NNE Cold Season Thread 2020-2021

[PhineasC]

Above freezing for the first time since Saturday.

[alex]

2 hours ago, PhineasC said:

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

Yep, 29.05 is "my" measurement... but I wouldn't call it official. I do my best, but I'm not getting up every 6 hours to measure lol. If it's just the light stuff, once a day measurement is plenty with me. The stake is at about 13" of depth. I just drove through Randolph yesterday, seems very similar to the naked eye. As Phin mentioned, the big difference is as you head towards Gorham or Jefferson. On this side, it drops off QUICKLY as you go from Twin to Bethlehem, and there are only a couple of inches in Littleton

[tamarack]

14 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. 

Least snowy of my 22 winters here with 48.2"- in fact only my 1st full Maine winter (73-74 in BGR) had less since we moved to Maine.  15-16 fights with 05-06 (52.8") for worst winter in the battle of midgets - with the mega-frustrating 09-10 also a competitor.  Oddly, 05-06 and 15-16 produced NYC's 2 biggest snowfalls; we got 0.8" in Feb 06 and nada 10 years later.  Even so the 06 storm stung a bit more as Gotham had more than 3 times as much as we had for Feb-Mar-Apr combined.  It's also rock bottom for SDDs and it's not particularly close.

[powderfreak]

2 hours ago, backedgeapproaching said:

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"

Yeah your area down to Hippy and the Berkshires and adjacent upper valley of Mass has been the dud zone so far.  Seems to have missed in all directions so far.  But I trust climo, it’s coming.

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 3.3” Snow/0.24” L.E.

 

Details from the 12:00 P.M. Waterbury observations:

New Snow: 0.2 inches

New Liquid: 0.03 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 6.7

Snow Density: 15.0% H2O

Temperature: 36.0 F

Sky: Cloudy

Snow at the stake: 3.0 inches

[jculligan]

23 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Yeah your area down to Hippy and the Berkshires and adjacent upper valley of Mass has been the dud zone so far.  Seems to have missed in all directions so far.  But I trust climo, it’s coming.

I would argue the Mount Washington Valley (North Conway, Bartlett, Intervale) is the ultimate dud zone in New England right now, relative to normal. I believe the seasonal total in North Conway is still under an inch. Thankful that my elevation helped me to some degree last Saturday.

[alex]

Maxed out at 30 degrees with flurries and occasional snow showers continuing

[tamarack]

Gray day - stratus hanging tough.

[wxeyeNH]

1 hour ago, tamarack said:

Gray day - stratus hanging tough.

At least downwind of the Whites we had some sun.

Looks like there will be no aurora.  Saw this on SpaceWeather.com

Why didn't the CME cause a storm? Every CME brings with it some magnetic field from the sun. If that magnetic field points south, it opens cracks in Earth's magnetic field, allowing solar wind to flow inside and fuel auroras. On the other hand, if the CME's magnetic field points north, it seals cracks in Earth's magnetic field, blocking the solar wind and quenching storms.

This CME brought a storm-killing north magnetic field. So, even though the velocity of the solar wind in the CME's wake flirted with a high value of 600 km/s, it was ineffective in causing geomagnetic storms and auroras.

Maybe next time. Solar activity is picking up with the onset of new Solar Cycle 25. This is just the first of many CMEs likely to head our way in the months ahead. Aurora alerts: SMS Text.

[qg_omega]

How’s the euro’s snow and ice storm for this weekend looking?

[PhineasC]

Some compaction today with a little more sun and a brief interlude above freezing. Everything pancaked down a couple of inches. More like 12 inches of depth in most spots now. 

[jculligan]

5 minutes ago, qg_omega said:

How’s the euro’s snow and ice storm for this weekend looking?

From a pure synoptic standpoint, I don't anticipate we'll be looking at much snow south of the border with this one. Mid-level temps are simply too warm. CAD-prone areas in NH/ME could be in for a bit of glazing late Saturday afternoon into Sunday morning, however...so I would anticipate slick travel in the usual spots. I'll let the Vermonters speak more to the upslope potential on the backside of the system Sunday night into Monday, as I would imagine there's the potential for at least light accumulations of snow in the Green Mountains and perhaps in Alex and Phin's hood as well.

[powderfreak]

It’s snowing pretty hard all the sudden, surfaces instantly white again.  Absolutely nothing on radar though.  When I was skiing this afternoon the cloud top height didn’t seem that high up, you could see sunlight trying to pop through.  We keep getting this low level snow under the radar and ridge top to fall down in town.  I’ve never seen this consistent type of low level snow, but it makes sense this time of year with stout inversions hard to break I guess.

[ORH_wxman]

1 hour ago, jculligan said:

From a pure synoptic standpoint, I don't anticipate we'll be looking at much snow south of the border with this one. Mid-level temps are simply too warm. CAD-prone areas in NH/ME could be in for a bit of glazing late Saturday afternoon into Sunday morning, however...so I would anticipate slick travel in the usual spots. I'll let the Vermonters speak more to the upslope potential on the backside of the system Sunday night into Monday, as I would imagine there's the potential for at least light accumulations of snow in the Green Mountains and perhaps in Alex and Phin's hood as well.

Kind of a bummer that NNE won’t get much snow out of this (CAD region of W Maine might see a little) ...I was thinking that they probably would once it started trending but then it kind of stalled and trended a slight bit back NW. 

At least the sfc wedge is happening so very little snowpack loss up there. 4 days ago it was a 55F cutter. 

[J.Spin]

I went for a tour at Bolton today, so I can pass along the elevation profile for snow depths I saw, and some observations.  Here are the snow depths I observed:

 

340’:  2”

1,000’:  3-4”

1,500’:  4-5”

2,000’:  7”

2,500’:  8-9”

2,700’:  9-10”

 

2,700’ was as high as my travels took me today, so I can’t provide observations above that level, but snow depths probably would have increased a bit more with elevation.

The resort is reporting 4-8” of new snow in the past 24 hours, and 10” in the last 48 hours, and that recent snow is probably making up a lot of what I saw.

There’s decent substance to the snow (i.e. it’s not just fluff), but really not too much base below that snow from what I saw.  I just don’t think there was any dense snow, or rain-affected snow that had a chance to consolidate below these most recent accumulations.  The snow quality is good though; the snowpack I encountered was right-side up with some medium weight density snow below fluffier powder on top.

I’m surprised to see a depth of only 8” at the Mt. Mansfield Stake at 3,700’, but I’m not sure when that depth was last updated.  Based on the amount of liquid equivalent that seemed to be in the snow, and the sub-freezing temperatures up there, this would likely be the start of the winter snowpack unless we get a really warm/wet, long-duration event.  Consolidating the snow that’s there right now and/or adding some water to it would certainly help form a base.

I’m not sure if the snow we have in the valleys around here is quite enough to mark the start the season’s snowpack, but it’s possible.

[Hitman]

If you’re into snow.

 

[PhineasC]

Haven’t seen these two in a long time. 

[powderfreak]

First class sunrise this morning.  60 seconds of fire and it was over.

[alex]

2 hours ago, powderfreak said:

First class sunrise this morning.  60 seconds of fire and it was over.

That’s a spectacular photo 

[powderfreak]

21 minutes ago, alex said:

That’s a spectacular photo 

Thanks.  Not as good as the snowmakers’ photo, ha.  What a view they had this morning.

[J.Spin]

I didn’t get a chance to put them together until today, but I’ve got a few images from yesterday’s tour up at Bolton:

[jculligan]

Euro ensembles are surprisingly bullish with the anafrontal wave on Monday. The ensemble mean is actually spitting out 3-4" of snow imby. No other guidance seems to be suggesting this right now, so I'm not quite sure what to make of it. The op run is suggesting an accumulating snowfall down in SNE, and the gfs/ggem say the Euro is completely out to lunch. Something to watch...

 

 

[qg_omega]

6 minutes ago, jculligan said:

Euro ensembles are surprisingly bullish with the anafrontal wave on Monday. The ensemble mean is actually spitting out 3-4" of snow imby. No other guidance seems to be suggesting this right now, so I'm not quite sure what to make of it. The op run is suggesting an accumulating snowfall down in SNE, and the gfs/ggem say the Euro is completely out to lunch. Something to watch...

 

 

Euro has been atrocious with a severe NW bias, I would bet this is all fake

[J.Spin]

25 minutes ago, jculligan said:

Euro ensembles are surprisingly bullish with the anafrontal wave on Monday. The ensemble mean is actually spitting out 3-4" of snow imby. No other guidance seems to be suggesting this right now, so I'm not quite sure what to make of it. The op run is suggesting an accumulating snowfall down in SNE, and the gfs/ggem say the Euro is completely out to lunch. Something to watch...

Thanks for bringing it to our attention.  I was wondering why I hadn’t seen it when I flipped through the ECMWF Precipitation Type/Rate plot on pivotalweather.com, but I realize why.  It just looks like the northern extent of whatever was passing by to the south of us, and I didn’t think it would even represent anything in terms of accumulation (I don’t find the shading scheme they use there for precipitation very helpful, so it’s hard to know if it means anything unless it’s darker, or you dive into it to check on actual amounts of precipitation).

As noted in the conversation here, this seems like just an ECMWF thing vs. something all the models have, so we’ll have to see if anything comes of it.

From the bulk of the guidance I’m seeing, the back side of the next system sort of looks like classic westerly flow with moisture from the lakes helping out the northern 1/2 to 1/3 of VT and NH with some snow.  It doesn’t look like a robust signal, so maybe just a few inches in the mountains.  The BTV NWS mentions it in their AFD:

 

Area Forecast Discussion...DELAYED

National Weather Service Burlington VT

717 PM EST Fri Dec 11 2020

 

.LONG TERM /MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY/...

As of 347 PM EST Friday...Fairly quiet weather will prevail through the first part of next week. A upper shortwave will rotate by just to our north Monday, pushing a front through with a second shot of colder air. This front combined with a bit of lake enhanced moisture will allow rain/snow showers to develop Monday afternoon into the evening, mainly across the northern mountains.

[backedgeapproaching]

Hopefully the Euro can restore its King status and score a coup for Monday.  Like mentioned, nothing else shows this outcome.

[powderfreak]

I already miss it snowing every day, despite some nice sun/cloud/caked white, mountain views today.

[PhineasC]

Amazingly, there is a chance for a decent snowstorm this week for my MD house. LOL

I picked the right 10 days to go home. We will see if it pans out down here. 100 ways to fail here.

[Fozz]

1 minute ago, PhineasC said:

Amazingly, there is a chance for a decent snowstorm this week for my MD house. LOL

I picked the right 10 days to go home. We will see if it pans out down here. 100 ways to fail here.

I think there's a decent chance that it delivers, simply because we have a solid -NAO which we haven't seen in a long time. That might just be enough for the mid-Atlantic in mid-December, otherwise it would be a long shot.

[ORH_wxman]

Just now, Fozz said:

I think there's a decent chance that it delivers, simply because we have a solid -NAO which we haven't seen in a long time. That might just be enough for the mid-Atlantic in mid-December, otherwise it would be a long shot.

I think I’d still want to be north of philly on that setup despite the runs today getting the snow pretty far south. The shortwave is pretty amped out in the plains/Midwest so I’m envisioning this thing getting more zonked as we get closer. Though northern MD is as good as anywhere if you’re going to be south of PHL.

 

Doesn’t always happen but there’s a pretty consistent pattern of the storms that get squashed a lot and almost all of them are much weaker shortwaves when they are still pretty far west. One of the exceptions was Feb 5-6, 2010 but that one had a MONSTER block that was way further south than this setup. So unless this shortwave ends up a lot weaker or the fundamental orientation of the block changes, I’d hedge northward bumps. 

[Fozz]

2 hours ago, ORH_wxman said:

I think I’d still want to be north of philly on that setup despite the runs today getting the snow pretty far south. The shortwave is pretty amped out in the plains/Midwest so I’m envisioning this thing getting more zonked as we get closer. Though northern MD is as good as anywhere if you’re going to be south of PHL.

 

Doesn’t always happen but there’s a pretty consistent pattern of the storms that get squashed a lot and almost all of them are much weaker shortwaves when they are still pretty far west. One of the exceptions was Feb 5-6, 2010 but that one had a MONSTER block that was way further south than this setup. So unless this shortwave ends up a lot weaker or the fundamental orientation of the block changes, I’d hedge northward bumps. 

Thanks, that is very helpful to know. Seems like the latest GFS has a strong enough 50/50 low for this storm to work for them.