NNE Cold Season Thread

[wxeyeNH]

Extreme snow squall.  Just made this video, the worst had just past.  Wind is roaring in the trees.  Very brief 10 minutes but visability was down into the hundreds of feet.  People on Rt 93 are going to be in for a surprise just south of Plymouth

 

[powderfreak]

Going to pow town on the mountain. 

Finally feels like NNE winter out there.

[#NoPoles]

Damn these size limits...I had a picnic table shot I wanted to share

[Ginx snewx]

1 hour ago, #NoPoles said:

Damn these size limits...I had a picnic table shot I wanted to share

Screenshot it and drop then.post

[dryslot]

Meso low FTW, At least we won't get skunked like we usually do on these squalls.

[klw]

2 hours ago, #NoPoles said:

Damn these size limits...I had a picnic table shot I wanted to share

Or open it in Paint, resize (I usually go 30%), save with a new file name, and Bob's your uncle. 

[alex]

Last night they postponed my kid's Xmas concert to tonight - stupid move. By far the scariest drive I have had in my entire life (he goes to school in Whitefield, so not far, but not around the corner either). My phone was screaming bloody murder "SQUALL ALERT" (Or something like it), and for a time I just could not tell where the road was - front, sides, back looked all the same. Just pure white. My weenie mom was in a panic. 

But anyways, made it back safely, and measured 4.5 tonight. That brings the total for the past 24 hours or so to just about 9" - hard to complain when a few days ago we thought we'd have to watch SNE get all the snow again. Skiing was fantastic and it's still coming down moderately out there. It's winter in NNE, and all is good.

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 2.3” Snow/0.07” L.E.

 

Details from the 10:00 P.M. Waterbury observations:

New Snow: 1.5 inches

New Liquid: 0.06 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 25.0

Snow Density: 4.0% H2O

Temperature: 10.9 F

Sky: Partly Cloudy

Snow at the stake: 4.5 inches

[#NoPoles]

I'm wondering how calm the weather will be for the next week? Or maybe tiny ripple of energy in the northern flow will cause light snows here and there?

[alex]

Some snizzle overnight, enough for a heavy coating. 

[mreaves]

12 minutes ago, alex said:

Some snizzle overnight, enough for a heavy coating. 

Same here. I actually wondered if was heavy time on the cars

[J.Spin]

9 hours ago, #NoPoles said:

I'm wondering how calm the weather will be for the next week? Or maybe tiny ripple of energy in the northern flow will cause light snows here and there?

It’s funny that you ask that, because it was sort of on my mind as well as I’ve looked at the models over the past couple of days.  It’s rather unusual to even be asking that question around here, especially in December.  It’s our snowiest month with respect to # of storms – we’re averaging between 11 and 12 accumulating storms for December over the course of my data set.  That means we’re typically looking at some sort of storm or event every 2 to 3 days.  Between moisture off the Great Lakes, of course the Atlantic in larger systems, and the frequency of shortwaves, fronts, and whatever else passes by, there’s almost always something in queue to potentially freshen up the slopes.  So unless we’re entrenched in arctic cold, seeing calm weather for a week isn’t very typical.

When I posted that list of potential storms the other day in the thread, the ones for Sunday and mid next week were of course the most tenuous, and they’re actually still there on the models, but they’re just a bit too far north to affect us.  The SNE guys like to joke that essentially if a moose farts up here in the upslope areas we get snow, and it’s sort of true in that almost any little ripple that passes through can spark something, but these next couple of shortwaves seem to be just a bit too far north based on what the models are suggesting right now.

Some of the models do suggest the possibility of something midweek, but there’s certainly not consensus on it.  The good thing is, up here in the mountains of NNE we’re in just about the best spot possible for stuff to pop up out of nowhere, or for little things to turn into something more.  One of the factors in why the Northern Greens have these 300”+ snowfall averages is because they pull down more snow with each event, but I think an even bigger factor is the sheer number of events that come through.  Those numerous “bread and butter” events really start to add up over the course of the season.  It would be nice to get one or two of them for the holiday week.

[wxeyeNH]

Nice,   GFS and Euro have 1-3" of snow for C/NNE through the end of the month.  

Low last night 2.2F.   Got to an 0F the night before.

[#NoPoles]

8 hours ago, J.Spin said:

It’s funny that you ask that, because it was sort of on my mind as well as I’ve looked at the models over the past couple of days.  It’s rather unusual to even be asking that question around here, especially in December.  It’s our snowiest month with respect to # of storms – we’re averaging between 11 and 12 accumulating storms for December over the course of my data set.  That means we’re typically looking at some sort of storm or event every 2 to 3 days.  Between moisture off the Great Lakes, of course the Atlantic in larger systems, and the frequency of shortwaves, fronts, and whatever else passes by, there’s almost always something in queue to potentially freshen up the slopes.  So unless we’re entrenched in arctic cold, seeing calm weather for a week isn’t very typical.

When I posted that list of potential storms the other day in the thread, the ones for Sunday and mid next week were of course the most tenuous, and they’re actually still there on the models, but they’re just a bit too far north to affect us.  The SNE guys like to joke that essentially if a moose farts up here in the upslope areas we get snow, and it’s sort of true in that almost any little ripple that passes through can spark something, but these next couple of shortwaves seem to be just a bit too far north based on what the models are suggesting right now.

Some of the models do suggest the possibility of something midweek, but there’s certainly not consensus on it.  The good thing is, up here in the mountains of NNE we’re in just about the best spot possible for stuff to pop up out of nowhere, or for little things to turn into something more.  One of the factors in why the Northern Greens have these 300”+ snowfall averages is because they pull down more snow with each event, but I think an even bigger factor is the sheer number of events that come through.  Those numerous “bread and butter” events really start to add up over the course of the season.  It would be nice to get one or two of them for the holiday week.

I feel like it would be highly unusual to get 7-10 days of sunshine...but, if the northern stream energy is too far north, we may just get almost 10 days of sunshine...it might motivate me to put my skis on

[alex]

And in the meantime, some very light snow falling 

[alex]

0.4" from last night's light snow, fluff factor off the roof

[Ginx snewx]

Who averages 300 inches a year?

[alex]

17 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

Who averages 300 inches a year?

Anyone in the northern Greens or Whites above 4000 ft with a slanted stick 

[J.Spin]

7 hours ago, Ginx snewx said:

Who averages 300 inches a year?

Bolton, Smugg’s, Stowe, Jay Peak; basically spots above 3,000’ in the Northern Greens.

Averages I’ve seen in the Whites are 160” at Cannon, 200” at Wildcat and Bretton Woods, 250” at Balsams, and 280” at Mt. Washington, but I’ve never seen any 300”+ averages report there.

[alex]

11 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

Bolton, Smugg’s, Stowe, Jay Peak; basically spots above 3,000’ in the Northern Greens.

Averages I’ve seen in the Whites are 160” at Cannon, 200” at Wildcat and Bretton Woods, 250” at Balsams, and 280” at Mt. Washington, but I’ve never seen any 300”+ averages report there.

I don’t buy that. Official reports (not from a ski resort) I’ve seen for Mansfield day the average is around 220”. I don’t see how Mansfield averages more than Washington given the elevation difference. And Jay Peaks reports are a joke. 

[OceanStWx]

4 minutes ago, alex said:

I don’t buy that. Official reports (not from a ski resort) I’ve seen for Mansfield day the average is around 220”. I don’t see how Mansfield averages more than Washington given the elevation difference. And Jay Peaks reports are a joke. 

When BTV had Jay Peak as a coop, they averaged 205", elevation between 1875 and 1840 ft.

Assuming the lat/lon is correct at NCEI that is off one of the trails about halfway up the mountain. 

[alex]

22 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

When BTV had Jay Peak as a coop, they averaged 205", elevation between 1875 and 1840 ft.

Assuming the lat/lon is correct at NCEI that is off one of the trails about halfway up the mountain. 

That seems much more reasonable. I also don’t buy Bretton Woods’ “over 200” average” - in the couple of years I’ve been here we’ve been 150-170 and those I’m pretty sure are pretty good years, which means we are bound to have some 90 inch years that would require the really good years to be above 300 to make up for it. I’m just skeptical of that. Problem is, most of these reports come from ski resorts, which have a strong interest in pumping those numbers. When I see Mt Washington at almost 7000 feet averaging 280 (from a reliable source), I don’t see a ski resort even at 3500 ft consistently averaging above 200. And the same goes from Mansfield. It gets marginally more upslope, and marginally less synoptic snow than Mt Washington. Add in 2000+ feet of elevation difference and I don’t see Mansfield averaging more snow than Washington. But I could be wrong. I would just want to see data that’s not coming out of a marketing department of a snow related industry to believe it. 

[J.Spin]

39 minutes ago, alex said:

I don’t buy that. Official reports (not from a ski resort) I’ve seen for Mansfield day the average is around 220”. I don’t see how Mansfield averages more than Washington given the elevation difference. And Jay Peaks reports are a joke. 

It actually took several years of investigation to figure out that the biggest joke is actually that Mansfield Co-Op “snowfall” number.  The determinations of “new snow” are actually made by sticking a ruler in a rain gauge.  And, apparently it’s one of those 24” tall rain gauges because if there’s been more than 24” of snow since it was last emptied, they simply report 24” for the accumulation.

You don’t have to take my word for it though.  Stowe Mountain Resort has gotten extremely diligent with their snow measurement over the past decade.  They got a guy there that even works with the BTV NWS and monitors a snowboard at around 3,000’ or so.  I think he’s so diligent that he even takes pictures of every snowfall measurement to document the numbers, but I’m not 100% sure about that.  I’m sure we can get in touch with him to bring him in on the conversation though.

Also note, unlike for Mt. Washington, the resort numbers from the Northern Greens resorts typically don’t even include snowfall outside the ski season, so depending on the resort’s season, the numbers aren’t including October, early November, late April, and May snowfall.

[OceanStWx]

7 minutes ago, alex said:

That seems much more reasonable. I also don’t buy Bretton Woods’ “over 200” average” - in the couple of years I’ve been here we’ve been 150-170 and those I’m pretty sure are pretty good years, which means we are bound to have some 90 inch years that would require the really good years to be above 300 to make up for it. I’m just skeptical of that. Problem is, most of these reports come from ski resorts, which have a strong interest in pumping those numbers. When I see Mt Washington at almost 7000 feet averaging 280 (from a reliable source), I don’t see a ski resort even at 3500 ft consistently averaging above 200. And the same goes from Mansfield. It gets marginally more upslope, and marginally less synoptic snow than Mt Washington. Add in 2000+ feet of elevation difference and I don’t see Mansfield averaging more snow than Washington. But I could be wrong. 

Even if you considered obs sites slightly down the mountain that might be better at "catching" snow that blows off the summit, the shoulder seasons where MWN is below freezing and pounding snow while 1000 ft up from the parking lots is 33 and rain makes a huge difference. 

MWN has some 500" seasons in the record, so if another ski resort is claiming a higher average you would be talking their record seasons being in the 600" range. I have a hard time believing that.

[OceanStWx]

1 minute ago, J.Spin said:

It actually took several years of investigation to figure out that the biggest joke is actually that Mansfield Co-Op “snowfall” number.  The determinations of “new snow” are actually made by sticking a ruler in a rain gauge.  And, apparently it’s one of those 24” tall rain gauges because if there’s been more than 24” of snow since it was last emptied, they simply report 24” for the accumulation.

You don’t have to take my word for it though.  Stowe Mountain Resort has gotten extremely diligent with their snow measurement over the past decade.  They got a guy there that even works with the NWS and monitors a snowboard at around 3,000’ or so.  I think he’s so diligent that he even takes pictures of every snowfall measurement to document the numbers, but I’m not 100% sure about that.  I’m sure we can get in touch with him to bring him in on the conversation though.

Also note, unlike for Mt. Washington, the resort numbers from the Northern Greens resorts typically don’t even include snowfall outside the ski season, so depending on the resort’s season, the numbers aren’t including October, early November, late April, and May snowfall.

See that makes it less believable to me then. In order to average over 300" I think you would have to be including all snowfall, not just ski season.

[alex]

1 minute ago, J.Spin said:

It actually took several years of investigation to figure out that the biggest joke is actually that Mansfield Co-Op “snowfall” number.  The determinations of “new snow” are actually made by sticking a ruler in a rain gauge.  And, apparently it’s one of those 24” tall rain gauges because if there’s been more than 24” of snow since it was last emptied, they simply report 24” for the accumulation.

You don’t have to take my word for it though.  Stowe Mountain Resort has gotten extremely diligent with their snow measurement over the past decade.  They got a guy there that even works with the NWS and monitors a snowboard at around 3,000’ or so.  I think he’s so diligent that he even takes pictures of every snowfall measurement to document the numbers, but I’m not 100% sure about that.  I’m sure we can get in touch with him to bring him in on the conversation though.

Also note, unlike for Mt. Washington, the resort numbers from the Northern Greens resorts typically don’t even include snowfall outside the ski season, so depending on the resort’s season, the numbers aren’t including October, early November, late April, and May snowfall.

Once again, though, how do you reasonably justify that Mansfield averages more snow than a mountain that’s subject to very similar weather patterns but 2500 ft taller? 

[J.Spin]

1 minute ago, alex said:

Once again, though, how do you reasonably justify that Mansfield averages more snow than a mountain that’s subject to very similar weather patterns but 2500 ft taller? 

When it comes to discussions of weather in different mountain ranges, windward and leeward geographic locations with respect to bodies of water can have significant effects, so there’s a lot of wiggle room with respect to “very similar” weather patterns.  That topic aside though, the 280” number from Mt. Washington is measured at the summit (extremely challenging to do, but if anyone can do it, that crew can) whereas Stowe’s numbers are measured on the leeward side of the mountain where the resort is located.  If Mt. Washington measured accumulations down in a relatively elevated leeward spot like Tuckerman Ravine, I bet the numbers would be higher.

[OceanStWx]

I look at the POR for MWN, and they (full season) range from 140" to 566", Hermit Lake Shelter at the bottom of Tucks has only been providing snow obs for a couple seasons now but that will be fun to compare. In the last three seasons MWN has been at least 100" more than Hermit Lake. 

Jay Peak on the other hand had a (full season) range of 100" to 350". If they are going to have lower low seasons, they have to have higher high seasons to make up the difference. And I just don't see "mid-slope" sites pushing 600" a year. 

[Ginx snewx]

Stowe still doesn't ave 300. Where are the yearly stats showing that for any of the Green ski areas he mentioned 

[backedgeapproaching]

MWN is crazy...I mean this explains it, but what a task trying to accurately measure snow there as I'm sure OceanSt knows...

 

We have had multiple people ask us how snow is measured up here on the summit. Getting accurate snow measurements becomes increasingly difficult as the winds increase. We have a precipitation can that is placed on the summit in a slightly sheltered, but also open location with the summit to the northeast and the Sherman Adams building to the west to help slow the winds somewhat. The can is also placed far enough away so that drifting snow would not affect the precip can in any sort of way. The top of the can is about four feet off the ground to prevent as much blowing snow as possible from getting into the collection area. There is also a lip around the edge that helps slow down the falling snow so it would fall right into the can. In strong winds, the snow will still blow right over the can or get pulverized into ice crystals from hitting the side of the can so the snow is denser and compressed. This results in lower values for total snowfall but will melt down to an accurate liquid water equivalent, unless little snow actually fell into the can from extremely high winds. In the case where the amount of snow seems completely unrealistic (sometimes far too much or far too little due to very high winds and blowing snow) snowfall is estimated by the observers on duty.

Every 6 hours, we go out and switch precipitation cans and bring the can inside to measure the snow. We start to measure the snow as soon as it gets inside to prevent any loss due to melting. When the depth is measured, at least 10 points are measured at the bottom of the can due to snow falling unevenly into the can. If there were strong winds then much of the snow could have piled up on one side so taking an average of the 10 points will be much closer to the actual amount that fell.