail up near Jay Peak.

All the color came down in the rain and wind… leaving behind this brownish/yellowish green. The stuff on the ground was the color and the stuff left in the trees is terrible. Very odd season. The change from before the 2.5” of rain and after was startling. 24 hours and it all gone.

There could be a whole lot of reasons, maybe labor costs and staffing demand are out of whack and they know they won’t have the people needed to safely operate. Or they have figured out they need a capital investment to operate. Did some pre-season testing or inspection and found out some sort of infrastructure doesn’t meet code or has a mechanical issue? Maybe a big expense that wasn’t expected popped up? Sucks.

That hasn’t changed, haha. The costs to operate and what you need to pay people has skyrocketed in the service sector. Previously if your business could barely survive while paying folks $10/hr, then when that goes immediately to $20-25/hr just to get a local high schooler to work for you… now you’re f*cked.

46F with -RN. Feels like October.

Main concern this season is more rain than normal and a mild winter in the means with Nino. We’ll get storms that cut and rain, and some that suppress partly cloudy. Both are concerns most winters, no?

What’s the cancellation policy?

Temps struggling to drop outside of the Spine with clouds and wind.

Finally some frost advisories.

Yeah I don’t know if tonight will radiate that well. Over this way it’s like cold season precip of light showers in lake effect streamers off Ontario on broad SW flow. For the first time radar looked more cold season. Flakes can’t be that far off for the 1500ft and above zones… within a couple weeks? Graupel first.

We got down to 45F at 7:30pm… then it started raining again and we are back up to 52F. Funny watching it drop when dry or no clouds, then showers move in and it’s back up again.