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NNE Winter. Will it ever snow again?


mreaves

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Great report PF, thanks for the update – love those microclimates.

 

As for snowpack at our site, it just went to zero at our measurement stake area as of today, which is just about three weeks ahead of average for that parameter and five days ahead of the earliest date I have in my records.  We’ll see how the rest of the snow in the yard behaves over the next week or two, but it’s pretty dense stuff, so it will probably be around a while even with warm temperatures.  Average melt out for the rest of the snow is mid-April, although I suspect we’ll be ahead of that this season even if things cool down later in the month.

 

Does it count as a "melt-out" if it goes to zero and you get more before it's all over?

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Does it count as a "melt-out" if it goes to zero and you get more before it's all over?

 

Yeah, good question.  The two basic numbers I track are for when snow goes to zero at our back yard stake (a reasonably representative spot on our property that doesn’t melt out either first or last) and when all the snow in the yard is gone.  For both of those, once they hit zero, that’s it, that date is put into the records and any resurgence of snowpack is only recorded in the daily snow depth numbers for CoCoRaHS.

 

I find that once the winter snowpack has melted out, resurgence in April/May is usually of short duration anyway – if the snow doesn’t get to that density of hard core winter pack, it never seems to last too long in warming spring temperatures.

 

With the way I document the numbers, they can be used for determining the duration of the uninterrupted winter snowpack.  Once the snowpack has been established, we’ve never lost it during the middle of the winter for the period that I’ve been keeping records, even this season.  I’m sure a situation is possible where it could entirely melt out, but if it didn’t happen during this exceptional season, it’s probably going to be pretty rare.  So thus far, I haven’t had to try to figure out what to do with some sort of mid-season melt out in the record keeping.

 

The permanent winter snowpack started on December 28th this season, which is almost a month later than average and about a week later than I’d previously ever recorded.  I believe this was also the first time that there wasn’t snow on the ground at Christmas at the house, and it was missed by just three days.

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This warm weather and rain is really doing a number on the ice in the big lakes of NH.  March 23 is the record for Lake Winnipesaukee.  I think we are going to break it.  50's by day and above freezing most nights will keep the rapid melting going.  Saw this picture on the web that was taken yesterday.  Ice is already turning dark on Lake Winipeasaukee.  

 

Robins and bluebirds arriving now.

post-268-0-18442700-1457649757_thumb.jpg

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Some friends went and found some snow - 2 hours or so north of Montreal in St. Zenon.  They went riding up there this past weekend.  

 

attachicon.gifSt. Zenon Trails.jpg

 

Kind of makes me feel how folks in coastal CT felt about snowpack pics from NNE about this date in 2008, that great latitudinal SWFE winter.

 

Does it count as a "melt-out" if it goes to zero and you get more before it's all over?

 

I've recorded both total and consecutive days with 1"+ OG since winter 1976-77.  Only once, in 2004-05, have they been the same number, though in 17 winters (04-05 the 18th) the difference has been less than 5 days.  2015-16 makes 40 winters tracked, and thanks to a single 1" day in Nov, will leave 04-05 all by itself.

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Great report PF, thanks for the update – love those microclimates.

 

 

 

Speaking of that micro-climate in Eden, VT on RT 100...I just realized a co-worker of mine lives there in that microclimate near Lake Eden.

 

He posted this photo from this morning of his driveway after last night's rain...after the warmth this week and the rain, he still has 7" on the ground he said. 

 

No where else on RT 100 had anything like this, and the elevation isn't that high, its like 1200ft.  Its just a snow pocket and one of those spots that probably struggles to hit 80F in the summer no matter how warm the pattern is.  That like 5 mile stretch of RT 100 was 10-15F colder when I drove through there than any other place from Jay/Troy to Stowe.

 

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Ice Out on NH big lakes continues at a record pace.  Ice is black and this weekend will continue rapid melting.  It will then slow way down early next week with cooler and cloudy weather.  I don't think we could have ice out before the cooler weather.  Still it's a sure bet we will break the March 23 record.

 

From the Winnipeaskee site:

 

Today is March 11, 2016

 

The lake temp is: 39 degrees 
(3-11-2016)

The lake temp is at ice-out temperature.

 

Last year and the year before the lake did not reach 39 degrees until April 17.

 

The two years when we had March 24(2010) and March 23 (2012) ice-outs the lake temp was 39 degrees on March 17 (2010) and March 13 (2012).

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The price you pay for living where the sun don't shine :)

 

In case anyone was interested, the skiing was fantastically awful at J today.  A perfect blend of no visibility, frowzen flows, quicksand marbles, freezing fog, and a delightful NW wind at 29F. 

 

Haha, was it like that all afternoon?

 

That sounded like the Mansfield experience this morning, but by even 9-10am the only cloud was draped across the Spine and not hurting too much.  The afternoon was pretty darn sweet considering the 8am corduroy was the strength of pavement.

 

Ridge-cloud..jpg

 

 

Softened up nicely on the surface (say about an inch deep of something very close to corn)... even with temperatures below freezing, full direct sunlight this time of year is enough to do it.

 

Blue-skies-soft-snow-classic-spring-skii

 

Carving-up-that-spring-corn-snow..jpg

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1.14" RA

 

Damn shame we had no cold air to work with....would have been a really nice overrunning event down here.

 

38F--feels cold after this mini torch

 

Big change coming next week by Thursday

 

I pulled the Ginxy quote form the ski thread, but yeah, just about everything I’m seeing on multiple models has snow moving back into the area about a week from today.  Obviously things can still change, but there are a lot of sources pointing toward a wintry period, and there’s lots of time left for plenty of snow in the mountains – essentially all of March and April.  I think PF was mentioning how average or even a bit above is still OK for a bit, we just can’t be way above average and expect snow.  The spring skiing should be awesome this weekend, but getting some additional winter storm cycles would be great based on how many we didn’t get this season.

 

I have no idea where exactly the storm track will set up going forward, but boy, anything other than that perfectly wrong track we’ve been dealing with much of the season would be such a treat.  It’s got to change at some point.

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Ice Out on NH big lakes continues at a record pace.  Ice is black and this weekend will continue rapid melting.  It will then slow way down early next week with cooler and cloudy weather.  I don't think we could have ice out before the cooler weather.  Still it's a sure bet we will break the March 23 record.

 

From the Winnipeaskee site:

 

Today is March 11, 2016

 

The lake temp is: 39 degrees 

(3-11-2016)

The lake temp is at ice-out temperature.

 

Last year and the year before the lake did not reach 39 degrees until April 17.

 

The two years when we had March 24(2010) and March 23 (2012) ice-outs the lake temp was 39 degrees on March 17 (2010) and March 13 (2012).

High elevations lakes in ENY and WMA iced out days ago.  Earliest on record.  SVT is probably similar.  Not exactly a NNE climate, but it's still shocking for these parts.

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I pulled the Ginxy quote form the ski thread, but yeah, just about everything I’m seeing on multiple models has snow moving back into the area about a week from today.  Obviously things can still change, but there are a lot of sources pointing toward a wintry period, and there’s lots of time left for plenty of snow in the mountains – essentially all of March and April.  I think PF was mentioning how average or even a bit above is still OK for a bit, we just can’t be way above average and expect snow.  The spring skiing should be awesome this weekend, but getting some additional winter storm cycles would be great based on how many we didn’t get this season.

 

I have no idea where exactly the storm track will set up going forward, but boy, anything other than that perfectly wrong track we’ve been dealing with much of the season would be such a treat.  It’s got to change at some point.

 

I forget the exact details, but I think looking at Morrisville I found that the average temperature stays in the 20s until the third week in March (something like 40/17 or whatever).  So conceivably you could have a day like 34/28 with snow and end up +1 or +2 for the day in the mountain valleys.  Of course, in the higher elevations the normals would be lower so you could still get away with it a little easier.

 

By the last week of March we do need a below normal pattern for sure to have a shot.

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Ice Out on NH big lakes continues at a record pace.  Ice is black and this weekend will continue rapid melting.  It will then slow way down early next week with cooler and cloudy weather.  I don't think we could have ice out before the cooler weather.  Still it's a sure bet we will break the March 23 record.

 

From the Winnipeaskee site:

 

Today is March 11, 2016

 

The lake temp is: 39 degrees 

(3-11-2016)

The lake temp is at ice-out temperature.

 

Last year and the year before the lake did not reach 39 degrees until April 17.

 

The two years when we had March 24(2010) and March 23 (2012) ice-outs the lake temp was 39 degrees on March 17 (2010) and March 13 (2012).

 

Interesting that 2012 took 10 days to ice out after the lake temp hit 39F... especially since that was the warmest period of that month.  I would've expected it to ice out much quicker.

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