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Model Mezzanine - 3rd times a charm


Baroclinic Zone

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Yeah if you're getting 0.20" an hour of rain and it's 31F it's +FZRA. That said, you may only get a fraction of that to actually ice up.

I recall doing a module about freezing rain on MetEd a couple years ago and it mentioned that a high rate of freezing rain is detrimental to ice accretion due to the latent heat released during the phase change from liquid to solid. Hence the greatest ice events typically occur over a great duration with freezing drizzle and light freezing rain.

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I recall doing a module about freezing rain on MetEd a couple years ago and it mentioned that a high rate of freezing rain is detrimental to ice accretion due to the latent heat released during the phase change from liquid to solid. Hence the greatest ice events typically occur over a great duration with freezing drizzle and light freezing rain.

 

Wouldn't surface temps also play a role as well as time of day?  Remember the Dec 08 ice storm and how heavy the rates were in MA and many were shocked how it was accreting?  

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I recall doing a module about freezing rain on MetEd a couple years ago and it mentioned that a high rate of freezing rain is detrimental to ice accretion due to the latent heat released during the phase change from liquid to solid. Hence the greatest ice events typically occur over a great duration with freezing drizzle and light freezing rain.

 

Yup - that's the case. The only way you can balance that is if you're advecting dry/cold air during the event and you have something to offset the latent heat release.

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Day 10 posters will love the GFS. 

 

Its like continuously watching every Red Sox game in August when you know they are 10 games out of a playoff spot, but you're doing the math in your head...if they win 14 out of 20 they may be able to get within striking distance.  But then you turn it on and realize Clay Buchholz is on the mound, so you think, maybe they'll start turning it around tomorrow instead of today.

 

There's always that slight hope for tomorrow.

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Another bomb later in the run. Would be nice if one of these weenie runs would occur.

 

The end of February into the first week or two of March should be pretty interesting I think and I would be shocked if we go through this period without at least one good snow event.  The NAO/AO look to tank with the PNA building as well.  We should have plenty of cold air available during this time and may even get some nasty cold at times...the storm track should also be mainly off-shore.  Hopefully though the track isn't too suppressed but there are some decent signals for an active period during this time.  

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Its decision time for Mother Nature.

 

We are rolling with 1982-83 and '56-57 right now in the basement of winters. 

 

Time to decide where we go from here...do we go '82-83 this spring or does this winter "bet the streak" and just crap out like '56-'57.  But even 56-57 had a 15-inch event in early March, so have to assume we get a decent storm at some point here.

 

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Its decision time for Mother Nature.

 

We are rolling with 1982-83 and '56-57 right now in the basement of winters. 

 

Time to decide where we go from here...do we go '82-83 this spring or does this winter "bet the streak" and just crap out like '56-'57.

 

attachicon.gifdecision_time.png

 

You will make a run. Calling it now.  :bag:

 

Maybe not like 83 though. 

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You will make a run. Calling it now.  :bag:

 

Maybe not like 83 though. 

 

I tend to agree with you.  I'm big on the statistics of it all, and the probabilities say we get at least a couple good events.  Snowfall is just *that* low that I think we still end up with a ratter but not to this current level.  Sitting at around 100" cumulative on a 300" average at 3,000ft+... I have to believe we make a run for 180" or something like that (still worse than recorded in the last 25 years of consistent ski area records I have), but I have a hard time believing this season ends with like 130".

 

But even '56-57 had a little run in early March with a 15-inch event and some smaller stuff before it looks like it ended in mid-March and Nature folded.

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Its decision time for Mother Nature.

 

We are rolling with 1982-83 and '56-57 right now in the basement of winters. 

 

Time to decide where we go from here...do we go '82-83 this spring or does this winter "bet the streak" and just crap out like '56-'57.  But even 56-57 had a 15-inch event in early March, so have to assume we get a decent storm at some point here.

 

attachicon.gifdecision_time.png

 

That is quite the image right there, like a fork in the road.

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I tend to agree with you.  I'm big on the statistics of it all, and the probabilities say we get at least a couple good events.  Snowfall is just *that* low that I think we still end up with a ratter but not to this current level.  Sitting at around 100" cumulative on a 300" average at 3,000ft+... I have to believe we make a run for 180" or something like that (still worse than recorded in the last 25 years of consistent ski area records I have), but I have a hard time believing this season ends with like 130".

 

But even '56-57 had a little run in early March with a 15-inch event and some smaller stuff before it looks like it ended in mid-March and Nature folded.

 

Of course nobody knows how much ground you will make up, but play statistics and looking at the models...I don't see how that's some sort of crazy guess.  Yes I know the pattern has sucked...but I feel somewhat optimistic for you. 

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Of course nobody knows how much ground you will make up, but play statistics and looking at the models...I don't see how that's some sort of crazy guess.  Yes I know the pattern has sucked...but I feel somewhat optimistic for you. 

 

Yeah agreed.  Its getting harder to believe, but all season I've thought the later we get into the season "it has to happen at some point" and by that I mean just a couple decent storms.  Bet climo to an extent when this far in the hole.  Same with when you are on fire and hitting every single event, one is bound to miss.  With this, one is bound to hit.

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Its amazing how similar those two years have been for that station compared with this year...I would guess somewhere in between those two but hope for '82-'83

 

Yeah they are close, this season is behind both of those for total snow depth days but not by much right now with '82-83.  56-57 was slightly better during the first half of the season.  

 

But '82-83 did redeem itself and in the end that winter wasn't even close to "ratter" territory.  There were some big storm cycles in March and April that season.  I'm hoping the strong El Nino makes this closer to '82-83.

 

Obviously the later we get into the spring, the higher elevations of NNE become favored too.  I was looking at it and that spring might be good for me, I'm not sure '82-83 really would do anything for someone like eyewall in the valley at BTV.  Some snow but not like the elevations.

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Its decision time for Mother Nature.

 

We are rolling with 1982-83 and '56-57 right now in the basement of winters. 

 

Time to decide where we go from here...do we go '82-83 this spring or does this winter "bet the streak" and just crap out like '56-'57.  But even 56-57 had a 15-inch event in early March, so have to assume we get a decent storm at some point here.

 

attachicon.gifdecision_time.png

There are three reasons I believe the season is done, and 10 inches of additional snow in the lower Champlain Valley is the limit.  First, there hasn't been any sustained cold.  Everything is transient.  Second, the storm path isn't all over the place, but rather decidedly fixed to our west, placing us consistently in the warm sector of storms.  Sure, we could bang out a single storm of 10-15 inches, but nothing in the long range forecasts indicate a substantial and lasting switch in the subtropical and polar jets streams.  The third reason is the absence of clippers.  Clippers are the taquitos in between the whole enchilada events.  In the mountains, they are warning events, in the lower Champlain Valley they are advisory events that add 3"-5" at a time.  When was the last time we had a meaningful clipper event, or even the pattern that produces them?

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