powderfreak

If only it was snow. The Spine has been getting firehosed all day long on cyclonic W/NW flow. Several spots on the west side of Mansfield are up to 2”+ just today, compared to a little over an inch here in Stowe Village today.

So like rural NNE/America but with more snow? I’d need meth to shovel a foot per hour and my wife certainly wouldn’t stick around for that weather… so no women and meth checks out.

I guess the trade off is you go like 6 months without seeing the sun... from precip and the solar cycle.

Yeah even down at sea level they average (!) 326" in Valdez. If you average that much heavy wet snow at sea level, what happens at 10,000ft must be nuts. Can't imagine living in a place where you can get 15" in 90 minutes lol. The winter storm has brought extreme snowfall — 15 inches fell in 90 minutes in Valdez — made travel hazardous south of the Alaska Range. Normal suburban home but there has to be 6 feet of mushroom caps on the roof.

Usually it’s the opposite… you get colder and snow levels drop the harder it precipitates, then rise when it lightens up. It is hard to process for sure that much water falling as snow in such a short period of time. But I’ve heard even at sea level there in Valdez, AK they can get snow rates of a foot per hour in cold storms.

Still raining out. All day long. No bueno. River is quite high. The other day before the rain, one last tree with leaves on the mountain. Stick season except for that one yellow tree.

I bet its legit to be honest. Models have 12-24" of QPF in that area over the next 72 hours. You're taking ocean moisture and slamming it into 10,000ft of prominence and wringing out 20" of water in single digit temps up there. Those places can get 1,000+ inches per season it's estimated but no one really knows. Wish we had a high-res NAM aimed on those peaks, the resolution would probably resolve some incredible QPF amounts.

Next 72-hour snowfall. Note the amounts are in feet not inches. Max amount is 28 feet in the next 72 hours on Mount Marcus Baker .

"Just don't come anywhere near my house and we'll be ok. The barn is yours."

It definitely does. Housing is a huge issue around these parts but it's also always been expensive from here to Waterbury to the Mad River Valley and then also Montpelier to BTV corridor. Great accessibility to higher paying jobs in those zones too, plus resort and vacation rentals. Air BnB does hurt a lot in the resort areas but also like Backedge said, it's hard to blame homeowners. Vermont has very friendly renter laws that makes it very tough to get rid of renters and/or recover money from them. You also think about your property/house/condo/apartment and imagine the wear and tear on that place from a seasonal rental to 20-something year olds who are ski bumming for a season. I know many who used to do seasonal rentals but their places would be destroyed by the young crowd partying and skiing all winter... where as now they do AirBnB to like adult couples for weekends who aren't going to punch a hole in your wall on a drunk Friday night. Several people who used to rent seasonally just got fed up with it too, renting their house out to be a party pads for a winter. You sort of have two things going on... 1) renters always are leery of 18-26 year olds who do most resort/hospitality/restaurant jobs just because they do lead to wear and tear on a property and 2) you can just make more money with Air BnB.

What a disaster of a day, ha. Would be one helluva upslope event.

That one yellow tree trying to avoid stick season. Before the rain. Patchy frost up high in the afternoon shadows.

Yeah I've got no idea on those PWS vs. ASOS, that is firmly in Dendy's wheelhouse. I don't even know to be honest if they are the exact same measurement... is is 1-sec wind speed? 5-sec average? Instantaneous? 30 or 60 second averages for sustained? I'm definitely lacking in wind measurement criteria knowledge. I do think the western slope communities see the highest synoptic wind in the state of VT though, as you know. From up north in eastern Chittenden/Franklin counties, down through Addison/Rutland and into Bennington counties... the narrow strip of west slope spots do see those legit 50+ gusts from time to time. DDH/RUT/6B0 up to east of BTV. I know they've recorded even 70+mph in low elevation lee-side locations during the rouge extreme events… when you have those real strong 90+kt H85 low level jets rolling in from the SE and the summits flirt with 100mph.

Some of those easterly flow wind events should be fun there with that setup!

This guy’s rant is great… “Here’s why I hate Norway Maples: This is one dirty tree, dropping trash at all seasons, including flower buds, two crops of seeds, twigs, branches, and copious amounts of leaves. It sheds large branches from the top, then resprouts along the truck. Every time the wind blows large branches fall from the top of the tree, making me very nervous about my roof. It makes a LOT of seedlings. I spend way too much time every spring and summer in an attempt to hand pull all of them. Nothing grows underneath them. My flower beds along this neighbors fence line are empty. Every year I try to fill in these beds, and every year I watch in sadness as everything dies. It is the last tree to lose its leaves in the fall, often not until after Thanksgiving, which means that having my gutters cleaned is a game of Russian roulette. Will the leaves fall before it snows? It’s been a hit and miss proposition. I fear for my two dogs safety when they are in the yard. One of those falling branches would hurt them badly. Its shallow roots also make it prone to blowdowns.“

Probably for the better lol. Get rid of them.

That’s where we’ll just have to agree to disagree, ha. I think humans are terrible at estimating winds and that leafed out tree damage occurs at a far lower wind speed than many folks think.

Gotcha, makes sense. I still think when we had that huge blow down up here like 3 October’s ago (?), I’m not convinced the winds were that much above 50mph despite acres leveled. I dunno, I still think personal perception of wind leads to over-estimates. If you can get a 2-M gust in the 40-50 range I still think that can do a lot of damage. But you are right, those trees see that NE wind built into their climo/growth.

Isn’t that what the discussion is about though? How do you estimate winds at your place though? Like how would you know it’s 50mph or whatever? Thats why I think a PWS hitting 45mph in a forested suburban area is pretty damn solid wind.

I’m definitely not applying it to SE Mass… just the Tan area and the obs from there. I don’t see why the ASOS would be wrong?

It’s rare that the people who experienced it are trying to convince others it wasn’t 60+ winds. Normally you’ve got folks saying oh my god 60-70mph now and people have to convince them it’s not that high . 80-9mph frictionless on a dune above the water… 40-50mph through dense mature forests a county or two inland passes the smell test for me.

What is your Davis’ top wind speed all time… with or without leaves even?

See I disagree. I think you can certainly get those outages with gusts of 45mph. In a fully forested neighborhood with mature trees, still leafed, with soaking wet ground? It doesn’t have to be 60+ to get big damage. If a PWS in a yard measured 60 they wouldn’t have power for two weeks.

Oh BTV is in a land of its own. That Lake retains heat quite well too, that stuff on the shores will be last to change in the State. Just like in the spring the stuff along the water might be some of the last to leaf out as the cold lake keeps a lid on things. Even the difference from the airport to lakeside is huge.

Damn nice shot!