Due to the heavy snowfall yesterday evening with rates of 3 inches per hour in some locations, Winter Storm Warnings went up for the western slopes of the Green Mountains.
We were very happy when the local mountains got about a foot of snow from our Christmas Day Storm, a few days ago, but apparently Mother Nature wasn’t quite done delivering the goods for the holiday week. We just had another storm drop similar amounts of snow thanks to upslope conditions on the back side. The storm was actually rather warm, and it cut right through Northern New England such that mixed precipitation was expected in the middle of the event, leaving us unsure if it would be a big net gain for the slopes. Fortunately the slopes did get quite a net gain in liquid equivalent, with snow on the front and back ends, and only modest amounts of rain or mixed precipitation in the middle.
I followed the storm down at the house, and it began yesterday with a front end shot of snow that gradually mixed with sleet and went to a bit of rain overnight. The morning, the back side of the storm came through with plenty of snow. With all this snow I decided it was a good idea to get roofing Lakewood CO and other areas services to ensure that no structural damage had occurred to our house during the storm. It started up in the morning, and then pounded the mountains and mountain valleys today with snow falling at a rate of 1 to 2 inches per hour. In the end we wound up with 9.7 inches of total snow at the house, and the local mountains topped out at around a foot of snow. Below is the list I’ve seen for storm totals for the Vermont ski areas using their 48-hr snow totals. The list is from north to south along the spine of the Greens:
While last time around with the Christmas Day Storm, the Stowe area was the sweet spot for accumulations, this time around the east side of Addison County seemed to do the best with some locales topping the one foot mark for snowfall as indicated in the map of snowfall totals from the National Weather Service Office in Burlington:
While the Christmas Day Storm delivered the highest snowfall totals in the Stowe area, this storm seemed to hit hardest in the mountains to the east of Addison County.
We were away on Christmas Eve, but when we returned to the house yesterday morning, it was snowing. There was already 0.7 inches of new snow on the snowboard, and you could tell that the intensity was ramping up and more snow was on the way. We were heading down to Southern New England for more holiday visiting with family, but I cleared the snowboard and set up the webcam so that that any new snowfall could be monitored from afar. The driving was actually a bit tough through Green Mountains with the incoming snowfall, but once we got east of the Greens it tapered off. Luckily, we seem to have just missed the snowfall. If we’d have left any later, we might’ve been stuck driving home in some horrible weather. When this sort of weather occurs, there is usually an increase in road accidents. A lot of people don’t understand that driving in snow can be extremely dangerous, so it’s important to try and avoid driving dangerously. If an accident does occur at the fault of another driver, it’s important to get in touch with a las vegas injury lawyer, or another in the local area, to make sure that the driver at fault can provide compensation to cover any medical bills or damage to the vehicle. Hopefully though, people will drive cautiously.
Even though the storm was just an Alberta Clipper, the upslope snow potential of the Northern Green Mountains can always produce more, and I knew we were taking a good hit of snow when I checked my web cam yesterday evening and saw that my four-inch measuring boards were basically buried. I had to rely on my 12-inch measuring board to get the snowfall measurements off the web cam. Powderfreak was the best source of updates for the storm though, and he kept them rolling all night while the Stowe area got blitzed with snow. He put up some awesome pictures of skiers and tracks in the fresh powder at Stowe Mountain Resort yesterday in the Northern New England thread at American Weather.
By the time the event wound down this morning, we’d picked up 5.1 inches at the house and the local mountains had accumulated about a foot. For the areas that have reported in so far, I’ve got the north to south list of event totals (48-hour snow totals) at Vermont ski areas below. The Smugg’s to Bolton stretch along the spine looks to have done nicely with this one, with Mt. Mansfield right in the sweet spot:
The final snow totals for the area shown below in the map from the national weather service with the sweet spot being where that fuchsia color is located around Stowe:
This Christmas Day Alberta Clipper system really delivered, with a jackpot in the Stowe area that saw totals close to double digits and about a foot in the mountains.
The initial Winter Weather Advisories are up in Vermont for the upcoming snow event in the eastern and southern parts of the state
A storm that was initially looking to hit Southern New England with the heaviest snows is tracking a bit farther north, so most of Vermont will now be getting a shot of snow out of it. It’s not a huge storm, but it should provide a nice start to a base for the ski areas, since it will likely be cold enough to keep it around for the foreseeable future. The initial warning map put out by the National Weather Service Office in Burlington is posted to the left and the first map of snowfall estimates has been added below:
A few to several inches of snow are expected to fall overnight tonight throughout the state of Vermont.
Thursday, December 8th, 2011: The snow totals for the storm in this area are shown in the map below, in general the storm produced 2 to 6 inches of snow throughout the state:
We picked up our first December snow yesterday, just 0.4 inches here at the house, but Mt. Mansfield picked up a couple of inches and the slopes are looking much nicer with the fresh coat of white. Powderfreak put up some great pictures of the new snow from both yesterday and today over in the New England Regional Forum at American Weather. I’ve added some of my observations from yesterday below:
“I’m not sure of the temperature, but it was raining lightly when I left Burlington around 5:00 P.M. At the Waterbury Park and Ride, the precipitation looked like a mixture of rain and snow, and the only accumulations I saw were a fairly thin coating of slush on the cars. True to form though, once I hit the Cider House a couple miles west toward the spine, I started seeing accumulations of snow on the grass, and at the house I found 0.3” of slushy snow on the snowboard and a temperature of 33.3 F. The snow picked up for a bit after the 6:00 P.M. board clearing, and we received another tenth of an inch of snow, but the snowfall has tapered off since then and it’s very light now. It is nice to have the first accumulation of December in the books though, hopefully there will be plenty more to come.” Some details from the 6:00 P.M. observations are below:
New Snow: 0.3 inches
New Liquid: 0.06 inches
Snow/Water Ratio: 5.0
Snow Density: 20.0% H2O
Temperature: 33.3 F
Sky: Light Snow (1-2 mm flakes)
Snow at the stake: Trace
Winter Weather Advisories are up throughout the state of Vermont for the upcoming storm
While the Northeast has already had a couple of big, snow-producing synoptic storms so far this season (one on October 27th, and another on October 29th), for Northern Vermont these events were fairly minor because the area was really on the fringe of the precipitation. A storm is developing now however, which is expected to bring more substantial accumulations to the northern part of the state. This storm is expected to head into the Ohio Valley later today, and then track east across Southern New England overnight. This storm may have some mixed precipitation with it, but the current forecasts do not indicate much mixing in the northern areas, and the chance is there for greater than 6 inches of snowfall. Many local residents are already predicting damage to their homes and are already seeking services from the likes of https://seiroofing.com/roofing-services/. Snow can easily damage the roof of a home, especially if there is a lot of it. It’s a good idea to get roofs regularly maintained to make sure they are strong enough to cope with this snowfall. Perhaps some homeowners might want to consider contacting those at JAE Construction for help with their roof maintenance. It’s always better to prevent roofing damage where possible, regular maintenance can help with this. Damage from the storm could include water damage that homeowners may need to address with restoration services. Water damage can put stress on a home’s water pipe network and cause leaks. With this being the case, services that can clean up sewage leak incidents may well be in high demand following severe floods so it may be worth looking up such services local to you in advance. For a few more details, part of my morning report to the New England Regional Forum at American Weather is added below:
It was 17.6F and dropping when I left the house this morning around 6:00 AM, so this will certainly come in as the coldest morning of the season at our location thus far. I flipped on The Weather Channel before I left the house, and was surprised to see that the local forecast called for 6 to 10 inches at the Winter Weather Advisory level, but after reading the BTV forecast discussion, they spoke of the potential for mixing keeping totals down. The current point and click for our area down in the valley calls for 4 to 9 inches of snow, but doesn’t mention any mixing at this point.
Snow is expected from tonight through Wednesday night, even for our location down in the Winooski Valley.
Today: Sunny, with a high near 34. Calm wind.
Tonight: Snow, mainly after 1am. Low around 24. South wind at 6 mph becoming north. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 2 inches possible.
Wednesday: Snow, mainly before 4pm. High near 35. North wind between 3 and 8 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 3 to 7 inches possible.
Wednesday Night: A chance of snow showers, mainly before 7pm. Partly cloudy, with a low around 20. North wind around 6 mph becoming calm. Chance of precipitation is 30%.
I didn’t really see much of a bump in the point forecasts for the local mountains, so we’ll have to see if that gets refined for the higher elevations. I’ve added the projected snow accumulations map from National Weather Service Office in Burlington below:
The National Weather Service projected snowfall accumulations map for the northern portions of Vermont and New York as of the early morning on November 22, 2011
Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011 – Afternoon Update
The National Weather Service Office in Burlington has put out their afternoon update for snow accumulations, and our area has been upgraded to a Winter Storm Warningto reflect the potential snowfall. The latest advisory and projected accumulations maps have been added below:
Winter Weather Advisories have now been upgraded to Winter Storm Warnings in some parts of Vermont and Northern New York to reflect the anticipated snow accumulations.
The afternoon update for expected snowfall from the National Weather Service in Burlington
Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011 – Evening Update
This evening, Matt Noyes posted his latest snowfall prediction map for this storm, and he’s pretty bullish on some of the totals in Northern New England, including parts of Northern Vermont. I’ve added his map below:
Matt Noyes’ snowfall map for Northern New England with the upcoming storm
Winter Storm Warnings and Winter Weather Advisories are up in Vermont for our second October snowstorm in three days.
Our second significant snowstorm for October, and in fact our second significant snowstorm of the past three days, is on our doorstep. As with the storm from Thursday, Vermont snowfall will again focused on the southern part of the state, and this is likely to be a record snowfall event for areas of Southern New England, and the Mid Atlantic Region. Although this storm is still focused to our south, it is large enough that even our area is under its first Winter Weather Advisory of the season. The winter weather advisory maps from the National Weather Service Office in Burlington have been added here, and more updates about this historic early-season winter storm can be found at their website.
October 27, 2011: Vermont's first winter weather advisories of the season
The National Weather Service Office in Burlington put up the first Winter Weather Advisory for the state of Vermont today, thanks to a storm that is passing to our south. The southern and central parts of the state have been receiving the snow, with generally just clouds north of I-89. The Killington area picked up a nice shot of snow; adk from Americanwx.com reported up to 14 inches of snow there in his post in the Northern New England thread. You can find more about his trip at Famous Internet Skiers – they’ve got snowy skiing pictures from both October 27th, and October 28th. The great news is that there may be another storm coming in on Saturday night to cover up all the tracks that people have been making and set us up for some great October skiing.
Snow accumulations with this storm have been in the southern and central parts of the state.
October 22, 2011: The fabled stake atop Mt. Mansfield, picking up the first accumulating snow for Vermont's Green Mountains this season
I was reading the Northern New England Thread on the New England Regional Forum at American Weather, and just got the word that Mt. Mansfield received its first accumulating snow of the season. Thanks to Powderfreak for passing along the message, and including a picture of the snow at the Mt. Mansfield Stake, which I’ve included here. As far as I’m aware, this is the first accumulating snow in the Green Mountains of Vermont this season due to the fairly warm October. It does look like the weather is going to cool down this coming week, so there will likely be more chances for snow in the high country. We’ll keep our eyes on the mountains, weather forecasts, and weather boards to see if any of the white stuff shows up in the near future, but as we approach November, the season of snow and skiing is certainly close at hand.
