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State of the snowpack / Streak ends at 48-50 days for those around Rt.78/80 and S


Zelocita Weather

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We reach 4 weeks of continuous snow cover on Tuesday, 2/18, which is a lock, as Tuesday is our first day up to 40F in a long time.  Beyond that, even if the subsequent week has a warm-up with several days in the 40s, I'd be amazed if we lost more than 1/2 to 2/3 of the snowpack, given how much liquid equivalent there is frozen into the snowpack and LE (or total mass) is much higher than it might be in some years where we had the same frozen depth as we have now (at least in most places).  FYI, here's a post I made last night in the obs thread about concerns over the snowpack melting last night with some rain; similar argument can be made about the snow mass being very large, such that full melting (sans a 60F snoweater rainstorm) will take quite a while.  And the analysis, below didn't include the snow from last night, plus we'll get some more tomorrow. 

 

People: even an inch of rain on top of about 2.5" liquid equivalent as snow/ice will largely be absorbed by that snowpack, although compression will be significant, making it appear a large part of the snow is "gone."  For example, I had ~8" of snowpack left before this storm that probably contained about 1.4" LE from the 1/21 (~3" left as of 2/3), 2/3 (8" of ~10:1 rato snow), 2/5 (2" sleet and 0.25" ZR for 0.85" LE) and 2/9 (2.5" of 15:1 ratio snow) snow/sleet/ZR events (it was very cold through that whole period, so I'm guessing maybe 1/3 of that melted), which were about 2.1" LE, overall. 

 

Add on today's 1.1" LE as snow/sleet and that gets me my 2.5" LE before the changeover this afternoon. I'm guessing I now have close to 3.5" LE in my snowpack, as the 1+" of today's rain was mostly absorbed.  Sure, in urban areas where much of the roads/parking lots were cleared today, the rain would mostly go down the drain - I'm talking about rain falling on a snowpack.  And when it goes down into the 20s tonight, that 3.5" LE snowpack will be cemented in place (with hopefully a few inches of fresh snow on top).   

When it rained here on Saturday evening, it beat down the snow pack.  You would be surprised how much an inch of rain can do. 

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When it rained here on Saturday evening, it beat down the snow pack.  You would be surprised how much an inch of rain can do.

 

What Saturday rain are you talking about? And regardless, 1" of rain onto a 5" liquid equivalent snowpack equals a 6" liquid equivalent snowpack (assuming temps below 40F or so - much higher than that will greatly increase melting) that is significantly more compressed than the original snowpack - compression does not equal lost snowpack, just a denser snowpack.

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this year has 46 days with at least an inch on the ground at KNYC...I think with the coming cold and snow chances it could end up with 55 or so days with one inch on the ground...

days with 1" snow depth...
74 in 1993-94
65 in 1947-48
58 in 2010-11
56 in 1977-78
55 in 1995-96
52 in 1960-61
47 in 1969-70
47 in 1976-77

46 in 2013-14 as of 2/21/14
42 in 1963-64
42 in 2002-03
41 in 2004-05

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As I've been saying, pretty sure we will still have several inches of snow on the ground by Sunday night, when winter returns. I just can’t imagine this very dense snowpack all melting. There’s about 3-4” of liquid equivalent still bound up in it and that’s the equivalent of 30-40” of snow (and snow melt is a function of snow mass, not depth, i.e., we have 30-40" of typical 10:1 ratio snow compressed into 10-12” snow/ice right now) and 30-40” of "typical" snow ain’t all melting from the next 2 days of temps in the 50s, even with some rain/fog. If it does, I’ll be flabbergasted. Should be a lot less snow, though, on the ground by the time it gets back below 32F on Sunday night - I'm guessing 2-4" left on my lawn.

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Even if you dont get into the 40s, the snowpack will enter the final battle of death tomorrow with 50F and full sun, (Mikehobbyst style), Feb 22nd has a solar noon angle of 39 degrees compared to 25 in Mid December, also down to a couple inches here in Staten Island

 

Snowpack is getting obliterated here today.

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