Snowpack has reached zero at the back yard stake

Waterbury, Vermont 2010-2011 snowpack plot
The snow depth went to zero today at our back yard stake in Waterbury. (Click on the image for the full size plot)

As of this morning, the depth of snow at our back yard stake has reached zero, so I’ve updated my Waterbury snowpack plot and included it in this post.  This means that the last day with snow at the stake was 4/12, and the average I have for that value is 3/27 ± 14 days, so this season is a couple of weeks later than that average.  The next benchmark I’ll monitor will be when the final snow in the yard is gone, and based on data I have from ’07-’10, that average date is 4/12 ± 10 days, so roughly a couple of weeks later than when the snow has melted out at the stake.  As of today, the yard snowpack has been around for 130 days, but that is actually still below average (138 ± 14 days) because of the late start to the season; the start of continuous snowpack this season was on the later side at 12/5 vs. an average of 11/27 ± 9 days.  Unless the rest of the snow in the yard melts unusually fast however, the end result of the snowpack season will probably be somewhere around that average value.

I’d say that winter temperatures were more consistent than usual this season, so it’s a little easier to see the steady climb in snowpack from a value of 0″ on 12/4 through the value of 39.5″ on 3/8.  The average rate of increase during the period was 0.42″/day.  This was a decent snowpack season, with snow depth days from my stake coming in at 2,227 depth-days vs. the average of 1,812 ± 741 depth-days.  However, the combination of the rather late start and long stagnation through mid January (visible on the plot) while the storms were going south, meant that it certainly wasn’t up where the ’07-’08 season was at over 2,500 depth-days.