NNE Cold Season Thread 2020-2021

[CoastalWx]

1 hour ago, dendrite said:

34.4”

I still don’t like that Danbury total. The water equiv is way too high. The observer better have a valid reasoning for it. 

We toss  the 48”.

[Ginx snewx]

3 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

We toss  the 48”.

I wonder how BGM had 40 inch depth and 40 inch fall. I bet it was a 4 footer

[J.Spin]

On 12/8/2020 at 7:56 PM, J.Spin said:

I’m right there with you; I’m shocked every time I look at the reported snowfall averages up and down the spine, especially with so many people having the perception that the Southern Vermont Ski Areas get the most snowfall in the state.  

 

On 12/8/2020 at 11:05 PM, J.Spin said:

Yeah, there are definitely people out there with this perception, but from what I’ve seen we’re talking very casual skiers here – folks that would be at a level where if you asked them what the typical annual snowfall was for a ski resort, they’d have no idea.  Similarly, they also have to be folks that don’t follow weather very closely, and the times they do pay attention to it a bit would be when a big coastal snowstorm is making headlines.  So if it’s a storm that is positioned correctly such that it’s making headlines because it’s affecting the big coastal cities, the NNE resorts are typically getting fringed, and it’s going to be resorts in SVT and similar areas that are getting walloped.  So I assume this is where this population of casual skiers/casual weather observers gets that impression – they watch the news/weather during these big storms, and see the big totals highlighted at SVT resorts.  That’s all they know, and they assume this is the normal snowfall routine; they have no idea that big storms like that are maybe a once or twice a season thing.  They’re not following snow reports at other times of the season, so they’re oblivious to what’s typically going on, and they’re also not the type to go looking into ski resort websites to look up annual snowfall numbers.

PF interacts with visitors a lot at Stowe, so I wonder if he’s ever experienced this phenomenon.  The thing is, his visitors are already up at Stowe, so they may already be far more aware of the differences from down south vs. folks who only ever visit the Southern Vermont Ski Areas.

 

11 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Really? I honestly haven't heard that one yet.  In all my social media days I don't know if I've come across that, ha.  But it sounds like something a casual 3-5 day a year skier might say, ha.

I added some of the relevant text from that discussion above – and you’ll see at the end that I was hoping you would weigh in.  Indeed, it’s got to be exactly the right combination of very casual skier who doesn’t ski frequently enough to really pay attention to ski resort snow reports and doesn’t really follow winter weather enough to know much about what happens with respect to regional snowfall outside of the large, publicized storms.  The topic even coming up in conversation is going to be limited though, because the type of person with that perception is just not typically even going to be talking about the nuances of which parts of VT get the most snow.

I know I’ve encountered this perception, and can recall a specific example in a discussion at the First Tracks ski forum, but maybe it’s not as common as I thought if you’ve never encountered it.

[CoastalWx]

1 minute ago, Ginx snewx said:

I wonder how BGM had 40 inch depth and 40 inch fall. I bet it was a 4 footer

Are we sure there wasn’t snow under or any confusion on measuring and depth? 

[Ginx snewx]

5 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Are we sure there wasn’t snow under or any confusion on measuring and depth? 

All the BGM reports were NWS employees. They had bare ground to start

[dendrite]

[CoastalWx]

Looks legit. 

[backedgeapproaching]

9 hours ago, LaGrangewx said:

Went to Magic today and the snow on the drive up from NY was incredible once you hit Manchester. Do you think a favorable location probably had 50” if they cleared?

Honestly, it was such a short window of heavy snow you mostly likely only had time for 1 clear.  Someone probably could have had 46-48" I think possibly.  I think the CO-OPs measure in a 24 hour window and clear their board at that time, so the Peru VT CO-OP probably cleared at 7am (or whatever obs time is?) and then had a fresh board for post 7am snowfall (someone can correct me if Im wrong about the Co-op clears?)  So the 44.8" they had was with 1 clear most likely. 

[backedgeapproaching]

Here is the Peru VT Co-op F6 data. 

So they had 29.6" then cleared and had 15.2" additional post 7am. Depth yesterday morning was 31" after settling overnight.

 

[backedgeapproaching]

4 hours ago, Ginx snewx said:

Yet no pics

You mean pics of tape measure in the snow? 

 

[J.Spin]

12 hours ago, #NoPoles said:

So, the snow guns at Bretton Woods have created diamond dust fog over the entire village of Bretton Woods. It's quite amazing. 

I’ve seen that effect, and it’s very cool.  I was also going to comment that there could be some real diamond dust out there too – we had some yesterday, and I just hopped on now to comment that we’ve got a bit falling this morning as well.

[dendrite]

52 minutes ago, backedgeapproaching said:

Here is the Peru VT Co-op F6 data. 

So they had 29.6" then cleared and had 15.2" additional post 7am. Depth yesterday morning was 31" after settling overnight.

 

heh...so 15.2” new and only 2” depth increase at the following 24hr obs time. 
 

I lost 8” from my peak depth to the following morning so it’s reasonable to think their depth was around 40” when the snow ended.

[dendrite]

Looks like some diamond dust at CON this morning too after a low of -8° and a drop in vis down to 3/4SM and -SN being reported.

[backedgeapproaching]

18 minutes ago, dendrite said:

heh...so 15.2” new and only 2” depth increase at the following 24hr obs time. 
 

I lost 8” from my peak depth to the following morning so it’s reasonable to think their depth was around 40” when the snow ended.

Yea, the timing worked out kind of well actually for him to be able to clear.  If the snow started at say 11am on 12/17 instead of near 11pm-12am he would not have been able to clear and snow would have been over and he would have to just report pretty much the depth at 7am which also would have settled too. May have been like 35-38" instead of 44.8"

[powderfreak]

My brother-in-law and niece last night in BGM suburbs not far from the airport.

[mreaves]

6 hours ago, Ginx snewx said:

Yet no pics

He’s posted pics. That thread moved at 100mph though so they are probably buried, like his house. 

[backedgeapproaching]

6 hours ago, Ginx snewx said:

Yet no pics

I dont have one of the depth with tape measure. It was thigh deep on me and I'm 6'2.  But here is the road in East Dorset I was on.

 

[Ginx snewx]

1 hour ago, backedgeapproaching said:

You mean pics of tape measure in the snow? 

 

No pics of your trip. You guys had a lifetime achievement and there is like 5 distant pics

[powderfreak]

1 hour ago, Ginx snewx said:

No pics of your trip. You guys had a lifetime achievement and there is like 5 distant pics

If I had a day off yesterday I was going to go down just to photograph the aftermath.  Plenty of shots on social though.

[LaGrangewx]

3 hours ago, backedgeapproaching said:

Honestly, it was such a short window of heavy snow you mostly likely only had time for 1 clear.  Someone probably could have had 46-48" I think possibly.  I think the CO-OPs measure in a 24 hour window and clear their board at that time, so the Peru VT CO-OP probably cleared at 7am (or whatever obs time is?) and then had a fresh board for post 7am snowfall (someone can correct me if Im wrong about the Co-op clears?)  So the 44.8" they had was with 1 clear most likely. 

You’re definitely right that the window of snowfall was perfect to get high reports with the clearing. This reminds me of an intense lake effect snowfall just Incredible in a short window. What are the rules regarding clearing? I thought it was ok to clear every 6 hours but has that changed now? Does it vary for Nws, Coop, or CoCoRaHS?

[wxeyeNH]

5 hours ago, dendrite said:

34.4”

I still don’t like that Danbury total. The water equiv is way too high. The observer better have a valid reasoning for it. 

I am always skeptical of these crazy totals.  I did see the twitter video of the guy  (was it in S VT?)  that posted is 36" yard stick disappearing.  Seemed legit.  Since Danbury NH is only 2 towns SW of me I decided to take a ride there this morning.  The 48" was reported 2.2 ESE of town center.  I drove to a location within 1 mile of that.  At 1030am this morning I took a few measurements in flat areas that would have been sheltered from yesterday's sun.  I measured 24".   A guy across the road saw me out there and came over to talk to me.  He said that he measured 40" after the storm and that there was a ton of settling yesterday.   I totally agree since I saw that I lost 9" of settling of my 24" pack.   So 40" seems accurate.  48" is too high unless the observer cleared the snowboard every 6 hours.  The weight of 4 feet of snow is must be substantial  especially a 15F dry snowfall.

Here is a picture from Danbury that I took on my trip.  Remember this is after a day after 100% sunshine.

 

[LaGrangewx]

I just looked at 2 different reports from Ludlow. 44”at 930am was at 1800ft and 41” at 10am. I checked the radar loop and snowed till At least 2pm in that area. You’d expect even higher storm totals then the final measurements If those were accurate. Were those reports tossed for some reason?

[LaGrangewx]

10 minutes ago, wxeyeNH said:

I am always skeptical of these crazy totals.  I did see the twitter video of the guy  (was it in S VT?)  that posted is 36" yard stick disappearing.  Seemed legit.  Since Danbury NH is only 2 towns SW of me I decided to take a ride there this morning.  The 48" was reported 2.2 ESE of town center.  I drove to a location within 1 mile of that.  At 1030am this morning I took a few measurements in flat areas that would have been sheltered from yesterday's sun.  I measured 24".   A guy across the road saw me out there and came over to talk to me.  He said that he measured 40" after the storm and that there was a ton of settling yesterday.   I totally agree since I saw that I lost 9" of settling of my 24" pack.   So 40" seems accurate.  48" is too high unless the observer cleared the snowboard every 6 hours.  The weight of 4 feet of snow is must be substantial  especially a 15F dry snowfall.

Here is a picture from Danbury that I took on my trip.  Remember this is after a day after 100% sunshine.

 

That report of 48” must of came from near  ragged mountain. Regardless of the accuracy at 2000ft there they must have been crushed 

[#NoPoles]

And the Grinch Storm...ugh...

[backedgeapproaching]

6 hours ago, wxeyeNH said:

I am always skeptical of these crazy totals.  I did see the twitter video of the guy  (was it in S VT?)  that posted is 36" yard stick disappearing.  Seemed legit.  Since Danbury NH is only 2 towns SW of me I decided to take a ride there this morning.  The 48" was reported 2.2 ESE of town center.  I drove to a location within 1 mile of that.  At 1030am this morning I took a few measurements in flat areas that would have been sheltered from yesterday's sun.  I measured 24".   A guy across the road saw me out there and came over to talk to me.  He said that he measured 40" after the storm and that there was a ton of settling yesterday.   I totally agree since I saw that I lost 9" of settling of my 24" pack.   So 40" seems accurate.  48" is too high unless the observer cleared the snowboard every 6 hours.  The weight of 4 feet of snow is must be substantial  especially a 15F dry snowfall.

Here is a picture from Danbury that I took on my trip.  Remember this is after a day after 100% sunshine.

 

That's pretty much the scene I saw yesterday when I finally was able to get out of my driveway ( my plow guy got stuck for 5 hours somewhere) when I did my tour to the north 5 miles.  Every car at every house was totally buried, if it wasn't cleaned off, you couldn't see any sliver of what type of car it was.

[bwt3650]

Gfs seems to like a little upslope action tues/weds, though nam seems less excited.  Don’t think it will he enough to make a difference up at jay.  Much less terrain open than this time last year, though it really didn’t get good until after the new year.  Maybe we get this monsoon out of the way and get started on some decent pack.  I’m heading back up Monday and may stop at mt. Snow just to get some decent terrain.  I know it will come up here, but man, we need it.

[wx2fish]

7 hours ago, LaGrangewx said:

That report of 48” must of came from near  ragged mountain. Regardless of the accuracy at 2000ft there they must have been crushed 

My uncle lives in Andover, but straight line less than 2 miles from Ragged on the east side of the mountain. He measured 35" in the front yard at the end, and said the snow was 8" from the top of a 4ft dog fence in the backyard. So, I would assume anything mid-upper 30s is reasonable there as a peak depth. 

But, like Dendtrite said, the leq of that Danbury total seems out of whack. So, I'd like to know how that was measured. 

[PhineasC]

22 minutes ago, bwt3650 said:

Gfs seems to like a little upslope action tues/weds, though nam seems less excited.  Don’t think it will he enough to make a difference up at jay.  Much less terrain open than this time last year, though it really didn’t get good until after the new year.  Maybe we get this monsoon out of the way and get started on some decent pack.  I’m heading back up Monday and may stop at mt. Snow just to get some decent terrain.  I know it will come up here, but man, we need it.

The Christmas tropical disaster will wipe out a lot of hard work on the mountains. 

[powderfreak]

8 hours ago, LaGrangewx said:

I just looked at 2 different reports from Ludlow. 44”at 930am was at 1800ft and 41” at 10am. I checked the radar loop and snowed till At least 2pm in that area. You’d expect even higher storm totals then the final measurements If those were accurate. Were those reports tossed for some reason?

I think it starts compressing on itself pretty fast at those amounts.  Unless you cleared and added the total to it, I think it could’ve snowed up to another 10” but only added a couple inches to the depth.  I think at 40” you probably only add an inch of depth if the snow rate is 3”/hr.  That’s extremely hard to maintain.  Even if snowfall tapered to 1-2”/hr there might have actually been no gain or even settlement.

Just an amazing high-end event.  The fact that there was 24-30” on the ground and gaining 6” per hour in snow depth is incredible to me.  Usually at 24” stuff starts to compress... but to stomp on the gas at that point up into the 40s for snow depth is insane.

[OceanStWx]

2 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

I think it starts compressing on itself pretty fast at those amounts.  Unless you cleared and added the total to it, I think it could’ve snowed up to another 10” but only added a couple inches to the depth.  I think at 40” you probably only add an inch of depth if the snow rate is 3”/hr.  That’s extremely hard to maintain.  Even if snowfall tapered to 1-2”/hr there might have actually been no gain or even settlement.

Just an amazing high-end event.  The fact that there was 24-30” on the ground and gaining 6” per hour in snow depth is incredible to me.  Usually at 24” stuff starts to compress... but to stomp on the gas at that point up into the 40s for snow depth is insane.

I ended up clearing twice (7 am CoCoRaHS report and again at 18z). But that last chunk my office was asking for rate reports for SPS purposes. I got 3.9 and 4.8" in two consecutive hours (didn't clear the board after the 3.9" so there was likely compaction and even more than 4.8" in that second hour). When the snow stopped I went back out for the final measurement and the depth on the board had already settled nearly an inch to 8.0" in about an hour. It happens fast.