Monday, November 24th, 2008
~10:00 P.M.: I just took a look outside and noticed it was snowing here in Waterbury – there’s only about 1/10 of an inch of accumulation on the snowboard so far so I’m guessing the snow started fairly recently. The intensity is very light and the flakes are extremely small in the < 1 mm diameter range.
Temperature: 32.7 F
Humidity: 72%
Dew Point: 22.6 F
J.Spin
Tuesday, November 25th, 2008: 6:00 A.M. update fromWaterbury,VT
New Snow: 2.2 inches
Liquid Equivalent: 0.54 inches
Snow/Water Ratio: 4.1
Snow Density: 24.5%
Temperature: 34.5 F
Humidity: 98%
Dew Point: 33.8 F
Barometer: 29.94 in. Hg
Wind: Calm
Sky: Light Snow/Rain
Storm snow total: 2.2 inches
Storm liquid equivalent total: 0.54 inches
Current snow at the stake: 6 inches
Season snowfall total: 18.7 inches
Last night at around 10:00 P.M. was when I first noticed that it had started snowing, and it was very light at first, but the intensity and crystal size picked up over the next couple of hours to reach light to moderate snowfall and crystals of perhaps 2 to 3 mm diameter. The snow still seemed to accumulate rather slowly after acclimating to the way the incredibly dry upslope snow piled up so quickly over the weekend. The snow on the snowboard was already quite soggy when I checked my accumulation this morning, but there was over a half inch of liquid equivalent in there and that will hopefully help to develop a base layer of snow around here the way the upslope snow couldn’t. The yard snowpack has moved from a level of 5 inches last night before this event started, to 6 inches now, and the water content in there has already more than doubled based on my calculations (the weekend event delivered only about 0.33 inches of liquid equivalent despite 14.2 inches of snowfall). There’s still snow falling from the sky, but it’s very wet and seems to be partially melting into rain as it falls, so I’d suspect we’ll be changing over to just rain at some point, especially down at this elevation.
J.Spin
We’ve got rain here inWaterbury, and it sounds like some of the mountain locations are getting liquid precipitation at this point, but theMt.Mansfieldpoint forecast has the higher elevations down for only snow. Apparently the snow line will drop back down later today, because here inWaterbury, the NWS forecast has us changing back to snow at some point between today and tonight.
I was out and about in the valleys ofNorthern Vermonttoday so here’s the lowdown on what I saw there in terms of temperatures, snowfall, and snowpack. After my 6:00 A.M. morning observations from the house inWaterbury(495’) which featured 2.2 new inches of wet snow and a mix of light snow/rain falling from the sky, the mix gradually seemed to turn more toward rain. At around 11:00 A.M. I headed to Morrisville, and the temperature was a fairly consistent 37-38 F for much of the drive. It seemed like the precipitation was very close to being wet snow, but I couldn’t confirm any flakes in the air or crystals on the windshield so I wasn’t sure. I thought that the trend would be toward more liquid as the day went on, and the return to snow (especially for the valleys) wouldn’t be until the evening, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Because of an accident on Route 100, I had to take Stagecoach road southward when I left Morrisville, and it turns out that the road gets up to around 1,000’ in elevation. As I started to head up in elevation at about noon, the temperature dropped to 36 F, and the rain mixed and eventually changed over fully to wet snow. Another encouraging sign was that the temperature remained at around 36 F even as I dropped back down in elevation and passed throughWaterbury, Bolton, Jonesville etc., which was actually colder than it had been earlier in the morning when I’d leftWaterbury. The precipitation was back to a snow/rain mix in those lower elevations, but at that point I was fairly sure the mountains had remained mostly snow throughout the event, and that was confirmed by the mountain reports from Scott and Geoff. The snow mixed out and the temperature rose to around 41 F as I got to theChamplainValley. When I returned toWaterburya few hours later, the temperature dropped back down from 41 F in the Williston area to 37 F at the house, although we didn’t appear to have any snow mixed in with the rain that was falling. In terms of valley snowpack, there’s nothing inBurlingtonas Scott mentioned, and coverage really doesn’t start to get continuous until the Jonesville/Bolton area. Out in the rest of the mountain towns along route 100 through to Morrisville, they all have a decent covering of snow, although I’d say the snow inWaterburyseems to be a little deeper than the Morrisville/Stowe areas from what I saw. We’ve currently got ~4 inches at our back yard stake, and it’s very saturated with water. The rain was really pouring down through much of my driving today, and if all of that was snow for the higher elevations, then they got a real shellacking of a base. I just checked my rain gauge, and between the snow and rain we’ve received down here today, we’ve already picked 1.11 inches of liquid, and we’ve still got precipitation coming down.
Here are the latest numbers I’ve seen reported by theVermontski areas in terms of snowfall:
JayPeak: 6 inches (10:00 A.M.)
Smuggler’s Notch: 6 inches (4:09 P.M.)
Stowe: 8 inches (12:00 P.M.)
BoltonValley: 4 inches (A.M.)
Mad River Glen: 8 inches (11:00 P.M.)
Sugarbush: 12 inches (1:22 P.M.)
Killington: 13 inches
Okemo: 10 inches (P.M.)
Based on what Okemo indicated in their on line snow report, it sounded like they went over to rain even at their summit, so it appears though there was a dividing line between Killington and Okemo (according to Geoff it was the Renson Magic Line©, not the Sugarbush Doogie Line© in effect for this event).
J.Spin
I don’t have any new snowfall to report from Waterbury (495’), but I checked the rain gauge again this morning and we’d picked up an additional 0.3 inches of liquid since I emptied it yesterday evening. This brings the combination of snow and rain at our location to 1.41 inches of liquid for the event, so I suspect there should be at least that much liquid equivalent that fell as snow in the mountains. The Mt.Mansfield stake data (~3,700’) as of 6:08 P.M. yesterday indicate that the high temperature was 29 F, and they had picked up 1.1 inches of liquid (surprisingly close to the 1.11 inches I’d found in my gauge as of that time yesterday). There will probably be a bit more snow/liquid equivalent in today’s stake report base on what we picked up overnight. After the snow/rain from this event, our yard snowpack stands at 3 inches, and it’s a bomber base now that the temperature is back below freezing. As of yesterday evening the snowpack at theMt.Mansfield stake was 12 inches, and even up there I’m sure the snow was much wetter than the weekend upslope fluff, so presumably that will substantiate the base. Waterburyobservations from this morning at 6:00 A.M.:
Temperature: 30.6 F
Humidity: 98%
Dew Point: 29.9 F
J.Spin