NNE Cold Season Thread 2020-2021

[bwt3650]

Still snowing on and off with a couple decent bursts...awesome winter feel out there.

[powderfreak]

Ahh they are turning on the heated pavers.  It’s melting, lol.

[mreaves]

Just now, powderfreak said:

Ahh they are turning on the heated pavers.  It’s melting, lol.

@ORH_wxman just smashed his Commodore 64 in a fit of rage.

[powderfreak]

1 hour ago, PhineasC said:

So far early-on is seems pretty similar between our spots. Alex did a little better in the October event that favored western locations with the changeover (the event where Whitefield of all places crushed the competition). That event was kind of fluky. Otherwise, it's been pretty similar, just normal variance here and there. I am looking forward to a real synoptic coastal storm without this changeover BS so we can really put this to the test.

I get the sense the competitive spirit is coming out, lol.

All snow goes towards climo... but I find synoptic storms are fluky on the whole, you are at the whims of mid-level forcing and stuff like that... like that early season storm.  Those storms are when it’s anyone’s game, even Whitefields lol.  If you get a mid level band in the right place the mountains don’t matter, it can crush more right in the valley bottoms.

Coastal storms and synoptic events are definitely bigger wildcards to me, depending on where the mid-level stuff ends up.  Low climo snow places can get 36” while a “snow zone” spot gets 14”.

[Lava Rock]

22 minutes ago, mreaves said:

@ORH_wxman just smashed his Commodore 64 in a fit of rage.

Hey I heard VAST had a meeting last night and there is a proposal or something not to groom or open trails this season. Is that right?

[PhineasC]

19 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

I get the sense the competitive spirit is coming out, lol.

All snow goes towards climo... but I find synoptic storms are fluky on the whole, you are at the whims of mid-level forcing and stuff like that... like that early season storm.  Those storms are when it’s anyone’s game, even Whitefields lol.  If you get a mid level band in the right place the mountains don’t matter, it can crush more right in the valley bottoms.

Coastal storms and synoptic events are definitely bigger wildcards to me, depending on where the mid-level stuff ends up.  Low climo snow places can get 36” while a “snow zone” spot gets 14”.

I am hoping we are all getting so much snow it's neck-and-neck amongst our various spots.  

[borderwx]

1 hour ago, mreaves said:

Lol.  I thought that measuring stick was a sawed off birch at first.

Even better, I spent a solid minute thinking it was just a game camera until I saw the stick. Must be a Canuck, all in cm

[mreaves]

38 minutes ago, Lava Rock said:

Hey I heard VAST had a meeting last night and there is a proposal or something not to groom or open trails this season. Is that right?

Absolutely not.  The question we discussed was whether to offer refunds to people from out of state who have already purchased season passes if travel restrictions get tighter.  VT's travel restrictions and quarantine requirements have been pretty thoroughly discussed so I won't go over those again.  The governor's office has considered snowmobiling an acceptable quarantine activity, meaning if you ride only with the people you came with and don't meet up with others or go into stores, restaurants, bars etc. you should be ok.  That could change obviously and last night we decided that we weren't ready to give refunds yet but we will revisit the idea if restrictions become tighter.

[powderfreak]

Been snowing pretty much all day but visibility is mostly in the 1-4 mile range -SN type stuff.  Occasionally it'll dip to a mile or less very briefly.

Estimate 2.5" or so now out of the wind... grass blades have finally been fully covered up.

This is a classic snow globe style day.

[backedgeapproaching]

Lol, different world down here...got final leaf clean up done.

[tamarack]

2 hours ago, powderfreak said:

I get the sense the competitive spirit is coming out, lol.

All snow goes towards climo... but I find synoptic storms are fluky on the whole, you are at the whims of mid-level forcing and stuff like that... like that early season storm.  Those storms are when it’s anyone’s game, even Whitefields lol.  If you get a mid level band in the right place the mountains don’t matter, it can crush more right in the valley bottoms.

Coastal storms and synoptic events are definitely bigger wildcards to me, depending on where the mid-level stuff ends up.  Low climo snow places can get 36” while a “snow zone” spot gets 14”.

Some not-recent examples illustrate that flukiness.  The post-Christmas storm of 1969 gave western Maine 12-18" followed by 4-7" RA, western NH serious ice nd 30" snow for BTV, their biggest on record (until another fluke in January 2010.)  Four years after that - my first December in BGR - we had 56° toward the end of a major RA event while the west half of SNE had crippling ice and my parents in NNJ had 15° and IP.  Left turns can bring weird, and often frustrating, results.  More recent is NYC's 21" snowicane in Feb. 2010 while S. Maine had hurricane force gusts and the same NE winds brought my foothills area 1"+ of 33-34° RA to further compact the 10" of 4:1 mush that had fallen the previous 3 days.

[backedgeapproaching]

Leaf cleanup done just in time..

 

[mreaves]

How it started 

vs. How it's going

[powderfreak]

Ha that’s awesome.  Love squalls... from yard work to whiteouts.

[J.Spin]

Well, the tenor of day changed pretty quickly around here.  We’ve had snow all day, but it’s generally been light with a few transient accumulations.  I was out taking care of a few leaves, and around 3:00 P.M. the switch was flipped and it quickly ramped up to heavy snowfall with huge flakes.  The snowfall was heavy enough that I eventually had to stop and head in because I just couldn’t see the ground sufficiently to even get any work done.  I checked the snowboard around 3:30 P.M. and there was already about two inches on it, so the snowfall in there was indeed near 4”/hr.  It’s slowed down now, but you can see the look of the radar when that came through here:

 

[mreaves]

5 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

Well, the tenor of day changed pretty quickly around here.  We’ve had snow all day, but it’s generally been light with a few transient accumulations.  I was out taking care of a few leaves, and around 3:00 P.M. the switch was flipped and it quickly ramped up to heavy snowfall with huge flakes.  The snowfall was heavy enough that I eventually had to stop and head in because I just couldn’t see the ground sufficiently to even get any work done.  I checked the snowboard around 3:30 P.M. and there was already about two inches on it, so the snowfall in there was indeed near 4”/hr.  It’s slowed down now, but you can see the look of the radar when that came through here:

 

 

 

 

It finally reached us after spitting on and off a lot of the afternoon.  The ground has now been whitened.

[J.Spin]

23 minutes ago, mreaves said:

It finally reached us after spitting on and off a lot of the afternoon.  The ground has now been whitened.

Yeah, you can see that trajectory on the radar – you guys were right in line to get it after it passed through here.

[powderfreak]

Finding around 3-4” on the ground leaving work.

Its a special world up at 1,500ft.

[Patriot21]

ground is covered here too

[PhineasC]

2 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Finding around 3-4” on the ground leaving work.

Its a special world up at 1,500ft.

Not as special here in northern NH at 1500’ today. LOL

Been a wintry appeal day for sure but nothing serious in terms of accumulations. You guys stole the snow this time. 

[powderfreak]

7 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

Not as special here in northern NH at 1500’ today. LOL

Been a wintry appeal day for sure but nothing serious in terms of accumulations. You guys stole the snow this time. 

Yeah the plows are out at that height over this way, and this is our bread and butter ripping out a few inches when there’s no synoptic system.  Also closer to the Great Lakes moisture.

I can’t believe JSpin at 500ft pulled 2” in 30 minutes.  My yard is white at 750ft but it’s more like a wet half inch coating with grass still visible.

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 2.6” Snow/0.82” L.E.

 

My wife got in from Morrisville a little while ago and was able to report what she saw along her route.  In general, accumulations were less than what she saw here, with just a dusting in many areas, and roads were just wet.  Valley temperatures have been marginal enough that it probably takes some increased snowfall intensity to really get the accumulations going, but with the temperature dropping down near the freezing mark, it should be easier now for the snow to stick.

 

Details from the 4:00 P.M. Waterbury observations:

New Snow: 2.1 inches

New Liquid: 0.06 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 35.0

Snow Density: 2.9% H2O

Temperature: 32.7 F

Sky: Light Snow (1-3 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 2.0 inches

[PhineasC]

38 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Yeah the plows are out at that height over this way, and this is our bread and butter ripping out a few inches when there’s no synoptic system.  Also closer to the Great Lakes moisture.

I can’t believe JSpin at 500ft pulled 2” in 30 minutes.  My yard is white at 750ft but it’s more like a wet half inch coating with grass still visible.

JSpin appears to live in a magical elven snow kingdom disconnected from our boring human reality.

[ORH_wxman]

16 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

JSpin appears to live in a magical elven snow kingdom disconnected from our boring human reality.

You’re gonna clean up on some of these easterly flow events/coastals and on CAD events you’ll do really well too. You’ll be like one of the last places to mix with sleet on those CAD type of systems (if you do at all). Places like Plattsburgh over to BTV might be ripping sleet pellets while you are S+.

Jspins location was designed in an upslope weenie’s basement on their computer game “sim snow 2000”. That’s their bread and butter. Getting a few inches here and there when similar elevations are getting a dusting or flurries. 

[wxeyeNH]

31.1F  Moderate snow squall about to end.  About 1/4".  Trying to join the bigboys club with my friends north of me. Nice to see at least the deck and dirt surfaces white.  Probably sublimate away by morning

[powderfreak]

So good to see the snow globe shaken up.  Now keep shaking it.

[powderfreak]

39 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

JSpin appears to live in a magical elven snow kingdom disconnected from our boring human reality.

It's that whole zone... like 1,500ft at Stowe is the same as J.Spin except 1,000ft higher but the lift aloft is likely very similar.  He's not going to lose much to evaporation in that final 1,000ft but his precipitation is getting maximized.  So if the profile is cold enough, he's going to rack up the inches.  Like if someone burrowed a hole in Pinkham Notch so the elevation at the top of the pass was only 500ft but smack between some big terrain with no ability to get downsloped from any direction because of the terrain.  Every direction is just lifting air over head.  His only negative is temps if its marginal but if it's cold enough, he's going to snow with maximum lift, which also often feedsback into lower snow levels right around him too due to precipitation intensity.

[PhineasC]

10 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

So good to see the snow globe shaken up.  Now keep shaking it.

Yup! Let’s keep it going!

[PhineasC]

1 minute ago, powderfreak said:

It's that whole zone... like 1,500ft at Stowe is the same as J.Spin except 1,000ft higher but the lift aloft is likely very similar.  He's not going to lose much to evaporation in that final 1,000ft but his precipitation is getting maximized.  So if the profile is cold enough, he's going to rack up the inches.  Like if someone burrowed a hole in Pinkham Notch so the elevation at the top of the pass was only 500ft but smack between some big terrain with no ability to get downsloped from any direction because of the terrain.  Every direction is just lifting air over head.

He’s in a real snow hole, the kind where Mother Nature dumps it all. 

[backedgeapproaching]

47 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

JSpin appears to live in a magical elven snow kingdom disconnected from our boring human reality.

As Will said, his location is the blueprint for upslope snow.  I've have been calling it the magical hollow for years, nothing surprise me at all---- 5" in 30-40 minutes, sure why not. Ha

You cant get frustrated seeing Jspin's absurd obs and PF at 1500' posting  GIF after GIF after GIF of 30 dbz echoes and wondering why it isn't doing that in your backyard..its their own special zone and why PF gets the crickets in the main threads...lol.

You will get plenty of white stuff.