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Rindge, NH snowfall


ORH_wxman

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I've seen setups where I'm 31F and freezing rain and BTV is 39F and heavy rain...it happens probably once every 2-3 winters. CT_blizz is in a pretty good spot. He averages probably a little shy of 60". He pretends its more, but with that said, we shouldn't pretend its a bad spot. Its not. He just likes to pretend it more than it is...but it blows away most areas SW of him like Hartford and Dobbs Ferry. He is a bit under 1000 feet so that helps him.

He doesn;t get good CAD though. He will torch really quick in CAD setups...he will hold it for a few hours then the rubber band snaps...the rubber band holds tight though right over ORH...which is why we often see the south side of the city get rain and the north side is getting a big ice storm. The topography of the city promotes that.

Rindge, NH is usually rotting at 29F in these setups while I'm at 31F and ice. Rindge will have already gotten 3-4" of front end snow, and then icing on top of that, but that is routine for that area. Its probably a big deal for Dobbs Ferry to get 4" of snow and then more wintry precip...but with Rindge that is normal. You'll get used to those storms where it goes to sleet and freezing rain but never goes above freezing...unlike Dobbs Ferry where it flips and then you spike to 47F before it falls to 28F behind the front. Those triple point lows always save Monadnocks and N ORH hills...I'm often included in that, but I'm sometimes not, and I get jealous of those northern hills.

I think BTV torches more than ORH more often than a lot of people think... you just only notice it during the big SWFE storms.

And wasn't Rindge and Peterborough area like ground zero for that December ice storm a couple years back? And as far as snowpack retention, although I average more snow up here (a lot of it fluffy, upslope variety) I bet Nate has much better snowpack there than the town of Stowe (not talking about the mtns) just because those are 82" synoptic inches he averages; he gets 15" in a nor'easter and its base building snow that isn't 15" of fart away 40:1 fluff. Early last December our 20" upslope storm settled to like 10-12" within 2 days. In terms of max snowpack depth, 80" down in CNE/SNE is probably on par with 120" inches of upslope and synoptic up here. And a little further south, ORH is probably the best city in the northeast as far as building a snowpack goes. High enough to avoid valley torches and gets a lot of synoptic snowfalls that are great base-builders.

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I think BTV torches more than ORH more often than a lot of people think... you just only notice it during the big SWFE storms.

And wasn't Rindge and Peterborough area like ground zero for that December ice storm a couple years back? And as far as snowpack retention, although I average more snow up here (a lot of it fluffy, upslope variety) I bet Nate has much better snowpack there than the town of Stowe (not talking about the mtns) just because those are 82" synoptic inches he averages; he gets 15" in a nor'easter and its base building snow that isn't 15" of fart away 40:1 fluff. Early last December our 20" upslope storm settled to like 10-12" within 2 days. In terms of max snowpack depth, 80" down in CNE/SNE is probably on par with 120" inches of upslope and synoptic up here. And a little further south, ORH is probably the best city in the northeast as far as building a snowpack goes. High enough to avoid valley torches and gets a lot of synoptic snowfalls that are great base-builders.

Yeah, similar issue here on the west side of the Berkshires. I average about 77" a winter, but snow pack retention is terrible. Of the 77" we get, about 50"-55" of it is synoptic. The rest is from that dry, fluffy upslope and lake effect leftovers type stuff that occurs during a moist NW flow in the winter. Most of the upslope is pretty small (usually an inch or two, sometimes three, maybe a bit more once or twice a winter). Last December we had 9" from an upslope event, which is very rare. It settled to about 4" in 2 days. I tend to downslope a bit during Nor'easters and torch during SWFE, making snow pack retention horrible compared to say Pete's location in West Chesterfield on the east slope. In fact, there have been a number of winters in recent years where BOS has beaten us in the synoptic snows.

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Yeah, similar issue here on the west side of the Berkshires. I average about 77" a winter, but snow pack retention is terrible. Of the 77" we get, about 50"-55" of it is synoptic. The rest is from that dry, fluffy upslope and lake effect leftovers type stuff that occurs during a moist NW flow in the winter. Most of the upslope is pretty small (usually an inch or two, sometimes three, maybe a bit more once or twice a winter). Last December we had 9" from an upslope event, which is very rare. It settled to about 4" in 2 days. I tend to downslope a bit during Nor'easters and torch during SWFE, making snow pack retention horrible compared to say Pete's location in West Chesterfield on the east slope. In fact, there have been a number of winters in recent years where BOS has beaten us in the synoptic snows.

When I lived on the west slope of the Greens in Jonesville we got plenty of snowfall if you tallied up the inches, probably around 100" but that's not hard to do when it snows 2" of dust almost nightly in Dec and Jan. You have a persistent cold NW flow into the mountains and oftentimes an inversion just above the ridgetops so there's now where for even the smallest moisture to go but get squeezed out in the form of broom snow. It just doesn't build a snowpack quickly... its one of those things that when you have a synoptic snowpack in place, its nice because it keeps the snow fresh and will slowly build on it... but an upslope snowpack can be quickly torched and on the west slopes of the Greens you can get torched two ways. First is from SSW flow driving air up the Hudson and Champlain Valleys, and the other is strong storms that have H85 east or southeast winds over 50kts. Downslope wind events where compressional heating will cause a warm maximum right on the western slope as well as dry out any precipitation. The really extreme ones (like last December's downslope wind event where the west slope down into BTV saw 70-90mph winds for an afternoon) when you get an ESE 85kt H85 jet can cause heavy snow on the east slope of the Spine, and 45F blue sky with 60mph sustained winds on the western side. Its pretty wild to watch... similar to the northwest side of the Whites during strong SE winds.

That's why I've really preferred living on the eastern slope of the Spine in Stowe... you don't jackpot in upslope events but you aren't left out either as there is spill over for a few miles east of the Spine before downsloping really takes over (20" in the big one last December vs. 30-40" on the western side of the mountain) and you get upslope enhancement on any easterly flow storm. Also SWFE see us holding at 32F after several inches of snow/sleet/ice when BTV is 40F with 1" of slush followed by rain. Its very much like the difference between your and Pete's climate but up here we get bigger NW flow upslope events just due to how sharp the topography is and how flat the terrain is upstream in southern Canada.

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Unless you're Jay Peak or one of the very tall peaks, the east side of the Apps in New England is likely the better place to be when it comes to snow. Even in NH..you have mtns like Cannon that are tall and catch some good upslope, but then you have Loon Mtn which does get a fair share of downsloping. You can go the other side of the Kancamangus and the snowpack in N Conway many times is deeper than say Lincoln NH. Obviousy CAD is much better there as well.

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Unless you're Jay Peak or one of the very tall peaks, the east side of the Apps in New England is likely the better place to be when it comes to snow. Even in NH..you have mtns like Cannon that are tall and catch some good upslope, but then you have Look Mtn which does get a fair share of downsloping. You can go the other side of the Kancamangus and the snowpack in N Conway many times is deeper than say Lincoln NH. Obviousy CAD is much better there as well.

Like Mt. Tolland

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Unless you're Jay Peak or one of the very tall peaks, the east side of the Apps in New England is likely the better place to be when it comes to snow. Even in NH..you have mtns like Cannon that are tall and catch some good upslope, but then you have Look Mtn which does get a fair share of downsloping. You can go the other side of the Kancamangus and the snowpack in N Conway many times is deeper than say Lincoln NH. Obviousy CAD is much better there as well.

Yeah, well even Jay Peak ski resort I believe is on the eastern side of the mountain... same with Stowe/Mt Mansfield (ski trails are on the east and north facing aspect of the mtn), Sugarbush, and MRG. All the ski areas are on peaks that form the spine, but the trails are on the eastern slopes. Makes sense due to snow preservation as the eastern sides hold snow much longer than the western sides...especially come springtime when the Mansfield co-op stake on the eastern side will still be 5-8 feet and the western side is getting torched by the late afternoon sun during max heating and only has a 2-3 foot snowpack. Thats the biggest difference on the eastern slope and in the towns that occupy them like Stowe, Waitsfield, Warren, Jay/Montgomery, etc... with a 4,000ft ridgeline to the west, the sun sets pretty early when it goes behind the Spine, preserving the eastern side a lot longer than the western side and Champlain Valley which continues to torch in the sun long after its set on the eastern side.

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I live in Greenfield and have been driving through Rindge on the way to Fitzwilliam for about a month now. Rindge is big doings in comparison to either town. Rindge has a Walmart, a Hannaford's and Market Basket, a TD Bank, a state store, a Tractor Supply and at least one pizza restaurant. Greenfield has a small town store, a state park, two small steel businesses, Crotched Mountain Rehab and the rest of the businesses are more on the order of a horse farm, small car repair places but that's about it. You can buy gas at two unattended pumps.

As far as the ice storm goes, I know that Dublin School shut down early that year. (I remember reading about someone on the Easternuswx board who had a sister? there at the time.) Friends who live off Timbertop Rd in New Ipswich (very close to the Nate's school) had power out for 13 days if I remember right. I had it out for 12 days and I only live a couple hundred yards from a state road.

Welcome to NH!

-monadnocks

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electric bath material.

Definitely. The top two worst winters of my life that I experienced.

I'd feel good in Rindge though for this winter...we have been in a predominately snowy longwave pattern for the better part of 3 winters and Rindge just came off a year when they were in a local screwzone (relative of course)...they will probably get destroyed now with jackpot after jackpot and 120"+, lol.

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That's probably like '88-'89 or '94-'95 territory.

I actually think this is going to be a pretty solid winter for CNE/NNE; with a -QBO and weak Niña, we may see a decent gradient/SW flow pattern that favors the elevated interior, along the lines of the snowfall distribution we saw in winters like 07-08, 00-01, and 70-71. Any type of Niña tends to be favorable in NH/VT as the clippers and northern stream shortwaves produce a lot of elevation enhancement in the higher areas; this may not be as relevant in Rindge as it was in Middlebury and the Green Mountains, but I'd still think we'll see some fluff events on campus at 1300' elevation if the northern jet remains active. Most of the weak Niña/negative-neutral winters have been solid for these areas...I know 60-61 was historic for ORH and its environs, we all remember 95-96, and 66-67 had a pretty decent second half with heavy snows in March and April. I wonder if Rindge got anything in the 4/24/67 and 4/27/67 storms, which are two of the latest accumulating snows for NYC metro.

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Unless you're Jay Peak or one of the very tall peaks, the east side of the Apps in New England is likely the better place to be when it comes to snow. Even in NH..you have mtns like Cannon that are tall and catch some good upslope, but then you have Look Mtn which does get a fair share of downsloping. You can go the other side of the Kancamangus and the snowpack in N Conway many times is deeper than say Lincoln NH. Obviousy CAD is much better there as well.

Without question.

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I actually think this is going to be a pretty solid winter for CNE/NNE; with a -QBO and weak Niña, we may see a decent gradient/SW flow pattern that favors the elevated interior, along the lines of the snowfall distribution we saw in winters like 07-08, 00-01, and 70-71. Any type of Niña tends to be favorable in NH/VT as the clippers and northern stream shortwaves produce a lot of elevation enhancement in the higher areas; this may not be as relevant in Rindge as it was in Middlebury and the Green Mountains, but I'd still think we'll see some fluff events on campus at 1300' elevation if the northern jet remains active. Most of the weak Niña/negative-neutral winters have been solid for these areas...I know 60-61 was historic for ORH and its environs, we all remember 95-96, and 66-67 had a pretty decent second half with heavy snows in March and April. I wonder if Rindge got anything in the 4/24/67 and 4/27/67 storms, which are two of the latest accumulating snows for NYC metro.

I dunno about 4/27/67 or 4/24/67, but they got about 10 inches from two different events on 5/8/67 and 5/25-26/67.

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Wow.

Yeah we've talked about that storm before. May 25-26, 1967, latest measurable at most coops in N ORH county...the airport failed to get measurable and recorded a trace, but it still snowed for several hours that date. Up to 8 inches of snow fell in the latter event near the MA/NH border. The May 8, 1967 event was actually the smaller of the two.

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I dunno about 4/27/67 or 4/24/67, but they got about 10 inches from two different events on 5/8/67 and 5/25-26/67.

What happened in the 5/8/67 storm, Will? Was that a cut-off ULL like 5/10/1977?

I know about the 5/26/67 storm that buried the Whites, but I've never heard about another event.

We just had a tremendous pattern in late winter/spring 1967...Dobbs Ferry only had 14" of snow by the end of January that winter, and yet still finished with 70", which puts it in the upper echelon of winters behind the true greats like 60-61, 57-58, and 95-96. The Pacific pattern really improved later in the winter as ridging developed near AK and the West Coast, giving us a snowy pattern even though the -NAO wasn't present much of the time. 66-67 wasn't an exceedingly cold winter nationally like 10-11, but it was chilly in the Northern Tier with the EPO block, especially later on.

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Yeah we've talked about that storm before. May 25-26, 1967, latest measurable at most coops in N ORH county...the airport failed to get measurable and recorded a trace, but it still snowed for several hours that date. Up to 8 inches of snow fell in the latter event near the MA/NH border. The May 8, 1967 event was actually the smaller of the two.

I didn't realize it occurred so late. Man what a ULL that must have been.

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Nothing like getting plastered with wet snow on the Friday starting Memorial Day weekend.

I'm pretty accustomed to late snowfalls having spent a summer in Montana...we had some snow/sleet on 6/16/10, and it was in the 50s on the summer solstice. But those are high elevations near 5000' in the Northern Rockies. To see it in Rindge would be impressive, to say the least. I wonder if Rindge got any decent accumulations in either the 10/28/08 event or the 10/16/2009 event.

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I'm pretty accustomed to late snowfalls having spent a summer in Montana...we had some snow/sleet on 6/16/10, and it was in the 50s on the summer solstice. But those are high elevations near 5000' in the Northern Rockies. To see it in Rindge would be impressive, to say the least. I wonder if Rindge got any decent accumulations in either the 10/28/08 event or the 10/16/2009 event.

You're gonna make all of us drool. I'm actually dreading some of your posts, out of fear from being envious.

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