August 2019 Discussion

[Ginx snewx]

26 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Tossed 

Ya think lol 

[powderfreak]

My opinion is likely tainted by the last winter I lived in ALB area was 2002-2003 when like 110” fell.  

We had 50” in 10 days from Xmas Blizzard of 2002 (what’s better than 2 feet falling on Christmas afternoon?) and then the Jan 4, 2003 storm did it again.  We had a solid foot later in the Presidents Day storm in February along with multiple smaller events.  That was a great winter to end on in Albany.

[ORH_wxman]

6 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

My opinion is likely tainted by the last winter I lived in ALB area was 2002-2003 when like 110” fell.  

We had 50” in 10 days from Xmas Blizzard of 2002 (what’s better than 2 feet falling on Christmas afternoon?) and then the Jan 4, 2003 storm did it again.  We had a solid foot later in the Presidents Day storm in February along with multiple smaller events.  That was a great winter to end on in Albany.

That was their snowiest winter on record just looking at the numbers now. Also blew other years out of the water for most days with greater than 6" of depth....and only trailed 1947-1948 and 1970-1971 for most 12"+ depth days.

So yeah, if that is the most influential impression of winters in Albany for you, then you definitely would have an inflated view of their snowfall climo.

[Ginx snewx]

Alb is a Hudson Valley snow pit compared with surrounding areas. Horrible retention . I have averaged more than them since 2000 and have better retention 30 miles from the coast and 150 miles south

[ORH_wxman]

4 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

Alb is a Hudson Valley snow pit compared with surrounding areas. Horrible retention . I have averaged more than them since 2000 and have better retention 30 miles from the coast and 150 miles south

Yeah, N Foster coop averages 65 days with >= 1 inch of snow cover since 2000 whole ALB is 59 days. The gap widens for 6" depth....32 days to 22 days in favor of N Foster.

[powderfreak]

5 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

That was their snowiest winter on record just looking at the numbers now. Also blew other years out of the water for most days with greater than 6" of depth....and only trailed 1947-1948 and 1970-1971 for most 12"+ depth days.

So yeah, if that is the most influential impression of winters in Albany for you, then you definitely would have an inflated view of their snowfall climo.

Obviously I’m well versed in the climo there growing up and visiting plenty since.  My parents have had a bunch of storms that delivered bigger amounts than up here though in the past 10 years.  

It’s not a snow Mecca but again, Mitch and I have a good idea of that area and it’s not quite as drastic as some make it sound.  

I think BTV is much more of a snow pit than ALB.  

Also remember I grew up there in the time before every storm crushed BOS.  The 1990s had plenty of real deep interior deform band type storms.  Like ALB was too far east in a lot of storms.  

[Ginx snewx]

2 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Yeah, N Foster coop averages 65 days with >= 1 inch of snow cover since 2000 whole ALB is 59 days. The gap widens for 6" depth....32 days to 22 days in favor of N Foster.

I made multiple trips to ALB for work early 2000s. Often snow from home all the way even CT Valley then coming down from the Berks into the valley it was like woah where did the snow go.

[ORH_wxman]

1 minute ago, powderfreak said:

Obviously I’m well versed in the climo there growing up and visiting plenty since.  My parents have had a bunch of storms that delivered bigger amounts than up here though in the past 10 years.  

It’s not a snow Mecca but again, Mitch and I have a good idea of that area and it’s not quite as drastic as some make it sound.  

I think BTV is much more of a snow pit than ALB.  

Also remember I grew up there in the time before every storm crushed BOS.  The 1990s had plenty of real deep interior deform band type storms.  Like ALB was too far east in a lot of storms.  

Yeah it's ok...I wasn't saying it isn't, but I'm just giving the empirical numbers vs the areas being discussed....I always drove through there back and forth to Cornell, and the hills (Helderbergs) to the west are actually pretty good. But it's worse than probably anyone in interior SNE that is outside of 128 in MA and probably near Ginxy or northward in E CT and W RI....it's better than the CT Valley though from like Springfield to HFD for sure, but probably not once you reach Hippy's area in Greenfield....they get similar snow but the retention is superior up there vs HV.

 

[powderfreak]

33 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Yeah it's ok...I wasn't saying it isn't, but I'm just giving the empirical numbers vs the areas being discussed....I always drove through there back and forth to Cornell, and the hills (Helderbergs) to the west are actually pretty good. But it's worse than probably anyone in interior SNE that is outside of 128 in MA and probably near Ginxy or northward in E CT and W RI....it's better than the CT Valley though from like Springfield to HFD for sure, but probably not once you reach Hippy's area in Greenfield....they get similar snow but the retention is superior up there vs HV.

 

Yeah agreed with that retention for sure.  Further NE the better.

We also have a very persistent recent trend of big storms hitting mostly eastern areas.  

I just seem to remember the early 2000s and late 90s seemed to have the sweet spot for big dogs more inland.  

Even shitty winters like 2001-02 had a January storm that dropped 17.5” including 8”/2hrs.  April 2000 was a surprise foot.  New Years Eve in there had a 12+, 2000-2001 had several big storms where the ALY area seemed to jackpot, then 2002-2003 was huge.  

There was certainly a run in there during my high school years where it seemed every storm would back to the west and mid-level band would end up over ALY CWA.  

Theres a CSI banding study done in the 2000s that has the locations of huge mid-level bands and they are mostly across upstate NY into VT.  Would be funny to take that and plot the last 10 years of banding and see the differences.

[tamarack]

16 hours ago, dendrite said:

That map accurately reflects co-op reports, but folks living northwest from CAR know that Fort Kent and Allagash generally get more.  There are exceptions like the April 1982 blizzard when CAR measured 26.3" while FK co-op recorded 13" and I had 17", but most storms and nearly all years had the St. John Valley with more actual snow than CAR.  Loggers and sledders also are well aware that once one reaches the St. John uplands west of Allagash, where most of the land is at 1,000-1,500' elev (or about 500-1000 higher than the valley), snowfall and depth climb significantly more yet. 

The numbers below show snowfall during my time in Fort Kent, for that co-op, CAR and my own records.  #1976 includes only Jan-May as we moved there 1/1/76, and 1982-83 omits March because the Fort Kent records are missing.  I had 20.3" that month and CAR 13.9".  Thru the winter of 80-81 we lived at about the same elevation as the co-op, while the last 4 winters we were in the back settlement 3 miles SW and about 450' higher.
Winter   FK co-op    CAR    Personal
1976*       86.0       85.6     93.5
76-77      152.0     145.9    186.7
77-78      108.0     118.8    125.6
78-79      113.0     126.8    128.2
79-80       65.0       74.2      81.8
80-81       73.5      122.9    108.5
81-82      127.5     159.8    185.8
82-83*      62.0       74.2     85.2
83-84      117.0     136.2    171.0
84-85       65.0       90.8    113.8
I probably took less frequent measurements - more one-a-days - then compared to what I do now, and one can easily do a sniff test of my reports on KevMA's snow tables.
 

Look how sneaky NW and even nrn NJ can be near 287 with those events. Might not jack, but they do better than BOS when longitude is involved. 12/29/00 was a hard lesson in that. 

We were in N.Central NJ and bagged some major events - 2-footers in '56, '58 and '61 and storms 15-20" in '58, '60 (March and Dec), '61, '64,' 67, '69 and probably 1972 though we had only 8-9" with mix at our garden apartment about 400' lower and a few miles south of my parents' place.

[Bostonseminole]

all this snow talk.. come on people we have a hurricane coming!

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

28 minutes ago, Bostonseminole said:

all this snow talk.. come on people we have a hurricane coming!

That’s why there’s a separate thread for you to disrobe over eye walls in the atlantic.

[Ginx snewx]

1 minute ago, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

That’s why there’s a separate thread for you to disrobe over eye walls over the atlantic.

Holy top ten'r again. Just beautiful 

[tamarack]

5 hours ago, moneypitmike said:

Thanks.   it sounds like the snowfall differences between Troy and Bangor aren't too different from each other.

Depends on when you look.  My useful snow records for BGR start in 1953 and for a couple decades they had frequent bumper winters.  Their cumulative average thru 1972-73 was 99".  Then we moved there on 1/23/73 and the snowtrain derailed.  Our 2 full winters, 73-74 and 74-75, averaged 55" and only the April snow brought that average above 40 (and we lived at about 25' elev - the airport observation site's extra 150' often made a significant difference.  The 3-days of 32-33° paste in Feb 1973 brought 9.0" at our place - never more than 4-5" OG - and 14.1" at the airport.)  For 1973-74 and forward, the cumulative average ran in the mid-upper 60s (probably not dissimilar to Troy/ALB) until the most recent 9 winters averaged 88" and dragged that 73-74/forward average up to 72".  For the full 1953-on period the average is 80".

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

2 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

Holy top ten'r again. Just beautiful 

August has been special. Notice how ‘they’ can’t even argue it anymore. And Septembers tend to be my favorite warm month...can still be relatively hot without the oppressive feel to it. Coc days also tend to pop up very often.

[powderfreak]

1 hour ago, Ginx snewx said:

Holy top ten'r again. Just beautiful 

What a month of August man.  

Great to see an August of Yore.  

Average high of 78F this month and average low of 52F.  Straight outta the Chamber weather handbook.

 

[dendrite]

9 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

What a month of August man.  

Great to see an August of Yore.  

Average high of 78F this month and average low of 52F.  Straight outta the Chamber weather handbook.

 

It has left some literally speechless.

[Great Snow 1717]

5 minutes ago, dendrite said:

It has left some literally speechless.

…...while they sulk inside staring at  the Vantage for a slight uptick in the dew point

[Dan76]

More fluid here last couple days.

[scoob40]

3 hours ago, ORH_wxman said:

BGR is snowier than both ORH and Troy. ORH is probably slightly snowier than Troy on average, but maybe something like 68-70" versus 62-64"....BGR is probably more like 77-78" avg so once you are comparing it to Troy, it's prob a good 20-25% more snow on average. It also depends where you are talking about too....BGR airport are my numbers, but if you are talking a town or two southeast of BGR like right on the water, the numbers are definitely going to be lower.

 

BGR is going to have the superior snow depth a lot of the time on both stations simply because they are colder and average more snow....though with ORH it is closer than with Troy. BGR will average around 95 days per years with snow depth >= 1"....ORH is closer to 75ish. Troy is more like 60. So if you hate bare ground, you definitely want to eliminate Troy out of the 3. The numbers don't change for large snow pack...for days exceeding 12" of snow pack, ORH averages around 18 per winter....while Troy/ALB average around 6. BGR averages around 25.

I would take it that Glens Falls would top both ORH and Troy in that department ? For sure they would top Chicopee Falls 

[dryslot]

3 hours ago, Ginx snewx said:

Bring them in late September,  put them in a brown paper bag, they will ripen 

Yup, And if you don't have a paper bag, A corrugated box works well too

[dryslot]

Late Aug and its 78/53, What a month.

[ORH_wxman]

2 minutes ago, scoob40 said:

I would take it that Glens Falls would top both ORH and Troy in that department ?

I'll have to double check the numbers but glens falls will def be higher than Troy/ALB

[moneypitmike]

4 hours ago, ORH_wxman said:

BGR is snowier than both ORH and Troy. ORH is probably slightly snowier than Troy on average, but maybe something like 68-70" versus 62-64"....BGR is probably more like 77-78" avg so once you are comparing it to Troy, it's prob a good 20-25% more snow on average. It also depends where you are talking about too....BGR airport are my numbers, but if you are talking a town or two southeast of BGR like right on the water, the numbers are definitely going to be lower.

 

BGR is going to have the superior snow depth a lot of the time on both stations simply because they are colder and average more snow....though with ORH it is closer than with Troy. BGR will average around 95 days per years with snow depth >= 1"....ORH is closer to 75ish. Troy is more like 60. So if you hate bare ground, you definitely want to eliminate Troy out of the 3. The numbers don't change for large snow pack...for days exceeding 12" of snow pack, ORH averages around 18 per winter....while Troy/ALB average around 6. BGR averages around 25.

Thanks,  in talks about jobs in both.  We’ll see....might need a pit 3 apartment

[ORH_wxman]

11 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

I'll have to double check the numbers but glens falls will def be higher than Troy/ALB

Glens Falls is about 65" for mean snowfall but the airport hasn't reported snowfall since 2001...so that number may or may not be higher now if we had theoretical values since 2002. If 65" is accurate, then it's just a smidge less than ORH for annual snowfall.

However, they average more days with 1" of snow on the ground with about 86 days (again, this is 2001 and prior years) vs around 75 for ORH...they are far better than ALB and the lower Hudson Valley at CAD given the Hudson turns to the west where they are...so their valley runs more E-W than N-S like down by ALB. Their latitude is also helping out here. Their latitude is a bit north of CON's latitude. They also average more number of days with 6"+ snow cover than ORH but are about the same number of days as 12"+. Basically, they have a very good location for retention.

 

Out of curiosity, I checked BTV...and BTV does worse than GFL for days with 6"+ of snow cover but better for 1" of cover. BTV does significantly worse than both ORH and GFL for days with 12"+ of snow cover.

[tamarack]

37 minutes ago, dryslot said:

Yup, And if you don't have a paper bag, A corrugated box works well too

In Fort Kent, where vine-ripened tomatoes were dream stuff if one didn't own a greenhouse, we'd put the greenies between 2 sheets of newspaper and add 2-3 ripe apples.  Ripe tomatoes (from somewhere else, obviously) would do the same - the ethylene gas that hastens ripening is the same for both "fruits."
 

I'll have to double check the numbers but glens falls will def be higher than Troy/ALB

It's almost 50 years since our youth group twice visited Word of Life's snow camp at Schroon Lake, and back then snow and pack increased gradually from little/none at ALB to a nice pack (Feb. 1969, living on the 2 feet from the post-Christmas storm) to being buried the next year.  The biggest changes were from Saratoga north.  In Feb. '71 we arrived on a Friday a few hours after the end of one major dump and left Sunday morning in another (the 2 totaled 34" at the Schroon River co-op.)  The snowbanks next to the Interstate on-ramp were 7-8 feet high, and between that and the SN+ we had to stick the front of the car pretty near into the travel lane to see if anyone was coming.  I likened the view as being inside a ping-pong ball, but by the time we'd reached Saratoga, the snow was nearly stopped.

[dendrite]

30 minutes ago, tamarack said:

In Fort Kent, where vine-ripened tomatoes were dream stuff if one didn't own a greenhouse, we'd put the greenies between 2 sheets of newspaper and add 2-3 ripe apples.  Ripe tomatoes (from somewhere else, obviously) would do the same - the ethylene gas that hastens ripening is the same for both "fruits."
 

I'll have to double check the numbers but glens falls will def be higher than Troy/ALB

It's almost 50 years since our youth group twice visited Word of Life's snow camp at Schroon Lake, and back then snow and pack increased gradually from little/none at ALB to a nice pack (Feb. 1969, living on the 2 feet from the post-Christmas storm) to being buried the next year.  The biggest changes were from Saratoga north.  In Feb. '71 we arrived on a Friday a few hours after the end of one major dump and left Sunday morning in another (the 2 totaled 34" at the Schroon River co-op.)  The snowbanks next to the Interstate on-ramp were 7-8 feet high, and between that and the SN+ we had to stick the front of the car pretty near into the travel lane to see if anyone was coming.  I likened the view as being inside a ping-pong ball, but by the time we'd reached Saratoga, the snow was nearly stopped.

avocados work pretty well too

[powderfreak]

41 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Out of curiosity, I checked BTV...and BTV does worse than GFL for days with 6"+ of snow cover but better for 1" of cover. BTV does significantly worse than both ORH and GFL for days with 12"+ of snow cover.

Yeah, BTV is the true snow hole pit relative to latitude and surrounding climate.  Much more than ALB.  

GFL/Queensbury is actually a sneaky great winter spot. They are right at the mouth of the Adirondack Park and they clean up in SWFE type winters.  They CAD surprisingly well and always seem to have snow cover.  I remember like 4 feet on the ground there in 07-08.  

I would bet money that GFL gets more than 65” a year, isn’t ALB 62”? I would’ve guessed 75-80”.  

[powderfreak]

Man, Monday looks wet and ugly for CNE/NNE.  That’s a cold rain.

[ORH_wxman]

26 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Yeah, BTV is the true snow hole pit relative to latitude and surrounding climate.  Much more than ALB.  

GFL/Queensbury is actually a sneaky great winter spot. They are right at the mouth of the Adirondack Park and they clean up in SWFE type winters.  They CAD surprisingly well and always seem to have snow cover.  I remember like 4 feet on the ground there in 07-08.  

I would bet money that GFL gets more than 65” a year, isn’t ALB 62”? I would’ve guessed 75-80”.  

Yeah I always recall GFL still being like 24F in CAD events when ALB has already gone to like 33F and rain. That valley narrowing and then turning to the west is def a huge part of it....once you turn that valley to the west, it's like a wall in front of them. Also being narrower too up there helps even if it didn't turn to west....we see the same phenomenon in N MA in the CT river valley.

The 65" does sound a bit low to me too...but that's from the airport through 2001....so the obs are pretty pristine. There's basically no missing data until 2001 looking at the daily data when they stopped the snowfall obs. So it might be accurate....but maybe it "seems" they have more due to their elite snow retention. Also the airport is at 300 feet....spots to the northwest in Queensbury around 600-700 feet probably do get several inches more.