[Eastern MA Wx]

AviationWX29, on 13 October 2009 - 09:54 AM, said:

Love the web cam views, awesome

mesomap.jpg

Just curious, where did ya get that map? That's a nice regional view of the NEK..

[J.Spin]

In the 5:00 A.M. to 5:30 A.M. period this morning, the temperature at the house (495') was fluctuating in the 36-37 F range, and around 5:30 A.M. when I checked out back, the precipitation was just some sprinkles of rain. Things didn't seem all that exciting in terms of snow, so I decided to just catch the early bus into Burlington. A bit after 6:00 A.M. though, probably less than a minute after I'd started to drive toward the center of Waterbury, the precipitation became much harder and started mixing with snow. Soon it was literally pouring rain and snow, and knowing what was probably going on in the mountains, I decided that things were just a bit too interesting to head right to work. I headed back to the house for a bit, saw E and the boys off, then threw my camera, skiing, and hiking gear into the car and headed out myself. The precipitation at the house was mostly over to snow by the time I'd left (~7:15 A.M.), but the temperature was 36 F and the snow still wasn't accumulating. Driving through the Winooski Valley, I could see that the snow line appeared to be around 1,000', but (presumably in colder spots) it was occasionally sneaking a bit lower. I stopped off a mile or two west of the Chittenden County/Washington County line and got a cool shot of the snow line sneaking down into a gully in the Bamforth Ridge area. The snowfall quickly mixed out as I headed toward Richmond, and it was just rain from there on into Burlington where the temperature was 38 F at around 7:45 A.M. I've attached one image from this morning for now, but if I have time I may stop off up at Bolton on the way home to see how things are going up there.

http://www.JandEproductions.com/2009/13OCT09A.jpg

J.Spin

[Dryslot]

tamarack, on 13 October 2009 - 11:20 AM, said:

Aziscohos Lake elevation (background water in pic) is a bit over 1,500'. 8 AM AFD update from GYX noted accum up to 3" in the mts. I had 34 and -RA with slushy drops as I headed in to work (just what I guessed 2 days back, though I was then referring to the Friday event that's now an almost certain miss.) Precip appears ended now, here in AUG.

Colors well past peak at home (60-75% leaf drop) but just right in North Augusta and still pre-peak down by the Kennebec. My commute generally offers peak foliage moving N-S over about a 2-week period.

One of the places i ride out to in the winter time from eustis for lunch, Nice area... :snowman:

[powderfreak]

Just got back from Stowe and wow, yet another awesome early season snowfall and its only October 13th. This snowfall was a big step above the Sept 30/Oct 1st snow though because the snow level actually dropped down to where people live and travel. Here are my quick observations and I'll try to get some pictures up in a bit.

When I left Jonesville around 7:15am we were seeing 35F mixed rain and mangled wet snowflakes when it came down harder. I was quite surprised to see anything resembling a snowflake down here below 400ft. Looking up at Robbins Mountain from the driveway reveled caked trees from roughly 1,000ft up. This slushy mixture of precipitation (primarily rain) continued through Bolton and six miles down RT 2 was when it changed over completely...pretty much right at J.Spins as it was all snow after I passed Jenny Davis Lane and the dam (~500ft). I had to pick up a pair of my junk skis from a friend who lives near the Waterbury Park and Ride and by the time I got there it was pounding snow and the grass was turning whiter by the minute. A few minutes further up RT 100 and everything was white. I was quite surprised to see any accumulations here as the elevations in that section are only 600-800ft. It continued to snow at steady clip all the way through Moscow and Stowe with similar light accumulations. Then heading up the Mountain Road to the resort the snow really started to increase above 1,000ft. There was 1-2" of heavy wet snow between 1,000-1,500ft and it was really starting to stress the trees around 1,500ft near the parking lots. I saw a couple fresh large limbs down between 1,500-2,000ft as there's still a substantial amount of foliage left in that region. Above 2,000ft most of the foliage is down and this is where the heaviest snow fell...roughly 3-5" around 9am depending on what surface you are measuring. Any gravel or rock surface was more like 2-3" but grassy slopes featured more like 4-5".

I hiked up to the Mansfield Visitor's Center parking lot at the top of the Toll Road (3,900ft I think), put the skis on, and skied all the way back down to my car at 1,500ft. Not back for October 13th.

I'll try to get some pics up in a bit.

[AviationWX29]

powderfreak, on 13 October 2009 - 01:16 PM, said:

Just got back from Stowe and wow, yet another awesome early season snowfall and its only October 13th. This snowfall was a big step above the Sept 30/Oct 1st snow though because the snow level actually dropped down to where people live and travel. Here are my quick observations and I'll try to get some pictures up in a bit.

When I left Jonesville around 7:15am we were seeing 35F mixed rain and mangled wet snowflakes when it came down harder. I was quite surprised to see anything resembling a snowflake down here below 400ft. Looking up at Robbins Mountain from the driveway reveled caked trees from roughly 1,000ft up. This slushy mixture of precipitation (primarily rain) continued through Bolton and six miles down RT 2 was when it changed over completely...pretty much right at J.Spins as it was all snow after I passed Jenny Davis Lane and the dam (~500ft). I had to pick up a pair of my junk skis from a friend who lives near the Waterbury Park and Ride and by the time I got there it was pounding snow and the grass was turning whiter by the minute. A few minutes further up RT 100 and everything was white. I was quite surprised to see any accumulations here as the elevations in that section are only 600-800ft. It continued to snow at steady clip all the way through Moscow and Stowe with similar light accumulations. Then heading up the Mountain Road to the resort the snow really started to increase above 1,000ft. There was 1-2" of heavy wet snow between 1,000-1,500ft and it was really starting to stress the trees around 1,500ft near the parking lots. I saw a couple fresh large limbs down between 1,500-2,000ft as there's still a substantial amount of foliage left in that region. Above 2,000ft most of the foliage is down and this is where the heaviest snow fell...roughly 3-5" around 9am depending on what surface you are measuring. Any gravel or rock surface was more like 2-3" but grassy slopes featured more like 4-5".

I hiked up to the Mansfield Visitor's Center parking lot at the top of the Toll Road (3,900ft I think), put the skis on, and skied all the way back down to my car at 1,500ft. Not back for October 13th.

I'll try to get some pics up in a bit.

that is sweet Powderfreak. Nice. Cant wait to see the pics. :thumbsup:

[powderfreak]

AviationWX29, on 13 October 2009 - 01:24 PM, said:

that is sweet Powderfreak. Nice. Cant wait to see the pics. :thumbsup:

Here are a few from around the base area of Stowe (1,500-1,700ft) this morning...

http://backtotheearthgroup.com/scottb/Stowe%20October%2013/IMG_8779_edited-1.jpg

http://backtotheearthgroup.com/scottb/Stowe%20October%2013/IMG_8787_edited-1.jpg

http://backtotheearthgroup.com/scottb/Stowe%20October%2013/IMG_8793_edited-1.jpg

http://backtotheearthgroup.com/scottb/Stowe%20October%2013/IMG_8794_edited-1.jpg

[powderfreak]

A few more from the mountain...

Its low angle but the Toll Road was quite fun on the upper mountain. Nice to make some ski turns this time of year.
http://backtotheearthgroup.com/scottb/Stowe%20October%2013/IMG_8852_edited-1.jpg
http://backtotheearthgroup.com/scottb/Stowe%20October%2013/IMG_8859_edited-1.jpg

Overlapping seasons.
http://backtotheearthgroup.com/scottb/Stowe%20October%2013/IMG_8879_edited-1.jpg

Around noontime when the snow had fallen off the leaves in the lower elevations...quite the contrast in seasons.
http://backtotheearthgroup.com/scottb/Stowe%20October%2013/IMG_8924_edited-1-1.jpg

[simpsonsbuff]

Snowed here this morning... which I was not awake for, though you could see that the raindrops were awfully large around 5 am this morning.

[AviationWX29]

Simply gorgeous Powderfreak. Love the contrast between the leaves and the snow. Looks awesome.
Glad you got your first turns in already, has to be a good feeling

[wxeyeNH]

Snow got into the Bristol/Plymouth NH area too. No accum in the valleys but 2" or so above 1300 feet. I had about an 1" at 1100 feet.

[powderfreak]

I'm not sure what's causing this band, but for the past hour or so I've been getting periods of heavy mixed precipitation at 35F. I just went outside and there's wet flakes, sleet/ice pellets, and rain all mixed in together. There's actually a light slushy/icy layer on my steps from whats apparently mainly sleet now. Given that I'm at like 375ft I would assume this is mainly snow not far up.



Edit... this has intensified enough that there's mainly wet snow and sleet right now. Definitely piling up some icy mixture on the deck now. Trace of snow for the day now :thumbsup:

[whitemountainhiker]

These were taken by my buddy in Enfield NH first thing this morning.

Elevation around 830 feet.

 snow1.jpg (77.03K)
Number of downloads: 0

 snow2.jpg (46.54K)
Number of downloads: 0

Nice to see its even snowing back where I used to live. :thumbsup:

[tamarack]

Just slushy drops and a few wet snowflakes amid 0.23" precip IMBY, temps 40/33. We had a max of 40 on 10/4/99, but not until 10/23 has there been a sub-40 max IMBY. (Farmington's earliest is 10/3/1974, but their records date back to 1/1893, mine to 5/1998.)

Sugarloaf reported 6" at the summit with pics (on the news) to support it.

[J.Spin]

On the way home to Waterbury today, I could see that the snow level had certainly risen from where it was early this morning. It was clearing out in Burlington with a good amount of blue sky showing, and to some extent this clearing process was even going on in the Winooski Valley. Despite the clearing trend revealing a bit more of the mountains, there was no sign of any snow at all right through to the town of Bolton, with clouds still hanging around on the mountains from about 1,500' on up. The temperature at the bottom of the Bolton Valley access road (340') was around 40 F, and it wasn't until around 1,500' near the Timberline Base that there was any snow along the road. Clearing skies in the valley turned to clouds and spitting rain a few hundred feet up the access road, which mixed with sleet and intensified around 1,000' and then became snow at around 1,500'. Up at the village (~2,100'), there were 1-2 inches of snow still remaining on most surfaces, and the temperature was 34 F. It wasn't quite enough snow to entice me to ski, but I did go for a short hike up to the top of the Snowflake Lift (2,400'). It was quite fun taking a jaunt through the new snow, and as Powderfreak mentioned in his report from Stowe today, there was a notable difference between the accumulations on grassy areas and what was on the service roads. By the time I was up there, whatever snow had been on the service roads had mostly melted on the bottom half of the mountain, but the snow on the grassy surfaces was still going strong. There was a nice even accumulation of snow on the unloading platform at the top of the Snowflake lift, and the depth there was 3 inches. The skiing on the grassy surfaces looked like it would have been decent, and I'd imagine things were even better if one ascended higher on the mountain into deeper snow and colder temperatures. It snowed on and off while I was up there, and looks like there's still a bit more precipitation coming in on a northwest flow this evening. Our temperature is 37-38 F down here in the valley, so the snow line shouldn't be too far up the mountainsides. A few pictures from today's trip have been added below:

http://www.JandEproductions.com/2009/13OCT09B.jpg

http://www.JandEproductions.com/2009/13OCT09C.jpg

http://www.JandEproductions.com/2009/13OCT09D.jpg

http://www.JandEproductions.com/2009/13OCT09E.jpg

J.Spin

[Scott]

I can't believe I'm still waiting for frost. My coleus plants remain untouched.

[tamarack]

Scott, on 14 October 2009 - 07:56 AM, said:

I can't believe I'm still waiting for frost. My coleus plants remain untouched.

Tonight they expire (unless you protect them.) Had 25-26 with very heavy frost this morning, 1st time having to scrape all the windows before setting off to work.

[powderfreak]

-SN at 37F right now... damn impressive for 375ft during the middle of the day in mid-October. Started as some sprinkles but right now its straight up snowing with some visibility reduction! Nothing really on radar but I know the upslope flow is helping us out.

A friend and I were up the road at Bolton Valley this morning and we had intermittent snow showers up there for the couple hours we were there. Temp was 31F in the parking lot at 2,200ft and in the 20s above 2,500ft. Snow depth ranges from around an inch at the parking lot to 4" above 3,000ft.

Edit... noticed even BTV is reporting snow showers the last two hourly obs.

KBTV 141554Z 32007KT 9SM -SN FEW031 OVC049 04/M03 A3024 RMK AO2 SNB38 SLP242
INTMT SHSN CLD BASES OBSCG MTNS E-S P0000 T00391033=
KBTV 141654Z 32011KT 9SM -SN OVC043 04/M04 A3023 RMK AO2 SNE1559B32 SLP239
INTMT SHSN CLDS OBSCG MTNS E-S P0000 T00441044=

[skierinvermont]

Hiked Abe last night around midnight after the heavy banding.. sold 6" at the summit with 1 foot drifts. Windy and cold. Light ccumulation down to 1600' on grassy raised surfaces. 1" at 1900'.. 2" @2100' and steadily increasing to 6" at 4000'. It was spitting sleet along Rt 116 through Bristol and Rt 17 every time the precip got heavy. Got down to about 500'.

[j24vt]

Flurries in Stowe Village right now - looks like it may be snowing up on Mansfield.

[powderfreak]

j24vt, on 14 October 2009 - 12:38 PM, said:

Flurries in Stowe Village right now - looks like it may be snowing up on Mansfield.

This would not come as a surprise, haha. I was up at the stake yesterday and I always forget just how big that thing is. In the winter when you're up there and its reading 7-9 feet its hard to comprehend just how much snow that is. While standing under this 12 foot tall stake its absolutely amazing to ponder just how much snow falls on that mountain...and I was thinking about the 2000-2001 winter where they actually had to attach a yardstick extension on this thing because this measuring stake wasn't enough. It stretches like halfway up the trees in the area.



You know you're in a snowy climate when a measuring stick like this is needed.