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March 22-23 Storm Thread: Cabins and Pony-Os?


powderfreak
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58 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

Coventry Ct  is like 350 feet and got 9 , other areas similar elevation like JC in Columbia Ct  5 to 7 ,so no

Poor Tip. He spent a week tracking this thing and writing diatribes and ended up with very little and so he’s taking it out on the kind Hill folks. He can’t separate emotion from weather.

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9 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Poor Tip. He spent a week tracking this thing and writing diatribes and ended up with very little and so he’s taking it out on the kind Hill folks. He can’t separate emotion from weather.

Ha ha... 

nah, I'm glad it did not snow here - if that's what's motivating this rather rare show of brotherly love between you two of all people...

I actually scored very high marks for this event.  I informed y'all two weeks ago about this storm favorable regime and it evolved perfectly...

The details?  I'll leave that up to the truculent reactionary pettiness of "hill folk" to iron all that out...  while  finding it amusing how they delude themselves while they attempt to do so... 

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27 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Poor Tip. He spent a week tracking this thing and writing diatribes and ended up with very little and so he’s taking it out on the kind Hill folks. He can’t separate emotion from weather.

Wasnt just hill folk this time though. When IJD bangs 5 to 6 and you 7 not much difference. That meso 8 /9 in Coventry low section is cool. Looks like 84 mile either side maxed out 

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13.0" storm total here. Net depth gain of 10.5-11". The front end was a dud, but the upslope performed as expected on the backside. 

I cleared my snow board 4 times (2.3" at 11 AM, 1.2" at 2:30 PM, 1.6" at 6:30 PM, 1.9" at 10:30 PM, and 6.0" at 10:30 AM today) during the storm to try and account for the compaction/melting that occurred because of the high sun angle and brief temperature spike to 33° F yesterday midday. We even had some sun poking through the overcast. 

Depth at the stake is 38", not too shabby for 3/23. 

54462346_1946475195463827_2094314869158313984_o.jpg

54518998_1946475132130500_5185971163636957184_o.jpg

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Aren’t sun angle, compaction, and relatively warm temps all factors in what affects the amount of new snow? You’re measuring every 3-4 hours there which should nullify your total from being official. I mean if snow melts on contact with a warm or wet ground then it is what it is. You don’t put a refrigerated 25°F table out there so the flakes can accumulate without melting. 

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30 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

And another. 

 

I love seeing this stuff in areas where a 17-minute drive doesn't usually produce those differences.  People get a taste for the strong gradients the atmosphere can produce.  

My 8-min drive this morning went from 6" to 16" but that's not uncommon up here.  

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37 minutes ago, dendrite said:

Aren’t sun angle, compaction, and relatively warm temps all factors in what affects the amount of new snow? You’re measuring every 3-4 hours there which should nullify your total from being official. I mean if snow melts on contact with a warm or wet ground then it is what it is. You don’t put a refrigerated 25°F table out there so the flakes can accumulate without melting. 

Yeah, I figured Mitch would know better.  Can't keep clearing all day.  Friends in Stowe by my place said there was 2-3" yesterday morning and it snowed all day at vis below 1.5 miles at the ASOS and there was still 2-3" on the ground at the end of the day.  

I'm sure if you cleared every 3 hours and added it up there would've been some additional accum in there.  

JSpin never ever clears under 6 hours despite being the most diligent person I know and yesterday he was getting 5:1 ratios or even less.  Clear that more frequently you can add an inch or two here and there.

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37 minutes ago, dendrite said:

Aren’t sun angle, compaction, and relatively warm temps all factors in what affects the amount of new snow? You’re measuring every 3-4 hours there which should nullify your total from being official. I mean if snow melts on contact with a warm or wet ground then it is what it is. You don’t put a refrigerated 25°F table out there so the flakes can accumulate without melting. 

* in woodford?

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46 minutes ago, dendrite said:

Aren’t sun angle, compaction, and relatively warm temps all factors in what affects the amount of new snow? You’re measuring every 3-4 hours there which should nullify your total from being official. I mean if snow melts on contact with a warm or wet ground then it is what it is. You don’t put a refrigerated 25°F table out there so the flakes can accumulate without melting. 

What is "official" protocol then? I have 2 2' by 2' pieces of plywood that are painted white. I use one for a running total and the other for a storm total. They are placed about 25' apart to sample different parts of the yard. Usually they are within a a few tenths of an inch of each other, but in cases where there's high wind, melting, and/or compaction they can differ. During the 3/7-8/18 nor'easter the running total sum was 45", but the storm total was 36". That was a pure powder fluff bomb that had a lot of compaction. I try to get my measurements to capture the amount of snow that actually falls from the sky, which can be a trifle difficult around here.

I've had one case a few weeks ago where one board had 4" of snow on it, but the other had nothing because the wind blew all the snow off. I ended up carefully sampling the snow depth by measuring down to the top of the hard old snow below in several places and ended up averaging. I forget the exact date, but I reported like 2.5". 

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2 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Ha ha... 

nah, I'm glad it did not snow here - if that's what's motivating this rather rare show of brotherly love between you two of all people...

I actually scored very high marks for this event.  I informed y'all two weeks ago about this storm favorable regime and it evolved perfectly...

The details?  I'll leave that up to the truculent reactionary pettiness of "hill folk" to iron all that out...  while  finding it amusing how they delude themselves while they attempt to do so... 

Yea, I was hammering this potential, too....blogged about it back on March 10:

https://easternmassweather.blogspot.com/2019/03/pacific-archambault-signal-for-equinox.html

... even when many gave up on the storm idea. Only got a dusting to show for it, but oh well.

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13 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

I love seeing this stuff in areas where a 17-minute drive doesn't usually produce those differences.  People get a taste for the strong gradients the atmosphere can produce.  

My 8-min drive this morning went from 6" to 16" but that's not uncommon up here.  

That’s just it. Around here we don’t typically get such all or nothing events. If someone jacks , surrounding areas still get snow. This was a 30-40 mile north south band with nothing to the west and minor stuff east of it. I bet this won’t happen again for 20 + years 

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7 minutes ago, wxmanmitch said:

What is "official" protocol then? I have 2 2' by 2' pieces of plywood that are painted white. I use one for a running total and the other for a storm total. They are placed about 25' apart to sample different parts of the yard. Usually they are within a a few tenths of an inch of each other, but in cases where there's high wind, melting, and/or compaction they can differ. During the 3/7-8/18 nor'easter the running total sum was 45", but the storm total was 36". That was a pure powder fluff bomb that had a lot of compaction. I try to get my measurements to capture the amount of snow that actually falls from the sky, which can be a trifle difficult around here.

I've had one case a few weeks ago where one board had 4" of snow on it, but the other had nothing because the wind blew all the snow off. I ended up carefully sampling the snow depth by measuring down to the top of the hard old snow below in several places and ended up averaging. I forget the exact date, but I reported like 2.5". 

Officially, you are required to clear once per day and report the greatest depth of new snow. So theoretically you could measure as often as you like with no clearing, but you can only report the highest total amount. That way any inflation due to frequent measurement will ultimately compact/melt when you continue to get more snow (which replaces the previous measured total anyway). The real inflated totals come when you measure often and clear often.

Alternatively I'm not going to chide anyone for clearing every 6 hours like LCD sites do. 

Think of a case like snow to rain. We run out and do a measurement right at changeover to capture the greatest depth of new snow in the 6 hour window, but we don't clear until the 6 hours is up and we do the official ob. But since the greatest depth of new snow was at the changeover time, that's the one that gets reported.

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16 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Yeah, I figured Mitch would know better.  Can't keep clearing all day.  Friends in Stowe by my place said there was 2-3" yesterday morning and it snowed all day at vis below 1.5 miles at the ASOS and there was still 2-3" on the ground at the end of the day.  

I'm sure if you cleared every 3 hours and added it up there would've been some additional accum in there.  

JSpin never ever clears under 6 hours despite being the most diligent person I know and yesterday he was getting 5:1 ratios or even less.  Clear that more frequently you can add an inch or two here and there.

This is why I have issues with the "official" measuring protocol and don't follow it exactly. You can "lose" snow with this method and it doesn't accurately capture the snow that actually falls, therefore resulting in deflated totals, particularly in cases where there's melting and compaction during the day.

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Folks passing thru from NY to BOS must be like wtf. 0 in Manchester to 1” in Vernon, hit the hill on 84 and it looks like Stowe . And that 0.6 in Somers must be in the W part . There’s big elevation in E Somers that borders Tolland. Soapstone Mtn is at 1k where the tower is 

 
CONNECTICUT

...Tolland County...
   Willington             7.6   940 AM  3/23  Ham Radio
   Bolton                 7.3   850 AM  3/23  Media
   Tolland                7.0   821 AM  3/23  Ham Radio
   Mansfield              6.8   845 AM  3/23  Ham Radio
   Storrs                 6.5   729 AM  3/23  Ham Radio
   Staffordville          6.2   734 AM  3/23  Co-Op Observer
   Ellington              6.0   931 AM  3/23  Ham Radio
   Andover                6.0   727 AM  3/23  Ham Radio
   Columbia               6.0   815 AM  3/23  Ham Radio
   Coventry               6.0   458 AM  3/23  Trained Spotter
   Vernon                 1.0   944 AM  3/23  Ham Radio
   Somers                 0.6   744 AM  3/23  Trained Spotter


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Compaction is part of snowfall. There needs to be some kind of standard to put everyone on the same playing field playing by the same rules. If some guy in Montague, NY clears every 3 hours he may end up with 80" while the guy going every 24hrs is 36". And you can't expect a COOP observer to measure and clear every 3hrs during a storm.

Many fall in love with the big snow totals, but sometimes the relatively lower amounts with high density have more impact than the 25:1 fluff. SWE is probably a better indicator of impact.

I remember the Montague debacle years ago...

https://www.syracuse.com/news/2014/11/buffalo_snow_record_lake_effect_storm_tug_hill.html

Quote

And if the short-lived national snow record in Tug Hill in 1997 is any indication, the process could be political and prolonged. That measurement -- 77 inches of snow in 24 hours in the rural town of Montague -- appeared to have broken by just 1 inch the national record that had been held by Silver Lake, Colo., since 1921.

But after Silver Lake's objections and upon further review, the Montague record was called back for the meteorological equivalent of excessive celebration. A 60-page government report concluded that the man who measured the snow had cleared off the surface of his measuring surface too frequently. That means the snow didn't compact enough between measurements and thus gave a falsely high reading.

"He was really very enthusiastic about the rate of snowfall," said Syracuse University geography professor Mark Monmonier, who discussed the incident in his 2012 book on lake effect snow. "He cleared the snowboard too frequently."

 

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32 minutes ago, wxmanmitch said:

This is why I have issues with the "official" measuring protocol and don't follow it exactly. You can "lose" snow with this method and it doesn't accurately capture the snow that actually falls, therefore resulting in deflated totals, particularly in cases where there's melting and compaction during the day.

But you need a standard to compare to.  

I mean there's zero doubt in my mind that JSpin could average over 200" of snow a year at 495ft elevation if he cleared every couple hours all winter long.  He started doing the 6-hour thing a decade ago and continues to do so to keep his measurements consistent.  But you need some standard. 

I know I lose snowfall by not being that diligent but I've always been more concerned about the ski resort measurements than at home.  I could probably average 150" if I measured every couple hours during those multi-day light snow events.  Same with even first order stations.  Maybe ORH would average 95" if they measured every 2-3 hours during storms. 

Heck, even Ray (40/70) had his amount tossed by BOX in a big storm recently because he cleared the board.

I mean at Stowe we measure once in the morning early and once in the afternoon at the end of the ski day.  It makes sense for skiers because there are two important factors to powder skiing...how much fell since the lifts closed and how much fell during the operating day.  

The northern Greens would average 400-500" if we had some way or wanted to measure every 3 hours all the time.  

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Just now, CoastalWx said:

I’d like to back and look because it’s quite fascinating to me. The lift occurred so high up though. I wish I could see a 3D movie cross section lol. 

It's a great case study.  I agree with Blizz...probably decades before something like that happens again.  That's not a localized 1-3".   That's a dozen official reports of 6"+ totals in a very localized area.  

The best part is he also saw what I talk about a lot in upslope.  Where the radar "sees" the snow isn't necessarily where it falls.  Strong NW flow has considerable downwind drift so you can get +SN downwind of the actual max radar echoes. Even in areas with no echoes present.  

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