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NNE Cold Season Thread 2020-2021


wxeyeNH
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Event totals: 2.1” Snow/0.11” L.E.

 

The snow density came down significantly with the addition of those larger flakes to the stack, and we’ve been back and forth with both larger and smaller flakes throughout the afternoon and into the evening.

 

Details from the 6:00 P.M. Waterbury observations:

New Snow: 1.3 inches

New Liquid: 0.06 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 21.7

Snow Density: 4.6% H2O

Temperature: 30.2 F

Sky: Light Snow (1 to 4 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 2.5 inches

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7 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

I was thinking the same thing today about it becoming “old.” The weather up here is just so interesting I don’t see that happening. Since May, I have seen big heat, solid cold, heavy snow, amazing leaf colors, flooding rain, desert dry air, a possible nearby tornado, an historic drought, major wind, and snow falling under sunny skies at 20 degrees. That’s like 50 years of MD weather events right there, and I’m just getting started! We have really fallen in love with NNE. 

I love it.  Because I feel the same way.  You become ok with even being shafted in some events, because it's about the variety and interesting weather you see in the mountains compared to other areas.  I still think mountains feature by far the most interesting weather you can get.  It's also in your face, because the terrain gives a literal vertical profile of the lower levels of the atmosphere.  When I grew up in the Hudson Valley, you look up and there's no point of reference for weather.  For some reason it just feels different in the mountains when you can see visually what's happening.

We have no shortage of interesting weather.  In the mountain communities is where a random snow shower/squall or rouge strong thunderstorm can pop up at anytime.  The low level lift is always present... wind flow and moisture still need to be figured out.  But the mountain communities have omnipresent lift possible.  I think that's the key to the interesting weather.  Not even considering temperatures that vary wildly based on set-up.

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2 hours ago, PhineasC said:

I was thinking the same thing today about it becoming “old.” The weather up here is just so interesting I don’t see that happening. Since May, I have seen big heat, solid cold, heavy snow, amazing leaf colors, flooding rain, desert dry air, a possible nearby tornado, an historic drought, major wind, and snow falling under sunny skies at 20 degrees. That’s like 50 years of MD weather events right there, and I’m just getting started! We have really fallen in love with NNE. 

I fully agree. A great thing up here is that even in an awful winter you still have great stretches, especially with upslope involved.

Was in your hood today! 

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11 minutes ago, alex said:

I fully agree. A great thing up here is that even in an awful winter you still have great stretches, especially with upslope involved.

Was in your hood today! 

Were you up here in 2015/16?  There was nothing redeemable about that winter. I don’t recall a great stretch at all. 

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54 minutes ago, alex said:

Ironically tonight’s been the least snowy night since Saturday 

Yep, was thinking the same. I was getting more snow when the forecast was partly cloudy with nothing on the radar anywhere nearby. This little impulse basically did nothing here but a few mood flakes. GYX says the upslope machine turns back on overnight.

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3 hours ago, powderfreak said:

That’s awesome.  I still have to remind myself of where you came from and what that must feel like.  You feel like a lifelong member of the NNE crew already.  But this is like prom night, before marrying the prom queen ;).  Hopefully it never becomes “old” when it snows!

It's been great having Phin, and all the new blood in the NNE thread – it’s been quite active.  We need to get more people up here, because as you said in your other post, the mountains are the place if you like active/interesting weather.  And if you like winter weather, the mountains of NNE are arguably the best place to be in the country east of the Rockies.

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8 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Pretty consistent moisture feed into the Spine.  We should see it go all night.

We’ve been in a bit of a lull for the past few hours with just light snow/flurries, but it looks like there’s another pulse of moisture moving in from the northwest that could reinvigorate the snowfall:

09DEC20A.gif

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18 hours ago, mreaves said:

About 15 years ago, we undertook a 10 year plan to widen and smooth out our 40 miles of trail.  It took longer than 10 years but it was worth it.  Our trails weave in an around some granite quarries and the piles of waste rock so its not always easy to smooth the trails.

We have been working on that since I took over as trail master in 2014. Rebuilt (or new installed) 12 bridges, widened every section but that one in the picture for the most part, we were lucky in a few bad areas they came in and logged so we just needed to run an excavator through. Monson has boulders laying all over the ground everywhere as it is very poor soil, in one section we run down the Appalachian trail corridor for 3 miles which is one of our busiest trails and all ground work has to be done by hand...

We usually get $5500 from the state for trail maintenance each year including all grooming, bridge building, excavator work, etc. I've heard in Vermont due to the high TMA price the clubs get quite a bit more money to work with?

 

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Not much to contribute over the last day as Jackson was pretty much shut out from this recent event. I did wake up to a very slight dusting this morning, but not enough to measure. This was primarily an upslope event, so I hadn't been anticipating much/anything in my area either way.

Even though I miss out on the upslope, I'm seeing how great the snowpack retention is going to be in my area. We haven't sniffed freezing since last Saturday, so we basically still have the full 6" snowcover that we collected during last weekend's event. Ventured up to the summit of North Doublehead once again yesterday (2.2 miles from my front door and 1500' higher) and there is still over a foot OTG. The trees between my house and approximately 2000' are still caked with snow since it was such a wet snowfall and there hasn't been enough wind to knock the snow off the trees - very picturesque!

This weekend's event looks relatively insignificant from my perspective. I think the higher elevations that really got socked last weekend will go above freezing tomorrow and pretty much stay there through Sunday...but as long as we can keep things generally below 40F, the melt should be relatively insignificant. Models have really backed off on the overall QPF this weekend as well. Next potential "big deal" synoptic threat appears to be late Wednesday/Thursday of next week, which is now showing up on all the globals. 

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10 hours ago, mreaves said:

Were you up here in 2015/16?  There was nothing redeemable about that winter. I don’t recall a great stretch at all. 

I was in Bartlett. It was crappy but wasn’t a complete loss either. If I remember correctly it was ice storm after ice storm for the first half of winter and then it got better. But I could be wrong!

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3 hours ago, TheMainer said:

We have been working on that since I took over as trail master in 2014. Rebuilt (or new installed) 12 bridges, widened every section but that one in the picture for the most part, we were lucky in a few bad areas they came in and logged so we just needed to run an excavator through. Monson has boulders laying all over the ground everywhere as it is very poor soil, in one section we run down the Appalachian trail corridor for 3 miles which is one of our busiest trails and all ground work has to be done by hand...

We usually get $5500 from the state for trail maintenance each year including all grooming, bridge building, excavator work, etc. I've heard in Vermont due to the high TMA price the clubs get quite a bit more money to work with?

 

Clubs get a grooming contract each year that pays for start up costs and grooming twice a week.  There is a minimum amount they get even if they never turn a track (hello 2015-16).  For construction projects, there is a grant system where projects are submitted for funding allocation but clubs also do some small stuff on their own.  There are also grants for equipment purchases and major repairs.  The main reason why TMA prices are higher is because we are a private, non-profit organization so we don't have really have any state involvement other than a passthrough from DMV registrations ($28 per sled -$5 the state keeps for handling) and a small % of the gas tax.  Liability insurance is crazy expensive and each year the company we use "drops" us before the jack up the rates.  VAST's, the umbrella organization of all 127 clubs, annual budget is about $3 million.  

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3 minutes ago, alex said:

I was in Bartlett. It was crappy but wasn’t a complete loss either. If I remember correctly it was ice storm after ice storm for the first half of winter and then it got better. But I could be wrong!

I don't think I ever rode my snowmobile that season.  I will say that it is like a blur for me as both my parents passed away that December.  I think there was a decent upslope event in February or March.  Also, I grade my winters on how usable the snow is, when it snows and then melts out repeatedly, I consider it useless.

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4 minutes ago, jculligan said:

Are you keeping tabs on your seasonal total? I'm really curious how these little 1-3" events that seem to happen once every few days are stacking up on the other side of the Notch!

What I consider to be the official Randolph Hill total so far is 31.6". Alex is likely in the same ballpark.

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9 minutes ago, jculligan said:

It's amazing how it adds up. What would you say your depth is right now?

14" or so pretty consistently around the area, after last night's fluffy snow. It is a layer of basically solid ice, then some harder packed snow, then fluff on top.

I have some spots that will clearly be huge drift areas. It is nearly chest deep next to my barn already in some of the low spots from the snow blowing up the field. I was told that last winter at one point the drift piles in front of the house topped 6 feet, and I can see how that could happen. The snow there takes forever to melt and the wind piles it up against the house.

And the biggest icicles I have ever seen. Comically large. More like ice stalactites really. I understand why houses around here do not have gutters. It just wouldn't work.

 

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Looks at these massive totals here..ha.  Death by a thousand cuts.  10 "events" Adding up to 6.9".  Locally the SVT CO-OP at 1700' is at 8.9" and the Cocorahs guy at 1900' locally is at 12",  so all elevations not seeing a ton.  Just missed out on the OCT event and the coastal few days ago. 

1.1"

.7"

1.5"

.5"

.1"

.5"

.8"

.2"

.2"

1.3"

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25 minutes ago, grambo said:

Anyone get a chance to glimpse the Aurora last night or early this morning? Damn clouds....

Too cloudy here as well, but according to spaceweather.com this is shaping up to be a "bust" either way:

THE CME HAS ARRIVED, BUT NO STORM YET: A CME hit Earth's magnetic field on Dec. 10th (1:30 UT), suddenly raising the solar wind velocity to nearly 600 km/s. So far, the impact has not triggered a geomagnetic storm. There is still a chance of storms in the hours ahead as Earth moves through the CME's turbulent wake, but this is not shaping up to be a major space weather event.

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Phin,  you said your heading south tomorrow.   Now you  see how after a storm the upslope flow just keeps these nickel and dime snow showers going and going.  It really adds up.  Your webcam is great, you get to see what it is doing outside and up on the mountains.  Have you ever thought about a 2nd cam that is zoomed in on a snow stake?  On my website I have both.  For the snow stake I went to Home Depot and bought a white PVC pipe.  I drove a green garden stake into the ground and put the PVC pipe over it.  Used magic markers for snow depths.  If you did this you could keep daily totals pretty easy.  As you know it snows and then blows around.  Don't know if you want to get that involved.  What is the difference of a couple dozen inches a year when you get 150?

Here is might site with one of my cams now zoomed in.

https://www.bridgewaternhweather.com/

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43 minutes ago, wxeyeNH said:

Phin,  you said your heading south tomorrow.   Now you  see how after a storm the upslope flow just keeps these nickel and dime snow showers going and going.  It really adds up.  Your webcam is great, you get to see what it is doing outside and up on the mountains.  Have you ever thought about a 2nd cam that is zoomed in on a snow stake?  On my website I have both.  For the snow stake I went to Home Depot and bought a white PVC pipe.  I drove a green garden stake into the ground and put the PVC pipe over it.  Used magic markers for snow depths.  If you did this you could keep daily totals pretty easy.  As you know it snows and then blows around.  Don't know if you want to get that involved.  What is the difference of a couple dozen inches a year when you get 150?

Here is might site with one of my cams now zoomed in.

https://www.bridgewaternhweather.com/

I have another nest cam for that purpose actually. I will get that set up next time I come back up on the 21st.

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