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NNE Winter Thread


wxmanmitch
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6 hours ago, wxeyeNH said:

Alex,   Just looked at your cam.  So much frickin snow.   Down here the flurries went all day and most of last evening.  After about 24 hours of flurries I don't have a dusting to snow from it.  Just the snow from the birch bomb.  Your going to have slush city up there and in much of NNE come Friday/Saturday.  The snow down here is cement and the deer are having an awful time digging through it for soem nibbles of grass.  Personally I would not mind a complete melt and a start over after a week or so.

Yes, snow is deep and water content is high. Doubly concerned for Friday given our propensity to flood. Where you now see so much snow you may see trees float by come Monday! Grrrrr. A bit anxious about it. Modeling for the Ammo river doesn't seem to indicate flooding but it seems to my inexperienced eye that they are underestimaing the snowmelt (see attachment). I can't imagine the pack can survive 24 hours of heavy rain at 40+ degrees. :wacko: The graph below seems to indicate only a 20% or so loss

05ABE9CE-30DC-481B-AA74-3F66C9C00A2E.jpeg

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6 hours ago, J.Spin said:

 

It’s actually just as NoPoles noted (not sure where that very pertinent post went, but it was here right in the thread earlier, just a bit after Gene’s inquiry).  My text is often used in multiple places (posts here, posts to my personal web page, incorporation into my winter weather summaries, posts in other forums, etc.) so I never create anything in the forum editor.  I write, and save, all my text offline (typically in Microsoft Word unless there’s a specific reason to use another application) and then paste it in where it’s needed, with modifications as required for the specific environment.

I’m surprised more people don’t go that route, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned after years of posting in various online environments, it’s that you can’t trust any of it.  The online text editors can fail on you at any moment, or the entire website can simply be taken offline forever, and all that data is gone.  For example, most people around here know how easy it is to get things off the EasternUSwx.com forums now.  The biggest issue is definitely writing in the online text editors though, it probably took me about one experience of writing up some substantial text only to have it disappear into the ether to know that I was never doing that again. 

It’s interesting, because Gene has brought this up a number of times and we’ve discussed it, and I thought the general consensus was that it was an issue specific to Gene’s display?  The problem is that the forum software seems to change every few months with upgrades, and the text editor and display sometimes change with it.  I use only the default settings in the forum, so each time things change, I specifically adjust my input text to make it come out the same size as the other text I’m seeing.  For example, right now my input text is 10 ½-point Arial, which I specifically chose because the output I see in the forum has text roughly the same size as what I see from other people.  If I go up to even 11-point font (at least as of my last test) the text becomes awkwardly large.  I go with what shows up on my end because I use the default settings and assume that would be the most common for everyone else.  The only thing I see differently on my end is that my text isn’t multi-spaced (I prefer that because the excessive spacing really takes up a lot of space in longer posts).  Here are some examples of what I see.  The first one is what I see for my most common environment (my laptop in Internet Explorer, with me signed into the forum).  The second is what I see signed in on my phone, and the third is another look I took where I’m not signed in and viewing on laptop via Chrome browser.  All the text is basically the same size on my end via multiple platforms and browsers, so I haven’t wanted to fiddle with the format yet, but I guess others can provide input as well.

19DEC18A.jpg

19DEC18B.jpg

19DEC18C.jpg

Lol, yeah, i went to edit it, but deleted it...and i was like oh well, it really wasnt that important...

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5 minutes ago, #NoPoles said:

Nne looks so good right now, i dont want Friday to happen

Neither do I. :angry: The snowpack I have right now is a good base for sledding, cross country skiing, and downhill skiing (although they can make snow to recover) since it's solid. 

Even if some of my pack survives, it will be dirty and slushy (and then frozen). How much survives depends on how well the inversion holds and protects me from the torching SE wind. I'm frequently fogged in with little to no wind and cooler temperatures than pretty much everyone else around in setups like this, but this one may have enough of a gradient so that I get scoured out and torch.

If I didn't have a pack, I wouldn't really care, and this is probably the case for pretty much everyone outside of elevated NNE. 

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Snowcover for 5 weeks and just as everyone comes up for the Christmas week we get a  torch and 2" or more of rain.  Sucks for all the winter enthusiasts and the ski areas...

Alex,  your back near 20F by late Saturday night.  So it's really a 36 hours.  I would guess your deep snow pack can absorb a lot of rain before big runoff occurs.  I really think you will be fine.   It's not like April when the mountains have an entire winter pack and then a week of 50's with heavy rain.  Is the Ammon. susceptible for ice jams like the Pemi down here in Plymouth?  

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10 minutes ago, wxeyeNH said:

Snowcover for 5 weeks and just as everyone comes up for the Christmas week we get a  torch and 2" or more of rain.  Sucks for all the winter enthusiasts and the ski areas...

Alex,  your back near 20F by late Saturday night.  So it's really a 36 hours.  I would guess your deep snow pack can absorb a lot of rain before big runoff occurs.  I really think you will be fine.   It's not like April when the mountains have an entire winter pack and then a week of 50's with heavy rain.  Is the Ammon. susceptible for ice jams like the Pemi down here in Plymouth?  

No fortunately I don't think ice dams are too much of an issue. I've heard it's happened but it's rare until you get down into Littleton and especially a bit south of there. It's pretty shallow up here, as we are only a few miles from its source at Lakes of the Clouds, which I think reduces the potential for significant jamming

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2 hours ago, wxeyeNH said:

Snowcover for 5 weeks and just as everyone comes up for the Christmas week we get a  torch and 2" or more of rain.  Sucks for all the winter enthusiasts and the ski areas...

I mean we've got nothing to complain about given season to date totals and the length of snowpack, but it does suck for those that don't live here and can only visit during select times.  Either way, I'm content with the first half of winter.  Hell, I can't believe it is only December 19th.  Seems like we've had snow events going back two months and snow on the ground over a month.  Along with ridiculous temperature departures.  I mean it was just straight cold, sub-zero at times.  About as good an early winter as you are going to get. 

Now we have an intermission coming up, but it has wanted to snow this season so far.  It will take a break after Friday/Saturday, though I do think this season will find ways to snow across New England. 

Today on the mountain was pretty sweet.  The latest upslope round left 4-8" depending on wind and elevation on top of the supportable crust.  Easy to pick up some speed but also enough new snow to really ski it.

48378538_10103612043168400_1799522203885

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I wonder if my pack survives. I just did a core sample. Without the 1/4-1/2" ice on bottom, I melted 6" of dense snow containing 2 1/2" liquid. Models showing about 2 1/2" of precip. Tomorrow supposed to be in the upper 30's but rising into the upper 40's tomorrow night.

VT will survive this much better than this area based on qpf. But as Freak says, we've got nothing to complain about. Resorts in my area are ~75% open. Skied natural trails in October, woods in November. 10 days in before Christmas. That's a record for me. 

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As I often do ahead of these warmer storms, I cored the pack this morning as part of my CoCoRaHS observations to get a sense for how much liquid is in there and hopefully pass along the best info to the relevant agencies for flood analysis.  The core revealed 2.67” of liquid in the snowpack, with the NOHRSC modeling for our site at around 2 inches:

20DEC18A.jpg

I guess if the snowpack at a location is very meager/unconsolidated snow or there’s going to be multiple inches of rain and 60 F+ temperatures, the snow could totally disappear, but with each one of these storms passing to the west, there always seems to be a lot of unnecessary fretting about the issue.  Expecting a dense snowpack containing multiple inches of liquid to disappear overnight is sort of unrealistic.

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You're absolutely right JSpin. But what I've noticed is the valley floor around here (600') is already down to patches. Snow increases about 1" per 100' vertical. I'm at 1100' and my pack is around 6-7", it's significantly deeper at Waterville, even at the base which is probably around 18" and 24"+ up top. 

Models are showing day temps in the mid-upper 30's for tomorrow, so that will minimize melting, it's the 2" that comes tomorrow night when temps are in the 40's maybe low 50's that scares me. I still expect to see snow at the cabin, but it will be totally gone below about 800', and my guess, that means no snow along 93 until you get to the Linwood area (Kanc).

 

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28 minutes ago, MarkO said:

You're absolutely right JSpin. But what I've noticed is the valley floor around here (600') is already down to patches. Snow increases about 1" per 100' vertical. I'm at 1100' and my pack is around 6-7", it's significantly deeper at Waterville, even at the base which is probably around 18" and 24"+ up top. 

Models are showing day temps in the mid-upper 30's for tomorrow, so that will minimize melting, it's the 2" that comes tomorrow night when temps are in the 40's maybe low 50's that scares me. I still expect to see snow at the cabin, but it will be totally gone below about 800', and my guess, that means no snow along 93 until you get to the Linwood area (Kanc).

 

I have about 5" at my snowstake and I guess 12" in the woods.  Very dense cement snow.  Snow otg varies greatly in my area.  Some bare ground in the valley but deep snow on the hills.  I always CAD more than models show so Im not expecting to hit 50F.   I bet I end up with more than 50% snowcover.  Im glad the deer and turkeys etc. will get some bare ground to feed on,  constant snowcover came very early this year around Nov 11th.

Another inside runner late this week?  Tenney Mountain near me has been trying to reopen.  They have very limited snowmaking and have not open.  They have been announcing opening day tomorrow.  Just in time for a deluge.  I don't see how ski areas without snowmaking can survive anymore in NH.  

What a great early season run we had from about Dendrite  on north...

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Ahhhhhhh. I hate this. We have a check-in today for someone who paid over $25,000 to rent a luxury home for 10 days. It sucks so bad for them! But even more the anxiety over flooding is killing me. About 1/3 of the SREF river models for the Ammonoosuc show us flooding quite badly. I have 20 people in a house that's right along the river. Im quite confident that in this pattern we will get 0 CAD in my location. It's going to torch and it's going to rain. I'm REALLY hoping for some SEVERE downsloping that keeps us high and dry lol. But that's just wishful thinking. I have no idea if that's even an option with this storm. 

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1 hour ago, wxeyeNH said:

I have about 5" at my snowstake and I guess 12" in the woods.  Very dense cement snow.  Snow otg varies greatly in my area.  Some bare ground in the valley but deep snow on the hills.  I always CAD more than models show so Im not expecting to hit 50F.   I bet I end up with more than 50% snowcover.  Im glad the deer and turkeys etc. will get some bare ground to feed on,  constant snowcover came very early this year around Nov 11th.

Another inside runner late this week?  Tenney Mountain near me has been trying to reopen.  They have very limited snowmaking and have not open.  They have been announcing opening day tomorrow.  Just in time for a deluge.  I don't see how ski areas without snowmaking can survive anymore in NH.  

What a great early season run we had from about Dendrite  on north...

Tough call on 50F. I could see us mixing out...especially you at your elevation. You could be 50F while Plymouth airport is 37F or something. As for Alex, if he's upsloping with NW flow he'll probably downslope to some extent with SE flow. Hopefully we keep the heaviest rain for WNE.

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22 minutes ago, dendrite said:

Tough call on 50F. I could see us mixing out...especially you at your elevation. You could be 50F while Plymouth airport is 37F or something. As for Alex, if he's upsloping with NW flow he'll probably downslope to some extent with SE flow. Hopefully we keep the heaviest rain for WNE.

Last 45F was on November the 8th.  Quite a run we had!   As of 1145am can see the wall of high clouds up to about Hartford.   Any guess how much of my snow remains come Sunday AM?  I say 50% on my SW slopes.  We will surely see.  GFS has me in the 2.5" range

Snow.jpg

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1 minute ago, wxeyeNH said:

Last 45F was on November the 8th.  Quite a run we had!   As of 1145am can see the wall of high clouds up to about Hartford.   Any guess how much of my snow remains come Sunday AM?  I say 50% on my SW slopes.  We will surely see.  GFS has me in the 2.5" range

Snow.jpg

It'll come down to the dews. If we mix into that 53/53 air it'll vaporize fast. I think mine will be wiped out completely and I'll agree with your call if you say you have 5" out there. If you have less on the SW side those areas may get completely wiped out too. We'll see. I really need to get my roof cleared, but I don't need over an inch of rain. I'm hoping some can soak into the ground underneath the thin pack. If it's all frozen I'm kinda screwed.

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6 minutes ago, dendrite said:

It'll come down to the dews. If we mix into that 53/53 air it'll vaporize fast. I think mine will be wiped out completely and I'll agree with your call if you say you have 5" out there. If you have less on the SW side those areas may get completely wiped out too. We'll see. I really need to get my roof cleared, but I don't need over an inch of rain. I'm hoping some can soak into the ground underneath the thin pack. If it's all frozen I'm kinda screwed.

 

13 minutes ago, dendrite said:

Actually we're doing a little pre damage today to soften up the snow. Pushing low 40s at midday with full sun even in the high terrain. Kinda funny how we're still a bit inverted tanks to the lack of mixing.

1230pm   up to 37.8F new Vantage Pro.   38.8F on the old one.  Cloud shield about here and racing north.  Snow barely got a chance to soften.  By the way wind gusts are within 1-2mph between old and new station  I watch the 2 weather stations near me.  The one at lake side is 587 feet.  Im 1100 feet.  The guy reporting 46F is near the top of the ridge at about 1600 feet.  Normally he's colder and lake front warmer.  Without any wind the cold is hanging on below

Untitled.jpg

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23 minutes ago, dendrite said:

Actually we're doing a little pre damage today to soften up the snow. Pushing low 40s at midday with full sun even in the high terrain. Kinda funny how we're still a bit inverted tanks to the lack of mixing.

44° in BTV, 29° at MPV.  Absolutely beautiful out during my lunchtime walk.

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10 minutes ago, wxeyeNH said:

 

1230pm   up to 37.8F new Vantage Pro.   38.8F on the old one.  Cloud shield about here and racing north.  Snow barely got a chance to soften.  By the way wind gusts are within 1-2mph between old and new station  I watch the 2 weather stations near me.  The one at lake side is 587 feet.  Im 1100 feet.  The guy reporting 46F is near the top of the ridge at about 1600 feet.  Normally he's colder and lake front warmer.  Without any wind the cold is hanging on below

Untitled.jpg

Yeah...I lost the breeze briefly at my place and the temp went from 39F to 34F in a couple of minutes with a spike in RH. There's still some low 30s down here by the lakes too. The Weirs HADS site is 32.6 while Gunstock is 42. Not bad for full sun at midday.

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Event totals: 0.3” Snow/2.42” L.E.

We picked up 0.3” of snow as the back side of this recent system came through.  With the snowfall tapering off to flurries and the temperature dropping, I decided to clear/swap out the snowboards and take observations before everything tightened up and made that task more challenging.  I also cored the pack for a post-storm analysis, and the current snowpack liquid is 1.72” compared to the 2.67” it held prior to the event.  So with this storm, the snowpack depth went down by about 3 inches or so and the liquid content in the snowpack dropped by roughly an inch.  Interestingly, the overall density of the snowpack is essentially unchanged – it was 26.7% H2O before the storm, and now it’s at 26.5% H2O.

There’s really not much on radar that I can see in the immediate area, aside from some echoes off to the north, but the intensity of the snowfall has picked up in the last several minutes, so I’ll see if there’s any additional accumulation to report later.

 

Details from the 1:00 P.M. Waterbury observations:

New Snow: 0.3 inches

New Liquid: 0.06 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 20.0

Snow Density: 5.0% H2O

Temperature: 33.3 F

Sky:  Flurries

Snow at the stake: 6.5 inches

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