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December 16-17 wintry obs/discussion


ORH_wxman

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Def more ice in Leominster at school than here

About 0.5" on some tree branches there

Here it looks like 0.125". Or so

How did it look just up the hill on Rt 2 near Westminster? They seem to always get it the worst. Being on that east slope there really makes for good pooling of the low level cold, plus any slight upslope cooling they might get on a NE drain. Probably also more efficient at squeezing out precip when we have that heavy sheet drizzle.

I wonder if you sleeted longer or just didn't get as much precip. I'm surprised you only have about 1/8th inch. It was like a solid 3rd of an inch when I left ORH this morning. Should be able to get some more detailed measurements when I get home as it looks like we will remain near or below freezing for the next several hours.

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How did it look just up the hill on Rt 2 near Westminster? They seem to always get it the worst. Being on that east slope there really makes for good pooling of the low level cold, plus any slight upslope cooling they might get on a NE drain. Probably also more efficient at squeezing out precip when we have that heavy sheet drizzle.

I wonder if you sleeted longer or just didn't get as much precip. I'm surprised you only have about 1/8th inch. It was like a solid 3rd of an inch when I left ORH this morning. Should be able to get some more detailed measurements when I get home as it looks like we will remain near or below freezing for the next several hours.

The Westminster area looked awesome with the ice on the pines. Looked way more icy than my house.

I measured some ice on branches and it was more like 1/4" here. Did not hit freezing

Some pics from my yard

post-270-0-17221400-1355779445_thumb.jpg

post-270-0-53738500-1355779456_thumb.jpg

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Interstng that both here and at work, most of the ice built up on the "top" of the branches. In 2008, it encased the branches in a solid mass all the way around...

Maybe the slow rate of the drizzle caused that

30.6F attm

I wish I had pics from Westminster. Did Subdude post any?

Definitely part of it...in 2008 we had raging downpours so not all the rain was freezing on contact...it would "wrap" around the ice on the branch before it froze, and a good chunk of it just ran off into streams/rivers/gutters/storm drains. The warmer sfc temps in 2008 probably also played a role. The sheet drizzle last night was falling into 25-27F surface temps which was freezing it very efficiently. We weren't losing much water down the drains with that.

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Lol... the ski area was closed today

Its gotta be hell on the chair lifts in freezing rain events. They either have to knock all the ice off which is probably a rela pain or just hope it melts. Maybe powderfreak would know. Wachusett gets a lot of ice events though...even in events where I don't get anything or you don't get anything.

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Its gotta be hell on the chair lifts in freezing rain events. They either have to knock all the ice off which is probably a rela pain or just hope it melts. Maybe powderfreak would know. Wachusett gets a lot of ice events though...even in events where I don't get anything or you don't get anything.

I like to estimate the elevation of the icing on the mountain from Rte 2... Neat vid from 2008 other than the hippy dippy music

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Saw an insane story of a ladder truck coming to the rescue of some car who went into a storefront in ORH, only to jacknife and slide down the hill, itself! A lady and her 6 yr old just got out of the way in time.

The roads this morning were horrific. I had no control going down the hill...the final part is dead straight and its a good thing because I skidded a solid 700 or 800 feet. Even trying to drive slow. I'm sure there were a ton of accidents considering last night I saw 4 or 5 alone and it was far worse this morning.

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The roads this morning were horrific. I had no control going down the hill...the final part is dead straight and its a good thing because I skidded a solid 700 or 800 feet. Even trying to drive slow. I'm sure there were a ton of accidents considering last night I saw 4 or 5 alone and it was far worse this morning.

Pump the brakes. Pump pump
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I don't see that.

We're back to talking d10 events, but there's some hope for NNE...on the ens it looks like what we saw last week for this week. Who knows at this point where the gradient sets up, the primary track, the redevelopment, etc. I know I won't be losing any sleep over it over the next week.
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Its gotta be hell on the chair lifts in freezing rain events. They either have to knock all the ice off which is probably a rela pain or just hope it melts. Maybe powderfreak would know. Wachusett gets a lot of ice events though...even in events where I don't get anything or you don't get anything.

Oh yeah freezing rain is an awful situation on chairlifts....depending on the type of chair it can vary, as fixed grip chairs are easier to deal with because you can usually run the ice off the cable. But if its significant ice (like half inch plus) even fixed grip chairs will require lift maintenance workers to go tower to tower cleaning ice off the lift. Detachable chairs are a full on nightmare...to the point that we'll keep workers overnight to run the cable all night so it doesn't freeze solid. The issue with detachables is that it obviously detaches from the cable. The grips of the chairs get iced and if the haul rope is iced up, those grips won't properly close on the haul rope when they re-attach...there are just a lot more moving parts on a detachable lift with a lot of potential for issues. It can both be an issue of safety as well as breaking the lift (ie chairs jamming in the terminals, breaking expensive parts, etc).

Can't blame WaWa for closing...honestly how many skier visits would they rack up on a rainy (ZR) Monday in mid-December?

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went to troy ny this morning and saw an awful accident on the masspike I hope the guy made it out ok havent seen anything on the news very icy.. troy ny had nothing but rain coming home I figured the ice would be melting by the time we got to where it was bad this morning but I was wrong around the highest point of the mass bike its awful trees leaning everywhere and a ton of ice on the roads I was amazed by how much there actually was up there

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