J.Spin

Oh, I totally forgot about sun exposure, so that’s a very good point you bring up. We’ve got good protection from large trees all around (same thing that minimizes drifting for snow measurement here), and certainly to the south, so we really don’t get hit hard with sun to warm the house. Combine that with the other stuff I mentioned in the response to PF, and you can see how it’s relatively easy to keep things cool. I guess a testament to that effect would be that we’ve never even considered running the A/C during the day because the house pretty much stays cool enough on its own – we would just turn it on to cool for sleeping if we couldn’t cool with fans. It can certainly get tough if you have lots of sun exposure though. We had a place in Montana that had these massive windows that faced directly south with nothing to block the sun. The unobstructed views of the Bitterroot Valley, the Bitterroot River, and the Bitterroot Range were fantastic: …but, we certainly paid for it in the heart of summer because that south side of the house would bake. And of course clouds were often pretty sparse in that drier climate, so you didn’t get much help there. Thankfully, most nights cooled down into the 50s or even 40s F with the dry air, so nighttime cooling wasn’t an issue. Indeed, the need for A/C does depend somewhat on how low your temperatures get at night. We still dropped to around 70 F these past couple of nights here at our place to enable overnight cooling. If temperatures are staying well up into the 70s F overnight though, there’s not much you can do. Ambient cooling isn’t going to cut it and you have to call on the A/C.

We did use A/C during that 2018 hot spell where temperatures got up near 100 F, but the key thing for us is really the overnights – if we can’t cool the house down with just fans then we’ll fire up the A/C. There must have been something about that 2018 spell (either number of days or forecast overnight lows) that sealed the deal in that we knew we wouldn’t be able to keep the house cool. Our house is a fairly new build and has fantastic insulation, so what we do on most warm days where it’s going to be up near 90 F or above is continue cooling all night and into the morning with the window fans until the outdoor temperature hits the indoor temperature. Then we lock down the house to keep he cold air in. All the windows are closed, and we have double cell cellular shades on all the windows/doors. We keep everything closed for the day until the outdoor temperature drops below the indoor temperature, then we open things up and start the cooling again. It’s not fun having to keep the windows closed during the day, but we’d have to do that if we were running the A/C anyway. The effects are pretty amazing though, and the temperature differential between indoors and out can be quite dramatic. We’ve even had people visit and ask if we had the A/C on because of how cool the house was relative to outside. We do have a dehumidifier that is set for 50-55% humidity in the basement, so one could always retreat there if the humidity gets too annoying. We’re pretty lucky as you know out here in the mountain valleys in that we typically decouple quite well, so that makes the natural cooling much more practical. There is a limit to the cooling you can do naturally though, and if temperatures are only getting down to around 70 F for multiple nights in a row, it gets harder to really get a good cooling session in during the night. During this most recent stretch, it was really just two nights, so it was certainly workable, but we would have gone A/C if that was going to continue for another couple of nights. July is really the only month in which an extended stretch like that seems to occur around here, so once we get to August you’d really need some sort of record-smashing episode for that to happen.

We picked up 0.03” of liquid from that frontal passage, but dew points should be dropping substantially behind it. These past couple of days probably made for the most humid stretch of the summer up to this point around here – there were definitely thoughts of going with A/C for these past couple of nights, but thankfully we were able to cool things down decently with fans. July is our most (some would say only) summery month in this area, and it certainly did its job this year as it often does. If it’s coming in with record numbers this year, it certainly felt as if it was on the top end humidity side for at least a couple of periods. The forecast looks fine for the rest of the month though, and even beyond into August, and we’re getting well past the climatological peak of heat here (~July 17th) so hopefully this most recent humidity episode will represent the peak in that arena. We’re typically safe from a stretch like that here in the mountains once we get to August from what I’ve seen – we can definitely get some hot days, but they’re more like warm June days and typically can’t match the potency of July’s combination of heat and humidity. The most extreme episodes we get from August onward on are typically shorter and seem to be due to events like a tropical storm really punching that type of air this far north. It’s crazy to look at our weather here now and think that heat indices in the 100 F range are still the topic of conversation in SNE. We’re certainly on different sides of a front now.

On the topic of our July rainfall around here, I tried out one of those cool plots I’ve been seeing in our subforum from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet. I plotted rainfall for here in VT up through yesterday, and I was somewhat encouraged by the result for this area. Our site is in that region of black shading that covers this portion of the Northern Greens, and although that color is off scale, it would at least jive with the 5.10” of liquid we’ve had this month. I was a bit less excited when I tried out some other plots though. It has us shaded for something in the range of 1.20” – 2.00” for June rainfall, when we actually had 4.27” for the month. I also tried out snowfall for this past season, and it put us in the 84” – 101” range, when I recorded >140” during the period. It even has the Mt. Mansfield area in the next tier down for snowfall (67” – 84”) during that period so it’s clear that there are issues. Exporting the input numbers gave me some insight into what might be part of the issue – there were only 22 stations used, and they look like co-op stations, so I’m guessing no CoCoRaHS data. I’m not sure if there’s a way to include more station data, because that would obviously help improve the plots with the vast array of mountain microclimates we’ve got around here. The BTV NWS plots of this sort seem to include those data, or certainly at least some of it, and bringing in CoCoRaHS info offers the chance for 80+ additional VT stations that could really fine tune the plots to catch some of the microclimates. It’s obviously a nice tool regardless, but if anybody knows how to infuse more data points, certainly pass that along.

We were similar here with 0.67” this morning after a bit of earlier rain during the overnight. This latest round of rain pushed our site past 5” for the month, and past the July average here, so with some of the month left, maybe we’ll make up some ground from June being a bit low.

The lower moisture air mass and relatively clear skies set things up for some fantastic celestial viewing last night – once it actually got dark enough. Even though we’re a month past the solstice, the evening light seemed to take forever to dissipate – it was well past 10:00 P.M. before comet viewing really took off. Once that light fades though, NEOWISE simply explodes out of the night sky and is blatantly obvious with the naked eye around here. I’ve always been very impressed with how dark the skies are in our area, and I think it’s due to the fact that we’re way down in the Winooski Valley, and light from Burlington, and even Waterbury, is blocked by the surrounding mountains. The mountains obviously make it tough to get views on the horizon, but NEOWISE is high enough in the sky that it’s not an issue. A guy I spoke with last night said 10:30 P.M. is pretty optimal for viewing NEOWISE. After chatting with a colleague at work yesterday who had been getting pictures earlier this week, I shot 4-second images at F/4, ISO 16,000, with a focal length of 80-100 mm on APS-C. That focal length seems decent to catch a good sense of the tail and some surrounding stars. I just took a few quick shots and didn’t have time to really nail any images at the level of focus I’d like to get, but I’m happy with that exposure level, so hopefully I can try later this week when the skies are supposed to clear up again. Indeed as Tamarack noted, NEOWISE is much more impressive than what I saw of Halley’s in ’86 – I only remember seeing this faint wisp that was just visible through binoculars, and right along the horizon. That was pretty underwhelming, but apparently that visit of the comet represented the least favorable viewing on record. It’s funny that I don’t have a strong impression from Hale-Bopp back in ‘96, because it was apparently so bright that it was easily visible in large cities.

During Governor Scott’s press conference today, I heard some other impressive numbers: VT now has the fewest total COVID-19 cases in the country (HI recently lost ground to VT), as well as the lowest % positivity. The % positivity is harder to check, but the total cases is mentioned in the Messenger article below: https://www.samessenger.com/news/even-with-fewest-cases-in-country-vt-mask-mandate-still-possible/article_fc2dbdf8-cb76-11ea-8e09-6f652c493a32.html

That’s a great perspective. If that nearby Randolph site is reflective of the snowfall in the general area… then simply LOL. Based on the numbers I’ve seen, it won’t matter the long wave pattern, the storm track, the rain/snow line, the temperature departures, the states of the indices, or whatever factors people are going to discuss and stress over – the snow is just going to come in hand over fist. I guess it’s possible, but I can’t imagine the area can really get to those types of insane snowfall numbers without at least some type of upslope component, so you’re probably looking at an average of roughly 100 days a year with some sort of snowfall. I’m going to assume that you’re not like some on the forum that just want the occasional big storm to hit and then clear out so they don’t have to deal with that dreaded “nuisance” snow… because I have a suspicion that the winters in that area don’t quite run like that.

Our snowfall relative to average was even worse at around 46%, so I thought our area had it bad relatively speaking – until I saw some of the SVT numbers from backedge. I guess they really got the shaft. In terms of receiving sizeable storms, it doesn’t seem as if it was as bad around here relative to some places – the top five storms in terms of snowfall amounts were: 1. 11.2” - 1/18/16 - Upper level low/inverted trough + upslope 2. 7.3” - 1/12/16 - Clipper-redeveloper 3. 6.6” - 12/29/15 - Southwest flow event; Winter Storm Goliath 4. 5.4” - 2/8/16 - General upper level trough moving into Northeast plus moisture from Winter Storm Mars offshore 5. 5.0” - 4/6/16 - Low pressure tracking through St. Lawrence Valley It’s relative of course, but another aspect of that season that makes it such a pain in the data set is that it’s the only one in my records without a storm ≥ 12”, so it screws with any calculations involving that parameter.

The statistics say your guess is probably correct. Using the latest stats for our location, the snowfall deviation on that 2015-2016 season was an incredible -2.29 σ, meaning it should fall in the bottom 1.1% of all seasons. So, it’s essentially a 1 in 100-year event that most of us will probably not see again in our lifetimes. Based on snowfall observations up to that point, it seemed that 100” of snow was probably the practical floor for snowfall around here – even that very poor 2011-2012 season brought 115” of snow. Indeed, the stats say that getting below 100” of snow in a season here should only happen in the bottom few % of seasons (probably something in the range of 1 in 20 to 1 in 50 seasons, so the 72.2” that season was a massive aberration as your Stowe numbers indicated). It’s also interesting to note that even in that very unusual/aberrant season, our snowfall here was still right around 50% of your Stowe/Mansfield number as it usually is.

Today was awesome, especially after that period of humidity. It’s interesting to note that even in July, the average lows around here are still in the 50s F, and in order to get down to those temperatures, you typically need to have dew points down in that range, so our “average” weather should be COC weather. Whenever we have those stretches where dew points and lows are well up into the 60s F, they have to somehow be balanced out by something to get those average lows in the 50s F, but those must be some chilly July nights.

After your previous discussions on this weather-related forum regarding relocation, I immediately assumed you were referring to Pittsburg, NH. It seems that they average more than 100” of snow a season. Interestingly, the spelling of the town there is without the “h” at the end though.

I guess it was a relatively short stretch of those higher dew points, but you’re so right about how funny it is that these low and even mid-60s F dew points feel amazing. It’s so nice to be back to something at least resembling NNE summer weather – heading out for rides the past couple of days has been so much more comfortable. Thankfully we haven’t had to turn on the A/C yet this summer like we did a couple of summers back, but we were starting to contemplate it for those final couple of days where it was getting tough to get the house below 70 F. We should be passing peak climate temperatures around here in the next week though.

There are those times when one wonders if it’s just the radar beam sneaking through the gap in the Greens and giving the impression of more precipitation. But the ground truth on liquid and snowfall numbers year after year suggests that there really is some sort of convergence going on around here that consistently wrings out that extra moisture.

The gauge collected ~1.40” here, so we’re in that sort of range.

I saw that interesting look, and it indeed it almost looks like another Winooski Valley sort of thing: It’s been a nice steady rain without any runoff issues, so hopefully it soaks in well.

It was a bit gusty for a time, but no power issues. On the rain side, we had about 0.80” in the gauge when I last checked about 15-20 minutes ago – the rain has been steady but lighter since then. It looks like we’ve got a bit more to go, but in any event it’s been a nice drink for the lawn – we’d only had about ¾” of rain up to this point on the month, so this will more than double the total.

Literally just after I sent that message I got a text that we were put under a Severe Thunderstorm Warning.

We’ve had at least a couple rounds of showers today so far here at the house, but nothing that added up to more than a trace. This round definitely looks more serious though, and we’re already getting a steadier rain even out ahead of those stronger echoes. I did get a text alert just after 2:00 P.M. that we’re under a Severe Thunderstorm Watch.

Based on the numbers from that nearby CoCoRaHS site in Randolph, NH though, even a 2009-2010 type of winter would still be far better overall up in that part of NNH than anywhere in the Mid Atlantic outside of perhaps a few select mountain areas. From the data I saw, didn’t that Randolph site still have over 200” of snow in 2009-2010? If even record snowfall seasons for most Mid Atlantic sites are below 100”, it seems like it would take an even more incredibly anomalous/localized pattern than 2009-2010 to really make it remotely disappointing up in the mountains of NNH.

June Totals Liquid: 4.27” Total liquid for the month of June here at our site was nearly three inches below the average in our data set, so it’s certainly been on the drier side as data from the surrounding sites would suggest – I see BTV with 1.88” of liquid (50.9% of average), MVL with 2.83” of liquid (71.1% of average), and MPV with 3.47” of liquid (91.3% of average). The numbers here indicating 60.9% of average certainly fit within that range, but with the localized nature of pop-up events as we get into summer, the sites aren’t necessarily going to run in sync. We’re seeing what are presumably the benefits of the local orographics for keeping the lawn/vegetation happy – even the 4.27” of liquid we picked up, while well on the low side for here, would be an above average June for those surrounding sites. Liquid for the 2020 water year is running at 39.03”, and calendar year liquid is at 23.93”, which is right around three inches below average.

We were actually just on the edge of that and picked up 0.04” of liquid, but with the rain and air associated with that cell, things cooled down really nicely. The liquid was a bump up from the traces over the past three days, and there’s actually some additional activity off to the west, but we’ll have to see whether or not that affects us here.

We’ve been touched by the scattered thunderstorms around here each of the past three days, although nothing has been right on us so we’ve only accumulated traces of liquid for those measurement periods. Even just getting the associated clouds is nice though to help keep the temperatures down a bit. We definitely appreciate the clouds we get around here though, and the enhancement the orographics can bring in that regard. As much as living in Montana with the typically drier air was great in that you were basically guaranteed to get down into the 40s and 50s F each night to cool off, you were also much more likely to get those dry days where you get into the 90s F and bake under cloudless skies. That was for our valley of course, and you can probably get a bit more clouds and cooling if you’re up into the mountains, but it’s definitely a much drier environment overall. Just as most farms have those huge center pivot irrigators out there that you rarely see around here, you’re typically not going to have a green lawn out there without irrigation. Precipitation for the month thus far is at 2.72” at our site, which I’m sure is behind average pace for around here, but it’s been more than enough to keep the lawn happy. It looks like chances for precipitation are increasing over the next few days, and temperatures are expected to come down for the second half of the week: Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 952 AM EDT Mon Jun 22 2020 LONG TERM /WEDNESDAY NIGHT THROUGH SUNDAY/...As of 348 AM EDT Monday...It continues to look like a nice little pattern change for Wednesday night onwards, with more seasonable temperatures anticipated. Upper level low situated to the north of the Great Lakes will be slow to exit the region. This will keep us in a pattern with more clouds and chances for showers than we have seen recently.

We had a few sprinkles yesterday afternoon, so perhaps it was in association with that cell. That was the first trace of precipitation in six days, although it does look like chances continue to increase over the next several.

Naturally that “A” threshold is going to vary based on a location’s snowfall average and S.D., but at our site, somewhere in that 200” range for snowfall is typically what I use for “A-grade” territory as well. If I set the average at C and use the typical 1/3 σ steps for the grade subdivisions, the snowfall thresholds for reaching the various B and A grade levels are as follows: B-: 179.2” B: 191.1” B+: 203.0” A-: 215.3” A: 227.2” A+: 239.2” Although 2007-2008 had only 203.2” of snowfall, I’m pretty sure I gave it some level of an “A” grade because it was just so solid in many snow-related categories. We don’t have the wild swings in annual snowfall up here that some places do, so it feels like it’s hard to get solid “A” and “F” seasons, although using the S.D. in grading should actually take care of that issue. The grading scheme I’m using is pretty stringent on the high end though, in that only the top few % (+2 σ) of seasons are going to get a straight A or better based on snowfall. One thing to note is that the current 36.2” S.D. is probably artificially large due to the highly anomalous 2015-2016 season’s effects on the relatively small data set. Removing that season from the data set results in a huge drop of the S.D. down to 28.3”, so the snowfall totals required to get up into that A range will come down a bit as that S.D. potentially relaxes.