Tuesday, December 30^th, 2008

 

Summary:  1.7” new snow in Waterbury (495’) as of 7:00 A.M. EST

 

Tuesday, December 30^th, 2008:  6:00 A.M. update from Waterbury, VT

 

New Snow: 1.0 inches

Liquid Equivalent:  0.05 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 20.0

Snow Density:  5.0%

Temperature:  33.4 F

Humidity:  84%

Dew Point:  27.6 F

Barometer:  29.56 in. Hg

Wind:  0-5 MPH

Sky:  Light Snow

Storm snow total:  1.0 inches

Storm liquid equivalent total:  0.05 inches

Current snow at the stake:  8 inches

Season snowfall total:  75.9 inches

 

I looked outside around 11:00 P.M. or so last night and we didn’t have any snow falling here in Waterbury, but it looked like it was getting close based on the radar.  The snow that is falling is a mixture of flakes sizes, with some flakes close to 1 inch in diameter, and I even saw a little graupel in there.  The accumulated snow on the board is actually fairly dense in terms of H₂O, which is not too surprising based on our air temperature.  I’d put it at >10% H₂O, and it compacts very nicely into those airy style snowballs that you can throw without worrying about hurting someone.  I stacked 3 cores off the board to get the snow’s water content, and I’m very confident in the number, but the 5% density is probably a bit misleading in terms of overall texture since the huge snowflakes stack up on top very readily and give it a bit of fluff.  In that same vein, there’s already another 0.7 inches on the board as of 7:00 A.M. because of the huge flakes stacking up.

 

In terms of the local valley snowpack, it seems to be doing well east of the Green Mountains, but as usual I was surprised to see how quickly it had disappeared on the west side and Champlain Valley.  After returning from Southern New England on Saturday, I first headed west of the Greens on Sunday afternoon, and as soon as I traveled a few miles west and passed the Green Mountain spine the snowpack quickly disappeared.  In the Bolton/Jonesville area, coverage was probably in the 10-20% range, and that decreased to mostly snowbanks in the Champlain Valley.  I’ve added a copy of my Waterbury snowpack chart below for reference on our local area.

 

UPDATE – Since about 7:05 A.M. we’ve got a raging graupel storm going on out there.  It would have to qualify as heavy snow because I can stick my arm out the window and it becomes coated in white in just a few seconds.  It will be interesting to see how much liquid equivalent that graupel throws down.

 

J.Spin

 

 

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Summary:  1.9” snow total in Waterbury (495’) as of 12:00 P.M. EST

 

Tuesday, December 30^th, 2008:  12:00 P.M. update from Waterbury, VT

 

New Snow: 0.9 inches

Liquid Equivalent:  0.08 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 11.3

Snow Density:  8.9%

Temperature:  29.7 F

Humidity:  52%

Dew Point:  12.4 F

Barometer:  29.80 in. Hg

Wind:  5-10 MPH

Sky:  Flurries

Storm snow total:  1.9 inches

Storm liquid equivalent total:  0.13 inches

Current snow at the stake:  9 inches

Season snowfall total:  76.8 inches

 

After our impressive graupel storm this morning, we’ve had just on and off light snow and flurries with an occasional moderate squall, but the couple new inches of snow/graupel have freshened up the old snowpack.  The town plow came by a couple of times this morning, but the need for plowing certainly wasn’t critical around here.  It has gotten windier outside now and I can hear it in the higher elevations.  I emptied the snow/rain gauge and melted it down, and it corroborates the snowboard core measurements fairly well, as it captured 0.12 inches of liquid for this event so far.

 

J.Spin