NNE Cold Season Thread 2020-2021

[PhineasC]

3 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

But not at the top, ha!  Just always meso-scale snow this season.  Even my 10" event in November was localized upslope.  At another point, another very micro-localized 5-6" standing wave event that didn't even hit the mountain, ha.  Now this seems to be a lake effect moisture off Lake Ontario coupled with orographic lift.

There's a noticeable push of moisture coming in from northern NY along this axis so we will have to see what happens when that moves through.  The axis should settle southward a bit this evening, so J.Spin and mreaves should get in on that increasing moisture as well.

Yeah, the GYX disco likes a bit of snow for over this way too as the cold front carries some moisture overhead. 

[powderfreak]

2 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

Yeah, the GYX disco likes a bit of snow for over this way too as the cold front carries some moisture overhead. 

You look to be in the moisture axis as well on the 18z EURO.  Some of the models have it just south of here too, so we'll see.  But an axis from here to Alex/you could see another couple inches overnight.

 

 

[J.Spin]

11 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

There's a noticeable push of moisture coming in from northern NY along this axis so we will have to see what happens when that moves through.  The axis should settle southward a bit this evening, so J.Spin and mreaves should get in on that increasing moisture as well.

I just checked out the radar and I see that pulse pushing in.  We’ve had generally just flurries since my 6 PM observations, but we’ll see if this next round kicks the snowfall rate up a bit more.  You can often tell if the moisture pulse is getting a bit more serious when the radar switches sensitivity modes.

[backedgeapproaching]

19 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Up to an healthy 3" or a few tenths over now, wonder if we can pull an advisory level 4-5" at home.  Seems like borderline moderate snow at times but my bet is it would still be "light" by an ASOS, probably 3/4sm visibility.

I feel like whenever it snows here this year, I never get to share the snowfall with anyone else on the forum, ha.  Like I post obs to myself when it snows, and then sit on the outside when the vast majority of the AMWX New England sub-forum is posting snow obs.

I hear you on that.  You do have JSpin, BWT, BorderWx, Mreaves, and a few others at least somewhat similar (Ok Mreaves a little removed form the upslope zone). But yea, hard for you and the guys in Taunton to be posting snow obs in the same event.

There is no one within 50-60 miles of me in any direction pretty much..lol.  Just Mitch who never posts on here really. But am little closer for synoptic type event tracks to effect SNE and SVT.

[wxeyeNH]

Meanwhile just on the other side of the mountains just partly cloudy.  Really no weather over here till the rainy cutter on Friday...

[PhineasC]

Dusting here now. 

[Ginx snewx]

3 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

Dusting here now. 

You guys really need to look deep at Monday afternoon.  I see big inches

[powderfreak]

The band is shifting south, JSpin about to get smoked.

I might be near 4” now, will go out and measure soon.

[powderfreak]

What a fun evening.  Snowing steadily.  4.2" on the board... 4-5" snow depth.  The grass bottom likely adding a half inch or so, but by this time of year the grass is packed down flat and not fluffing it up as much as it would be in October/November, so "depth" is closer to the "new snow" than earlier in the season.  Good ratios, I'd guess 20:1.  Not pure cotton candy at 30-40:1 but also not 10:1 dense.

[alex]

Jelly! Barely a dusting here. Need some lake to my west

[Skivt2]

Had a surprise couple of inches at Pico today.  It looks like it might be starting to snow a little again. Definitely a huge moral booster.

[J.Spin]

42 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

The band is shifting south, JSpin about to get smoked.

Yeah, it’s definitely picked up over the past 20 minutes or so.  I was guessing a 0.5”/hr rate around 9:00 P.M., but it’s been ramping up a bit – it looks like 0.4” in the past 30 min, so getting closer to a 1”/hr rate now.  You can see a bit of fire hose spray movement on the radar:

[PhineasC]

30 minutes ago, alex said:

Jelly! Barely a dusting here. Need some lake to my west

The next cutter may deliver that. 

[PhineasC]

Nice snow here. Looks great out there.   

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 3.7” Snow/0.14” L.E.

 

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

New Snow: 2.8 inches

New Liquid: 0.11 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 25.5

Snow Density: 3.9% H2O

Temperature: 24.1 F

Sky: Snow (2 - 15 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 4.0 inches

[J.Spin]

16 hours ago, powderfreak said:

I know JSpin mentioned it but our best shot for some fresh white on the ground is the lake effect streamer that should develop.  These like to align down the Winooski Valley gap in the mountains, and can give JSpin a quick 3” of snow in an hour lol.

I don’t think we saw any 3”/hr snowfall this evening, but it was pretty close over a shorter period, probably in the 2.5”/hr range.  Accumulation on the boards at 10:00 P.M. was 0.8”, and then it was 2.0” at 10:30 P.M., so that would suggest close to 2.5”/hr during that block.  You can see on the radar when those 30 db returns coalesced here in the Winooski Valley, that’s the period when the snowfall was most intense:

[powderfreak]

Still 4.5” in the yard.  Snow stopped shortly after my last post aside from some lighter flurries as the band went south.

Overall though so nice waking up to a winter wonderland again.

I see a CoCoRAHS of 5.0" in Danville, VT and 5.5" in Woodbury almost due east of here and then 4-5" over in the Adirondacks on the same axis that runs right through this area. 

[Lava Rock]

Just a few flakes here overnight. This is what's left of the snowpack!!! Pathetic 

When was the last time bretton woods was bare at xmas?

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

[Lava Rock]

Meanwhile just on the other side of the mountains just partly cloudy.  Really no weather over here till the rainy cutter on Friday...

Looking forward to our next soaking, but it does seems to be trending colder

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

[powderfreak]

I still wonder how the Stowe Lower Village CoCoRAHS guy measures and gets such low ratios all winter long.  I'm always higher than him in inches of snow but very similar in liquid amounts. His ratios are always much lower than everywhere else from what I see.

You can see this morning's reports with the total water of 0.20-0.25" spots from the Adirondacks and eastern VT yielded 4-5.5" of snow (which is what I saw for snowfall at my place).  But for some reason his 0.21" water only got 2.8" snow.  Even the places that got 0.10" water were 2.8" snow.  Or 0.14" water for 3.2".

This is why my snowfall totals are so much higher in terms of inches from that guy, but the water is right.  I just can't figure it out, unless he measures on some surface that melts from below or something.  The water almost always lines up but like I estimated last night, it was 20:1 ratios at least, which would've given him the same 4"+ and the same ratios as everyone else.  

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 5.2” Snow/0.18” L.E.

 

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

New Snow: 1.5 inches

New Liquid: 0.04 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 37.5

Snow Density: 2.7% H2O

Temperature: 23.5 F

Sky: Light Snow (2 - 5 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 4.5 inches

[Patriot21]

Haven't stepped outside to get a look, but guessing around 2" and some flurries currently

[Hitman]

23f and flurries.  Looks like we picked up another inch over night.

[powderfreak]

Mansfield Magic... a healthy 6”.

[J.Spin]

25 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

I still wonder how the Stowe Lower Village CoCoRAHS guy measures snow, ha.  I'm always higher than him in inches of snow but very similar in liquid amounts. His ratios are always much lower than everywhere else and from what I see.

You can see this morning's reports with the total water of 0.20-0.25" spots from the Adirondacks and eastern VT yielded 4-5.5" of snow (which is what I saw for snowfall at my place).  But for some reason his 0.21" water only got 2.8" snow.  Even the places that got 0.10" water were 2.8" snow.  Or 0.14" water for 3.2".

This is why my snowfall totals are so much higher in terms of inches from that guy, but the water is right.  I just can't figure it out, unless he measures on some surface that melts from below or something.  The water almost always lines up but like I estimated last night, it was 20:1 ratios at least, which would've given him the same 4"+ and the same ratios as everyone else.  

That is really interesting PF.  That observer has got to be measuring/clearing just once a day of course, but even that can’t explain that much compaction.  It’s almost as if they’re measuring/clearing even less than once a day and getting more settling than they should.  But that can’t explain it for this event – we know when this event started, and we can see everyone’s current depth in the CoCoRaHS data.  And, even if you only clear once in a 24-hour period, you can still measure when the snow is at its maximum depth (but I’m guessing this observer doesn’t practice that option).

I’ve been doing 6-hour clears and liquid analyses on this event, and you can see the difference is only 0.7” (5.2” collected vs. 4.5” current depth).  That should really be about the maximum settling anyone should be seeing at this point.  So how does that site settle so much?  They’re still getting the liquid, so you’re right, it’s as if collection is done on a surface that is melting from below.  Another possibility I guess is that the observer collects in a spot with a bit of wind that is destroying the loft of the dendrites.  This morning’s accumulation was definitely fragile at almost 40:1, so with snow like that, wind compaction could be a contributor.  What type of results does that site report for dense snow events?

[powderfreak]

19 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

That is really interesting PF.  That observer has got to be measuring/clearing just once a day of course, but even that can’t explain that much compaction.  It’s almost as if they’re measuring/clearing even less than once a day and getting more settling than they should.  But that can’t explain it for this event – we know when this event started, and we can see everyone’s current depth in the CoCoRaHS data.  And, even if you only clear once in a 24-hour period, you can still measure when the snow is at its maximum depth (but I’m guessing this observer doesn’t practice that option).

I’ve been doing 6-hour clears and liquid analyses on this event, and you can see the difference is only 0.7” (5.2” collected vs. 4.5” current depth).  That should really be about the maximum settling anyone should be seeing at this point.  So how does that site settle so much?  They’re still getting the liquid, so you’re right, it’s as if collection is done on a surface that is melting from below.  Another possibility I guess is that the observer collects in a spot with a bit of wind that is destroying the loft of the dendrites.  This morning’s accumulation was definitely fragile at almost 40:1, so with snow like that, wind compaction could be a contributor.  What type of results does that site report for dense snow events?

Yeah I seem pretty spot on with that site in say a 10:1 nor’easter or small flake dense snow.  But he always has the lowest ratios around in these for some reason.  3” of depth and if he had 0.7” settlement like your site and I had more snow overnight but depth never changed.. 3.7” would be a more plausible new snow.

Ill see what the cars at home have on them in our lot even after a day of settling, but there was 4”+ on the neighbors car when I left this morning and 4.5” in the yard like your site and the others to the east in that band.  But that lower village site seems to capture the correct water on the whole, which is what always puzzles me.

[alex]

Good flakeage this morning for a change 

[alex]

0.4”. It ain’t much but it is white...

[PhineasC]

Received an inch overnight. Been snowing all morning, mostly light. 

[mreaves]

About 3” overnight and still snowing lightly. I guess we were on the southern edge of that axis PF pointed out. Back to a wintry look for a few days at least.