NNE Spring

[dendrite]

Yeah thanks. I was able to get enough to tide me over till the official site is back up.

I assume you found the hourly history page.

http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KJFK/2014/4/29/DailyHistory.html?MR=1

[wxeyeNH]

11:30 pm 36.9f light sleet

[Snow Bow]

Have heard icy precip bouncing off screens for 45 minutes or so. Deck has enough on it to feel when I walked on it.

Was in South Carolina yesterday with a temp of 85 so it's been extra cold for me today.

[dendrite]

Had some IP here too. 39F.

[Hitman]

did you make a hit that day at JFK, Lufthansa?

No comment.

[tamarack]

Meh ending to a meh month. Temp slightly below my avg (Farmington will be very close to their 1981-2010 norm), precip 65% of avg, snowfall (2.0") 37% of avg but right at median. No big wx events (rain/snow/heat/cold/wind), and the monthly max of 64 (on 3 diff days) is my coolest in 16 Aprils and only the 2nd time the month failed to reach 70. Nothing terrible, just blah - had to get one of those sometime, after many months of high-interest events.

[wxeyeNH]

Models were right on showing the QPF at my doorstep and not getting in here.  Just cloudy all day but looking SW I can see the far ridges obscured in rain.  It gets almost to me and dries up.   Guess that will change in the next couple hours.

 

Around 40F all day and another day running the heat.

[Allenson]

Not much to report....  Cool, raw, wet, blah.

 

May first and there's still a fire in the woodstove.

[tamarack]

Not much to report....  Cool, raw, wet, blah.

 

May first and there's still a fire in the woodstove.

 

Not the last, either.  My split wood is down to about 2 woodbox loads - in Jan. I use a boxload per day, on avg.  Need to work up some more this weekend.  Measured 0.58" at 7 AM, one more band to the west.  I'm guessing a total of 0.8" to 1", unless some aft convection fires up (and I doubt it will do much this far north.)

[powderfreak]

A friend reported about an inch of clear glaze on Mansfield's upper elevations yesterday evening...mix of IP/ZR on the ground and clear ice on the trees. Thick freezing fog/mist, enough to ice up your clothing. Looks like the anemometer up there was iced up and not reporting for around 24 hours on the meso-west site during the ice event.

[wxeyeNH]

Cold gloomy 45F at 1pm.   I think my point and click is 60F.   It's amazing its May 1, going to be a very short spring.  

[weatherMA]

52F now on campus, feels warm compared to yesterday with dp in upper 40s.

[wxeyeNH]

52F now on campus, feels warm compared to yesterday with dp in upper 40s.

Yup, jump of 8F past 15 minutes with low stuff moving off.  Nice to see the sun.  Will help the greenup.

[wxeyeNH]

Guess we did warm up.   17F rise so far.  Enjoying the 60's.

[dendrite]

April is wrapped up.

Averages/Totals

Max 54.2

Min 32.2

Mean 43.2

Precip 2.87"

Snow 1.0"

Extremes

High Max 75.4 14th

Low Min 20.6 17th

Low Max 37.3 16th

High Min 45.7 22nd

Max Rain 0.69" 15th

Max Snow 1.0" 16th

Max Depth 15" 1st

Peak Gust 40mph 24th

[CoastalWx]

Brian, you go to Guiseppe's often?

[dendrite]

Brian, you go to Guiseppe's often?

Not really...it's probably been a couple years.

[CoastalWx]

Not really...it's probably been a couple years.

Well maybe time to go lol. Good pizza and atmosphere.

[tamarack]

Borrowing your format, so as to compare our two locations:  MY numbers are on the right,.

 

April is wrapped up.

Averages/Totals
Max 54.2...........50.2
Min 32.2............28.4
Mean 43.2..........39.3  (4th coolest of 16)

Precip 2.87".......2.67"
Snow 1.0"..........2.0"

Extremes
High Max 75.4 14th..........64, 14th, 21st, 22nd
Low Min 20.6 17th............13, 4th, 17th
Low Max 37.3 16th...........38, 13th   (Afternoon high on 16th was 32.)
High Min 45.7 22nd..........44, 15th

Max Rain 0.69" 15th.........0.68", 9th (max event, 0.79", 15-16)
Max Snow 1.0" 16th..........1.0", 5th
Max Depth 15" 1st...........32", 1st.  Last day with 1"+...21st.

Peak Gust 40mph 24th......No wind gauge, but whatever the speed, it came on the 24th.
 

[J.Spin]

PF, I just ran across something you’d probably like – I was at that 360 Niseko website that monitors the snowfall in Niseko with a daily measurement picture and blog post, and saw that they have their snowfall data available in a viewable/downloadable spreadsheet.  You can get to the spreadsheet via the 360niseko snowfall data link near the bottom of any blog post.  Naturally it made me think of your daily reports from Stowe and the spreadsheet you have.

 

Anyway, 360 Niseko is more of a tourism/chamber of commerce site vs. one run by the ski resort itself, but the daily blog posts are essentially the Japanese version of Powderfreak reports – there’s often a snowy picture or two from the valley, some from the slopes, and a bit of text – all from someone who celebrates and cherishes the snow as the white gold that it is.  Here’s an example:

 

http://360niseko.com/blog/niseko-snow-report-14-january-2014/

 

Don’t you even get a daily picture of your snow stake?  And of course, in your reports you’ve often got the bonus of some meteorology thrown in there too.  Anyway, as I was walking through some of the daily blog posts (the snowfall spreadsheet is great if you want to quickly find the snowy periods), I thought of how great it would be to have all your daily snow/ski/weather material in a similar, accessible format.  Right now all the great material you put together is pretty fragmented between the Stowe snow report page, Stowe’s pictures of the day/photo gallery, the American Weather Forum NNE threads, ski threads, storm threads, etc.  I can typically track your material down when I reference it in my reports, but unfortunately, most of your great pictures, radar grabs, and other media eventually disappear because I think it’s temporary on the American Weather Forum server or something like that.  Anyway, it’s not like you need more work to do (and I’m not sure how much flexibility you have with respect to mixing work and personal material on the web) but I just wanted to throw that idea out there about having a consolidation spot for your material. What you need is something that makes it easy, so that all the work you do at the different sites is automatically cross-posted in some archival blog.  I just think it’s a shame to have so much of your great snow documentation flying off into the ether. 

 

There’s certainly a part of me that would love to do the daily new snow/image web log thing the way they do at 360 Niseko, especially with the way we can have those stretches where you can get a bit of snow each day for a month, but thus far I’ve wanted to keep my web log focused on just the ski outings to keep it from getting too busy.  Oh, and then of course there’s the daily workload involved.  But… it’s not entirely inconceivable if I was to leave the J&E Productions Live Web Cam setup going, and had time to do a screen grab and board clearing each morning.  I think the latest iteration with the measurement stick provides a decent sense of the snowfall:

 

 

The cool thing about Niseko is that it’s got a lot of similarities to areas of the Northern Greens like Stowe, with comparable latitude, peak elevations (Mt. Niseko-Annupuri where the main resorts are, tops out at 4,291’), village elevations (Niseko Village elevation is 984’), and population (~4,500).  There’s also all that deciduous tree skiing that reminds one of the lower halves of the mountains here, and that high quality Champlain Powder™-style snow.  There are some higher mountains on the island of Hokkaido too though, with Asahi-dake topping the list at 7,516’, and of course Niseko gets an additional 80% of extra snow on top of what the Northern Greens get.  I guess the Greens would probably get that bump too if you stuck the Sea of Japan just to the west of us.  My son Ty would probably love to go there for a visit though, with endless Champlain Powder™-style snow and sushi, he’d be in heaven.

 

An entertaining aspect of the 360niseko snowfall data is that since it’s all in cm, the numbers come across as big, so you have to sort of reset your head from inches to cm or convert it to have perspective (it is interesting to think though, if the Northern Vermont ski areas gave their numbers in cm, they’d be pushing quadruple digits in some seasons).  I grabbed a section from this season’s 360niseko snowfall data that was especially snowy and added it below.  January seems to be their sweet spot for that consistent snow, sort of like we have our periods around here where lake-effect snow and upslope snow may be more prominent.  The daily snowfall numbers below are pretty cool, especially considering they were taken down in town – that’s not a bad stretch of about a month:

 

Date                 24 hr snow

2013-12-22        2.6”

2013-12-23        5.9”

2013-12-24        14.2”

2013-12-25        2.8”

2013-12-26        0.8”

2013-12-27        1.8”

2013-12-28        6.9”

2013-12-29        7.1”

2013-12-30        3.1”

2013-12-31        1.6”

2014-01-01        6.7”

2014-01-02        6.7”

2014-01-03        6.3”

2014-01-04        7.9”

2014-01-05        9.8”

2014-01-06        13.2”

2014-01-07        4.5”

2014-01-08        4.3”

2014-01-09        5.1”

2014-01-10        10.0”

2014-01-11        8.7”

2014-01-12        9.8”

2014-01-13        12.8”

2014-01-14        21.1”

2014-01-15        6.5”

2014-01-16        9.8”

2014-01-17        5.7”

Sum                 195.7”

[powderfreak]

J.Spin... fun post and I'll respond in more detail when I get a few minutes to look around that site.

Just wanted to pass along that it's snowing in the higher elevations this morning. Posted it in the main thread but figured we could get some life in this thread.

I'm stoked we finally got an upper elevation web can on Mansfield to monitor this stuff from home.

Bright banding signal pretty strong as the radar beam hits the wet snowflakes just off the deck.

[powderfreak]

Nice short term disco by LAHIFF....cool to think that even a few years ago there was no discussion or application of Froude numbers to try and forecast upslope precip. Lots of advances in upslope forecasting over the past several years.

&& Short term /6 PM this evening through Tuesday/... as of 418 am EDT Sunday...for tonight...numerous showers continue across much of the area through midnight before conditions become more favorable for upslope precipitation as the low/middle level flow turns to the northwest. Precipitation will become more focused on the western slopes of The Greens and dacks as the flow becomes increasingly blocked per Froude numbers of 0.5-0.75. In fact...flow becomes so blocked by 12z Monday that if upslope persists long enough we should see some precipitation back all the way up to the eastern Champlain Valley. Hard to tell if this will occur though as middle levels begin to dry out after 06z as the low pulls away. Lows in the valleys will generally be in the 40s supporting rain for ptype...but atop the summits temperatures in the low 30s will support snow with an inch or two of accumulate possible. For Monday...drying trend continues on northwest flow behind the exiting low and ahead of a building middle level ridge. Still can't rule out a few upslope/instability driven scattered showers though ..especially across NC/NE Vermont closer to exiting moisture.

[J.Spin]

J.Spin... fun post and I'll respond in more detail when I get a few minutes to look around that site.

 

No rush, just something to check out at an NNE pace; I knew it would take some time to look around and check out the various links, data, etc.

 

 

Just wanted to pass along that it's snowing in the higher elevations this morning. Posted it in the main thread but figured we could get some life in this thread.

 

I'm stoked we finally got an upper elevation web can on Mansfield to monitor this stuff from home.

 

Absolutely psyched about the Stowe Octagon Web Cam up at 3,600’ – prior to that, was the Bolton Valley Live Web Cam at ~2,150’ the highest close up image we had around here in the Northern Greens?  I’m surprised I didn’t use it much in the fall, but these times when snow levels matter are when having those cameras at elevation is fantastic, and I’ve been using it a lot this spring.  It played a key part in making the decision for last Sunday’s outing.  I’ve been eyeing this upcoming period for another tour based on the snow I’ve seen in the forecast, so the cam should come in handy again.

[powderfreak]

That Niseko, Japan data is fascinating. Looks like a lot of the snow is low level orographic stuff. That guy documented 1215cms of snow last winter which is 478" at his house! Getting that much snow in the village at 1,000ft elevation is nuts. It reminds me though of the discussions here between the GreenMountain communities that get big totals but snow depths don't always represent it. His depth looked to max out in the 6 foot range (190cm, still a ton of snow for a city/village/resort town), but for a good portion of the winter was in the 2-4 foot range for depth...something Tamarack achieves with like 60" of snowfall, haha.

It's just an interesting observation about the relationship of snowfall to snow depth...and that guy looked to measure almost 500" in town only clearing his board once every morning! That's absurd. But very fluffy snow when you get 500" and your depth maxes around 72". Similar to when people wonder how JSpin can get 200" of snowfall but have a depth that maxes around 40". Tamarack or Dendrite get 500" of snow and they have 350" of it on the ground afterwards, lol. From a skiing perspective though, the snow quality and quantity of that orographic fluff cannot be achieved synoptically except in like a deformation band or CCB in a strong storm system.

But it does seem to be a similar climate to the northern Greens in that regard...just on steroids. That's my number one place to visit right now...and over the past year I have even been toying with the idea of finding a way to spend a winter there. The snowfall is just so absurd, it's something I want to see for myself. Reading through that guys blog just confirms that haha.

[powderfreak]

J.Spin, regarding putting all my observations and stuff in one place sounds like a great idea...time consuming but something I'll need to consider. I have all my stuff saved but scattered around in various places, from this site http://www.backtotheearthgroup.com/scottb/ where I host a lot of images and weather data (though not in a user friendly way but recent years photos are at the bottom of the list labeled under Stowe and Weather), and weather images are also at the bottom), to my computer and backup hard-drive to my iPhone. The smart phone has made it easier to put pics online quickly and I have like 1,000 weather/snow/skiing related images organized on my phone, haha.

It's one of those things where I know where everything is if someone wanted info on a particular event in the form of pics or radar grabs, etc...but I should find a way to condense it all into a user friendly site.

[powderfreak]

Upper level low and SFC low moving into a favorable climo location for upslope enhancement...generally over the state of Maine.

BTV AFD:

&& Near term /until 6 PM this evening/... as of 136 PM EDT Sunday...just a few tweaks to the forecast for the rest of the day. Widespread showers will transition to an area of stratiform light rain as evident on radar moving south into the region. VAD wind profile has shown the wind above 15k feet have backed from east to north and veering indicates warm moist advection aloft. The upper low now entering ME early this afternoon. The associated surface low nearing kbgr as well. Flow becoming more northwest upslope flow but with Froude numbers >1 showers/light rain will encompass the entire forecast area this afternoon. Residual marginal instability with cape near 300 j/kg in the CT valley will be short lived but have had a report of tiny hail/graupel near Montpelier. Freezing levels 3000-4000 feet mean sea level which indicates snow could fall down to about 2000-3000 feet mean sea level elevation. Some spots in the SW Adirondacks located within one of the precipitation bands had temperatures in the lower to middle 30s and a rain snow mix at times within heavier precipitation this morning. Expecting that to continue through tonight with little change in freezing levels.

[Sugarloaf1989]

There is still snow-cover in Northwestern Maine above 1,500' and Lake Mooselookmeguntic still had 99% snow/ice-cover yesterday afternoon. Rangeley Lake was also about 95% frozen.

 

Mooselookmeguntic Lake:

 

[moneypitmike]

There is still snow-cover in Northwestern Maine above 1,500' and Lake Mooselookmeguntic still had 99% snow/ice-cover yesterday afternoon. Rangeley Lake was also about 95% frozen.

 

Mooselookmeguntic Lake:

 

 

Nice!

[powderfreak]

Snowing again up high...this mornings snow melted quickly but should accumulate a little this evening and tonight.

Again a nice bright band ring around the BTV radar site, especially near the Spine where precip is likely heaviest with W/NW flow up to 12k feet. Usually that should get a Froude of 1 or higher without any low level veering, but flow is weak so probably keeping things centered over the Spine.

[Lava Rock]

Speaking of snow the gaspe still has >50" on the ground according to Noaa snow depth.