Thursday, December 11th, 2008
Here’s a weather update from theBurlingtonarea today: I only saw a touch of snowfall, but the weather was quite interesting nonetheless. I was up on the hill at UVM (380’) and throughout the morning, I’d occasionally look out the window and it actually looked like rime was forming on some of the taller trees. Once I’d seen that in combination with the low clouds and fog, I was quickly reminded of the inversion setups that we would sometimes get out in the valleys of western Montana, which could last for days or even weeks. It rarely seems to happen in the valleys here because of our active weather, but out there the freezing fog would settle in the valley, and the rime would just continue to grow on everything. The crystalline formations that the rime would create were often beautiful, but the only way to really escape the gloom was to head up to the mountains, where you were above the fog and it was absolutely clear. As the morning wore on today inBurlington, more and more trees appeared to take on a coating of white, and I was reminded even more of an inversion setup. At around noontime, I headed downtown to theChurch Streetarea (~225’), and while I was walking around I couldn’t believe how cold and raw it felt, the same way the air felt on thoseMontanainversion days. There was just so much cold moisture in the air that it seemed hard to warm myself up. Down in the center of town, the effect of the fog wasn’t as dramatic, perhaps because of the slightly lower elevation, but as I was walking back up the hill to campus at around 1:00 P.M., I seemed to hit an elevation where I walked right back into the thicker fog… and snow. At first I didn’t think it was really snowing, because the flakes were so incredibly fine (as small as 0.1 to 0.2 mm in diameter) I assumed it was just the rime falling off the trees – which we would find happening inMontanaas the accretions continued to grow on surfaces and eventually broke. I don’t know if it was snow, or simply crystals precipitating out of the fog, but it stopped after about 10 minutes or so. However, rime was definitely forming on various elevated surfaces throughout the day because I inspected a tree as I was leaving.
J.Spin
The first flakes of snow started falling here inWaterburyas of
5:30 P.M.: 0.0” total snowfall, 28.6 F, 79% RH, DP 21.0 F
7:00 P.M.: 0.2” total snowfall, 27.7 F, 87% RH, DP 23.0 F
8:00 P.M.: 0.7” total snowfall, 27.9 F, 91% RH, DP 24.7 F
9:00 P.M.: 1.0” total snowfall, 28.4 F, 91% RH, DP 25.2 F
10:00 P.M.: 1.5” total snowfall, 27.9 F, 94% RH, DP 25.7 F
Summary: 1.5” new snow in Waterbury(495’)
Thursday, December 11th, 2008: 10:00 P.M. update fromWaterbury,VT
New Snow: 1.5 inches
Liquid Equivalent: 0.19 inches
Snow/Water Ratio: 7.9
Snow Density: 12.7%
Temperature: 27.9 F
Humidity: 94%
Dew Point: 25.7 F
Barometer: 30.00 in. Hg
Wind: Calm
Sky: Moderate Snow
Storm snow total: 1.5 inches
Storm liquid equivalent total: 0.19 inches
Current snow at the stake: 4 inches
Season snowfall total: 33.4 inches
The snowfall has been slowly ramping up in intensity through the evening, and although it hasn’t been accumulating that fast yet, there’s already a good shot (~0.2”) of liquid equivalent in there. Some hourly readings from this evening are added below.
5:30 P.M.: 0.0” total snowfall, 28.6 F, 79% RH, DP 21.0 F
7:00 P.M.: 0.2” total snowfall, 27.7 F, 87% RH, DP 23.0 F
8:00 P.M.: 0.7” total snowfall, 27.9 F, 91% RH, DP 24.7 F
9:00 P.M.: 1.0” total snowfall, 28.4 F, 91% RH, DP 25.2 F
10:00 P.M.: 1.5” total snowfall, 27.9 F, 94% RH, DP 25.7 F
J.Spin
December 12th, 2008
Quick update fromWaterbury– 6.1 inches of snow as of 6:00 A.M. this morning, more details in a bit.
Summary: 6.1” new snow inWaterbury(495’)
Friday, December 12th, 2008: 6:00 A.M. update fromWaterbury,VT
New Snow: 4.6 inches
Liquid Equivalent: 0.65 inches
Snow/Water Ratio: 7.1
Snow Density: 14.1%
Temperature: 27.5 F
Humidity: 98%
Dew Point: 26.8 F
Barometer: 29.65 in. Hg
Wind: Calm
Sky: Light Snow/Sleet/Rain
Storm snow total: 6.1 inches
Storm liquid equivalent total: 0.84 inches
Current snow at the stake: 9 inches
Season snowfall total: 38.0 inches
We picked up an additional 4.6 inches of snow in the 10:00 P.M. to 6:00 A.M. timeframe, so the average snowfall rate was a bit over 0.5 inches an hour over the period. There was a thin layer of sleet/mix on top of the snow, and as I was leaving forBurlingtonat around 6:20 A.M., the precipitation was mixed. On my drive westward, the precipitation on my windshield was mostly liquid, and the temperature continued to drop from the ~27 F at our house, to as low as 20 F as I nearedBurlington. I had my full assortment of heaters and defrosters fighting ice accumulation during my drive, and ice was still accumulating around the edges… for a time. But, when I stopped in at a store on Williston road at around 7:00 A.M., the ice chunks that had been forming were suddenly starting to break up, and it seemed like the weather was changing again. By the time I came out a few minutes later the precipitation was back to snow. As of ~9:30 A.M. we’ve been experiencing moderate to heavy snowfall here inBurlington.
Here are the accumulations I’ve seen reported by some of theVermontski areas, listed north to south, the resorts south of Killington are reporting a lot of icing, which presumably is related to their reduced snow totals:
JayPeak: 8 inches (5:00 A.M.)
Smugg’s: 6 inches (9:36 A.M.)
Stowe: 8 inches (9:30 A.M.)
Bolton: 8 inches (8:55 A.M.)
Mad River Glen: 8 inches (7:30 A.M.)
Sugarbush: 7 inches (9:20 A.M.)
Killington: 10 inches
Okemo: 2 inches (7:28 A.M.)
Stratton: 2 inches (9:58 A.M.)
MountSnow: 2 inches
J.Spin
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Summary: 7.7” storm total as of 9:00 P.M.
Friday, December 12th, 2008: 6:00 A.M. update fromWaterbury,VT
New Snow: 1.2 inches
Liquid Equivalent: 0.12 inches
Snow/Water Ratio: 10
Snow Density: 10.0%
Temperature: 24.4 F
Humidity: 91%
Dew Point: 21.2 F
Barometer: 29.83 in. Hg
Wind: Calm
Sky: Light Snow
Storm snow total: 7.3 inches
Storm liquid equivalent total: 0.96 inches
Current snow at the stake: 10 inches
Season snowfall total: 39.2inches
When I was leavingBurlingtonat around 4:30 P.M. it was snowing lightly, and that continued and even intensified during the trip toWaterbury. We’d picked up 1.2 inches of additional snow during the day, and after I cleared the board at 6:00 P.M. we picked up another 0.4 inches to bring the storm total to 7.7 inches.
We headed up toBoltonto do a little night skiing and check out all the new snow, and it was snowing lightly to moderately the whole time. The snow up there is pretty nice, there is a bit of crust between the earlier powder and the latest stuff, but the crust isn’t really too thick and you can bust through it fairly easily. In some places enough new snow had accumulated that we didn’t even touch down to the crust, but it depended on where the latest round of snow had collected.
J.Spin
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Storm summary: 7.7” snow total, 0.89” liquid equivalent
Friday, December 13th, 2008: 7:00 A.M. update fromWaterbury,VT
New Snow: 0.4 inches
Liquid Equivalent: 0.01 inches
Snow/Water Ratio: 40
Snow Density: 2.5%
Temperature: 4.3 F
Humidity: 83%
Dew Point: -1.8 F
Barometer: 30.27 in. Hg
Wind: ~5 MPH
Sky: Clear
Storm snow total: 7.7 inches
Storm liquid equivalent total: 0.97 inches
Current snow at the stake: 10 inches
Season snowfall total: 39.6 inches
There was no additional snow beyond last night’s 0.4 inches, and we’ve cleared out now to blue skies, so that’s it for this event. I melted down the contents of the storm from our rain/snow gauge, and surprisingly only came out with 0.89 inches of liquid, which is slightly less than the 0.97 inches of liquid equivalent derived from the snowboard cores. There’s also a thin skin of ice still on the snowboard from Friday morning that didn’t go into my liquid equivalent totals from the snow. I cut a slice down into that with the ice scraper and measured its depth at ~0.04 inches, which would bring the liquid equivalent total to 1.01 inches based off snowboard measurements. I’ve put down the rain gauge value as the total liquid equivalent since I would expect that to be the most accurate barring any wind or overflow issues, especially in a mixed precipitation event. In terms of the snowpack here inWaterbury, it’s currently at 10 inches and there is a thin breakable crust a couple inches down. In theBurlingtonthere is an even thinner crust, which I inspected yesterday when I was leaving the UVM campus and found to be undetectable as you walked through the snow. I actually had to gently dig down into the snow and inspect it to find the crust layer there, and when I was out in Williston about 5 miles to the east ofBurlington, I found the same situation.
J.Spin
