J.Spin

So on that inspirational note, let’s take a look at where last season sits with regard the start of the natural snow/off piste skiing around here. As usual, I use the date of hitting 24” depth at the Mansfield stake as an approximation of that and for comparative purposes. The updated plot is below, with last season represented by the red star: Before I add a bit of context to last season’s start, here are the stats for the data set: n: 64 Mean: Dec 12th Median: Dec 9th Mode: Dec 16th S.D.: 18.8 days Entry of this year’s data point had no effect on the mean, mode, or S.D. (within a tenth of a day), but it did drop the median by one day from Dec 10th to Dec 9th. The plot would suggest a reasonably good start, but nothing insane: last year’s 24” date was Nov 27th, which is only 0.78 S.D. ahead of the mean, so well within 1 S.D. That puts it in roughly the top 22% of seasons, so about 1 in 5 seasons will have a similar or earlier 24” date. While the 24” date is a nice snapshot for the start of the natural/off piste season, there are of course a number of other factors to take into account that made last November more impressive than that number alone: 1) Near miss: If you look at the raw November stake depth data (posted below), you can see that the snow depth at the stake reached 23” on Nov 21st. That’s as close of a miss as you can get to hitting 24”, so even as of the 21st of the month, the snowpack had essentially hit that two-foot level. Getting to that level by the 21st brings a season past 1 S.D. and into that top ~15% of seasons. That’s not a huge bump in this regard, but having nearly an extra week of borderline two-foot snowpack at that part of the season could easily mean an entire additional weekend of natural snow skiing potential. 2) No going back: This is a much bigger feather in last season’s cap. Even from about mid-month, the snowpack never really took a major hit, and once it did hit that 24” mark on Nov 27th, there was really no going back. It sailed past 24” and just kept climbing as you can see in the numbers at the end of the month. I haven’t added the December numbers below, but even with the lackluster December we had, the snowpack never dropped below ~40”. That can’t be said for all of the seasons on the left side of the plot (certainly not Mr. October out there in front, which was the 2006-2007 season – he was back to 0” at the stake by mid-November). 3) Snow-depth days: I haven’t calculated this for any November with the stake data, but it will obviously be a good integrative measure of how much snow was on the ground for the start of the season. I’m sure last November would have a solid ranking if I put those data together. So, if we look into that left side of the plot, do we have any other recent seasons in there that we can use for comparison to last season? Actually, that lone star (Nov 25th) just to the left of the red star for last season is for 2007-2008. We know that was a solid season around here. The snowpack began building in the first week of November, and there was really no going back there either. Unlike this past season, that solid November was followed up by a stellar December (almost 70” of snow here at the house) and the Mansfield snowpack was hitting five feet by the holidays. With a solid December, last season certainly would have given 2007-2008 a run, but instead it was languishing at around 40” at the stake during the holiday period. With regard to some of the other stars up at that end of the plot: The two compatriots of last season on the plot, those other two stars on Nov 27th, are 1997-1998 and 1977-1978. 1997-1998 looks pretty solid with a snowpack start in the first week of November, and snowpack at about that five-foot mark by the holiday period. There’s also a nice-looking bonus stretch of snow at the end of October, with snow at the stake for almost the last third of the month, and the depth peaking at 16”. Checking my archives, I actually went for some lift-served skiing at Sugarbush on Oct 28th, so that speaks to that period snow being a bit of something special. 1977-1978 was before my time around here, but it looks a bit tamer. There was nothing in October, then snowpack began to build around mid-November and was getting around the four-foot mark by the holidays. The two stars right at Nov 20th are interestingly, back-to-back seasons of 1967-1968 and 1968-1969. Both had a little October snow, and then a snowpack start in the first week of November. Both had pretty steady climbs right through November and December, with 1967-1968 getting to around 40” for the holiday period, and 1968-1969 hitting a very robust 6+ feet of snowpack for the holidays. I guess that shouldn’t be too surprising, as that was just the start of a season that would become legend. The star at Nov 18th is 1965-1966, and the progression looks sort of like 1967-1968. Boy, that’s quite a 4-year stretch of good early seasons from ’65-’66 to ’68-’69 with those three solid starts. The star at Nov 16th is 1980-1981. That season is interesting in that the snowpack started building on Oct 20th and sailed right into November without ever going back to zero. Snowpack was 4+ feet for the holidays, but the rest of the season looks modest (relatively speaking) with the snowpack depth never getting above 6 feet. The star on Nov 14th is for something more recent: 2003-2004. I was out in Montana for that one, but snowpack started building in the second week of November, it was 4+ feet at the holidays, and hit the 100” mark in March. The star on Nov 13th is for 1976-1977. That looks like an impressive start, with snowpack taking hold in the second half of October, climbing right through November, and hitting roughly the 4-foot mark for the holidays. The stake didn’t quite top out at 100” that season, but it did pretty well topping out at 94”. The final early star I haven’t mentioned yet is the one on Nov 11th, that’s for the 1990-1991 season. It seems like the only other boom and bust start to go with Mr. October (2006-2007). There was a little inkling of snow at the end of October and start of November, but snowpack started building at the end of the first week of the month and topped out at a very impressive 45” on Nov 14th! It was a downhill slide after that though. The snowpack never went lower than 9” but there were only 12-18” on the ground for the holiday period, and on Dec 30th it dropped from 18” to 13”, so that must have been quite a dagger in the holiday week (I guess that depends on whether it was a nice spring skiing day or a nasty rainstorm). The rest of that season seemed pretty blasé because the snowpack never even hit 5 feet. I don’t recall much about that season, but I’m assuming there was nothing too remarkable. Date Depth 11/1/2018 2 11/2/2018 1 11/3/2018 4 11/4/2018 4 11/5/2018 4 11/6/2018 3 11/7/2018 0 11/8/2018 3 11/9/2018 1 11/10/2018 7 11/11/2018 8 11/12/2018 8 11/13/2018 11/14/2018 14 11/15/2018 11/16/2018 19 11/17/2018 11/18/2018 11/19/2018 20 11/20/2018 21 11/21/2018 23 11/22/2018 23 11/23/2018 23 11/24/2018 20 11/25/2018 19 11/26/2018 19 11/27/2018 32 11/28/2018 43 11/29/2018 46 11/30/2018 44

Indeed, I find that the August-September-October stretch is definitely one of the best chunks of the year. I had that list of things I like about that period the other day in my post in the NNE thread, but I didn’t even talk about the fun build up to the ski season (ski swaps, snowmaking, resorts opening, etc.). I don’t include November in that favorite stretch, at least with respect to weather, just because it’s typically stick season around here and it feels like we’re in a holding pattern for a bit before the snow hits the valleys or the snowpack starts to get deep in the mountains. Sometimes we’ll get some great early season powder days (November is sort of like October on steroids in that regard), but it can also be a tiresome stretch of only manmade surfaces. Now of course if every November could be like last season’s…

There was definitely some intense rain in the MRV area yesterday afternoon/evening. I dropped the boys off around 5:00 P.M. for their evening soccer camp session at Mad River Park with just some light showers in the air, but within a half hour we got a text message to the tune of “S.O.S., practice is cancelled, we need to be picked up!” The major factor in canceling the session was the thunder and lighting, but apparently the downpours were pretty intense. Thankfully they have a nice pavilion there for shelter. Checking on CoCoRaHS, I see some precipitation totals up around two inches down in the southern part of Washington County.

I think they’re just awaiting your signal.

Gorgeous – you can get a great sense for the quality of that powder by the track on the left.

I was living in the Champlain Valley back then, but don’t recall what the period was like, so I did a quick check at the BTV NWS site. On their temperature extremes page, it looks like that period holds a record for days with max temperatures of 80 F or higher, so that says something about that stretch: The forecast is looking pretty good at this point with respect to avoiding excessively uncomfortable July-style heat, and once we’re into the second half of the month it gets even harder to have those sort of days. That map PF just posted of the departures up here vs. farther south revealed quite the demarcation for temperatures this month, so there’s certainly some variability around the region.

Indeed. I find the Zen of surfing and powder to be the most similar I’ve experienced. They both have that simply impeccable union and balance between chaos and control. I’d probably put whitewater kayaking next, but it just doesn’t have quite the flow of the other two for me. I have never tried surf kayaking though, which I’m sure has its own feel. I love to surf – if I’d stayed down in the Buzzards Bay area I’m sure that would be a primary activity for me. Doing a lot of growing up here in Vermont though, then living in Montana for several years and now being in Waterbury surrounded by the Green Mountains, the allure of the mountain culture and powder skiing was just tenacious. The Northern Greens are (inarguably?) the epicenter of powder snow/powder skiing in the Eastern U.S. though, so of course that’s going to take precedence around here.

Hmmm...

Yeah, yesterday offered up some really impressive air, and of course the effect was magnified because we’re coming out of high summer around here. The boys and I were heading to Stowe with the windows and sunroof open, and as we’re going along feeling the breeze, my younger son commented something along the lines of “Wow, the air temperature is perfect!” What he didn’t quite know was that a big part of that “perfect” feeling was the low dew point. We did a pretty strenuous 13-mile ride in the Adams Camp complex without a drop of sweat for any of us. That’s why people love this air. I was explaining the humidity/dew point aspect to the boys later in the day, but the thing that left the biggest impression with them was not feeling sticky or even feeling like they needed a shower after a ride like that. Indeed at the beach or pool it’s nice to have a bit of humidity to keep things comfortable, but there’s a reason so many people have A/C – they’re literally trying to turn warm, humid air into this air. As nice as Saturday was, yesterday was simply over the top with those incredible temps and dew points, so it needed its own seal.

Fantastic!

LOL, indeed that was us! We even saw you waiting with your dog (thanks), although apparently none of us had time to recognize you unfortunately as we were working to navigate our bikes in the bridge area. Our wedding anniversary was Monday, but we decided to go out and celebrate Thursday evening to try out Tres Amigos for the first time. We parked at the church lot in the village so that we could get in a ride with dinner. All the restaurants along the bike path have such a sweet setup for going by bike, so we try to do that whenever we can. We’ve been missing Frida’s since it closed, but it’s nice to have another Mexican place in town. They have a cool ice cream stand there as well, which is genius of course being right along the bike path.

I was actually going to comment in my previous post that I saw my first yellow leaves of the season this morning while ascending I-89 along French Hill. They were on bushes on one of the ledges, so presumably in a stressful spot, but the process always starts at some point. Our old butternut tree out back will usually start dropping some yellow leaves at this time of year as well. I saw a couple of yellow leaves on the lawn this morning, but didn’t have time to look more into it. The actual butternuts have been dropping for a while already, and I’d expect to see some leaves falling any day now if the tree follows its usual schedule. I’m sure there are plenty of more subtle signs out there on our property, but that butternut tree starting to drop its leaves is typically the first harbinger of late summer that’s obvious at our house.

Seeing the fairly normal temperatures heading out to the end of next week means we’re probably not going to get back to any of those big July-like temperatures we had. Around August 10th is a notable cutoff date I found out about for this area from my wife. During her years as a summer lifeguard, she learned from the management (and reinforced with personal observation) that it was a critical tipping point for pool visitation. It’s not because of people’s schedules (it’s certainly not the point where school is starting up around here), but it’s likely a combination of available daylight for heating the water, lowering sun angle, and I’d bet most importantly, lowering humidity levels, that have people not needing/wanting to hit the water quite as much. It’s interesting to note that the date is about halfway between the solstice and the equinox, but it’s obviously specific for this latitude/location, so I’m not sure I’d read too much into that. That date is for the Champlain Valley though, so if anything the mountains around here would be a bit earlier to hit that point. I’m always partial to the (certainly arbitrary) August 1st cutoff for “high summer” heat around here because of the convenient calendar change, but there is a bit more to it than just that. I’ve never had an August day in this area with quite the heat and humidity of the big July days we get. That’s the way it’s generally going to be of course with the peak climate temperatures around here being in mid-July, but when the date has August in it, you already know it’s likely to have much more of a “late summer” feel than a midsummer feel. There is the old adage here about our one week of summer being around July 4th, but there’s also the one about our summer being “July”, with the other 11 months being “winter”. July definitely has its own feel. Last year seemed to be a bit of an exception with the lingering humidity farther into the summer, but that certainly wasn’t what we typically see this far north. Our real “dog days” are generally going to be in July vs. August. I guess that’s true for a lot of places, but hearing about temperatures around 90 F in SNE yesterday vs. the 70s F here was striking, it’s quite a different world down there.

July Precipitation: 5.15” 2019 Precipitation: 37.58” 2019 Water Year Precipitation: 56.05” July wound up about average here at our site with respect to precipitation, so we’re still running a bit ahead on the annual total after the wet spring. According to my data set, August and September are our driest warm-season months here before things ramp back up in October. The lawn is doing well, and we’re a couple of weeks past peak climate temperatures around here now, so hopefully we won’t have any big scorching temperatures for the lawn to deal with. There’s really nothing too hot in the forecast over the next week, and by then we’re getting to the point where it gets really hard to get that midsummer type heat around here, so hopefully those couple of days we had earlier in the month were the peak of our heat and humidity. August 1st marks the start of one of my favorite three-month stretches of weather around here. The humidity typically wanes pretty quickly, and we’ve got late summer warmth, early season cool shots, fall food and festivals, crisp nights, foliage, and usually first snows. It’s definitely a fun period for outdoor stuff around here.

Yeah, pretty sharp cutoff – it’s just one of those days that you pop down to Bolton for turns instead of Mansfield.

We were out in town and noticed some fairly dark clouds off to the west - it looks like something is building into the area:

Yeah, I’ve seen some of the local COCs pushing that theme lately in their marketing. We’re starting to see these around town:

It’s been mostly cloudy here in Waterbury with occasional periods of sun, and we’ve had a few spits of rain as well. Even though it’s only mid-morning, we’re already feeling pulses of drier air coming through when the wind picks up. Typically having the dew around 60 °F isn’t that big of a deal, but I’d say it’s going to be more noticeable after this recent spike.

Out here it still dropped into the 60s F last night, so it wasn’t too bad in the morning. It was pretty hot today though, getting up around 90 F or so, and we headed out for a float on the Winooski to cool down. We had some thunderstorms that came through the area later in the afternoon that gave us a pretty quick drop through the 80s F to get the evening cooling process going. We’ve been dropping through the 70s F all evening, but I’m not sure if we’ll be able to get back into the 60s F tonight; the forecast suggests we’ll fall just a bit short. Tomorrow looks notably cooler though, as well as tomorrow night, and then things drop even another notch on Monday with highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s F.

Even here in Burlington it’s been mostly cloudy this afternoon. I just biked downtown and back to run an errand and it was nice to be shaded by clouds. It’s certainly humid for around here though – I see the current dew point at the BTV NWS site us 72°F.

Agreed, it’s been really nice. I was glad to catch PF’s post on some of the month’s numbers for our temperatures and see that they’re about average, so the great weather we’ve had is essentially what we “should” be seeing. Aside from PF’s input, the “discussion” thread is sort of a mess to follow and get a sense for practical weather up here with DIT’s continuous torch trolling, his biased use of tweets and selected stations to fill some sort of agenda, and the fact that the temperatures being thrown out are the notably hotter SNE numbers to begin with.

We’ve had a couple of days with what seemed like orographic clouds up here over the past two or three weeks, but certainly not many. I actually like how those clouds come in, help keep the temperatures comfortable, and add variety to the weather. It’s not as if they always mean rain, sometimes they just build, give you a half hour of cooler shade, then you get a break of blue for a while, and the cycle repeats. In some cases you’ll get a passing shower as well, but it’s part of what keeps mountain weather interesting.

LOL, brutal, just brutal. I’m guessing you tried that novel approach that PF mentioned of just opening and closing various windows and doors to regulate the temperature of the house? I tried it last night and it seemed like it worked.

Yeah, been doing the same thing, closed some of the doors and windows, leaving others open to tweak the temperature as needed. It’s hard to complain when you’re able regulate evening house temperatures this way as we approach the hottest part of the year.