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NNE Winter Thread

powderfreak

By powderfreak,
in New England

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powderfreak

powderfreak

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It's definitely fired up now at the house – I just happened to take a look at our web cam and there are some pretty decent flakes in there and close to an inch of additional accumulation.

 

Looking at the radar I can see why – we're sort of in the fire hose with some of the 30 db returns hitting the Winooski Valley

 

Man J.Spin...already off to the runnings with snowfall this season.  Brings this event to 3.7" for you with another inch so far today, right?

 

We've only had a tenth or two down in town on my deck this afternoon, but you're cam is showing another 1" today already. 

 

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eyewall

eyewall

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NWS is game on with Monday's system:
 

SO...LOOKING AT JUST A COUPLE OF INCHES ACROSS NY...PERHAPS 2-5"
ACROSS THE CHAMPLAIN VALLEY...AND 4-6" ACROSS CENTRAL VT. IT GETS
TRICKY IN THE LOWER ELEVATIONS OF ERN VERMONT WITH THE RAIN/SNOW
MIX...AND ACCUMULATIONS WILL LIKELY SHOW A HIGHER DEGREE OF
ELEVATION DEPENDENCE. CERTAINLY CAN/T RULE OUT SOME 6+" AMOUNTS
FOR ELEVATIONS ABOVE 1000` OR SO...AND THEN LESSER IN THE VALLEYS.

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powderfreak

powderfreak

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18Z GFS has a nice hit for C/NNE on Monday/Tuesdays storm.  Trended a bit cooler.   Still many runs away but good trend.

 

Yeah it looks very similar to the 12z EURO....12z GGEM is also in the same ball park.  Even the ECM ensembles looked very similar to the other guidance.

 

Its too much agreement for 3-4 days away.  Something has to happen, haha.  Wouldn't surprise me to see it tick either way (NW or SE), but still being days away, the final outcome is up in the air obviously.  Still, the zone for decent snowfall is only about 100 miles wide, but right now that cuts right through upstate NY-Greens-Whites-Western Maine Mtns. 

 

The lack of mid-level closed circulation is definitely not going to help getting precip further NW into the cold dome, and its also going to limit just how snowy this could get.  To me it looks like an Advisory level 3-6 or 4-7 type event for whoever gets in the sweet spot.

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powderfreak

powderfreak

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Came across this post from last night in the comments to a BTV WFO facebook post... this is exactly why pictures are great for snow observations.  BTV asks for snowfall reports and the guy says 7" at 3,000ft in Killington.  Then he posts a photo of what looks like a few tenths of snow and says 1.5-2" (assuming the photo and report were at the same time). 

 

These types of people annoy me to no end, lol.  I can imagine why the WFOs are so skeptical sometimes without photos. 

 

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wxeyeNH

wxeyeNH

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Arrived to about 1" or so here at the cabin, but off and on flurries all night. I can imaging the northern whites and greens are getting a couple inches tonight. Looking forward to skiing Loon tomorrow. Conditions should be great. 27.3/21 @1100 feet. 

 

What's the optimum snowmaking temp/dp?

The weather really changes exit to exit on Rt 93 in these parts.  I am about equal in latitude to exit 24.  Once you get just north of Plymouth the snow flurry squalls really pick up.  Thorton seems to be real start of where the flurries/squalls start to accumulate.  Here one town south of Plymouth on a NW flow we have flakes in the air on many winter days that don't stick .  Growing up my family had a house in Lincoln and on NW flow days it seemed like there was always snow in the air all day that would amount to an inch or two of fluff.  5 miles up the road in Franconia Notch it would be snowing hard.   I know NH pretty well but almost never get over to the Greens.  Powderfreak is in such a good area, it must be great to live in Stowe and just have squall after squall.  NW flow snows seem to have so little moisture.  4" of fluff is so different than the lower ratio dense snow I seem to get.  Once we get snow on the ground this time of year it seems to stick around, especially on north shaded slopes.  Anyhow just rambling.....I hope we get something on Monday.  I don't care if its 3" or 8" once the ground is white it seems winter has set in.

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powderfreak

powderfreak

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Arrived to about 1" or so here at the cabin, but off and on flurries all night. I can imaging the northern whites and greens are getting a couple inches tonight. Looking forward to skiing Loon tomorrow. Conditions should be great. 27.3/21 @1100 feet.

What's the optimum snowmaking temp/dp?

14-degrees is the optimum wet bulb temperature. That's the number given in the snow surfaces industry as being most favorable...the ice crystals still have enough mass to all fall to the ground, and still be very dry snow. Below that temperature you start to lose crystals that evaporate or just form a cloud as some crystals won't have the mass to fall to the ground. That's why when it's real cold, you'll see big huge snowmaking clouds rising at least several hundred feet above the trail, and only half of the water is actually reaching the ground in the form of snow...the rest evaporates or just hangs suspended in the air.

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dendrite

dendrite

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Yeah it looks very similar to the 12z EURO....12z GGEM is also in the same ball park.  Even the ECM ensembles looked very similar to the other guidance.

 

Its too much agreement for 3-4 days away.  Something has to happen, haha.  Wouldn't surprise me to see it tick either way (NW or SE), but still being days away, the final outcome is up in the air obviously.  Still, the zone for decent snowfall is only about 100 miles wide, but right now that cuts right through upstate NY-Greens-Whites-Western Maine Mtns. 

 

The lack of mid-level closed circulation is definitely not going to help getting precip further NW into the cold dome, and its also going to limit just how snowy this could get.  To me it looks like an Advisory level 3-6 or 4-7 type event for whoever gets in the sweet spot.

I'd keep an eye on how those temps above H85 trend with this with time.

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J.Spin

J.Spin

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Man J.Spin...already off to the runnings with snowfall this season.  Brings this event to 3.7" for you with another inch so far today, right?

 

We've only had a tenth or two down in town on my deck this afternoon, but you're cam is showing another 1" today already.

 

attachicon.gifjspin.jpg

 

It looks like today's accumulation finally stopped at 1.5" here at the house.  The combined total since yesterday is 4.2" snow/0.22" liquid, but I'm actually going to break this latest snow out as a separate storm/event from yesterday per my usual qualifications – in this case it was very easy to mark the discrete event, since we very plainly cleared out in the intervening period this morning, and the BTV NWS forecast discussion noted it as a specific upper level disturbance forecast to come through late this morning into early afternoon.    In any event, it's definitely starting to feel like winter, with the Northern Greens we love starting to do their thing; it's hard to complain when the storms start to come through in rapid fire such that you have to think about which snowfalls go with which events.  I've got to say that I'm more than happy with my tax dollars going to the hard working crew at the BTV NWS that dissects all these systems and lays them out in detail in their forecast discussions.

 

Jesus that band means business moving SE through Chittenden County.

 

Looks like its dumping on J.Spin's web cam in Waterbury now.

 

Yeah, that snowfall looked healthy on the cam – it's great to be able to check in on that stuff when I'm away.  Even with the radar, there would have been no way to really know just how much snow was falling at the house without the cam.  Over the summer I created a new ~30" gauge in the same format as that 12" one, and I'll be able to use that for monitoring overall accumulations in those larger events.  Last year I was just beginning with the current setup, and I had to put an extension on the small gauge when the settled storm depth passed the 1-foot mark.  Hopefully we'll have some opportunities arising this season that will call for the taller gauge.  Checking on the numbers from my data, if I pull the larger gauge out in preparation for storms of 6"+, that should be about eight times a season.

 

Today's snow was definitely fluffy – liquid analysis put it at 2.0% H2O.  I'll put together my full summary on this latest accumulation in just a bit.

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J.Spin

J.Spin

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Event totals: 1.5” Snow/0.03" L.E.

 

These are the totals for the upper level disturbance that came through today – very fluffy snow as noted earlier.

 

Details from the 8:00 P.M. Waterbury observations:

 

New Snow: 1.5 inches

New Liquid: 0.03 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 50.0

Snow Density: 2.0% H2O

Temperature: 25.5 F

Sky: Partly Cloudy

Snow at the stake: 2.5 inches

 

None of the ski resorts had reported in this morning, but as of this evening a few of them have.  The accumulations are fairly minor, but the north to south listing of available snowfall totals from the Vermont ski areas is below:

 

Stowe: 3”

Bolton Valley: 3”

Sugarbush: 2”

Killington: 2”

Okemo: T”

Bromley: X”

 

The next potential snow events in the pipe are a shortwave trough on Sunday/Sunday night, and then a coastal system on Monday/Monday night.  There's still some time for the outlook on the potential Monday system to change, so we'll have to see how the prognostications evolve with time, but as the forecast discussion indicates, there's some agreement between the ECMWF and GFS at this point.  Currently even our valley forecast has us as all snow here, but the ultimate result could be different.  I see that PF posted some of the forecast discussion in one of the main threads, but since I haven't seen it in here yet I've added some relevant sections below:

 

.SHORT TERM /7 AM SATURDAY MORNING THROUGH SUNDAY NIGHT/...

…MORE WIDESPREAD PRECIPITATION IS EXPECTED TO DEVELOP FOR THE LATTER HALF OF SUNDAY INTO SUNDAY NIGHT, DUE TO A SHORTWAVE TROUGH MOVING OVER SOUTHEASTERN ONTARIO PROVINCE INTO SOUTHEASTERN QUEBEC AND THE NORTH COUNTRY. PRECIPITATION REACHING THE VALLEYS DURING THE DAY WILL BE A RAIN/SNOW MIX...TRANSITIONING TO SNOW HEADING INTO THE EVENING AND OVERNIGHT. THE SHORTWAVE TROUGH WILL MOVE OUT OF THE AREA LATE SUNDAY NIGHT/EARLY MONDAY MORNING...PROVIDING A SHORT BREAK IN PRECIP OVER VERMONT BEFORE A DEVELOPING COASTAL SYSTEM BRING MORE STEADY PRECIPITATION DURING THE DAY MONDAY.

 

.LONG TERM /MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY/...

AS OF 336 PM EST FRIDAY...THE 12Z NWP GUIDANCE SUITE IS IN RELATIVELY GOOD AGREEMENT ON THE DEVELOPMENT AND MOVEMENT OF A QUICK-MOVING COASTAL LOW ON MONDAY...BRINGING ACCUMULATING SNOWFALL TO AT LEAST PORTIONS OF THE NORTH COUNTRY.

 

BASED ON GOOD AGREEMENT BETWEEN 12Z ECMWF/GFS...IT APPEARS SURFACE LOW WILL DEVELOP NEAR THE NEW JERSEY COASTLINE MONDAY MORNING AND TRACK NEWD REACHING BOSTON MA VICINITY BY 00Z TUESDAY AND THEN ACROSS THE GULF OF MAINE DURING MONDAY NIGHT. SYSTEM DOES NOT CLOSE OFF AT 700MB OR HIGHER...THUS RELATIVELY QUICK TRANSLATION SPEED (ROUGHLY 12-HR PERIOD OF PRECIPITATION). ALSO...WITH LOW TRACK SHIFTING SLIGHTLY INLAND FROM PREVIOUS RUNS...VERTICAL TEMPERATURE PROFILE BECOMES AN ISSUE IN TERMS OF PRECIPITATION TYPE...ESPECIALLY ACROSS CENTRAL/ERN VT ZONES WHERE A MIX OR CHANGE TO RAIN APPEARS POSSIBLE. LEADING QUASI- GEOSTROPHIC FORCING AND ISENTROPIC ASCENT ALLOWS SNOW TO DEVELOP AREAWIDE SOMETIME MONDAY MORNING...PERHAPS DURING THE AM COMMUTE TIME FRAME. MARGINAL TEMPERATURE PROFILES RESULT IN A RAIN/SNOW MIX...OR EVEN A PERIOD OF RAIN ACROSS THE VALLEY AREAS OF CENTRAL VT INTO THE CT RIVER VALLEY BASED ON CURRENT INDICATIONS. BEST FORCING/QPF APPEARS TO ALIGN ACROSS CENTRAL/S- CENTRAL VT...WITH LESSER AMOUNTS TO THE NORTH AND WEST. SPECIFICALLY...LOOKING AT QPF 0.75-1" ACROSS RUTLAND/WINDSOR COUNTIES...DOWN TO 0.3-0.4" IN THE CHAMPLAIN VALLEY...AND GENERALLY 0.25" OR LESS ACROSS NY. SO...LOOKING AT JUST A COUPLE OF INCHES ACROSS NY...PERHAPS 2-5" ACROSS THE CHAMPLAIN VALLEY...AND 4-6" ACROSS CENTRAL VT. IT GETS TRICKY IN THE LOWER ELEVATIONS OF ERN VERMONT WITH THE RAIN/SNOW MIX...AND ACCUMULATIONS WILL LIKELY SHOW A HIGHER DEGREE OF ELEVATION DEPENDENCE. CERTAINLY CAN/T RULE OUT SOME 6+" AMOUNTS FOR ELEVATIONS ABOVE 1000` OR SO...AND THEN LESSER IN THE VALLEYS. WILL NEED TO DETERMINE MESOSCALE DETAILS AS WE GET CLOSER TO THE EVENT. THIS WILL BE THE FIRST SIGNIFICANT SNOWFALL FOR SOME AREAS OF THE NORTH COUNTRY. THE OCCURRENCE OF MOTOR VEHICLE ACCIDENTS IS TYPICALLY HIGHER DURING THE FIRST "STORM"...SO ANTICIPATE SOME MODERATE TRAVEL IMPACTS ON MONDAY AND AT LEAST THE FIRST PART OF MONDAY NIGHT. HIGH TEMPERATURES ON MONDAY WILL RANGE FROM LOW-MID 30S...EXCEPT CLOSER TO 37-38F IN THE CT RIVER VALLEY.

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J.Spin

J.Spin

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I wasn't really expecting any more snow out of this latest event, but I just peeked outside and we've got some big flakes up to ¾" in diameter coming down with a few new tenths on the board.  Checking the BTV NWS forecast discussion, I'm not really seeing any mention of a specific new system, so I'll consider whatever falls tonight as part of this most recent upper level disturbance.  The forecast discussion indicates that things are expected to dry out tonight, but there may be a bit more moisture in those streamers:

 

14NOV14C.gif

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powderfreak

powderfreak

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Event totals: 1.5” Snow/0.03" L.E.

These are the totals for the upper level disturbance that came through today – very fluffy snow as noted earlier.

Details from the 8:00 P.M. Waterbury observations:

New Snow: 1.5 inches

New Liquid: 0.03 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 50.0

Snow Density: 2.0% H2O

Temperature: 25.5 F

Sky: Partly Cloudy

Snow at the stake: 2.5 inches

Nice! The first 50:1 ratio snow of the season, haha. A friend in Richmond said they also picked up about 1.5" today in those squalls. Tis the season.

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powderfreak

powderfreak

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The Camels Hump region of the Spine just south of 89 along the Chittenden/Washington county borders has been getting lit up for the past several hours.

 

I wonder if someone in that Huntington/Richmond town lines picked up a sneaky 3" or something overnight.

 

I'm impressed the upslope flow is still producing this morning.  Froude number is 0.75 though so it is slightly blocked and radar shows that well.  Favoring the immediate west slope.

 

Nov_15_zpslhfuyrdw.gif

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MarkO

MarkO

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The Camels Hump region of the Spine just south of 89 along the Chittenden/Washington county borders has been getting lit up for the past several hours.

 

I wonder if someone in that Huntington/Richmond town lines picked up a sneaky 3" or something overnight.

 

I'm impressed the upslope flow is still producing this morning.  Froude number is 0.75 though so it is slightly blocked and radar shows that well.  Favoring the immediate west slope.

 

We've had off/on flurries here in Thornton last night / this morning. Not really accumulating, but I rarely get upslope. I haven't checked radar, but I wonder if this could be residual lake effect moisture? 

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powderfreak

powderfreak

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We've had off/on flurries here in Thornton last night / this morning. Not really accumulating, but I rarely get upslope. I haven't checked radar, but I wonder if this could be residual lake effect moisture?

Yeah it is associated with some streamer of moisture. It stretched from this area and curled down into SNH and northern ORH hills. I saw HubbDave was getting some light snow and those echoes were moving almost due south.

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eyewall

eyewall

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we picked up and additional dusting overnight, but not sure if it even amounted to 0.1". The Monday event is looking less certain here according to NWS with model disagreement. We are likely going to have at least some ptype issues in the valley. The mountains may benefit on the backside from Lake Ontario to some degree.

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J.Spin

J.Spin

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Event totals: 1.8” Snow/0.03" L.E.

 

Last night's additional snow totaled 0.3" – it was extremely dry and I could only get a trace of liquid out of it this morning.

 

Details from the 8:00 A.M. Waterbury observations:

 

New Snow: 0.3 inches

New Liquid: Trace

Temperature: 29.0 F

Sky: Mostly Clear

Snow at the stake: 2.0 inches

 

I see what eyewall was talking about with the model disagreement for that Sunday/Monday period, so we'll just have to see where things end up.  Our valley forecast does have mixed rain/snow in the Sunday-Monday timeframe before going to all snow later in the week, but the upcoming stretch could certainly be good for the mountains – the Mansfield graphical forecast still looks pretty good, with chances snow in the text forecast for every period right out to the end of the week.

 

15NOV14A.jpg

 

I'm sure they'll have the guns blasting away during a lot of the upcoming period in concert with Mother Nature.

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