Sunday, December 7th, 2008
Here's the update so far: I was out this morning checking on the snowboard and saw a few flakes drifting down - checked my watch and it was 8:51 A.M. I wasn't sure if it was the start of anything or not, but I'd say not because it stayed like that, spitting an occasional flurry, until around 10:15 A.M. At that point we started to have some actual consistent snowfall - but extremely light and very fine flakes so even though it's been steady like that for the past ~30 minutes, it's nothing that could ever amount to anything. It's nice to see that we're under an advisory though, that's surely a sign that the NWS has some confidence in an event coming together. Ty and I might pop up to the hill for a few turns later in the afternoon depending on what the weather does, but other than that I should be around here to report on snowfall.
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Summary: 6.5” new snow in Waterbury (495’) as of 8:00 P.M.
I first saw flakes this morning when I was out checking on the snowboard – I looked at my watch and it was 8:51 A.M. It continued to spit flurries occasionally like that until around 10:15 A.M., when we started to have some consistent snowfall. Even then the snowfall was extremely light, and the flakes were very tiny (<1 mm diameter) so there was no accumulation. At around 11:30 A.M. the flakes got a bit bigger and the snow finally started to accumulate.
We had about an inch of new snow accumulation at the house when Ty and I headed up to Bolton Valley in the 2:30 to 3:00 P.M. timeframe to catch the fresh powder at the end of the day. Already on the ascent of the access road we had to pass two cars that just couldn’t seem to move on the steeper inclines, whether due to two wheel drive and/or lack of snow tires. From a temperature around freezing and light to moderate snow down at the house, we found ourselves at 24 F in the top tier of the village parking lots (~2,100’) with heavy snowfall. There wasn’t much wind at that point, but I could tell by eye that the snowfall had to be in the 1 to 2 inch per hour range. We caught the last part of the ski day, which was nice and powdery, and I’d say they were already working on 3 to 4 fresh inches by the time we were leaving the slopes at around 4:00 P.M. At that point I was pretty sure the snowfall was close to the 2 inch per hour range because after about 45 minutes away from the car, we returned to find and inch and a half of new snow on it. The wind had started to pick up a little by that point, but it was still pretty tame.
The trip home was slow – I’d say it took us in the range of 40 minutes or so where it normally takes us about 10. Most of the time was spent coming down the mountain on the access road, as the 2 inch per hour snowfall had covered the road up very quickly. Everyone took it justifiably slow, and at times we were at a standstill. Even down at around the 1,000’ elevation range I’d say the snow was still falling at roughly 2 inches per hour or more. While I was stopped in traffic I had to kick my windshield wipers up to the third notch because the windshield was getting covered in just seconds. There were a few spots on the lower part of the road where the wind had picked up, and combined with the heavy snowfall and snow falling off the trees, I couldn’t see past the hood of the car momentarily – another reason everyone was taking is so slow. There were several cars off the road, one up in the flats around 1,000’, and then three more had slid off right at the final steep pitch above route 2 - which is only in the 300’-400’ elevation range. Just as we got past all those cars, we looked up directly above us at the I-89 bridge at the Route 2/Bolton Valley Access Road intersection, and there was an ambulance attending to another incident. Then, a couple more miles down route 2 toward Waterbury, there was a police car attending to yet another incident on the highway, or perhaps controlling traffic for the one near the bridge. The snow back down in the valley was only falling at about an inch per hour, but the wind was howling in the open areas as it had been increasing since we’d left Bolton Valley. On the way home through Bolton Flats there were various sections of whiteout, and places where the location of the road wasn’t obvious so I had to simply follow the tracks of previous vehicles. Arriving home not long before we did, my wife said that she also saw various accidents in her short trip into the center of town. I’d say the bottom line is, don’t travel through the upslope regions tonight if you can help it. Even though many of us knew this was coming, I think a lot of people got caught off guard by how fast it came in and ramped up to very heavy snowfall and wind.
We got back home around 5:00 P.M. to find a nice slug of fresh snow at the house, and I made my usual observations:
Sunday, December 7th, 2008: 5:00 P.M. update from Waterbury, VT
New Snow: 4.3 inches
Liquid Equivalent: 0.15 inches
Snow/Water Ratio: 28.7
Snow Density: 3.5%
Temperature: 25.9 F
Humidity: 88%
Dew Point: 21.6 F
Barometer: 29.71 in. Hg
Wind: Calm
Sky: Heavy Snow
Storm snow total: 4.3 inches
Storm liquid equivalent total: 0.15 inches
Current snow at the stake: 6 inches
Season snowfall total: 27.1 inches
Knowing this event was coming, I took a few intermediate snowfall observations throughout the day. From the data it’s clear that we were averaging snowfall at over an inch per hour for much of the evening. The temperature drop just during the past couple of hours has been quite impressive. The snowfall appears to be slowing down a bit now, but we’re also getting some wind down even into the sheltered location of our neighborhood and that is decreasing the loft in the snowfall.
12:30 P.M.: 0.3” total accumulation, 33.6 F, 73% RH, DP 23.9 F
1:00 P.M.: 0.5” total accumulation, 33.4 F, 75% RH, DP 24.4 F
2:00 P.M.: 0.7” total accumulation, 32.5 F, 77% RH, DP 24.2 F
5:00 P.M.: 4.3” total accumulation, 25.9 F, 88% RH, DP 21.6 F
7:00 P.M.: 6.2” total accumulation, 16.7 F, 87% RH, DP 12.0 F
8:00 P.M.: 6.5” total accumulation, 14.5 F, 83% RH, DP 8.4 F
J.Spin
Summary: 6.6” new snow in Waterbury (495’)
Monday, December 8th, 2008: 6:00 A.M. update from Waterbury, VT
New Snow: 2.3 inches
Liquid Equivalent: 0.08 inches
Snow/Water Ratio: 28.8
Snow Density: 3.5%
Temperature: 0.0 F
Humidity: 82%
Dew Point: -6.5 F
Barometer: 30.33 in. Hg
Wind: Calm
Sky: P Cloudy/Flurries
Storm snow total: 6.6 inches
Storm liquid equivalent total: 0.23 inches
Current snow at the stake: 7 inches
Season snowfall total: 29.4 inches
After running at over an inch per hour for several hours yesterday afternoon/evening, the snowfall quickly slowed down by about 7:00 P.M. Wind also came in to our location at the tail part of the event and we probably saw it in the 10-15 MPH for a bit. Compared to the November 22nd upslope event , this one had a bit less than half the snowfall, and the snow was perhaps a touch more dense at 3.5% H2O. There’s already been some settling, as the 2.3 inches on the snowboard was down to just 2.0 this morning, and there are only 7 inches at the stake this morning whereas there were 8 last night. The overnight was also the coldest of our season thus far, with our temperature right on at 0.0 F this morning, although I’ll have to check the thermometer this evening to see if we dropped any lower than that. Here at my location on the UVM campus in Burlington, they do have a nice coating of white, and it looks like they got about an inch of so of snow. Out at the airport, the Burlington NWS says they received 2.2 inches. Here are the snow totals I’ve seen from some of the Vermont ski areas as of this morning, listed north to south along the Green Mountain spine:
Jay Peak: 6 inches
Stowe: 8 inches
Sugarbush: 8 inches
Killington: 11 inches
Okemo: 5 inches
Stratton: 2 inches
Mount Snow: 3 inches
J.Spin
On Dec 8th, 2008 at 08:07 AM, J.Spin wrote: "The overnight was also the coldest of our season thus far, with our temperature right on at 0.0 F this morning, although I’ll have to check the thermometer this evening to see if we dropped any lower than that."
I checked our thermometer when I got home today and it had recorded a low temperature of -1.7 F, so that was last night’s low for us here in Waterbury. I was amazed to see that my car thermometer was only reading 5 F when I got in it around 5:00 P.M. at the Waterbury Park and Ride, and it appears as though our high temperature for the day here was only 10.9 F. The temperature cooled off very quickly here this evening, and went even lower than last night; the thermometer recorded a low of -4.7 F at some point this evening, although as I write this the temperature is already starting to rise.
I emptied our snow/rain gauge today and melted down the contents from yesterday’s upslope snowfall event to reveal 0.23 inches of liquid from the snow. I was reassured to see that number because it was exactly the same as what I’d determined from adding up the liquid from the two cores I took off the snowboard (0.15 inches plus 0.08 inches). That was the first time I’ve directly compared the precipitation I’ve collected between the rain gauge and the snowboard, and as they are on different parts of our property, I’m impressed with how tight the numbers were.
On another note, the Green Mountains were looking very impressive with the new snowfall today, especially as the sun went down. I snapped a picture of Mt. Mansfield from the office before I left work because with the clear air the sight was especially vivid.
J.Spin