powderfreak

Lol yup. I throw my laptop every time I see a forecast saying say 50% or 150% of normal or something across NNE because it means that forecaster hasn’t actually thought about anything related to climo. What they really mean is like 85% or 115% of normal...those are sort of more in the realm of our “bad” and “good” years.

What a fall day... 30s and 40s at noon. Brrrr.

32F with wind chills in the upper teens at the picnic tables. Brrr.

I’ve always struggled with it, there seems to be a time of year (late spring, summer and early fall) where the afternoon minimum dew point reading works really well at MVL for low temps. Like it’ll nail it spot on to what that minimum afternoon dew is. However now in the season of longer darkness at night, it seems to exceed that afternoon dew point by quite a bit at times (ie afternoon dew is 40F, the next morning can be 32F now...but in late August if the dew is 40F the next morning temp will be 40F). Ive always attributed it to the length of night (ie extra hours of rad cooling) but I’ve always wondered about the mechanics of how it can be 38/38 at 8pm, but keep dropping to be 28/28 by 6am. It’s like the dews and temps come down together once they meet.

Ha and now I’m seeing video from someone else that was at the top of the Gondola and it looks very much like wet flakes. Who knows, bottom line is the Picnic Tables had their first frozen precip. I also saw a report from 1,800ft in Underhill (west side of Mansfield) of frozen precip but didn’t call it snow. Fits with what we’ve been talking about.

You aren’t kidding ha. Last 2 hours: 39/5 -IP 36/28 -IP 36/-4 currently The dew point went from 28F to -4F when the shower ended lol. I’m not sure I’ve seen that.

I think of that as more convective and you get that high DBZ core on radar. Can you get graupel out of weak radar echos from a mid-level cloud deck? Doesnt matter but I know ski area employees and if it was snow they would’ve lost their mind. It was something frozen that wasn’t snow lol.

See the next sounding has a good warm nose aloft. The precip occurred like halfway between that sounding and this one... I wonder if it timed it such that the 750mb warm layer was already above 0C and the wet bulb cooling below that caused refreezing? Or they were just mangled rimed flakes? No one I talked to said “snow” though...it bounced off jackets and sounded like ice pellets from what folks said (though not weather educated).

Yeah the sounding looked real dry as that precip rolled in. Pretty easy to get some ice pellets initially down low before it goes all rain. This looks like massive evap cooling in the low levels (sounding 18z today near Stowe): Not hard to envision some frozen immediately at the start as that saturates.

A few posts above you I said the same thing was happening at Stowe. Staff on the Zipline reported the initial frozen precip made it pretty damn low (2,200ft). Lasted for 10-15 minutes up at 3,600ft before going to rain. Your temps seem similar to here. It’s low-40s up at 1,500ft and upper 40s down in the valley.

Multiple reports from staff and guests of frozen precip at the top of the Gondola (picnic tables)....sounds like snow grains or IP from the description. Just the leading edge of precip so evap cooling processes are taking over for a minute before it saturates and goes to rain.

This weekend is going to be insane, ha.

Peak color at Stowe now. You know it when you see it and this morning driving in I was thinking “yup, that’s it.”

lol, 45F and sunshine. Had some beautiful light this morning for foliage photography. Low of 32F and it was the first real frost for me. We had frozen dew before but not straight hard frost.

Yeah I bet its rare to get heat like that with 30% RH like their 98/61 observation. Being that close to the Gulf and any warm southerly flow is going to be moist.... 30% is pretty dry heat by their standards.

Late this afternoon in the NW flow mist and CAA.... looking at 2,000 vertical feet of hillside up to 3,500ft-ish. Usually about a 10 degree temperature drop from where I'm standing and that cloud level.

Holy shit at 103F! That's beating the all-time monthly record by almost a 10-spot! Never seen temps higher than 94F... Mother Nature says "hold my beer let me show you something..."

Yeah I was curious about that. Might do some digging or see if that NWS office has any climo stats out on social media. I know it gets hot down there but 98's in October is on a whole other level, IMO. Though to be honest I don't have a strong grasp on that climo.

Good deal of leaf drop from the heavy rains last night around these parts. I think peak will be now through the weekend.

98F at DCA and 98F at BWI today. That's obscene to me... near 100F in October. It's still in the 90s as of last 7pm observations too... it's 50 degrees colder in my backyard.

Yeah that clip looked worth investigating. Frustrating as the camera kept panning higher up...keep it on the ground swirl!

Yeah heat is coming on. We are already low to mid 40s before sunset. 43F at the Stowe Country Club. We might get our freeze tonight. Down to 33F on the summits.

I can’t get over how much colder it is this afternoon than it was last night. I wore shorts with a dew of 60F this morning and now I’m freezing my ass off at 48F.

50/43 Probably going to need to start the heat tonight while other parts of New England run their A/C?

Holy shit. 35F cooler up here. That’s some gradient.