Monday, December 7th, 2009
Summary: 0.6” snow total in Waterbury (495’) as of 5:00 P.M. EST
Monday, December 7th, 2009: 5:00 P.M. update from Waterbury, VT
New Snow: 0.6 inches
Liquid Equivalent: 0.06 inches
Snow/Water Ratio: 10.0
Snow Density: 10.0%
Temperature: 32.0 F
Humidity: 89%
Dew Point: 28.0 F
Barometer: 1022 mb
Wind: Calm
Sky: Light Snow (2 mm flakes)
Storm snow total: 0.6 inches
Storm liquid equivalent total: 0.06 inches
Current snow at the stake: 1 inch
Season snowfall total: 2.7 inches
While it wasn’t snowing early this morning in the Burlington area, snow began to fall there by mid morning, and up until about 2:30 P.M. it came down continuously with varying intensity between flurries and light snow before it shut off. That snow wasn’t accumulating though, and as the day wore on there was actually less snow on the ground than there was to start the morning. Around 3:30 P.M. the snowfall had returned, and it’s been snowing since that point. Here in Waterbury it looks like we might have seen the same sort of scenario with snowfall today, since under today’s accumulation there was a layer of refrozen material on the snowboard when I cleared it at 5:00 P.M. I’d describe the current precipitation as steady light snow, bordering on moderate at times, but the flakes are rather small and it’s not accumulating all that quickly.
J.Spin
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009
Summary: 1.2” snow total in Waterbury (495’) as of 6:00 A.M. EST
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009: 6:00 A.M. update from Waterbury, VT
New Snow: 0.6 inches
Liquid Equivalent: 0.05 inches
Snow/Water Ratio: 12.0
Snow Density: 8.3%
Temperature: 30.7 F
Humidity: 95%
Dew Point: 28.9 F
Barometer: 1025 mb
Wind: Calm
Sky: Light Snow (granular, 1-2 mm flakes)
Storm snow total: 1.2 inches
Storm liquid equivalent total: 0.11 inches
Current snow at the stake: 1 inch
Season snowfall total: 3.3 inches
When I last checked on the snowboard at around 10:00 P.M. yesterday evening, there had been 0.4 inches of additional snow accumulation since I’d cleared it at 5:00 P.M. The intensity of the snowfall was still in the light range at that point, but notably less intense than it had been earlier in the evening. I figured it would shut off overnight based on the forecast, so I was surprised to find that it was snowing with renewed intensity this morning. The precipitation must have been fairly minimal overnight though to only wind up with an additional two tenths of an inch during that period. The flakes that were falling this morning were very small and granular in nature, which likely contributes to their slow accumulation. There may be a bit of additional accumulation to report this evening however if the snowfall continues at this morning’s rate for any duration. From the look of the BTV radar, there’s still some precipitation coming down the line from the WNW direction. The persistent snow is slowly adding to the valley snowpack, a quick tour reveals that we have about 1-2 inches throughout the yard depending on exposure. It was too dark to get much a sense of what was happening with precipitation on the trip into Burlington this morning, but there’s very light snow falling on the UVM campus, and they have close to an inch on the ground.
In terms of the local Vermont resorts, the more northern ones that have reported in this morning seem to be indicating a rather consistent 4 inches for their 24-hour totals, which should be running totals for this current event:
Jay Peak: 4”
Smuggler’s Notch: 4”
Stowe: 4”
Killington: 2”
J.Spin
As of about noontime, the snow and clouds have pulled away here in the Champlain Valley and even in the Northern Greens. The mountains look gorgeous in the sun fresh layer of white. Now that this snowfall event appears to be complete, I checked for any additional mountain totals around here and updated my list from this morning – those northern areas that have done mid morning/midday updates appear to have finished up with roughly 5 inches from this event:
Jay Peak: 5” (11:13 A.M.)
Smuggler’s Notch: 4” (Morning)
Stowe: 5” (10:00 A.M.)
Bolton Valley: 5” (Morning)
Mad River Glen: 8” (Morning)
Sugarbush 4” (12:04 P.M.)
Killington: 2” (Morning)
Mad River Glen’s snow report page would suggest they received 8” up high from this event based on the text from their snow report page:
It's snowing again and we picked up another 1"-2" over night on top of the 4" to 6" yesterday and "earn your turns" season has begun in earnest.
That’s quite a disparate reading from neighboring Sugarbush, but that’s what they’ve currently got on the page.
With the weather this afternoon, it looks like a good time to enjoy this round of snow before the next storm moves in for tomorrow.
J.Spin
Waterbury Event Totals: 2.3” snow/0.19” liquid equivalent
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009: 6:00 P.M. update from Waterbury, VT
New Snow: 1.1 inches
Liquid Equivalent: 0.08 inches
Snow/Water Ratio: 13.8
Snow Density: 7.3%
Temperature: 22.1 F
Humidity: 78%
Dew Point: 14.2 F
Barometer: 1030 mb
Wind: Calm
Sky: Mostly Clear
Storm snow total: 2.3 inches
Storm liquid equivalent total: 0.19 inches
Current snow at the stake: 2 inches
Season snowfall total: 4.4 inches
Our current storm seemed to go out with a little extra kick today, as it snowed through mid morning in the Burlington area, and appeared to continue on through midday in the mountain areas before the sun finally came out. I’m not sure if there was any notable accumulation in the Burlington area from this morning, but I was surprised that I didn’t find even a trace of snow on my car at the park and ride near the center of Waterbury. Based on that, I didn’t expect to see any accumulation at the house a few miles to the west, but apparently we got some help from the mountains, because there was over an inch of new snow on the snowboard. The snow had lightened up a bit as well, down to a density of 7.3% H2O, and the compact granular flakes from early this morning had been replaced by dendritic ones. Around here, this event wound up being the largest of the season so far, although it sounds like it will easily be usurped by tomorrow’s system.
We’ll be under a winter storm warning through 10:00 P.M. tomorrow, with snow accumulations expected to be in the range of 5 to 9 inches. As of their latest update, it looks like the BTV NWS has our area down for about 7 inches in their “Storm Total Snow Forecast” graphic, so we’ll see how it turns out.
J.Spin