NNE Winter: just can't compete with Maple Hollow.

[dendrite]

Kinda interesting start to the warm season...my averages so far...

 

May 2015 Max: 73.8 Min: 46.4 Avg: 60.1

Jun 2015 Max: 63.0 Min: 44.4 Avg: 53.7

 

We'll close that gap quite a bit this week, but if there was a year where we could pull off a cooler (max or mean) June than May it would be this. My May avg max was +6.9F and this June is running way below normal.

 

Looking at CON data back to 1903...these are the years where the avg max T in June were equal to or cooler than May...

 

1903

May: 71.7 June: 68.1

 

1918

May: 73.8 June: 71.7

 

1944

May: 76.0 June 76.0

 

1959

May: 74.9 June: 74.1

 

1975

May: 77.1 June: 77.1

 

1977

May: 75.1 June: 75.0

 

1918 was the only year where the June mean was cooler than the May mean (60.9 vs 61.0). This was the warmest May on record so this is the highest statistical chance in awhile to pull it off again.

[powderfreak]

Just looking at temperatures so far this month:

 

BTV (300ft)... 57.2 (-5.0)...Normal: 62.2F

MVL (750ft)...54.6 (-4.6)...Normal: 59.2F

MPV (1200ft)...51.9 (-7.6)...Normal: 59.5F

 

I know I beat this like a dead horse...but how the hell could MPV's average climo temperature at nearly 1,200ft elevation be less than MVL's average temperature? 

 

This happens month after month...MVL and MPV apparently have the same climate, despite one station being 500ft higher and every month MPV comes in with a colder temperature that usually matches what normal lapse rates would show.  Just look at the observed temps so far in the first week of June.  Temperatures drop about 2.5F per 400-500ft of rise in elevation from BTV to MVL to MPV.

 

Today's normals and actuals:

MVL...71/48...72/36

MPV...71/49...68/35

 

From a climo standpoint, there is absolutely no way those climo normals are correct...or one station had to have moved at some point. Its like the normals are from Montpelier proper downtown at 500ft and then the station moved to 1,200ft.

[dendrite]

Just looking at temperatures so far this month:

 

BTV (300ft)... 57.2 (-5.0)...Normal: 62.2F

MVL (750ft)...54.6 (-4.6)...Normal: 59.2F

MPV (1200ft)...51.9 (-7.6)...Normal: 59.5F

 

I know I beat this like a dead horse...but how the hell could MPV's average climo temperature at nearly 1,200ft elevation be less than MVL's average temperature? 

 

This happens month after month...MVL and MPV apparently have the same climate, despite one station being 500ft higher and every month MPV comes in with a colder temperature that usually matches what normal lapse rates would show.  Just look at the observed temps so far in the first week of June.  Temperatures drop about 2.5F per 400-500ft of rise in elevation from BTV to MVL to MPV.

 

Today's normals and actuals:

MVL...71/48...72/36

MPV...71/49...68/35

 

From a climo standpoint, there is absolutely no way those climo normals are correct...or one station had to have moved at some point. Its like the normals are from Montpelier proper downtown at 500ft and then the station moved to 1,200ft.

Could be lots of things...changes in siting, equipment, shielding etc.

[powderfreak]

Looks like we have some rain coming...pretty decent support through 48-60 hours for some multi-inch precipitation totals around the area.

 

GFS:

 

 

NAM:

 

 

RGEM:

 

[dendrite]

Euro has some 3"+ lollies in the Dacks and N VT. Only a meh 0.25-0.50" here...hopefully we can get some convection.

[OceanStWx]

Euro has some 3"+ lollies in the Dacks and N VT. Only a meh 0.25-0.50" here...hopefully we can get some convection.

Yeah, that trend has been to slow progress through our area with time. But some of the CAMs do show a beefy line of storms headed for NH after 00z tomorrow. I'd be suspect that they are going to hold to GYX, but NH should have at least some marginal fuel left over from the day.

[eyewall]

I still have some work to do on processing astrophotography but I am getting there. I also need to find less light polluted locales. None the less here is a Milky Way shot from last night near Mt. Philo on One Mile Road (Charlotte, VT):

[ApacheTrout]

I still have some work to do on processing astrophotography but I am getting there. I also need to find less light polluted locales. None the less here is a Milky Way shot from last night near Mt. Philo on One Mile Road (Charlotte, VT):

That's beautiful, eyewall.  You've posted some great photographs lately, and you have a great eye for processing them.

[eyewall]

That's beautiful, eyewall.  You've posted some great photographs lately, and you have a great eye for processing them.

 

Thank you. I am going to try the Milky Way sometime around the New Moon again this month (assuming we actually get a clear night).

[tamarack]

Nice shots...those are some pretty serious waterways. 

 

The Kennebec pic is near where the rafting companies start their floats toward The Forks; river gets much more interesting beyond that first bend.

[OceanStWx]

The Kennebec pic is near where the rafting companies start their floats toward The Forks; river gets much more interesting beyond that first bend.

 

I really enjoyed seeing some of these places in person.

 

I was particularly impressed with just how vast the valley seemed between the ridge lines of the western Maine mountains. It's surprisingly flat in between the high peaks.

[CoastalWx]

The Kennebec pic is near where the rafting companies start their floats toward The Forks; river gets much more interesting beyond that first bend.

 

That's where I went rafting. Really pretty area, but rather desolate. 

[tamarack]

I really enjoyed seeing some of these places in person.

 

I was particularly impressed with just how vast the valley seemed between the ridge lines of the western Maine mountains. It's surprisingly flat in between the high peaks.

 

The Kennebec valley from Harris Dam to Wyman Dam is quite narrow, but it's tributaries tend toward broader valleys, especially the Dead River system, the "true" source of the Kennebec, being far longer than the length from The Forks to Moosehead.

[OceanStWx]

That's where I went rafting. Really pretty area, but rather desolate. 

 

Right? That road into the dam was like 10 miles of packed dirt.

[tamarack]

That's where I went rafting. Really pretty area, but rather desolate. 

 

Which is a selling point for the rafting companies.  Once rafters turn the corner and can no longer see the dam, there's no sign of civilization (other than rafters' lunch spots) until one is nearly to the Rt 201 bridge in The Forks.

[Hitman]

The Kennebec valley from Harris Dam to Wyman Dam is quite narrow, but it's tributaries tend toward broader valleys, especially the Dead River system, the "true" source of the Kennebec, being far longer than the length from The Forks to Moosehead.

I rafted the dead river years ago.  great spot

[Lava Rock]

I still have some work to do on processing astrophotography but I am getting there. I also need to find less light polluted locales. None the less here is a Milky Way shot from last night near Mt. Philo on One Mile Road (Charlotte, VT):

Pics like this make me reconsider selling my older nikon DX40 SLR. I never use it anymore and wanted to get into photography, but never made an effort, shy of reading a book on how best to optimize landscape shots, nightime, etc.

[wxeyeNH]

Looked at my brother's webcam facing Aspen Mountain and the ranges behind it.  Still lots of snow up there.  Wonder if the high peaks retain it all summer.  Don't know since the webcam got installed this fall.

[J.Spin]

It would be curious to see the frequency of events 18"+ that occur within 24-48 hours, as don't some of your events spawn multiple days, even like 3-4 days in some cases?  It makes sense to us in that its all one system or one upper level system that lingers for a few days, but I wonder if there'd be a way to break out some of the longer-duration systems for comparison purposes.

 

Indeed, some of those larger storms have lingered for a few days (such as cutoff low pressure, etc.), but it would take a bit of work to pin down which of those storms hit certain thresholds of accumulation within certain time constraints.  I have the time of observation for each of the measurements made during the storms in my Excel spreadsheets (except in ‘06-‘07 before I realized that recording that info would be so helpful), but what I don’t have in my data is the “start time” for the storms (i.e. when the first flakes appeared).  To get the time for that first interval would require going to the text for each event, but I don’t think I always document that either, since I’m not always around to see when the storms start.

 

Another interesting piece of info on 18”+ storms that can be estimated from my data pertains to the local mountains.  Based on comparisons of my storm totals and those reported from the highest elevations at the ski areas, I’ve found that a very good approximation of snowfall and/or storm size for the higher elevations of the Northern Greens along the spine (especially Bolton Valley since they are so close to us) is to simply double the storm totals I get at my location.  On a storm-by-storm basis, the correlation may not be quite as tight at the extremes of the season when the lower valleys have more marginal temperatures, but for most of the season the association is surprisingly strong.  For any given storm you’ll typically get at least one of the resorts in the Northern or Central Greens hitting that threshold of doubling the snow total I recorded.  The seasonal averages speak to this relationship, since the seasonal snowfall average I have documented for our site is a bit shy of 160”, and that’s essentially half of what the Northern Greens get.  This correlation seems quite good for larger events, so I can use my numbers for storms hitting a certain threshold of snow accumulation to estimate the occurrence of certain size storms for the mountains.  For example, my data indicate that our site averages roughly three storms of 12” or greater each season, so the mountains should average roughly three storms of 24” or greater each season.  I haven’t run the numbers for storms of 9” or greater, but I’ve done it for 10” or greater, and that’s four to five storms per season.  So, the higher elevations of the Northern Greens likely average four to five storms of 18”+ per season.

 

Using this season as an example, we had only two storms of 10” or greater at our site:

 

11/26/2014

12/9/2014

 

The typical relationship would suggest that the upper elevation accumulations at the ski resorts for those two storms would be roughly double that amount.  The December storm showed the usual relationship; I recorded 14.8”, and accumulation, and the local ski resorts were topping out around 30”.  But, It looks like that November storm in the mountains might have fallen a few inches short of doubling the 11.6” I recorded.  So, it’s possible the Northern Greens only had one 18”+ storm this season?  Moving downward on the list of storms I have, our third largest storm of the season was Winter Storm Linus in early February.  I recorded 9.5” in that one, and it was only the Southern Greens hitting double that amount.  So as you can see, the correlation isn’t always perfect, but I’ve found it to be a pretty decent way to estimate storm size/frequency in the local mountains.  There are always those unique types of storms that are going to have their idiosyncrasies bucking the trend, but for the typical synoptic and/or upslope events, it’s uncanny how often the mountains report (from the highest elevations along the spine) twice the amount I record at my site (at a low elevation along the spine).  It sort of makes sense though – as you’ve mentioned, our site is along the spine and gets in on both the east side and west side events, so basically all of the events that are going to be hitting the high elevations along the spine will hit our site as well to a lesser degree.  With the overall seasonal snowfall averages showing a two-to-one relationship, over the long haul that’s essentially the way the average ratio for snowfall from individual storms should play out.

[bobbutts]

Pics like this make me reconsider selling my older nikon DX40 SLR. I never use it anymore and wanted to get into photography, but never made an effort, shy of reading a book on how best to optimize landscape shots, nightime, etc.

You don't really need to spend a ton on equipment to get great results and especially to learn.  

You could probably give eyewall or most any good photographer any cheap camera and as long as it has manual settings they'll still be able to get excellent images.  The reason is that it's the preparation for taking the image like being there for a foggy dawn and choosing how to compose the image, selecting settings that will return what the shooter wants, using a tripod to eliminate movement, etc.  As long as you're not trying to shoot high speed action or very low light, the equipment is probably the least important part of all of that.

[eyewall]

You don't really need to spend a ton on equipment to get great results and especially to learn.  

You could probably give eyewall or most any good photographer any cheap camera and as long as it has manual settings they'll still be able to get excellent images.  The reason is that it's the preparation for taking the image like being there for a foggy dawn and choosing how to compose the image, selecting settings that will return what the shooter wants, using a tripod to eliminate movement, etc.  As long as you're not trying to shoot high speed action or very low light, the equipment is probably the least important part of all of that.

 

This is true although the lens is probably the most important as far as equipment. Honestly when it comes to astrophotography I am still learning and following some tutorials I paid for in terms of learning processing techniques. I am planning on heading for an even darker spot the next time there is a clear night with no moon.

[powderfreak]

Up to 0.67" on the day here...but seeing 0.75-1.25" from Jerhico/Underhill towards Johnson and Hyde Park to my north.

Good steady drink today for the plants though.

[powderfreak]

The typical relationship would suggest that the upper elevation accumulations at the ski resorts for those two storms would be roughly double that amount.  The December storm showed the usual relationship; I recorded 14.8”, and accumulation, and the local ski resorts were topping out around 30”.  But, It looks like that November storm in the mountains might have fallen a few inches short of doubling the 11.6” I recorded.  So, it’s possible the Northern Greens only had one 18”+ storm this season? 

 

 

 

I think that's what my data shows...only one 18"+ storm.  The November one was purely mid-level deformation driven and I actually had more snow at my house than at the 1,500ft stake.  I recorded 11" at home and 9.5" at 1,500ft.  That was just because town was SE of the mountain by a few miles and that made the difference in getting into the bulk of that deform band.

 

As you can see by the BTV map of that November system, locally in Stowe you can see how going NW from the village would result in lower snowfall regardless of terrain. 

 

 

The December storm was very odd around here, as my records are only showing 10" storm total at 1,500ft, but 21" at 3,000ft.

 

That system was incredibly odd as some meso-scale something happened to allow for locally higher snow levels here.  I remember that night having 5-6" of wet paste at 750ft at home, with a glopping wet 1-2" at 1,500ft at the base of the mountain.  I remember posting about that how it was raining as you went UP the Mountain Road, not down.  In that event I think Sugarbush had 24" at their base area and we had 10" once the second day's snow came through. 

 

To this day, that event is the most bizarre reverse elevation dependent event in this area that I've ever seen.  That weenie drive puzzled me more than anything in the world.  It was dumping at home with multiple inches on the ground, and so I figured I'd go see what the base of the mountain was doing, and it changed to rain once I hit like 900ft of elevation near Topnotch Resort and Spa. 

[eekuasepinniW]

Jesus H. Christ.

[bobbutts]

This is true although the lens is probably the most important as far as equipment. Honestly when it comes to astrophotography I am still learning and following some tutorials I paid for in terms of learning processing techniques. I am planning on heading for an even darker spot the next time there is a clear night with no moon.

 

Long roundabout point is that you deserve the credit rather than your camera.  It's yet another hobby that I have mostly abandoned, but when I was putting effort into it, the payoff for that effort was obvious.

I've been cleaning out an estate that has 10's of thousands of photos from the last 120 years or more and the better pictures from any year still hold up despite extreme improvement in the technology.

[dendrite]

Jesus H. Christ.

snow

[powderfreak]

Jesus H. Christ.

 

Sorry.  Here are some palm trees.  And a private beach.

 

[eekuasepinniW]

Sorry.  Here are some palm trees.  And a private beach.

 

 

That sand mound is probably as high as the snow pile at Killington right now.

[mreaves]

That sand mound is probably as high as the snow pile at Killington right now.

That's probably about right. I noticed one small patch of snow at Killington while driving down 89 yesterday.

PF- we've been pretty much dry down here since 12:00 - 12:30. Just sprinkles ervsry now and then. Radar looks like it all skirted to the northeast.

[powderfreak]

That's probably about right. I noticed one small patch of snow at Killington while driving down 89 yesterday.

PF- we've been pretty much dry down here since 12:00 - 12:30. Just sprinkles ervsry now and then. Radar looks like it all skirted to the northeast.

 

Yeah spots just to the north of me have had double the rainfall.  Funny how this time of year it becomes so localized with regards to precipitation amounts.  It was pretty steady rain at work today, with around an inch falling into the Stratus gauge outside the office at 1,500ft.