NNE Cold Season Thread 2021/2022

[tamarack]

Drove thru the WF on the way to Franklin Memorial for the bloodwork needed for my March 8 ablation procedure.  It was 34 as I left home at 9:45 with most of last night's ZR still on the trees.  1000' down our road and it was only droplets, 2 miles to Rt 2 and branches were dry, a couple patches of blue in sight.  Farmington was PC though the solid cloud bank a mile or 2 north meant that part of town was still cool.  Time/temp sign a mile from the hospital read 47 at 10:05 and 58 as I headed home 45 minutes later.  Got home about 11:15 and our temp was 47 and climbing.  Still only 21 at FVE.  50s today and 5 tomorrow morning?  This rollercoaster month remains in character.

[J.Spin]

I got a phone alert early this morning that Winter Storm Watches are up in the area.  The latest BTV NWS maps are below, and the alerts map is an interesting mix of colors that I don’t think we see very often with those Wind Advisories mixed in.  The watch text indicates that a general 6-12” of snow accumulation is expected at this stage, and that fits with what’s shown in current Event Total Snowfall map.

[PhineasC]

Yeah, GYX map is bullish. Large 8-12 swath.

A foot of wet snow followed by a deep freeze and then upslope next week would go a long way to getting things back on track.

[powderfreak]

3 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

Yeah, GYX map is bullish. Large 8-12 swath.

A foot of wet snow followed by a deep freeze and then upslope next week would go a long way to getting things back on track.

If we get those amounts it won’t be wet, it’ll be because of ratios.

[PhineasC]

1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

If we get those amounts it won’t be wet, it’ll be because of ratios.

I'll take anything I can get right now.

47/36 now so some colder air finally working back in.

I love winter but these last couple weeks made me ready for spring. The worst part of NNE IMO is the extended melting and the flip-flopping between sloppy mud and frozen mud that goes on in patterns like this.

Bring on a cold and snowy March.

[mreaves]

2 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

I'll take anything I can get right now.

47/36 now so some colder air finally working back in.

I love winter but these last couple weeks made me ready for spring. The worst part of NNE IMO is the extended melting and and flip-flopping between sloppy mud and frozen mud that goes on in patterns like this.

Bring on a cold and snowy March.

That's why I get bitter about these type of melts.  What good does it do up here?  It's not like you can really do anything.  At least in SNE golf courses might open.  I'm still over 2 months away from that.  Can't snowmobile, can't really snowshoe, can't hike, I guess you can ski but it can't be all that great right now.  It plain sucks

[jculligan]

The valley is almost completely melted out, but I think we're going to make it through with a solid pack still in place here. Roughly 8-10" OTG right now. That's way down from our seasonal peak of 33" back on 2/8, but hey...no grass showing here which is a win in this pattern. Made it up to 59F today but back down to 55F with a noticeable uptick in the wind last hour. Ready for winter to come roaring back in.

[jculligan]

Also, my records indicate that my snow depth peaked on this date last year when we had 23" OTG. So we're much worse off than we were last year at this time, which is pretty discouraging to think about. Hoping for a miracle March.

[PhineasC]

6 minutes ago, jculligan said:

The valley is almost completely melted out, but I think we're going to make it through with a solid pack still in place here. Roughly 8-10" OTG right now. That's way down from our seasonal peak of 33" back on 2/8, but hey...no grass showing here which is a win in this pattern. Made it up to 59F today but back down to 55F with a noticeable uptick in the wind last hour. Ready for winter to come roaring back in.

Looks a lot healthier than here. That's how it looks in the woods here but anything open is nuked out.

[bobbutts]

Down to just piles from snow removal and some icy patches in shaded areas here in Bow.  Never had a deep pack but it seemed pretty sturdy before this warmup.

[PhineasC]

1 minute ago, bobbutts said:

Down to just piles from snow removal and some icy patches in shaded areas here in Bow.  Never had a deep pack but it seemed pretty sturdy before this warmup.

The first cutter is what really did the heavy damage here. It seems a bunch of you guys rotted in the mid-30s in that one while I was torched to 60 on south winds. 

[tamarack]

CF passage began about 2 PM with sudden uptick in wind.  Temp has dropped 10° in 45 minutes with a blink in the power - lost a bit of wx data I'd been entering.  Pack only lost 1" to 16" - modest dews and only 4 hr in the warm sector helped.

[backedgeapproaching]

31 minutes ago, tamarack said:

CF passage began about 2 PM with sudden uptick in wind.  Temp has dropped 10° in 45 minutes with a blink in the power - lost a bit of wx data I'd been entering.  Pack only lost 1" to 16" - modest dews and only 4 hr in the warm sector helped.

 1" lost--nobody can CAD like Tamarack.

[tamarack]

The rollercoaster is outdoing itself today - 34 at 10 AM to 53 by noon.  56 at 2 PM to 37 by 3:50. 
Also 2 computer crashes thanks to blinks in power after the wind kicked up.  Gusts 30-35 shouldn't be able to do that.

[mreaves]

BTV has updated the forecast amounts

[powderfreak]

Absolutely nuking dendrites.

Everything white again.  Short duration 1”/hr band moving through.

[mreaves]

Don't see this often, chance of flurries with a high of 55 lol

[powderfreak]

Around 2”/hr rates.  Wow it’s cranking.

[powderfreak]

2” and pounding at 1500ft.  Might pull a 3-4 spot.

[PhineasC]

Nice. 26 with slowly freezing mud puddles here.

[bwt3650]

9 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

2” and pounding at 1500ft.  Might pull a 3-4 spot.

You’re doing better than up here…bright echoes are south of here just slamming into Mansfield.

[PhineasC]

Some flurries now. 

[eekuasepinniW]

Nice wind surge now. Full volume roaring.

Sustained 28-32 and gusting to 42.

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 0.6” Snow/0.43” L.E.

 

Some models have been showing back side snow in our area from Winter Storm Nancy, but the signal wasn’t all that strong, so I hadn’t given it too much thought.  It definitely caught my attention this afternoon though.  There were a few flakes falling here and there in Burlington, but as I headed home westward into the mountains, the precipitation ramped up steadily.  Accumulations began to appear on the roads around Williston, and by the time I reached the Bolton area I encountered near whiteout conditions with snow-packed roads.  Here at the house, the intensity of the snow was enough that I had to put it down as “heavy snow”, since it was in excess of 1-2”/hr. while I was out making the 6:00 P.M. observations.

 

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

New Snow: 0.6 inches

New Liquid: 0.01 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 60.0

Snow Density: 1.7% H2O

Temperature: 24.1 F

Sky: Heavy Snow (2-15 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 8.0 inches

[jculligan]

Very impressive temperature drop. From 55F at 2:30pm to 23F now. The wind is roaring. Welcome back winter.

[J.Spin]

18 hours ago, PhineasC said:

Looks a lot healthier than here. That's how it looks in the woods here but anything open is nuked out.

 

18 hours ago, PhineasC said:

The first cutter is what really did the heavy damage here. It seems a bunch of you guys rotted in the mid-30s in that one while I was torched to 60 on south winds. 

You know I’d be the first to point out if you seemed to be overreacting to apparently unusual winter conditions for your area, but let me split it up between snowpack, and the running total for season snowfall.

In terms of season snowfall, we’re certainly behind average pace here at our site (91.6” to date vs. 114.5” for the mean) but it’s still well within 1 σ (31.0”), and I suspect you’re within 1 σ at your site as well.  So, sure, we’re behind average pace, but the stats say it’s no big deal.

But in terms of your snowpack, I can’t imagine how the current depth is anything but outrageously abnormal.  We had 3.5” of liquid equivalent in the snowpack here before that first storm, and you had even more than that.  That amount of liquid should typically be enough to survive even two or three of those types of warm sector events, as I mentioned in my post a while back, and this current system wasn’t even that potent.  The reason that the disappearance of the snowpack at your site is so weird is that it really should be baked into the climatological record for your area, so if south winds beat up the snowpack like that, then there should be plenty of times during the winter where it disappears.    The mean snowpack depth for this date at our site is 16.8”, so it’s probably in the range of 2 feet at your site.  Unless your neighbor’s climate is notably different than yours because of protection from winds or whatever (I haven’t checked the data from that site, but we could determine average snowpack for this date), it’s definitely weird that so much liquid equivalent could disappear like that.

[Patriot21]

Got enough snow tonight to barely cover things up on the steeper south exposures that melted out. I have around 4 acres of open south facing field and it's all still covered, 6-8" I'm guessing. Not sure about depth in the woods. It looks like it's about a month ahead of schedule out there right now haha. Glad to have that cold wind back and looking forward to Friday.

[jculligan]

My blocked anemometer just hit 40 mph which is the peak gust of the year so far. There's a private wx station on Thorn Hill Road which is only 100' higher than my location, and that site has apparently clocked a 63 mph gust so far this evening. Hoping to keep onto the power here at this point.

[PhineasC]

15 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

 

You know I’d be the first to point out if you seemed to be overreacting to apparently unusual winter conditions for your area, but let me split it up between snowpack, and the running total for season snowfall.

In terms of season snowfall, we’re certainly behind average pace here at our site (91.6” to date vs. 114.5” for the mean) but it’s still well within 1 σ (31.0”), and I suspect you’re within 1 σ at your site as well.  So, sure, we’re behind average pace, but the stats say it’s no big deal.

But in terms of your snowpack, I can’t imagine how the current depth is anything but outrageously abnormal.  We had 3.5” of liquid equivalent in the snowpack here before that first storm, and you had even more than that.  That amount of liquid should typically be enough to survive even two or three of those types of warm sector events, as I mentioned in my post a while back, and this current system wasn’t even that potent.  The reason that the disappearance of the snowpack at your site is so weird is that it really should be baked into the climatological record for your area, so if south winds beat up the snowpack like that, then there should be plenty of time during the winter where it disappears.    The mean snowpack depth for this date at our site is 16.8”, so it’s probably in the range of 2 feet at your site.  Unless your neighbor’s climate notably is different than yours because of protection from winds or whatever (I haven’t checked the data from that site, but we could determine average snowpack for this date), it’s definitely weird that so much liquid equivalent could disappear like that.

I think the CoCoRaHS guy measured depth in a really weenie spot back in the woods, because last season I routinely went up to his spot and the depth in the "general area" was never quite as robust as he reported. He's offline this season so I can't see where things stand this winter, but I suspect if he was online he'd be reporting 8-10" depth. That would be a pretty big fib, IMO, based on what I am seeing. His obs were fine in deep winter. It only seemed to be an issue when we had meltdowns that he was kinda inflated.

Two factors for my particular spot are that I have a lot of open south-facing terrain and under certain circumstances when there is strong WAA that materializes as brisk south winds I get absolutely torched due to downsloping and mixing the warm air down -- worse than anyone here by far it seems. That's what happened in the first warm event. It's just a microclimate thing here I have realized is part of the deal with having those two high peaks basically in my backyard. The event yesterday was actually far less damaging here because the winds stayed E/SE and light for a lot longer during the rain and my temp held at 31. Then the winds swung south and I almost immediately saw the gusts kick up and temp torch into the 50s -- but the rain had stopped. I swear it takes like 10 mins to happen. I just didn't have much snow left to save after the first event so it hardly mattered.

It will be interesting to see over the years how anomalous this really was, which is what I think you are wondering too. We will have to see. The Northern Presidentials giveth and taketh away in some circumstances. I do really well on all wind directions other than due south so it's a net gain at the end of the day.

[PhineasC]

And thankfully the ski hills around here seem to have survived these events OK so me not having too much snow at my house becomes kind of a "shrug whatever" deal -- more of a curiosity than anything. Friday should be enough to return wintry appeal to my backyard and that will be good to set up March.