NNE Warm Season Thread 2020

[backedgeapproaching]

Just now, Patriot21 said:

Hi mreaves, thank you for the welcome. I am in West Topsham, so not far from you and am bordering the NEK. I hope to get the wife and kids further north when I'm done working. My oldest daughter loves the cold. I tried to attach some pictures of the frost but the files are too large. 

Looking at a topo map, looks like you could be in a decent radiating spot, elevated 1200-1300ft but in a slight depression surrounded by higher peaks what looks like on all sides.

 

[Patriot21]

17 minutes ago, backedgeapproaching said:

Looking at a topo map, looks like you could be in a decent radiating spot, elevated 1200-1300ft but in a slight depression surrounded by higher peaks what looks like on all sides.

 

Yes that is exactly correct. We own about 20 acres, mostly forested except about 4 acres cleared right around the house, which may help the radiation as well.

[mreaves]

1 hour ago, Patriot21 said:

Hi mreaves, thank you for the welcome. I am in West Topsham, so not far from you and am bordering the NEK. I hope to get the wife and kids further north when I'm done working. My oldest daughter loves the cold. I tried to attach some pictures of the frost but the files are too large. Saw some wood stoves burning yesterday morning and randomly throughout the last two weeks.

Nice. That area of Vermont is almost unknown to many people. Welcome to the board. It’s always good to have more obs in the area. We used to have a regular poster in Corinth but it’s been quite a while since we’ve heard from him. I like the Topsham area. We snowmobile in that area up through Groton and Peacham quite a bit.

[powderfreak]

2 hours ago, Patriot21 said:

Hi guys,

Just wanted to introduce myself,  my name is Jake and I live in Vermont. I've been monitoring these forums for about a year or so. I'm not very knowledgeable about how weather operates, but I've always been interested in it and especially the microclimates of Northern New England. I wanted to let you guys know I got my first frost yesterday morning. I didn't get out to my outside thermometer until about 7 am yesterday, it read 34 at that time, may have gotten a little lower though. I believe I radiate well in my spot as I have hills on either side of me and a gradual upslope behind the house. Anyways, sorry for the long post, but I will try to give weather updates as the fall and winter begin. 

Jake

Welcome dude, the more the merrier up here.  Beautiful spot you live in over there, true Gods Country Vermont.  

[alex]

5 hours ago, Patriot21 said:

Hi mreaves, thank you for the welcome. I am in West Topsham, so not far from you and am bordering the NEK. I hope to get the wife and kids further north when I'm done working. My oldest daughter loves the cold. I tried to attach some pictures of the frost but the files are too large. Saw some wood stoves burning yesterday morning and randomly throughout the last two weeks.

Nice to "meet" you! Welcome to the team!

[wxeyeNH]

5 hours ago, Patriot21 said:

Yes that is exactly correct. We own about 20 acres, mostly forested except about 4 acres cleared right around the house, which may help the radiation as well.

Welcome to the boards.  Not too many of us posters up here so don't hesitate to post.  I'm a lot more active in the colder months and with the drought there hasn't been too much to post about.  I'll start posting more.  I just noticed that I created the NNE warm season thread back in April so I guess it's time to make a new 2020-2021 cold season thread.

[J.Spin]

8 hours ago, Patriot21 said:

I'm not very knowledgeable about how weather operates, but I've always been interested in it and especially the microclimates of Northern New England.

Actually if you’re interested in NNE microclimates, especially pertaining to winter, I can’t think of a thread on any forum that would be better than this one.  It’s great to have another NNE member; we’ve definitely got some of the most interesting winter microclimates around, and there are only so many of us documenting them, so the more observations and discussion related to them, the better.

[J.Spin]

On 9/5/2020 at 11:56 AM, J.Spin said:

The pandemic-related ski discussion has been informative, and indeed it’s going to be a potentially interesting season up here this year.  It’s just a small sample here in the forum, but the talk from skiers planning to focus close to home because they’re unsure of the what’s to come must be fairly prominent in the rest of the population.

I’d put the “bread and butter” analogy a bit differently in that I’d say Alberta Clipper-style storms are actually the best fit for the bread and butter role up here.  Each of those can have and upslope component, and some Great Lakes moisture infusion as well, so that make them more prodigious than they’d be in places without those enhancements.  You’ve essentially got a consistent source of moisture enhancement, and a forcing mechanism locked in place up here in the northern mountains, so it just seems to make the systems more potent and reliable.  And, you also get the ones that seem to ramp up a bit and drop a foot of fluff for the higher elevations.  The reason those systems are such a good fit for the “bread and butter” analogy is that we’ll go through long periods of the winter where we’ll essentially get them every other day.  If I look at the average number of accumulating storms we get here at our site, it’s probably 10 to 15 per winter month, and many of them are simply those bread and butter Clipper-type storms.  A notable thing about these systems is that they’re almost always bringing snow, not rain or mixed precipitation, since they’re not wound up enough to really pull in much warm air.  It’s that consistency that makes them our bread and butter for snowfall.

A winter pattern I think is productive in this area is one like we saw in 2007-2008.  With the combination of latitude and altitude up here, there’s a strong case to be made for simply “give us the moisture and the snow will come”.  The 2007-2008 season felt like that – we were just right in the moisture train.  Yeah, being right in the pipeline meant that we had some mixed precipitation on occasion, but it was typically buried under snow quite quickly as the back part or the storm hit us.

It will be fun to hear thoughts from @powderfreak on this as well.

 

4 hours ago, PhineasC said:

I'm thinking I should root for a dominant northern stream parade of clippers.

I saw Phin’s post about the northern stream and clipper parade in the other thread, and I brought in a related post I’d made in another thread as well.  Although a clipper parade alone is not going to build a classic deep NNE snowpack, that sort of pattern can be really nice up here to keep things rolling.  It’s great for keeping the slopes fresh, and, those systems can be a huge help in getting the ski surfaces back to normal if they harden up because of a warm storm that cuts to the west of us.  Sometimes you just get those storms that pass west of us and bring mostly rain or mixed precipitation, and although we’ll almost always get at least a little snow on the back side, those clippers can mean the difference between the surface being something much better than just “dust on crust”.

The parade is certainly something to root for in this area though – they joke in the forum about how all that has to happen is for a moose to fart around here and it will snow, and that’s because the mountains will typically make the most of any little impulse that comes through.  Ideally it’s nice to have some larger synoptic systems sprinkled into the pattern, but from what I’ve seen, the northern stream can be quite productive up here.

[alex]

3 hours ago, J.Spin said:

 

I saw Phin’s post about the northern stream and clipper parade in the other thread, and I brought in a related post I’d made in another thread as well.  Although a clipper parade alone is not going to build a classic deep NNE snowpack, that sort of pattern can be really nice up here to keep things rolling.  It’s great for keeping the slopes fresh, and, those systems can be a huge help in getting the ski surfaces back to normal if they harden up because of a warm storm that cuts to the west of us.  Sometimes you just get those storms that pass west of us and bring mostly rain or mixed precipitation, and although we’ll almost always get at least a little snow on the back side, those clippers can mean the difference between the surface being something much better than just “dust on crust”.

The parade is certainly something to root for in this area though – they joke in the forum about how all that has to happen is for a moose to fart around here and it will snow, and that’s because the mountains will typically make the most of any little impulse that comes through.  Ideally it’s nice to have some larger synoptic systems sprinkled into the pattern, but from what I’ve seen, the northern stream can be quite productive up here.

Those patterns can be incredible. And while the water content can be on the low side, it does add up storm after storm, and they produce some beautiful scenery. Count me in.

[tamarack]

23 hours ago, Patriot21 said:

Yes that is exactly correct. We own about 20 acres, mostly forested except about 4 acres cleared right around the house, which may help the radiation as well.

Welcome aboard.  It's great to see the NW part of NNE adding members and geographic coverage.  I hope we can get some of the same for the NE part of NNE.  10-15 years back we had posters from Aroostook but now I don't think there are any east of the Kennebec.  (Though MPM can see the east side from Pit 2.)

[Patriot21]

Thank you everyone for the welcoming, I am looking forward to the forum and the observations. I am currently at 46 in West Topsham, VT at 7 pm. Air feels crisp.