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NNE Fall Thread


dryslot

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what phenomenona would cause folks from NH to Ct to NJ see the same thing, is it the time of year? Angle of reflection?

It's just the angle of refraction through ice crystals. You need the right type of cirrus cloud producing the right form of ice crystals at the right time of day (sun angle dependent).

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I understand the process just thought the simultaneous sitings 100s of miles apart was different.

There was synoptic scale WAA so conditions were probably fairly similar over a large area. I think it's those flat plate-like hexagonal crystals that tend to produce them.

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We remained mixed all night with clouds and light wind...35F in town and 22F at the summit. Freezing level stayed around 1500ft. With good rad conditions we can go lower than the summit, so would've been a chilly night if clear/calm.

 

Still snow dusted white trails up on the mountain. A beautiful sight from town.

 

The snow never melted on The Chin and surrounding area yesterday, so we had great white-capped mountain views of Mt. Mansfield from here in Burlington all day.  It looks like the temperature barely nudged above freezing, so I guess the persistence of the snow wouldn’t be too surprising.

 

Anyway, it got me wondering what the typical start date is for the continuous snowpack on Mansfield, so I looked through the Mt. Mansfield stake data from SkiVT-L and ran the statistics.  There were a few seasons with data gaps in that timeframe that I had to leave out, but using what was available, it gave the following for the start of continuous snowpack:

 

Mean:   11/16

Median:11/17

Mode:   11/18

S.D.:    14.5 days

Mean snow depth:  2.9”

 

Just off the cuff I would have thought early November for the start of the continuous snowpack up high on Mansfield, and early November certainly is within 1 S.D., but mid November is what the available numbers give for a mean.  The data are pretty normal based on the alignment of the above parameters though.  I’m just surprised, because it’s only a couple of weeks ahead of the mean snowpack start date I have for our location in the valley (the earliest date I have in my data set for our site is 11/18/08, which is around that Mansfield mean).  A quick analysis of the past 10 seasons averages to a snowpack start roughly 3 days later than that long term mean date, so this past decade has been pretty representative.  

 

I’ve added the individual data points below with some analyses so that people can check out their seasons of interest; the earliest date for the start of continuous snowpack is 10/20/80, and the latest date is 1/1/83.  That early date isn’t that outrageous (-1.87 S.D., top 3.1%), so once every 30 seasons I guess, but that latest date of 1/1/83 is insane;  based on the data set that’s 3.17 S.D. past the mean date, putting it below the bottom 0.1% (0.08% actually) for an occurrence of less than 1 in 1,000 seasons.  Hopefully we don’t see something like that again; although fortunately the odds would suggest it’s very infrequent.

 

21OCT14A.jpg

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Excellent stats JSpin...I would've guessed a little earlier in NOV would be the start of snowpack date but November can be a hit or miss month so not surprising. You can briefly melt it out in a thaw late Nov or even early Dec so I guess the mean and median date make sense in terms of the last time you get a 0" depth.

Here was a view from yesterday...

1780913_10102027514581390_91943757257604

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Wow, 1982-1983 didn't have continuous snow pack until 1/1 up on Mansfield?

Reindeer Sweaters hanging from chairlifts right there.

Those are the 1980s years the long-time patrol director talks about when he says we've all been spoiled since 2000. He's been here since the 60s and said the 80s were by far the worst decade....incidentally, that's when snowmaking in the northeast started to take off and money was really pumped into R&D for snowmaking systems...there's certainly no doubt of the correlation between the 1980s and the start of more widespread snowmaking.

A lot of the media will say it's recent global warming that leads to all this snowmaking...but really it was the 1980s after the banner 60s and 70s.

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Those are the 1980s years the long-time patrol director talks about when he says we've all been spoiled since 2000. He's been here since the 60s and said the 80s were by far the worst decade....incidentally, that's when snowmaking in the northeast started to take off and money was really pumped into R&D for snowmaking systems...there's certainly no doubt of the correlation between the 1980s and the start of more widespread snowmaking.

A lot of the media will say it's recent global warming that leads to all this snowmaking...but really it was the 1980s after the banner 60s and 70s.

 

 

Yep..it should also be noted that the late 1940s through mid 1950s were quite putrid as well for natural snow, though skiing had yet to really get uber-popular. Skiing really took off during one of the better periods for natural snow retention...then we went into a terrible period in the 1980s.

 

For most New England stations, the running mean for snowfall looks like a bowl shape with maximums in the 1960s or early 1970s, a minimum in the 1980s and then a maximum again at the present time.

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Yep..it should also be noted that the late 1940s through mid 1950s were quite putrid as well for natural snow, though skiing had yet to really get uber-popular. Skiing really took off during one of the better periods for natural snow retention...then we went into a terrible period in the 1980s.

For most New England stations, the running mean for snowfall looks like a bowl shape with maximums in the 1960s or early 1970s, a minimum in the 1980s and then a maximum again at the present time.

I know JSpin has the Mansfield snowfall bar graph and it's very cyclical...maybe he can post that again if he sees this.

The old timers at the Ski resort say they used to wonder if there would be any snow to ski by 2000, with the rate of decline in the 1980s, but then it came back strong with plentiful powder in the 2000s.

We all may be in for a shock if we get into another minimum. I just hope the media ****show won't be too bad, but if we had a 5-6 year stretch of poor winters again, it may become unbearable.

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Excellent stats JSpin...I would've guessed a little earlier in NOV would be the start of snowpack date but November can be a hit or miss month so not surprising. You can briefly melt it out in a thaw late Nov or even early Dec so I guess the mean and median date make sense in terms of the last time you get a 0" depth.

 

I’m wondering if our perception of a bit earlier start to the continuous snowpack comes from the fact that we’re sometimes getting in decent natural snow days of skiing before that mid month period if the right storm hits, even if that snow eventually melts out.  There was actually one case (in recent memory no less) that was very interesting when I was going through the data.  I already have the date of attaining 24” depth highlighted in my Excel file for my 24” plot, so naturally I was surprised when I can across a season (2006-2007) where the date for attaining a depth of 24” (10/30/2006) took place before the start of the continuous snowpack (12/3/2006).  That’s certainly an unusual start to the season right there.  I also think that with manmade snow in the mix, the more consistent skiing it offers in November might alter our perception of when the natural stuff is typically available.

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I know JSpin has the Mansfield snowfall bar graph and it's very cyclical...maybe he can post that again if he sees this.

The old timers at the Ski resort say they used to wonder if there would be any snow to ski by 2000, with the rate of decline in the 1980s, but then it came back strong with plentiful powder in the 2000s.

We all may be in for a shock if we get into another minimum. I just hope the media ****show won't be too bad, but if we had a 5-6 year stretch of poor winters again, it may become unbearable.

 

Yes, I remember Mansfield had a peak in the 1970s I think it was, then a dip in the 1980s and a peak again maybe in the early or mid 2000s with a slight decline very recently.

 

But Mansfield is obviously a bit quirky even compared to some other stations up there.

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