ORH_wxman

That's a good price for a driveway that long....whats the threshold for plowing though? If it's like 2 inches, then you might have a lot of plow bills.....lol.

I forget where you are....pretty close to Mt. Snow or Stratton, right? Snowfall is pretty variable around there so I'd need to know which town and which side of that town. Like the western side of Wardsboro above 1300-1400 feet is probably 120-130 while eastern side lower down is maybe 90-100. Similar results in Jamaica and Dover. The West Wardsboro coop averaged 117" when they were in commission from 1978-2011 and they were at 1400 feet. A lot of dogshit years in the 1980s too, so their longterm average is probably a bit higher in the 125-130 range would be my guess.

Ragweed has been horrific this year (maybe because of the dryness?)....I'm not usually an allergy person, but it's been affecting me for about 3 weeks now.

Yeah when we were first discussing who got more snow, I was thinking to myself that it's probably going to be a situation where Alex probably does a bit better on NW upslope and Phin does better in synoptic storms....which force wins out? Is the uplsope advantage Alex has enough to outweigh the synoptic advantage Phin has? Looking at the Randolph site daily snow history, they clearly get upslope too, but I think Alex's spot origraphically looks a bit better. But Randolph looks to do better on coastal storms. Either way, that's why some of us were excited to see another person up in that area....we can actually do a comparison now. Only sick weenies like us would find that exciting....lol.

That was the retro-storm that rained on most of New England and gave NYC like 20" of snow (though the first phase of it was a huge wet snowstorm for interior SNE up to NNE)....but up there the snow never really changed over....those easterly and even southeasterly flow events seem to absolutely dump on Randolph....I've noticed a lot of marginal storms there where they get like 2-3" of QPF and 30" of snow while 10-20 miles away probably didn't get much. That was probably an example of the terrain upsloping enough from the east to keep it a wet snow bomb. Several mountain areas that do well on easterly flow stayed snow on that one across NNE.

Skiing is a hobby for Phin, so no need to rush spring up there. Some of the best skiing is during March and early April with the mountains draped in an entire winter's worth of snow pack.......and also when you don't have to bundle up like you are Shackleton on an Antarctica expedition. March and (in many years) early April is what Ginxy and I have long called "the best open secret in New England" for skiing.

Yeah it would probably drive you nuts if you didn’t spend all that time up there, but in your situation it’s like two residences.

Yeah that whole valley floor probably radiates like the moon...esp with fresh snow cover. Probably some -35 to -40ish temps in the coldest winters. Maybe even colder in the local Maple Hollows of the area.

Yeah even Littleton itself is noticeably better though still a bit snow-holish...and SW Littleton is actually pretty good and down toward Franconia. I’m sure you’ve noticed driving around...it obviously keeps increasing rapidly as you head down toward Franconia Notch and Cannon Mountain. I think the lack of precip is as much to blame or even more so than not holding CAD. Downslope drying in between snowstorms probably helps sublimate the light snows they get more than other areas too...esp on a south or southwest wind. It’s like 2 or 3 factors all conspiring to make them a local minimum. I don’t want to make it sound like they are the Mid-Atlantic....it’s just a very acute local minimum. They still get plenty of light snows from clippers, windex events, and probably even some favorable blocked upslope setups...and even do fine on southwest flow event moderate synoptic snows, but they really struggle on bigger setups and have trouble holding their temps on unfavorable setups compared to other areas nears them.

I was really worried when you mentioned that location...but you’re right, for 99.9% of the population it would be a beautiful paradise, but there’s no way I could in good conscience keep silent seeing a fellow snow weenie consider it. I felt like all the kids in “The Sandlot” movie when Smalls says, “hey what’s the big deal, I’ll get the ball” while he starts climbing the wall....and they all shout “NOOOOOO!!!!.....” and start sprinting after him. LOL

I’d be utterly shocked if that spot got 120”. I could maybe be convinced of 90-100” on the ridge there with mediocre retention. The extra elevation would definitely help some...but it’s still smack in the death triangle between Littleton-Lancaster-Whitefield.

Yeah I don’t know the exact number up there. The Lancaster coop averages like 70”. Sometimes coops are too low if they truly only measure once per day at the same exact time. Not sure if Lancaster does or not. I haven’t scrutinized the coop data there very closely. But based off of snow cover maps and having driven up there frequently, it’s not a whole lot more than that even if it’s wrong. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen bare ground or nearly bare ground there when every other direction was deep snow pack.

It’s def a snow hole there. It’s a ridge but it’s totally stuck right in the valley there between Lancaster and Whitefield. That’s an awful spot. I’m sure they get like an extra 10” per year or something up there compared to the valley floor but I doubt they avoid the big downsloping in the synoptic sense. Id be surprised if they got more than 80-85” per year there. The valley floor there probably barely averages more than ORH with worse retention. It does increase really rapidly toward Jefferson but I feel like that ridge sits in the worst spot. It’s kind of amazing how fast the snow increases once you head east on Rt 2. By the time you get to where Phineas is at the same elevation, it’s probably literally double the annual snowfall with wayyyy better retention. But yeah...in an absolute sense, it’s going to be winter paradise for some person from the south coast. 80”+ of snow is still 80”+ of snow....you just might be driven mad though when you see the snow hole over you or you melt out pretty fast in a cutter and just a few miles away is completely buried.

I lost the 2010-2011 snow map forever unless someone saved it. It was on my old laptop and somehow it didn't make it over to my new one years ago and I didn't have an archived copy on here. Only way it still exists is if someone saved it for themselves.

Yeah his area might have. They got a lot of mixing in the Jan 03 storm there but they well might have gotten enough to have above normal snow that month. Just to his north east and east northeast there was less sleet intrusion.

Someone probably in N RI/NE CT or interior E MA south of the pike had all 4 months AN for snow....you had to be far enough northwest to get smoked in January 2003 but also far enough south to get hit by that nice band in the 3/6/03 system.

March didn't make it for ORH....it may have for some other area that also did well in Nov 2002.

The bolded is really obvious when you visit there if you are at all informed about geology and meteorology together....it's pretty amazing seeing all these structures, but also seemingly very fragile as you put it...or "exposed fragility" to be more precise. I remember reading a paper, say, 14-15 years ago on the climate of CA going back centuries and the unmistakable conclusion from it was that the 20th century was the wettest century on record there since at least maybe 1000-1100...pre-Little Ice Age. I was thinking, "wow, and people go all crazy over droughts like '76-77.....that will look like Shangri La when one of these 10 or 20 year droughts hits"...at the time, we hadn't had the 2014-2015 drought yet there, but same sentiment....the rhetoric was desperate-sounding, but in a historical climate context, the 2014-2015 drought is a fly compared to so many previous periods. The inevitability of a life-changing drought there rang true when reading that paper...and that's not even accounting for any enhancement climate warming might impose on top of such a drought. And I didn't even talk about the geological inevitability there, but you hinted at it.... I'd pass.

ORH still only 59F at 1pm.

High desert is amazing....I'd consider living anywhere there or in the mountains near there in NM, AZ, S CO/S UT....basically the four corners states outside of places like S AZ and Albuquerque or Las Cruces. As for CA, I had a lot of family out there over the years living in different parts of the state.........I love the Tahoe region of CA and some of far N CA like Mt Shasta and up near Oregon (it's very secluded up there, you might as well be in Idaho), but otherwise I don't have much desire to be in that state. The Mojave desert is pretty cool to visit, but I definitely wouldn't live there. The rest of SoCal is basically a dump to me...San Diego was pretty fun visiting years ago but it's become a lot more crowded in the past couple decades. Still not as bad as the LA Basin.

Looking for other seasons in more detail and not off the top of my head...... '76-'77 narrowly missed at ORH...Feb '77 was slightly below normal for snowfall but all other months were above. It appears that '95-'96 is indeed the only other season outside of '04-'05....and actually '04-'05 didn't qualify at ORH (it did for BOS though)....December '04 was about 1.5" below normal for snow. '02-'03 came close but March fizzled badly after the first week that gave a 5-6" event. '77-'78 also very narrowly came close but November only mustered 2.2" vs a 3.0" average.

Yeah it's hard to pull off AN snow in every month including November....1995-1996 did it too. Off the top of my head I can't think of any others.....'93-'94 came close, but we only got a few tenths in November.

How can you even look at that satellite pic and defend a tropical storm characterization?....nevermind any flight data. Cranky gonna cranky.

Ideally it will stay slightly above freezing or just barely touch it.....a hard freeze is usually not great for the colors as it kills the sugars that produce the red pigments. Cold (but not freezing) temps are ideal. Those nights in the mid 30s to low 40s really seem to make the reds pop. The freeze won't affect the yellows/lighter oranges too much, but a hard freeze can risk dropping the leaves a bit quicker also shortening the foliage season.

Oct 2005 was pretty nasty too...remnants of Wilma got a bit entrained. Also Noel in Nov 2007...a bunch of us chased that out on the Cape. Might have been right before you joined the forums.