Autumn in NNE

[adk]

I have TONS of mosquitoes in the woods around my yard now.

Ditto. I took my shell out for a row and while waiting for the uvm frosh to finish mucking around on the dock I got bit prob. 200 times in 3 minutes. I was woozy. I can't wait for some real fall weather. Kill those little bastards. Last weekend, waking up under clear skies and 29 degree readings was a pleasure beyond reproach. Now....70s and humid with rain showers through next wednesday. SHOOT ME.

In other news...PF....take a look at the GFS for next sunday/monday...upslope chances...

[hvysnow79]

.89" yesterday, at least half of it falling around 6:00 pm, very heavy rainfall for 30 minutes or so!

I have noticed as well some of the trees really brightening up in color, looking forward to kicking this airmass out of here!!

[powderfreak]

Foliage is definitely becoming very nice. I'm amazed at how fast its progressing. We have some trees in the village that are peaking brilliant reds and oranges. If it weren't for the 70s and humid airmass, it would feel very much like fall. The "look" is there with some yards starting to see leaves on them, color in the trees, and pumpkins starting to show up.

There is some amazing color up on the mountain right now.... you can see acres and acres of red (some very vibrant) on the mid-elevations when viewed from town. Driving here on the Mountain Road (RT 108) its very noticeable looking up at the mountain... particularly in the stream drainages on Mansfield where it likely got quite cold some of those mornings. Very awesome to see. I was worried this was going to be a dull year but I think I was too early in that assessment.

High of 75F here so far today... 8F above normal. Morrisville-Stowe Airport (730ft) normals are 67/43F now I believe. With a low of 55F here this morning, that's a +10F for the day.

[mreaves]

Foliage is definitely becoming very nice. I'm amazed at how fast its progressing. We have some trees in the village that are peaking brilliant reds and oranges. If it weren't for the 70s and humid airmass, it would feel very much like fall. The "look" is there with some yards starting to see leaves on them, color in the trees, and pumpkins starting to show up.

There is some amazing color up on the mountain right now.... you can see acres and acres of red (some very vibrant) on the mid-elevations when viewed from town. Driving here on the Mountain Road (RT 108) its very noticeable looking up at the mountain... particularly in the stream drainages on Mansfield where it likely got quite cold some of those mornings. Very awesome to see. I was worried this was going to be a dull year but I think I was too early in that assessment.

High of 75F here so far today... 8F above normal. Morrisville-Stowe Airport (730ft) normals are 67/43F now I believe. With a low of 55F here this morning, that's a +10F for the day.

Like I said in an earlier post, this seems to happen every year. Just when I start thinking that the leaves are behind schedule, BAM!, they seemingly explode, sometimes almost overnight. I can't imagine living anywhere else this time of year.

[powderfreak]

Like I said in an earlier post, this seems to happen every year. Just when I start thinking that the leaves are behind schedule, BAM!, they seemingly explode, sometimes almost overnight. I can't imagine living anywhere else this time of year.

Yeah the difference between Monday and today (Friday) of this week has been startling. That cold snap was like injecting steroids into the process.

[J.Spin]

Yeah the difference between Monday and today (Friday) of this week has been startling. That cold snap was like injecting steroids into the process.

I've really noticed the color change in the trees the past two days; unlike last week when I saw that localized color near Jonesville, the color is everywhere in the mountains along the Winooski Valley now. I grabbed a couple of the September maps from foliage-vermont.com, and from what I’ve seen, we’re right in the zone those maps suggest for mid to late September:

On a different, more wintry note, I was working up some of my data for my winter summary from last season, and when I made my annual Waterbury/Burlington monthly snowfall map, something really caught my eye. Check out the difference in the Waterbury to Burlington snowfall ratio in December & January, when so many storms were missing to the south and we were often living on upslope, vs. the ratio in February & March, when we were finally getting some big synoptic storms. I thought the difference between those two periods was quite striking:

[adk]

Jspin....what would be REALLY good is if we had not just a snow total comparison but also a snow water equiv. comparison. I'd guess the numbers on total qpf are actually rather close. Much of the upslope snow is of the super dendrite formation fluff puff stuff. While much of what falls lower down in BTV is the flatter icier stuff.

It's also pretty incredible that waterbury only saw 2.4 inches of snow in November. I'd never imagine anywhere up here would have a 2.4 inch november

[Allenson]

Yep, the foliage is popping but man does this weather suck right now.

7:30am and it's 65F and all feels like a damp, nasty old dishrag. Warmest morning reading for me during this whole spell we've been in.

Another 0.38" last night (0.36" the day before).

[MaineJayhawk]

Yep, the foliage is popping but man does this weather suck right now.

It was crappy enough to keep me from my Saturday morning paddle. Gloomy and gray with intermittent showers. I s'pose I could've gutted it out - and in retrospect I may have made a different decision if given another chance as it's brightening somewhat. Very few Saturdays left in the kayaking season. Instead, I'm cleaning the shower.

[Allenson]

It was crappy enough to keep me from my Saturday morning paddle. Gloomy and gray with intermittent showers. I s'pose I could've gutted it out - and in retrospect I may have made a different decision if given another chance as it's brightening somewhat. Very few Saturdays left in the kayaking season. Instead, I'm cleaning the shower.

Cleaning the shower sounds like much more fun than a paddle.

I was actually hoping to get the canoe out myself but the misery contineus with nothing on the radar but moderate to heavy drizzle falling.

Wicked good. Axe to the head indeed. Chop!

[mreaves]

I'm in Middlebury today for the annual VAST meeting. Drove over through the App Gap past MRG. What foliage we could see was starting to pop. Very foggy at the top though, not much visibility. Very muggy. Need a new air mass ASAP.

[dendrite]

Getting some peaks of sun finally. Up to 71F. The next few days look warm, but nothing like 9/25-27/2007.

[dryslot]

Getting some peaks of sun finally. Up to 71F. The next few days look warm, but nothing like 9/25-27/2007.

Hopefully the heat and humidity does not make your bug multiply

[nzucker]

I'm in Middlebury today for the annual VAST meeting. Drove over through the App Gap past MRG. What foliage we could see was starting to pop. Very foggy at the top though, not much visibility. Very muggy. Need a new air mass ASAP.

My old stomping grounds. The college campus must look gorgeous with the foliage, assume they are similar to Rindge with more latitude but less elevation. Swamps are really colorful in Rindge, but all the other foliage is quite muted around the campus of Hampshire Country School.

[wxeyeNH]

Hopefully the heat and humidity does not make your bug multiply

I now have to keep my cat "Monster" away from the laptop when I check the NNE thread. She is usually on my lap and pounced at the screen trying to get that bug the other day. She loves that thing!

[dryslot]

I now have to keep my cat "Monster" away from the laptop when I check the NNE thread. She is usually on my lap and pounced at the screen trying to get that bug the other day. She loves that thing!

My cat as well, He use to chase the mouse cursor on the screen, Now he trys to paw dendrite's bug, Glad he has been de clawed.......

[Allenson]

Lots of murk & mire--drizzle off & on all day. Took a quick trip into the valley and found myself below/out of the drizzle there but not so here at 1.2k ().

Actually getting breaks in the drizzle & overcast now. Seeing some sunlit alpenglow on the hills if ya can believe it.

Cats & computers, if you've ever seen Welsh written:

LOL.

[wxeyeNH]

Heavy rain shower moving through. Where did this come from?? Quick 1/3" of an inch or so!!

[dendrite]

Had dews creep up over 70F, but down to 69/69 now with a SHRA moving through. It's nasty sticky out there.

[OKpowdah]

Had dews creep up over 70F, but down to 69/69 now with a SHRA moving through. It's nasty sticky out there.

Plymouth got up to 71.0, and currently at 70.1 ... really disgusting airmass

[powderfreak]

Had dews creep up over 70F, but down to 69/69 now with a SHRA moving through. It's nasty sticky out there.

I spent the day in Burlington but as I was driving back to Stowe, I noticed in Waterbury and Stowe that there was a lot of ground fog and mist from earlier rains... the temperature was 70-71F and I was thinking, no way are we saturated at that temperature. I knew it was humid but couldn't believe fog at 70F... sure enough, looking at the obs from our two interior VT ASOS stations, MPV and MVL, dews have been holding at 70F all evening.

That is absolutely filthy for this time of year. Its currently 68/68F with what appears to be dense fog developing.

[Logan11]

The drier air circulating around the upper trough got in across most of Upstate NY west/southwest of the HV and northern NY...odd situation where it comes in from the southwest. Not bad at all here now... 61/58. Most of the day the Td was in the 60-62 range. The high temperature was 72.

I spent the day in Burlington but as I was driving back to Stowe, I noticed in Waterbury and Stowe that there was a lot of ground fog and mist from earlier rains... the temperature was 70-71F and I was thinking, no way are we saturated at that temperature. I knew it was humid but couldn't believe fog at 70F... sure enough, looking at the obs from our two interior VT ASOS stations, MPV and MVL, dews have been holding at 70F all evening.

That is absolutely filthy for this time of year. Its currently 68/68F with what appears to be dense fog developing.

[tamarack]

Getting some peaks of sun finally. Up to 71F. The next few days look warm, but nothing like 9/25-27/2007.

Won't approach or hit 90 like it did then (in full sun), but the dews are just as bad. So are the bugs, mosquitos at all hours and a massive hatch of blackflies dominating during the day. As usual for Sept, the blackflies aren't particularly bloodthirsty, but very irritating as they crawl into ears and flew into eyes, even as I chased the lawnmower. Running the chainsaw kept them away, due to either the noise/vibration or the saltwater bath I got thanks to the July-like TD.

Colors about 1/3 changed here, with 10%+ leaf drop, except for white birch being about half bare. Yesterday's view from Cape Cod Hill (3 miles south of MBY) was hazy but still showed the broad-scale change farther along than we had thought.

[Snow Bow]

Won't approach or hit 90 like it did then (in full sun), but the dews are just as bad. So are the bugs, mosquitos at all hours and a massive hatch of blackflies dominating during the day. As usual for Sept, the blackflies aren't particularly bloodthirsty, but very irritating as they crawl into ears and flew into eyes, even as I chased the lawnmower. Running the chainsaw kept them away, due to either the noise/vibration or the saltwater bath I got thanks to the July-like TD.

Colors about 1/3 changed here, with 10%+ leaf drop, except for white birch being about half bare. Yesterday's view from Cape Cod Hill (3 miles south of MBY) was hazy but still showed the broad-scale change farther along than we had thought.

No kidding huh? I just got in from cutting, splitting and stacking about a half cord and it was downright unbearable. It's gotta be done but its just so muggy all of the sawdust from the cutting just sticks to any exposed skin. Really couldn't wait to get in and take a shower. The mosquitos didn't get to me until I started up the log splitter but once I did they were thirsty for blood. Can't wait till the muggy weather is gone for good till next summer.

[Allenson]

Hey, not bad out there this morning. A little bit of light fog but no big shakes. I can see the sky, I can see the hills and the drip-drip-drizzle has stopped. I'll take it. I reckon if something just sits & spins long enough, some drier air is bound to get wrapped in eventually.

Only a few mosquiteos here--not nearly as bad as others have reported. Little ones...

No kidding huh? I just got in from cutting, splitting and stacking about a half cord and it was downright unbearable. It's gotta be done but its just so muggy all of the sawdust from the cutting just sticks to any exposed skin. Really couldn't wait to get in and take a shower. The mosquitos didn't get to me until I started up the log splitter but once I did they were thirsty for blood. Can't wait till the muggy weather is gone for good till next summer.

LOL--I was splitting, hauling and stacking wood yesterday myself--all bucked up beforehand though, so no cutting/sawdust. Every piece of wood was slippery/slimey and I must have stacked 2-3 times as many slugs as I did pieces of wood. The greener maple that I stacked even had some powdery mold growing on it. More to do today and it shouldn't nearly as nasty out....

Picked up a new-used snowblower yesterday too. Big one--10hp, 32" cut. Boo-yeah!

Now, if the Red Sox could actually win a game (2?) might be able to call it a good weekend afterall.

[Logan11]

The slugs are awful here also. They are all through the garden and devouring tomatoes, squash etc. They get on them and burrow in as they munch. But anyway I picked off what was left last week before the light frost and gave up for the year. Just five modest sized pumpkins left out there - much less and smaller than what I had last year.

60/58 here now. The low was 57.

Hey, not bad out there this morning. A little bit of light fog but no big shakes. I can see the sky, I can see the hills and the drip-drip-drizzle has stopped. I'll take it. I reckon if something just sits & spins long enough, some drier air is bound to get wrapped in eventually.

Only a few mosquiteos here--not nearly as bad as others have reported. Little ones...

LOL--I was splitting, hauling and stacking wood yesterday myself--all bucked up beforehand though, so no cutting/sawdust. Every piece of wood was slippery/slimey and I must have stacked 2-3 times as many slugs as I did pieces of wood. The greener maple that I stacked even had some powdery mold growing on it. More to do today and it shouldn't nearly as nasty out....

Picked up a new-used snowblower yesterday too. Big one--10hp, 32" cut. Boo-yeah!

Now, if the Red Sox could actually win a game (2?) might be able to call it a good weekend afterall.

[OKpowdah]

00z GFS FTW. Snowstorm for much of New England starting middle of next week and lasting through the end of the run

[dendrite]

00z GFS FTW. Snowstorm for much of New England starting middle of next week and lasting through the end of the run

Gotta love the truncated portion of the GFS.

[OKpowdah]

Gotta love the truncated portion of the GFS.

Now THAT'S where we want an upper low to cut off lol

[J.Spin]

J.Spin....what would be REALLY good is if we had not just a snow total comparison but also a snow water equiv. comparison. I'd guess the numbers on total qpf are actually rather close. Much of the upslope snow is of the super dendrite formation fluff puff stuff. While much of what falls lower down in BTV is the flatter icier stuff.

I’ve added those data in a new chart below, but directly below I’ve got a table with the ratios of Waterbury/Burlington snow and Waterbury/Burlington liquid. For the most part, the liquid ratio tracks with the snowfall ratio during that December-January period. The ratio does drop off a bit in December, (from 1.65 as snow down to 1.34 as liquid) suggesting some fluff factor, but the numbers can’t get much tighter than the January ones at 2.06 and 2.04. Barring a huge intrusion of plain liquid (i.e. rainfall), which of course falls at the same density at both locations, the data would suggest that Burlington’s snow density was similar to Waterbury’s, especially during January. I think we only had one notable warm period (right around New Year’s) during that whole December to January stretch, so I don’t think rain contamination was a big factor in those data.

It's also pretty incredible that Waterbury only saw 2.4 inches of snow in November. I'd never imagine anywhere up here would have a 2.4 inch November.

One wouldn’t image it, but apparently it can be even worse than 2.4 inches; as November 2006 and November 2009 demonstrate in the graph below:

For November 2006, which was our first November at this location, we didn’t know any better, and then 2007 and 2008 seemed like they might be more typical with ~20 inches of snow each. November 2009 and 2010 have been like 2006 though, with essentially nothing for snowfall in November, so it’s hard to know what to think. From my data thus far I can only describe November as a feast or famine month for snowfall here. In fact, from this small sample of five seasons, the famine is in the majority. It’s not as though there’s as much elevation dependence with the snowfall in November as there can be in April and May; I bet the mountain valleys track with November snowfall in the mountains pretty decently, so when we’ve had poor November snow, it’s basically because the higher elevations have as well. I wonder how normal it is for the mountains around here to have 3 poor snowfall Novembers in just 5 years? This past November was clearly lacking in terms of skiing though, at least by Northern Vermont standards. As I pointed out in my 2010-2011 ski season summary at First Tracks!! Online, I didn’t have a single November entry in my ski log, meaning that I didn’t head out for a single day on the slopes. That suggests that even the mountains were heinous in terms of snowfall.