tamarack

Makes good sense, thanks.

Even earlier. When I was at Hopkins we had 2 very cold snowstorms totaling 20-25" Jan. 26-30, 1966, with pack reported as 17" on 1/31. It was gone after the 2/12-13 warm RA, but had already slipped to 3" by 2/9 despite the period 2/1-9 with avg temps 31/14, or 12.4° BN and even another 2.7" of powder on 2/1-2.

Noted also in the Dec. thread: It appears that the efficiency numbers in your earlier post weren't energy in/energy out, thus permissible under Newtonian physics. Rather it looks like a comparison of energy expense compared to the best of the "traditional" applications.

BWI numbers for 12/25,26/09 - they had 18" on 19-20: 12/25: 42 19 .73 0 6 (Probably measured at noon - many stations do - as they were down to 8" on the 24th.) 12/26: 52 40 1.02 0 0 Feb. 2010 may have been even worse. BWI had 44.5" Feb. 5-10, recorded 34" on 2/11, and by 2/24 it was down to trace. No big RA, total for 11-24 only 0.31" and temp peaked at a modest 46 on 2/21, 45 on the 24th, plus 3 days at 42. For the 2 weeks 2/11-24, temps averaged 32.7 which was 3.5° BN, with no day more than +2. Cities and airports aren't all that great for retaining snow. Edit, for BrianW (as the home energy discussion seems to have moved, appropriately, to the banter thread): Looks like "efficiency" isn't for energy itself (impossible under 2nd Law) but for energy cost compared to the cheapest "traditional" alternative.

How is that 380% efficiency measured? Several years of physics classes (long ago) told me that, unless Newton's 2nd Law of Thermodynamics has been repealed, even 100% is impossible. 2nd question: Does snow fall off the solar panels without your help? If not, how to the panels perform when snow covered?

And to me a "white Christmas" means snow OG - some folks, by their posts, appear to think it means snowstorm on 12/25, which is a much rarer phenomenon. To wit (snows 2"+ on 12/25): NNJ: One for 20+, final 6 of a 10" event ,but nearly done by 12/25 sunrise. The 12/24/6 thundersnow ended a bit after midnight. BGR: Zero for 3 Fort Kent: 2 for 9. '78 was nice, 1st half of a 16.5" dump. '79 was 32-33° slop, never colored the tar nor accumulated in daylight. Gardiner: Zero for 13 New Sharon: One of 21 (prob will reach 22 next week) Cum. snowfall for 12/25 here is 9.7" and 8.0 came on 12/25/17. Four out of nearly 70 on Christmas Day. Snow cover 1"+ is much better. No NNJ numbers, but 2/3 BGR; 9/9 FK; 8/13 Gard.; 18/21 NS, so 37 of 46 in Maine vs. 3/46 with 2"+ on 12/25. 80.4% vs. 6.5% Returning to the 1995 solstice storm: Had 17.5 of 16:1 snow in Gardiner, biggest snow of 13 winters there, first time I saw snow rollers. (Kinda sad that my central Maine home couldn't produce even one 18"+ event 1985-97, though the co-op at the water company recorded 19" from my 17.5" event.)

Highest I saw for Augusta was 13. May not have escaped single digits at home. Deep winter

Hardly a blockbuster, if I'm thinking of the right event - Dec. 6-7. Only place in NH/MA with over 4" was Pittsburg, and only a few more topped 3", all in Coos/Grafton Counties, NH. I think we were progged for 1-3, got 0.1. In other news, the twin 3s of 20:1 fluff have greatly improved the wintriness of the landscape.

??? Where in NNE? N. Greens? Wasn't in the Maine foothills.

Storm #1 dropped 3.0" with 0.15" LE in 20 hours, noon Tues-8A Wed. #2, the trough, brought exactly the same SN and LE, but in 1/5 the time, 6-10 PM last evening with about half falling 8-9. (IMO, a 4-hr event doesn't classify as a squall, unless 6"+ comes with strong winds. Half that with little wind doesn't qualify.) The 10 snowless hours in between were mid 20s mostly cloudy. At 7 AM had 1° with moderate winds; it blew last night but nothing like reports from points S & W. Today's max was set at last evening's 18° obs; expect this afternoon tops out <15.

East end of Superior, so might be a possibility. It may not be you directly, I just mean that general area. Looks good on guidance wherever it forms. Agreed. Radar has a decent patch heading toward the home front, as squalls - though rare - do hit the place. Inverted troughs? None yet.

Would be nice, but if we get more than a dusting from that kind of inverted trough, it will be the first time since moving here in 1998. They don't seem to reach the foothills very often. A decent squall with the CF is a better chance. News from farther west: I heard from an acquaintance in Sault Ste. Marie, ON, that he'd had 15 cm in squalls with more to come.

It seems every major highway has its "trap" zone. For I-95 in Maine, the place I've seen the most trouble is 15-20 miles south of BGR, around miles 160-65. I think the nearby Dixmont hills augment snow and temps are a bit colder on that stretch. Folks driving too fast on wet roads suddenly take an icy ride into the ditch, sometimes finishing shiny side down. Several years ago, a narrow band (little in BGR or Newport) dumped heavy snow for a short time and caused a northbound pile-up of nearly 100 vehicles. Don't think there were a lot of injuries but many folks' days were spoiled. 0.9" of 30:1 fluff overnight brought the total to 3.0" on 0.15" LE. Final tenth was after my 7 AM report to cocorahs. Still the odd flake drifting down in Augusta, though I can see small patches of blue.

Maybe half that in Augusta, essentially all in that nice period of moderate snow about 3 hours ago. Snow has just picked up to where I can see some diminished (slightly) visibility to the trees 3/8 mile away.

Back to light SN and very small flakes a few minutes after my previous post. Looks like a bit over 1/2", nearly all of which fell during the 20 minutes of mod/hvy.

First flakes (seen out my office window) in Augusta at 11:45, moderate SN since 12:15. Medium-size aggregates but the slow descent points to decent dendrites and ratios. Edit at 12:37: Now SN+, but probably not for too long as the back edge of the good stuff is rapidly approaching.

Thanksgiving 2005 says hi, from midcoast Maine. GYX confirmed EF0 and EF1 spinners there during an advisory-level snowstorm. I had no idea such a phenomenon was possible. Echoes overhead in Augusta, dry air not yet defeated.

In other news, 20 of the top 25 in KevinMA's snow table are from CT or MA, and tomorrow's event will only reinforce that trend. I suspect climo will have had its way before winter is done, however. And as for squalls, I think I've seen perhaps 3 since moving south from Fort Kent in 1985. (Not counting the one that caught us on I-80 in western PA 8 years ago.)

We'll do well to even reach 2" here, though some real snow would be nice atop the near-bulletproof 2-inch "pack" left after the weekend deluge. At least the month's precip (2.68") is still lower than the snowfall (2.9".)

Back to light rain after several hours of moderate, total now 1.46". Saw that the Presumpscot is a foot over flood. My wife was taking friends to their family Christmas party in Westbrook, so I hope they live on high ground.

Steady light rain, 0.59" (with some IP at the start} and temp 34-35. That's not going to melt much of the small glacier outside unless we get those upper 40s now showing on the coast.

Only has to beat 2.8" at my place, and a 3" rain tops the entire month's snow to date (and I'll still be BN for temps when the storm moves on.) Probably (hopefully) it won't happen, unless I can count the 0.53" RA from Mon-Tues.

Almost 2" more than here in the snowy foothills, though we still have about 4" of armor plate atop the lawn, so the nice fat doe (which knew that the season ended last Saturday) had to work in getting a meal from drops beneath the apple trees. My average snowfall thru 12/13 is 11.9", so after running ahead of the average since Veterans' Day I'm now slightly behind. Average thru next Tuesday as 15.7" and models point more toward 2-3" than the 5" needed to jump back ahead of average.

As a forester in Maine, I view ice storms as by far the biggest wx threat to the resource, except perhaps at/near the coast. As a wx weenie I find ice storms to be one of the most interesting of winter phenomena - 1998 is the most impactful wx event of my experience. Looking at serious ice storms at or reasonably near to where I lived at the time: --Jan. 1953, NNJ: Huge tree damage, power off 6 days at our home, about 700' asl. Below 500' mostly RA. --Dec. 1970, NNJ: Serious tree breakage but nothing like 1953. Brief power loss --Dec. 1973, Northeast: This event devastated W CT and SW MA. Much of that region was still dark when we traveled BGR-NNJ for Christmas a week later. While utility poles were crumbling in CT/MA, my parents in NNJ had ZR at 15° while at our BGR home it was 56 with RA+. --Dec. 1983, N.Maine: About the same magnitude as 12/70 in NNJ. We lost some trees but power stayed on. --Jan. 1998: Perhaps the most extensive damage and areal impact of any North American ice storm on record. Damage near our Gardiner home was worse than 1953 at our NNJ place, though not by a whole lot. No power 4 days, some nearby folks 2 weeks+. --Dec. 2008: Mild at my current home, devastating on central MA hills and nearby. --Next???

The silver lining (probably corroded) is that arctic cold over bare ground might take out a lot of mice and voles, either directly or by exposing the critters to extra hungry predators. Then maybe, just maybe, there will be a lot fewer ticks around next year.