wxmanmitch Posted November 13, 2018 Share Posted November 13, 2018 About an inch or so of slush beginning to freeze up, 30.6° F. It poured rain at 33-34° F for several hours. Latitude FTL. Davis recorded 0.64", but I think we got > 1" as there's still some snow atop the bucket. I was combing through local ASOS obs and there was no snow recorded at PSF, but both ALB and DDH did go to brief snow after starting as rain and then wet bulbing. AQW was offline earlier, but there was still a little bit of slush in North Adams, even on the valley floor at 650'. I was later down by Pittsfield and went over a hill on the north side of town at 1,350' and there was no hint of snow. As such this was a 80% a latitude gradient and 20% elevation one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted November 13, 2018 Share Posted November 13, 2018 First plowing of the driveway at home today... best estimate seems to be about 4" along with some slight compaction this afternoon. Now it's pouring snow, sleet and rain with the orographic precipitation. Enough to briefly slush up car windshields but it's essentially white rain. Just adding more moisture to the snow on the ground that should freeze up tight tonight. BTV mentioning 3-7" with the Friday event and I agree there. The bigger model runs are fun but realistically I think another advisory type event is in order. One heck of a great November stretch though. Multiple colder than expected storms prior to Thanksgiving is a good way to start the winter, as even today's event seemed to tick colder yesterday leading up to it...just like the one last Friday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoastalWx Posted November 13, 2018 Share Posted November 13, 2018 Sick stuff. Enjoy the fun! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borderwx Posted November 14, 2018 Share Posted November 14, 2018 Best November in a long time it seems we bumped to 36 with some drizzle just to make clearing the driveway so much more enjoyable Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.Spin Posted November 14, 2018 Share Posted November 14, 2018 Event totals: 2.7” Snow/0.64” L.E. Today’s additional snow was right in line with the density from the snow this morning; not fully saturated, but certainly quite wet. I was also impressed that the rain gauge managed to catch all this snow as well – the liquid in the gauge was perfectly in line with the liquid captured from today’s two board collections to a hundredth of an inch. Details from the 6:00 A.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 1.9 inches New Liquid: 0.45 inches Snow/Water Ratio: 4.2 Snow Density: 23.7% H2O Temperature: 34.0 F Sky: Light Snow (1-4 mm flakes) Snow at the stake: 3.0 inches Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted November 14, 2018 Share Posted November 14, 2018 2 hours ago, borderwx said: Best November in a long time it seems we bumped to 36 with some drizzle just to make clearing the driveway so much more enjoyable Nice! Jackpot in the NEK....also saw 9.6" for Lyndon Center, solid storm for mid-November. Winter Storm season is upon us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted November 14, 2018 Share Posted November 14, 2018 A photo from my way into work this morning... not sure if it was the warm temps or if there was some solid lift in the snow growth zone, but the snow seemed to stack well in this event. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borderwx Posted November 14, 2018 Share Posted November 14, 2018 Nice January feel out there woke up to 11F with arctic squalls Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mreaves Posted November 14, 2018 Share Posted November 14, 2018 17 minutes ago, borderwx said: Nice January feel out there woke up to 11F with arctic squalls Arcticky was my thought too. 14° when I left for work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tamarack Posted November 14, 2018 Share Posted November 14, 2018 Had 6" of 10:1 snow from about 2 AM until the changeover about noon, then 0.55" of 33° RA. The rain-soaked stuff went through the snowblower okay, though not thrown as far as usual. Where the runoff had slushified things, not so good. After the 4th time I shut off the machine to clear hard-packed slush from the chute, I gave it up. 1st time in its 8 years that the chute clogged. Though I knocked down the taller slush ruts last evening, parts of the driveway are like driving over railroad tracks. Temp 13° at 7 AM, not sure it had bottomed out yet, with gusts into the 30s - top branches of a freshly fallen white spruce stuck out into the road near the dam in Belgrade Village. Today's high a cheap 33° from last evening before the CAA took hold; I question whether temps will get out of the teens this afternoon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.Spin Posted November 14, 2018 Share Posted November 14, 2018 The precipitation at our site this morning was just flurries at observations time, but it eventually picked up to become an accumulating steady light snow. Checking on the source of today’s snow, it was interesting to find even the BTV NWS experts discussing that challenge in an AFD update. The origin of the snow was ultimately determined to be upstream lake enhancement moisture under cold air advection with help from upslope. There’s no doubt that the skiers and other winter recreationalists here in NVT are very lucky to have our BTV NWS crew staying on top of all things winter for us. Here’s a great quote from the recent update below: “What a wonderful problem to have in mid Nov, which is trying to find the off switch to the snow machine…” Of course, no, we’re not actually trying to find the off switch to the snow machine (we prefer to have that switch taped to avoid problems), but the sentiment is well taken. Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 638 AM EST Wed Nov 14 2018 .NEAR TERM /THROUGH THURSDAY/...As of 509 AM EST Wednesday...Have updated the forecast to expand chc pops across most of the dacks and the central/northern mountains of VT. What a wonderful problem to have in mid Nov, which is trying to find the off switch to the snow machine, light snow showers have been falling all night at slk. Little rusty in my identification of what is causing this precip, but combination of water vapor and ir satl tells the story. Weak lift from channeled vorticity is interacting with upstream lake enhancement moisture, along with strong caa is aiding in squeezing out the remaining moisture in favorable upslope flow, to produce narrow bands of light snow shower activity across northern NY into VT. Web cams indicate some light snow accumulation overnight, so have also bumped snowfall amounts up to a dusting to 0.5. Not a big deal overall, but thought an update was needed to capture the latest trends. This activity should decrease in areal coverage/intensity by 15z this morning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wxeyeNH Posted November 14, 2018 Author Share Posted November 14, 2018 Yesterday's storm produced .97" liquid. 4" of that was snow. Took in the Stratus for the winter. 2-3" of snow remains. Flurries late night gave a fresh dusting. 20.6F Partly cloudy with passing flurries right now. I has been 17 years since we moved up here from the Boston area. Can't believe it has gone by so fast. I was thinking about the light flurries this morning and how often they happen. Seems like flakage is in the air every few days. Never amounts to much like the upslope regions but down in Boston flurries were few and far in between. Here I don't even notice them unless a snow shower is intense enough to put down a coating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IrishRob17 Posted November 14, 2018 Share Posted November 14, 2018 43 minutes ago, wxeyeNH said: Took in the Stratus for the winter. Why? Mine stays up all year but I take the funnel and measuring tube out for the winter and use them to measure inside after melting, is that what you mean? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.Spin Posted November 14, 2018 Share Posted November 14, 2018 1 hour ago, IrishRob17 said: Why? Mine stays up all year but I take the funnel and measuring tube out for the winter and use them to measure inside after melting, is that what you mean? Indeed, the best thing to do is simply switch the Stratus to winter mode. There are always going to be some messy storms where it’s going to be impossible to collect the liquid for the event from snow cores alone. If a storm has a rainy front end, or back end that melts the snow that fell, you’ll never be able to quantify that liquid if you don’t capture it in a gauge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wxeyeNH Posted November 14, 2018 Author Share Posted November 14, 2018 3 hours ago, IrishRob17 said: Why? Mine stays up all year but I take the funnel and measuring tube out for the winter and use them to measure inside after melting, is that what you mean? Duh I never thought of that. Mine have cracked in the past with the inner cylinder. Wonder how accurate it is measuring melted snow with the larger cylinder? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wxeyeNH Posted November 14, 2018 Author Share Posted November 14, 2018 Just drove South on Route 93 from my house in the Plymouth area down to Tilton 20 miles south. Pretty sharp line between absolutely no snow and totally snow-covered right through this area. The models had predicted that and they were pretty spot-on with where it set up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IrishRob17 Posted November 14, 2018 Share Posted November 14, 2018 52 minutes ago, wxeyeNH said: Duh I never thought of that. Mine have cracked in the past with the inner cylinder. Wonder how accurate it is measuring melted snow with the larger cylinder? I get decent results unless its a big snowfall and the outer cylinder overflows with snowfall. I'll tell you one time it wasn't accurate, I was too impatient to let the outer cylinder melt so I ran some warm water on the outside of the outer cylinder to help with the melting...at least that was the plan...I spilled warm water into the outer cylinder... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.Spin Posted November 14, 2018 Share Posted November 14, 2018 23 minutes ago, wxeyeNH said: Duh I never thought of that. Mine have cracked in the past with the inner cylinder. Wonder how accurate it is measuring melted snow with the larger cylinder? As long as everything gets into the cylinder (see important note about that below) it’s absolutely fine, and indeed the instrument is specifically made to do that. The outer cylinder is really the collection bore, with the inner cylinder added to amplify the height of the liquid column for reading to the nearest 0.01” with accuracy. Just collect via the outer cylinder and dump the contents into the inner cylinder to read to the nearest 0.01” for reporting. When I collect with just the outer cylinder, if it’s a situation where there’s water adherence to the inside of the cylinder (typically the case), I either squeegee that off, or simply add an extra 0.01” to what I get from the inner cylinder. I’ve measured the difference enough times now to determine that the adhered water on the inside of the large tube generally adds up to about 0.01”, so it’s simply faster to add that onto my reading vs. getting in there with a squeegee and bringing it all down. Do note that collecting snow in the cylinder is really not a great technique, depending on the level of wind, type of snow, etc. Ideally you want to do as much catching of snow on collection boards as possible. Due to the nature of flakes not always falling exactly vertically, the cylinder will often undercatch snowfall, and thus the amount of water you get will not be representative of what actually fell. The undercatch is not an issue for collection boards, so you really only want to use the cylinder for anything that’s just too liquid to be caught by your boards. For best results, you want both pieces of equipment on hand to cover all contingencies for mixed precipitation events. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.Spin Posted November 14, 2018 Share Posted November 14, 2018 23 minutes ago, IrishRob17 said: I get decent results unless its a big snowfall and the cylinder overflows with snowfall. I'll tell you one time it wasn't accurate, I was too impatient to let the cylinder melt so I ran some warm water on the outside of the cylinder to help with the melting...at least that was the plan...I spilled warm water into the cylinder... For storms, I rarely wait for frozen material in the outer cylinder to melt – the recommended approach is to pour a known amount (measured by the inner cylinder) of hot water into the tube to melt the frozen material. Then, when you pour everything back out into the small cylinder to measure it (it may be multiple small cylinders full), you subtract the hot water you added. This process is the most challenging, and most often needed to begin with, when doing whole snowpack cores, since those can take a lot of hot water to melt. If time permits I like to let those thaw on their own, but sometimes I want to get the data out in a timely manner so I melt things down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tamarack Posted November 14, 2018 Share Posted November 14, 2018 I take in my Stratus as well. Supposedly it's safe to leave the outer cylinder in place, but a storm like this last would've (had I not measured at 9 PM) resulted in the 6" of snow waterlogged by 0.55" RA to freeze solid by sunrise. I don't trust that deep of an ice expansion to leave the cylinder undamaged. For the cold season, I catch all precip in a 5-gallon bucket of known catchment area, and arrive at the LE by melting the contents and using a smaller container of known area (serendipitously it's one-twentieth that of the 5-gal) to get the total. I also place a snowboard, and have taken cores with the Stratus as a check on the bucket method - usually quite close. For storms over 8" the bucket fails to catch everything unless all the snow has fallen straight down, which almost never happens in that big an event. With heavy drifting, it's time to take a series of representative depth measurements and then use the Stratus on a spot that's on the average. Gets interesting in a big storm when I have to take a partial core (using a flat shovel halfway down to get the proper separation) then a 2nd core from what's below the shovel cut. (Sometimes for a late season SWE measure, I've needed 5-6 cores, in part due to some ice layers down-pack.) I always use warm water in the inner cylinder to melt any cores taken, being careful to add exactly 1.00" at a time to simplify the arithmetic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mreaves Posted November 14, 2018 Share Posted November 14, 2018 I know it’s heresey on this board but I’m not ready for deep winter to set in yet. I’ve got to fix the tire on my snowblower and finish a couple of other things. I’d be stoked in a few weeks but I’m not ready yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted November 14, 2018 Share Posted November 14, 2018 2 minutes ago, mreaves said: I know it’s heresey on this board but I’m not ready for deep winter to set in yet. I’ve got to fix the tire on my snowblower and finish a couple of other things. I’d be stoked in a few weeks but I’m not ready yet. Ha that was said around the ski resort today too... it's crazy how cold a windy day in the low to mid teens feels with constant light snow falling sideways in the wind. Honestly today could've been mid-January at the mountain given the temperatures, snowmaking and snow on the ground up there. These observations today from MVL doesn't seem to be something you'd expect on November 14th in the valley. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SJonesWX Posted November 14, 2018 Share Posted November 14, 2018 22 minutes ago, mreaves said: I know it’s heresey on this board but I’m not ready for deep winter to set in yet. I’ve got to fix the tire on my snowblower and finish a couple of other things. I’d be stoked in a few weeks but I’m not ready yet. 100% violent agreement. have not finished up my fall chores yet, and the snowblower is buried in the barn. Not good Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alex Posted November 14, 2018 Share Posted November 14, 2018 Today was brutal. On and off flurries/light snow and high in the teens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dendrite Posted November 15, 2018 Share Posted November 15, 2018 1 hour ago, SJonesWX said: 100% violent agreement. have not finished up my fall chores yet, and the snowblower is buried in the barn. Not good I’m still waiting for fall. This has been the worst autumn ever. I haven’t even been able to rake or leaf blow. The run isn’t finished getting winterized. I have my anemometer pole down on my roof waiting for a replacement. Just a disaster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lava Rock Posted November 15, 2018 Share Posted November 15, 2018 Same here I know it’s heresey on this board but I’m not ready for deep winter to set in yet. I’ve got to fix the tire on my snowblower and finish a couple of other things. I’d be stoked in a few weeks but I’m not ready yet. Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wxeyeNH Posted November 15, 2018 Author Share Posted November 15, 2018 Thanks for the advice about the Stratus. Since I'm not a Coop observer or anything I just keep rain/snow totals for my own curiosity. So going outside collecting what is in it, melting it for liquid etc. etc. is too much work. Easy to collect rain or do several yard measurements for snow is close enough for me. I'll second the thoughts that I am not ready for real winter. I can't believe how much wood I have already used. Usually, the stove doesn't really need to stay on until about now however it has already been going most of the time since the 3rd week in October. I have the oil backup but really like the constant heat of the wood stove. I have a new weather/cam site. Our internet provider (Metrocast) was bought out by Atlantic Broadband and my old site does not work. I am not a techy at all but I used Wix and built a new site with my 2 webcams and the weather info from the Davis station. I still am tweaking the site but its up as of tonight. I want to add a video from the drone of exactly where the station is and the surrounding countryside and terrain of the house. www.bridgewaternhweather.com Bundle up. 15F at 745pm. Too cold for 11/14 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mreaves Posted November 15, 2018 Share Posted November 15, 2018 48 minutes ago, Lava Rock said: Same here Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk On the bright side, all three sleds have been started up and will be ready for opening day. Might actually burn around the yard a bit this weekend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mreaves Posted November 15, 2018 Share Posted November 15, 2018 A friend on Facebook posted that he didn’t know if he was more annoyed with his woodpile and lawn furniture buried under snow or the fact that he’ll probably be able to finish the cleanup in 50 degree weather in December. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
backedgeapproaching Posted November 15, 2018 Share Posted November 15, 2018 2 hours ago, mreaves said: I know it’s heresey on this board but I’m not ready for deep winter to set in yet. I’ve got to fix the tire on my snowblower and finish a couple of other things. I’d be stoked in a few weeks but I’m not ready yet. Agree as well--would enjoy the event(if i was home)but stuff to do--Snow tires sitting in the basement, leaf cleanup not finished, etc, etc. I can't escape the cold even in TX, flew into DFW Monday night and it was around 30F with 20-25 mph winds. Missing both events this week, relying on wife's "eyeballing" and best guess, should be Jspin approved accurate...lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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