powderfreak

We are paying for the beautiful 10 day stretch of no clouds today. 51F and a cold and breezy upslope rain.

Upslope in May. Miserable windy rain.

Just started pouring over here. It’s coming your way on NW flow.

55/43 sunny and breezy. Very refreshing. 0.93” total from yesterday and last night.

Get outta here. What a video, unbelievable.

Wasn't as much rain as it felt like, but it was quick moving. Only a few minutes of the truly 1/8sm style rainfall. Just took the dog out to the garden and the Stratus has 0.70" on the dot. Probably a half inch in like 5-8 minutes and then just meh rain for a while after that. Over 2" in the past 3 days though, Stein would be pleased by the puddles in the garden pathways, ha. Friend's station down near Killington at 2,200ft has had 4.6" in the past 3 days... those flash flood warnings down in Rutland County are real, the mountains around there have gotten some serious water.

Torrential rain. Maybe 30mph gust? Ha. But visibility is like 1/8sm in this rain. So much water.

Heavy rain and thunder here at the Mt Mansfield base area. Classic terrain initiation. Just forming right on the Green Mountain Spine and lifting northward slowly. Same from the Adirondacks and Catskills.

Today was the first day that you could feel it. All the rainfall the past 24 hours juiced dews to 63-64F. Yesterday was still in the 50s, but today has that cooler but humid feel. 72/64 type stuff.

And it continues until you’re like my grandfather or my 99 year old grandmother… sitting outside on the porch with blankets on at 90/70, wishing the dew was 82F like an Iowa cornfield so you can ditch the blankets. I’ll say I love the warm season a lot more than I did in my teens and 20s, but high dews still do nothing for me. Just makes all of the outdoor recreational activities I like less enjoyable, or at least more uncomfortable. But for boring daily life, it’s a bit more interesting to feel like you are stepping out into a rainforest between stints in the A/C.

I don’t look at his tweets aside from what’s posted here but this guy is all over the place. Loves beautiful sunny icons, while also hating on dry weather, wondering if it’s even worth growing a garden because he has to water it.

Earliest 90 on record for you, not sure what it means but it feels impressive, ha. And yeah woke up today to rain, fog and clouds. First time since a week ago Thursday not waking up to full sunshine. A solid 9-10 days. Got dumped on with rain this morning, 1.09” in Stratus after I emptied 0.31” late last night at like 11pm. Good drink for the neighborhood here around Stowe Country Club this morning.

1.09” so far today, just emptied Stratus as inner tube was overflowing, 1.40” between yesterday evening and today. Good solid soaker. The trees are going to go neon green after this. 66/64

No one had A/C when I’d grow up spending summers in Woodstock, CT. Zero. It was hot and humid and you just dealt with it. Today every family member with a camp there has A/C now. My parents put in central AC there. Maybe it’s less expensive, or more wealth in general, or a push to live more comfortable in general, but from childhood to now everyone around the lake/pond in NE CT has A/C now.

Good point on the dews. The dews keep the nights from cooling off like they used to. I think most of my need for A/C comes at night. During the day if it’s hot or a bit uncomfortable, who really cares. But I lose my mind sweating while sleeping. I think the average minimum temps went up the most with the new 30-year normals. Instead of 46-54F type mins in the fake cold spots, the number of nights of like 55-65F are vastly higher these days.

Back to weather… first legit evening of T-Storms. Constant flash and booms for over 90 minutes now. Very slow moving stuff. Torrential rain. Been a solid light show. All the summer feels. Oddest thing is they are moving SE to NW, rare direction for T-Storms here.

The number of people I know who have put A/C in over the past 5 years is very high. Even folks starting to install pools and stuff. Not sure if it’s getting that much hotter up here or we are just getting that much softer that we can’t put up with any discomfort? Ha, probably a mix of both. Or it’s just a lot of people from down south moving up north and wanting creature comforts that the native NNE’ers were previously fine without (raises hand)?

Dog is actually on the injured list, otherwise she’d be rolling in every postage stamp pile she can find, ha. She wrecked her knee and now has a plate and four screws in there. Should be back hiking second half of summer.

He’s old school, the science professor. No need to post just for the sake of posting, ha. Me on the other hand… Looks like cloud over and rain in the late afternoon/early evening season has begun. Been thundering for an hour it seems like but finally started raining.

May is a summer month in NNE. Its so hot with humidity coming up that all snow on the mountain has a surface ground fog bank coming off of it. Pretty wild to see these streams of condensing air moving down trails and through the woods. These are 2500ft range. Looks like the Tolland Green on Christmas Day as Grinch dews move through.

No I think it's just the record highs we've been having. That late season upslope was very dense, QPF rich stuff. Bullets, needles and graupel. Certainly no fluff. We've had a few daily record highs in the area over the past week. That'll usually do it this time of year. Instead of sitting 40s and 50s the summit has been hitting 70F almost daily. In my experience, and the annual graphs show it, the snowpack tries to hold on for as long as possible but every year it hits a point where it just falls off a cliff. It rarely melts at the "average line" pace, it's usually much steeper than the average depth for whatever reason. Like whenever the first real "summer" warmth pattern moves in. In 2020 that May heat moved in about a week later, but same pitch of decline. Just depends how long into the spring we can get before we get that heat. May 2020 also saw like 5 feet of snow disappear in like 10 days.

This last 8 days of hot sunny afternoons has caused highly accelerated snow melt out of the mountains. Can see Mansfield's depth falling off a cliff the past 8 days. Lost like 2.5 feet of snow depth during this time. It's in free fall now. Last weekend there was still natural snow in spots down to 2,500ft (I even skied in the trees up high last weekend)... gone now. And that snow is very water rich at the bottom of the pack... just glaciated stuff. The water draining Mansfield behind my place has been decent flow despite no rainfall and low RH. It has to be snow melt.

Heading up the road in a little bit for a hike, as always will have camera with me, ha. It's hot though, damn. 73F at MMNV1 at 4,000ft. The simple garden thermometer at 3,300ft on the Snow Cam is in the mid/upper 70s. That's very warm for up there in the spruces.

It's always weird visually when it gets hot this time of year with very minor leaves or even none at all... though it's changing every 24 hours. A friend posted a shot from a golf course yesterday in VT, everyone wearing shorts, fairways nice and green, but the trees in the woods were still largely just sticks or some light green budding. It doesn't look "right" ha.

It's interesting how that area has some large differences in temps tonight. Classic elevated valley type of night in E.VT? Spots with any wind at all are 67-72F while no wind is 60-62F.