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December 23 Snow Obs Thread


dendrite

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This probably the snowfall winner of SNE today:

Weather Watcher:

Daniel Hartwig Sr.

Town:

Savoy

County:

Berkshire

Street:

Center Road

Landmark:

Savoy State Forest / Tower 51

Elevation:

2011 Feet

Condition:

Cloudy

Current Temp:

37° F

Low Temp:

NA

High Temp:

NA

Wind:

NA

Peak Wind Gust:

NA

Wind Chill:

NA

Dewpoint:

NA

Pressure:

30.06" Hg Steady

Humidity:

NA

Storm Total Precipitation:

3.75" Snow since 9:00 AM

on 12/23/2011

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Had another 0.4" after obs time, so 4.2" total so far.

Quiet now--33/34F and plopping some off of the trees. Looks like another light round about to move in.

Calling for single digits tonight which'll be nice to lock this stuff up a bit. All-in-all, it's been a nice little pre-Christmas event here.

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Start dropping ropes.

Can't wait to get up there Monday/Tuesday.

LOL... we need to triple these amounts for that to happen.

But we are definitely changing to a more upslope style snowfall... flake size just got huge and its has fluffy dendrite snow globe thing going on out there right now. Maybe we can tack another inch or so on.

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PF, why is it raining in the champlain valley......is this because of an unfrozen lake and warm temps off the lake....or is this normal?

I have no idea but I mean its just a bad boundary layer... that's why it was raining at even 2,000ft last night in central New England for a while. We aren't melting here at 1,500ft and are holding at 31-32F, but I'm sure down in town its probably 34F and starting to fall off trees... I'd imagine another 500-600ft lower than Stowe Village in the CPV that's just too much warmth for snow.

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I headed up to the mountain for a few runs this morning, so I can provide some valley and mountain observations for this event. When I left the house (495’) around 8:15 A.M. we had light snow falling and an additional 0.7” on the snowboard, so that would put the total for the event at 2.9” for this location. The valley snow accumulations certainly dropped off as I headed west to Bolton, and at the bottom of the Bolton Valley Access Road (340’), I’d say the accumulation looked like about 1”. As I ascended the road, I was surprised at how slowly the accumulation increased – even up at 1,000’ it didn’t seem like there was too much more than at the base of the road. Eventually it started to increase though – up at 1,500’ at the base of Timberline, the trails had a decent covering of a few inches – although they may have had some base left from earlier storms. Up in the Bolton Valley Village area at 2,100’ I found 2-3” of fresh snow on the car next to me when I arrived, and I suspect that car had been there since the start of the snowfall. It was snowing a steady light snow, with relatively small flakes in the 1 - 3 mm range.

I skinned up toward the summit, and in terms of total snowpack on the ground, the lower mountain had about 3 - 4” (which includes the new snow). Up around 3,150’ near the Vista Summit though, the accumulations were notably higher. Depth checks revealed that new accumulations by the time I was up there were 4”+, and I found total natural snowpack in the 6 - 8” range. That snowpack is actually pretty substantial, since there is a good layer of consolidated stuff below that went through the thaw/freeze, (sort of like what adk mentioned would be good the other day) with this new snow on top, which is certainly not ultra fluff. One good storm is all it will take to open some of the mellower natural snow terrain on the upper mountain. Snowfall was also notably more intense on the upper mountain as well, I’d certainly call it moderate while I was up there, and there were some larger flakes up to 7 - 8 mm in diameter. Visibility was probably about a tenth of a mile, although I may have been getting into some low clouds that affected the visibility as well, so that visibility may not have been 100% due to snowfall. The temperature up there at 3,150’ was 28 F using the thermometer on the Vista Quad summit station.

I hung around for a few lift-served runs with some friends, and we started to get some nice big 1” upslope-style flakes of snow – the intensity was still generally light to at most moderate at times, but it had that nice maelstrom look to it. Back down at the car at 2,100’ I found close to an inch of new snow on it, and since I was there for a couple of hours, that would suggest a snowfall rate of ~0.5”/hr during that period at the main base elevation. The temperature was a bit below freezing at 2,100’, but back down at the bottom of the access road it was certainly above freezing at ~35 F. Even here back at the house it was above freezing at 34.3 F, and although the snow had continued, the accumulation on the snowboard had not gone above the 0.7” from this morning, presumably due to consolidation/warming. The snow has definitely picked back up now, and I’m going to head out and take a noontime snow/water reading, so I’ll have that report soon.

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LOL... we need to triple these amounts for that to happen.

But we are definitely changing to a more upslope style snowfall... flake size just got huge and its has fluffy dendrite snow globe thing going on out there right now. Maybe we can tack another inch or so on.

lol yeah. At least you have a couple snow potentials over the next week. Sunday night and Tuesday night. Plus some good cold for snowmaking.

Radar looks good for upslope areas right now from Jay down to Sugarbush. Another inch at least I'd say.

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I have no idea but I mean its just a bad boundary layer... that's why it was raining at even 2,000ft last night in central New England for a while. We aren't melting here at 1,500ft and are holding at 31-32F, but I'm sure down in town its probably 34F and starting to fall off trees... I'd imagine another 500-600ft lower than Stowe Village in the CPV that's just too much warmth for snow.

BTV has something interesting going on today. Hours and hours of RASN despite 1/2SM vis...then -SN...then -DZ...then -PL...then -SNPL...then back to -PL...now back to -SN. Someone is having fun with the augmenting up there today.
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BTV has something interesting going on today. Hours and hours of RASN despite 1/2SM vis...then -SN...then -DZ...then -PL...then -SNPL...then back to -PL...now back to -SN. Someone is having fun with the augmenting up there today.

How many present wx obs they can fit in a 12 hours of metars???

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I skinned up toward the summit, and in terms of total snowpack on the ground, the lower mountain had about 3 - 4” (which includes the new snow). Up around 3,150’ near the Vista Summit though, the accumulations were notably higher. Depth checks revealed that new accumulations by the time I was up there were 4”+, and I found total natural snowpack in the 6 - 8” range.

That's what I'm finding... I was surprised to find at least 4" on the High Road off the Gondola. With the upslope coming in now and fluffy flakes, wouldn't surprise me to see 5-6" total above 3,000ft.

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Event totals: 3.0” Snow/0.35” L.E.

The snow from this morning’s accumulation came in quite dense (5.3 to 1 ratio, 18.8% H2O) once analyzed due to the consolidation from temperatures above freezing, but there was almost as much liquid in there (0.15”) as the overnight snowfall. With the big flakes coming down now and a bit of drop in the temperature, the snow is accumulating better and there are another couple of tenths on the board already. Although this is a fairly modest event, it is now the second largest event of the season recorded here, and amazingly, the largest event so far this December. I’ve updated the north to south list of latest accumulations reports from the Vermont ski areas below, it looks like things are topping out around 4” so far, and we’ll see where things go since the snow is still falling:

Jay Peak: 1”

Burke: 2”

Smuggler’s Notch: 3”

Stowe: 4”

Bolton Valley: 3”

Mad River Glen: 4”

Sugarbush: 4”

Pico: 4”

Killington: 4”

Okemo: 3”

Bromley: 3”

Magic Mountain: 4”

Stratton: 2”

Mount Snow: 3”

We should be into the snowfall for a bit this afternoon based on the radar:

23DEC11A.gif

23DEC11B.gif

Some details from the 12:00 P.M. Waterbury observations are below:

New Snow: 0.8 inches

New Liquid: 0.15 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 5.3

Snow Density: 18.8% H2O

Temperature: 33.8 F

Sky: Light Snow (5-20 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 2.5 inches

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Absolutely looks we'll keep a little moisture and uplift going over the next 4-5 hours. the RUC doesn't drop the low level saturation until 21/22z. With a steady north / nw wind I'd expect this to keep up. A solid 4-5 is WELL within reach.

Right now in BTV it's snowing steadily. with no accums on the ground though cars that have been parked for a while are starting to accumulate some wet slush stuff. its pretty no doubt. Flakes here are mixed between classic wet 34F flakes and some strange syrofoamy things. Not graupel or ice...weird.

This would be just great if a) I wasn't getting on a plane in 4 hours B) wasn't heading home to Philly and c) could go skiing.

(Thank me later).

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Guess which report is mine from this morning... I am now down in town and it looks like we've got a little over 2" on the ground. Most of the snow fell off the trees during the day and there was certainly some compaction. Now temps have finally dropped again below freezing here in the village and it is snowing decently again. Parking lots turning white again.

...LAMOILLE COUNTY...

1 SSE SMUGGLERS NOTCH 2.5 926 AM 12/23 3.2 AT 3000 FT.

STOWE 1.9 700 AM 12/23 COCORAHS

3 NE HYDE PARK 1.0 620 AM 12/23 COCORAHS

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its a christmas miracle....congrats!

Thanks O-low. In this crappy pattern it really is a miracle. I'm very greatful. Wish all of you could share in it. Will be the first white Christmas here in several years. Snow has stopped. Final storm total 7.5" or 18cms. Has compacted some to a 15cm depth. Look fantastic out.

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BOX pns...2.0" jackpot :lol:

MASSACHUSETTS

...FRANKLIN COUNTY...

HEATH 0.6 916 AM 12/23 HAM RADIO

...HAMPSHIRE COUNTY...

WORTHINGTON 0.7 851 AM 12/23 NWS COOP

NEW HAMPSHIRE

...CHESHIRE COUNTY...

JAFFREY 1.5 705 AM 12/23 NWS COOP EL 1030

FITZWILLIAM 1.0 802 AM 12/23 NWS COOP

2 WSW KEENE 0.4 700 AM 12/23 COCORAHS

...HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY...

PETERBOROUGH 2.0 700 AM 12/23 NWS COOP 1000 EL

GREENFIELD 2.0 803 AM 12/23 NWS COOP 900 EL

1 SE FRANCESTOWN 1.3 600 AM 12/23 COCORAHS

1 SSW MONT VERNON 1.0 630 AM 12/23 COCORAHS

NEW BOSTON 1.0 745 AM 12/23 GENERAL PUBLIC

1 ENE GREENVILLE 0.8 800 AM 12/23 COCORAHS

SW HILLSBOROUGH 0.5 616 AM 12/23 COCORAHS

3 ENE HOLLIS 0.4 700 AM 12/23 COCORAHS

HUDSON 0.3 713 AM 12/23 NWS COOP

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