The ideal New England winter home (for maximum snow experience)

[Nittany88]

What kind of ratios were the Feb 2012 upslope blitz?  I remember ripping my pole through like 3' of snow with barely any resistance.  Also was bit by a few snow snakes lurking under the fluff.

 

I believe Jeffersonville came in with 40:1.

[powderfreak]

I believe Jeffersonville came in with 40:1.

That sounds about right...3 feet of champagne powder. Made for excellent deep pow photos cause you ski in that stuff, vs on top of it like a lot of synoptic snows.

[Ginx snewx]

Lots of hometown pride in this thread.

My personal preference would be what Will mentioned...Pinkham toward SR. I like my CAD, snow retention, and lower ratios.

yep

[CoastalWx]

I think MQE reported over 30:1 ratios in the fluff storm we had on 1/21 this year. That was the fluffiest snow I've ever seen I think. I almost ripped my knee cap apart when my foot went through calf deep powder. Totally did not expedt such little resistance.

[rimetree]

Used to ski as a kid up in Rangeley, ME...snowed to some extent just about every day up there. Deep, deep snow.

[Ginx snewx]

I think MQE reported over 30:1 ratios in the fluff storm we had on 1/21 this year. That was the fluffiest snow I've ever seen I think. I almost ripped my knee cap apart when my foot went through calf deep powder. Totally did not expedt such little resistance.

fluff is cool, the first day

[CoastalWx]

fluff is cool, the first day

When you get it almost every day to build on, it's probably awesome. But, no thanks to it disappearing in hours.

[dryslot]

I'll take my 7-10:1 all day long and the occasional 12-15:1 once we have established a good base

[J.Spin]

What kind of ratios were the Feb 2012 upslope blitz?  I remember ripping my pole through like 3' of snow with barely any resistance.  Also was bit by a few snow snakes lurking under the fluff.

 

I’m guessing the Feb 24-26 Storm is the one you are thinking of?  That’s cool that you remember that one, I hadn’t, but it looks like another good example of how Mother Nature doesn’t seem to care about what limits people place on snow ratios.  My observations from the 25^th indicate that in the 4:30 P.M. to 10:30 P.M. period, 8.4 inches of roughly 45:1 snow fell.  I encounter a lot of high-quality fluff in my measurements at our site, and that one even surprised me, so I ran the liquid analysis twice from totally different areas.  Some details of the analysis are in the text below, and the full account of that storm is available through the linked text.

 

“During the six hour period from 4:30 P.M. to 10:30 P.M., 8.4 inches of snow accumulated on the snowboard here at the house, so the snowfall rate has averaged just a bit shy of 1.5 inch/hr.  In the 4:30 P.M. analysis, the snow density came in at 3.8% (26.3 to 1 ratio), and because there was a bit of denser snow at the bottom of the stack, I figured this round of accumulation might come in even drier.  Well it did.  The 8.4 inches that I sampled at 10:30 P.M. contained just 0.18 inches of liquid, indicating that the snow is at 2.1% H2O (46.7 to 1 ratio).  I don’t believe I have ever had a stack that tall come in at such a high snow to water ratio, in fact, I was surprised enough that I went out and ran an entire independent analysis from a different location.  That second analysis came in at 2.3% H2O (44.4 to 1 ratio), which I’m sure is within the error of this analysis, so I’m very confident in the numbers.  Anyway, Mother Nature is producing some extremely stackable dendrites out there, and there are probably going to be a lot of Vermont skiers in the white room tomorrow.”

[ORH_wxman]

Used to ski as a kid up in Rangeley, ME...snowed to some extent just about every day up there. Deep, deep snow.

 

 

They get a ton of mood snow up in that area, but usually just dustings to an inch or maybe two. They don't get all those random 3-6" events that the N Greens do or the occasional 2-3 foot event nearly every winter.

 

 

But they sure as hell hold the snow that does fall.

[ORH_wxman]

We had close to 50 to 1 snow ratios in Ithaca on an LES event from late January 2000 I think it was. It's rare but they do happen.

 

But I also think there is some truth to the idea that when you are dealing with snow that fluffy, its easy to lose some moisture when you try and melt it down. The flakes almost want to sublimate in the ambient temps as it is. So sometimes those reports might be slightly inflated on the ratios...that doesn't mean they aren't still very high though.

[dendrite]

When you get it almost every day to build on, it's probably awesome. But, no thanks to it disappearing in hours.

                                          STATION:   BURLINGTON VT
                                          MONTH:     JANUARY
                                          YEAR:      2010
                                          LATITUDE:   44 28 N
                                          LONGITUDE:  73  9 W

  TEMPERATURE IN F:       :PCPN:    SNOW:  WIND      :SUNSHINE: SKY     :PK WND
================================================================================
1   2   3   4   5  6A  6B    7    8   9   10  11  12  13   14  15   16   17  18
                                     12Z  AVG MX 2MIN
DY MAX MIN AVG DEP HDD CDD  WTR  SNW DPTH SPD SPD DIR MIN PSBL S-S WX    SPD DR
================================================================================

 1  32  27  30  10  35   0 0.14  2.3    5  2.4 10 190   M    M  10 1      13 180
 2  30  10  20   0  45   0 0.70 18.9    8 11.0 21 330   M    M  10 128    28 320
 3  20   9  15  -5  50   0 0.31 16.4   26  4.8 21 310   M    M  10 1269   29 310
 4  21  17  19   0  46   0    T    T   23  6.5 14 330   M    M   9 16     17 330
 5  22  16  19   0  46   0 0.04  0.5   19  2.0  9 310   M    M  10 18     12 300
 6  25  21  23   4  42   0    T    T   17  9.8 17 280   M    M  10 18     25 290
 7  26  17  22   3  43   0    T  0.1   15  7.7 15 350   M    M  10 1      20 350
 8  19  15  17  -2  48   0 0.08  5.6   15  6.8 15 330   M    M   9 1      20 350
 9  18  -3   8 -11  57   0 0.01  0.7   19  9.2 21 340   M    M   3 1      29 340
10  18  -6   6 -12  59   0 0.00  0.0   16  5.3 13 190   M    M   7        16 180
11  29  17  23   5  42   0 0.02  0.5   14  6.4 14 310   M    M  10 1      18 300
12  26   1  14  -4  51   0 0.01  0.9   13  9.1 20 340   M    M   7 189    26 330
13  18  -3   8 -10  57   0 0.03  0.8   13  3.3 12 200   M    M   7 1      13 200

Never above freezing and yet it just vaporized.

[radarman]

I’m guessing the Feb 24-26 Storm is the one you are thinking of?  That’s cool that you remember that one, I hadn’t, but it looks like another good example of how Mother Nature doesn’t seem to care about what limits people place on snow ratios.  My observations from the 25^th indicate that in the 4:30 P.M. to 10:30 P.M. period, 8.1 inches of roughly 45:1 snow fell.  I encounter a lot of high-quality fluff in my measurements at our site, and that one even surprised me, so I ran the liquid analysis twice from totally different areas.  Some details of the analysis are in the text below, and the full account of that storm is available through the linked text.

 

“During the six hour period from 4:30 P.M. to 10:30 P.M., 8.4 inches of snow accumulated on the snowboard here at the house, so the snowfall rate has averaged just a bit shy of 1.5 inch/hr.  In the 4:30 P.M. analysis, the snow density came in at 3.8% (26.3 to 1 ratio), and because there was a bit of denser snow at the bottom of the stack, I figured this round of accumulation might come in even drier.  Well it did.  The 8.4 inches that I sampled at 10:30 P.M. contained just 0.18 inches of liquid, indicating that the snow is at 2.1% H2O (46.7 to 1 ratio).  I don’t believe I have ever had a stack that tall come in at such a high snow to water ratio, in fact, I was surprised enough that I went out and ran an entire independent analysis from a different location.  That second analysis came in at 2.3% H2O (44.4 to 1 ratio), which I’m sure is within the error of this analysis, so I’m very confident in the numbers.  Anyway, Mother Nature is producing some extremely stackable dendrites out there, and there are probably going to be a lot of Vermont skiers in the white room tomorrow.”

 

Thanks.  That's pretty incredible. 

 

It was easy for me to remember that one because it provided the bluebird day of the year, and one of the rare occasions I went to Stowe the night before, crawling up 89 once north of Montpelier. 

[J.Spin]

Does anyone know if there's a way to get SDD info from CoCoRAHS sites aside from manually adding up all the values?

 

PF, just go to the CoCoRaHS water year summaries, pick the site and year that interests you, download the Excel file, and sum the snow depth column:

 

http://www.cocorahs.org/WaterYearSummary/

 

Check on the value in “Days Covered By All Reports” though, because you’ll find that a lot of those sites are nowhere near complete in their annual coverage, and any winter days with missing data will naturally reduce the SDD result.

[dendrite]

We had close to 50 to 1 snow ratios in Ithaca on an LES event from late January 2000 I think it was. It's rare but they do happen.

 

But I also think there is some truth to the idea that when you are dealing with snow that fluffy, its easy to lose some moisture when you try and melt it down. The flakes almost want to sublimate in the ambient temps as it is. So sometimes those reports might be slightly inflated on the ratios...that doesn't mean they aren't still very high though.

Nittany would probably know what the precip gauge was, but those low density dendrites are tough to get into a precip gauge with the consistent 20-25mph winds they had during it. I'm guessing it was an AWPAG with the wind shield around it at BTV.

 

edit:

 

Like this...

 

[powderfreak]

When you get it almost every day to build on, it's probably awesome. But, no thanks to it disappearing in hours.

Fluff in the woods is nice, it does stay around longer than people think. Fluff in an urban setting is no good when you have all the dark surfaces, concrete, and other ways to make it disappear. Especially in the coastal plain cities...40:1 upslope fluff that's a foot deep up here and 15F is one thing, but being in Boston where it's sunny and 30F and the fluff gets melted from below and above is no good.

In the cities I'm sure you want as much paste as possible to be able to fight off the urban heat factor and those mid-30s type afternoons.

[CoastalWx]

                                          STATION:   BURLINGTON VT
                                          MONTH:     JANUARY
                                          YEAR:      2010
                                          LATITUDE:   44 28 N
                                          LONGITUDE:  73  9 W

  TEMPERATURE IN F:       :PCPN:    SNOW:  WIND      :SUNSHINE: SKY     :PK WND
================================================================================
1   2   3   4   5  6A  6B    7    8   9   10  11  12  13   14  15   16   17  18
                                     12Z  AVG MX 2MIN
DY MAX MIN AVG DEP HDD CDD  WTR  SNW DPTH SPD SPD DIR MIN PSBL S-S WX    SPD DR
================================================================================

 1  32  27  30  10  35   0 0.14  2.3    5  2.4 10 190   M    M  10 1      13 180
 2  30  10  20   0  45   0 0.70 18.9    8 11.0 21 330   M    M  10 128    28 320
 3  20   9  15  -5  50   0 0.31 16.4   26  4.8 21 310   M    M  10 1269   29 310
 4  21  17  19   0  46   0    T    T   23  6.5 14 330   M    M   9 16     17 330
 5  22  16  19   0  46   0 0.04  0.5   19  2.0  9 310   M    M  10 18     12 300
 6  25  21  23   4  42   0    T    T   17  9.8 17 280   M    M  10 18     25 290
 7  26  17  22   3  43   0    T  0.1   15  7.7 15 350   M    M  10 1      20 350
 8  19  15  17  -2  48   0 0.08  5.6   15  6.8 15 330   M    M   9 1      20 350
 9  18  -3   8 -11  57   0 0.01  0.7   19  9.2 21 340   M    M   3 1      29 340
10  18  -6   6 -12  59   0 0.00  0.0   16  5.3 13 190   M    M   7        16 180
11  29  17  23   5  42   0 0.02  0.5   14  6.4 14 310   M    M  10 1      18 300
12  26   1  14  -4  51   0 0.01  0.9   13  9.1 20 340   M    M   7 189    26 330
13  18  -3   8 -10  57   0 0.03  0.8   13  3.3 12 200   M    M   7 1      13 200

Never above freezing and yet it just vaporized.

I saw it back in January for myself. It was probably 40% lower in terms of depth the morning after, compared to the evening prior. I couldn't believe it.

[CoastalWx]

Fluff in the woods is nice, it does stay around longer than people think. Fluff in an urban setting is no good when you have all the dark surfaces, concrete, and other ways to make it disappear. Especially in the coastal plain cities...40:1 upslope fluff that's a foot deep up here and 15F is one thing, but being in Boston where it's sunny and 30F and the fluff gets melted from below and above is no good.

In the cities I'm sure you want as much paste as possible to be able to fight off the urban heat factor and those mid-30s type afternoons.

I'm just talking about pure compaction and sublimation on existing snow lol. It just vaporized.

[powderfreak]

                                          STATION:   BURLINGTON VT
                                          MONTH:     JANUARY
                                          YEAR:      2010
                                          LATITUDE:   44 28 N
                                          LONGITUDE:  73  9 W

  TEMPERATURE IN F:       :PCPN:    SNOW:  WIND      :SUNSHINE: SKY     :PK WND
================================================================================
1   2   3   4   5  6A  6B    7    8   9   10  11  12  13   14  15   16   17  18
                                     12Z  AVG MX 2MIN
DY MAX MIN AVG DEP HDD CDD  WTR  SNW DPTH SPD SPD DIR MIN PSBL S-S WX    SPD DR
================================================================================

 1  32  27  30  10  35   0 0.14  2.3    5  2.4 10 190   M    M  10 1      13 180
 2  30  10  20   0  45   0 0.70 18.9    8 11.0 21 330   M    M  10 128    28 320
 3  20   9  15  -5  50   0 0.31 16.4   26  4.8 21 310   M    M  10 1269   29 310
 4  21  17  19   0  46   0    T    T   23  6.5 14 330   M    M   9 16     17 330
 5  22  16  19   0  46   0 0.04  0.5   19  2.0  9 310   M    M  10 18     12 300
 6  25  21  23   4  42   0    T    T   17  9.8 17 280   M    M  10 18     25 290
 7  26  17  22   3  43   0    T  0.1   15  7.7 15 350   M    M  10 1      20 350
 8  19  15  17  -2  48   0 0.08  5.6   15  6.8 15 330   M    M   9 1      20 350
 9  18  -3   8 -11  57   0 0.01  0.7   19  9.2 21 340   M    M   3 1      29 340
10  18  -6   6 -12  59   0 0.00  0.0   16  5.3 13 190   M    M   7        16 180
11  29  17  23   5  42   0 0.02  0.5   14  6.4 14 310   M    M  10 1      18 300
12  26   1  14  -4  51   0 0.01  0.9   13  9.1 20 340   M    M   7 189    26 330
13  18  -3   8 -10  57   0 0.03  0.8   13  3.3 12 200   M    M   7 1      13 200

Never above freezing and yet it just vaporized.

It's just another way to get it to snow...maybe it sublimates but still doesn't bring down the excitement of the storm while it's happening.

That year we were all struggling for snow, so having a big fun event come out of nowhere was enjoyable.  The funny thing is I think BTV had one of the highest snow depths or days of 12+ OTG in New England that January, sublimination or not.

[dendrite]

It's just another way to get it to snow...maybe it sublimates but still doesn't bring down the excitement of the storm while it's happening.

That year we were all struggling for snow, so having a big fun event come out of nowhere was enjoyable.

Trust me...I know I'd love it up there. Fluff is beautiful and you get loads of it. I'd love to be in the Tug for one of their patented 60"+ events...even if the depth doesn't get over 30-40".

[Nittany88]

Nittany would probably know what the precip gauge was, but those low density dendrites are tough to get into a precip gauge with the consistent 20-25mph winds they had during it. I'm guessing it was an AWPAG with the wind shield around it at BTV.

 

edit:

 

Like this...

 

 

Yeah thats what it is (at least now and since I got here). Not entirely sure when we switched from the heated tipping bucket.

[CoastalWx]

Yeah thats what it is (at least now and since I got here). Not entirely sure when we switched from the heated tipping bucket.

 

You intern there?

[CoastalWx]

Fluff is awesome when it happens...snow is snow no matter what. I highly doubt anyone would snub there nose at it...

[Damage In Tolland]

You intern there?

He's a met at BTV NWS

[J.Spin]

Yeah thats what it is (at least now and since I got here). Not entirely sure when we switched from the heated tipping bucket.

 

Wait, do you guys at the NWS core from a snowboard for liquid analysis, or is a snowboard used for depth and other instrumentation used for liquid?

[klw]

I am sure this question has been asked before, but what are folks thoughts on the most ideal place in New England to have a small house in the woods (likely in the mountains) that is optimally positioned to cash in on major snowfall (most important part lol) , in or close to a nice town with good bars/restaurants, close to skiing and other amenities, is beautiful in the summer, convenient to get to from major interstate highways etc and isn't going to cost a small fortune!???

I always hear that the east slopes of the berkshires is a good option but curious to hear what people think....

One area which has not been mentioned yet is the area near Vershire/ Corinth Vermont.  It is close to 89 and 91 so access is good from NYC/ Boston/ SNE.  Hanover and W. Lebanon are close and it isn't too bad to get to Montpelier/ Stowe/ Burlington as well.   skiing is close and there is the skating on Lake Morey.  Hanover is a really great little town and the high ground near it really does well in coastal events.  Allenson registered 126" in Corinth this past year.  He could chime in one the area's attractions even more.

 

Here are the current Corinth listings:

http://nneren.com/listings/?t%5B%5D=648&Town_State%5B%5D=Corinth+VT&s=-Date+Listed

[Radders]

One area which has not been mentioned yet is the area near Vershire/ Corinth Vermont. It is close to 89 and 91 so access is good from NYC/ Boston/ SNE. Hanover and W. Lebanon are close and it isn't too bad to get to Montpelier/ Stowe/ Burlington as well. skiing is close and there is the skating on Lake Morey. Hanover is a really great little town and the high ground near it really does well in coastal events. Allenson registered 126 in Corinth this past year. He could chime in one the area's attractions even more.

Thanks, yes I stopped at Hanover for brunch on the way back from the White Mountains on Sunday. It looked like a great place.

[tamarack]

Just checked out (again) the co-op sites in NW Maine, and the situation is worse than I thought.  According to the CLIMOD site, Clayton Lake's last reports were for March 2011, and Allagash reports ended with March 2012.  There is a station at Churchill Dam, 15 miles SE of Clayton, but obs there are rather sporadic.  Thus the area west of Ft. Kent and north of Pittston Farm, 5000+ square miles, is a blank space.  Of course, apart from the Rt 161 corridor from FK to Allagash, there are essentially no permanent residents in that area.

[dryslot]

Just checked out (again) the co-op sites in NW Maine, and the situation is worse than I thought.  According to the CLIMOD site, Clayton Lake's last reports were for March 2011, and Allagash reports ended with March 2012.  There is a station at Churchill Dam, 15 miles SE of Clayton, but obs there are rather sporadic.  Thus the area west of Ft. Kent and north of Pittston Farm, 5000+ square miles, is a blank space.  Of course, apart from the Rt 161 corridor from FK to Allagash, there are essentially no permanent residents in that area.

 

That was the area i mentioned yesterday, Always a ton of snow to ride back country, But not easily accessible or have fuel available

[CoastalWx]

He's a met at BTV NWS

I didn't see a red tag all this time so I don't know.