Tag: Valley Snow

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Fourth round of early season Vermont snows brings accumulations to the Green Mountain valleys

An image showing a CoCoRaHS weather observations map with snow accumulations in Northern Vermont from an October snowstorm
An image showing residual accumulations of snow on Mount Mansfield on one of the webcams at Stowe Mountain Ski Resort in Northern Vermont after an October snowstorm
Residual accumulations visible on the Stowe Mountain Resort webcam thanks to our most recent round of early season snows

The first flakes of the season at our site in Waterbury were back on the 16th of the month with that last big snow event, but thanks to the system moving through yesterday into today, we accrued the first accumulations I’ve seen here. Temperatures were certainly above freezing here in the valley, but the intensity of the precipitation is what brought on the accumulation when one of the more active cells on the radar came through our area.

A radar animation image showing a cell of precipitation bringing the first accumulating snows to the Waterbury area of Vermont
Accumulations finally started to take hold down at our elevation of 500 feet in the Winooski Valley in Waterbury when one of the more potent cells of precipitation crossed the spine of the Green Mountains in our area.

Based on posts that were showing up in the Northern New England thread at the American Weather Forum yesterday, it was clear that many valley locations were starting to see accumulations as the temperatures came down. Temperatures dropped well into the 20s F overnight, so by morning, CoCoRaHS reports revealed valley accumulations of anything from a trace to as much as a few inches in a stripe across Northern Vermont.

An image showing a CoCoRaHS weather observations map with snow accumulations in Northern Vermont from an October snowstorm
As our latest fall snowstorm moved through the area yesterday and into the night, many sites in a stripe across Northern Vermont reported accumulations to CoCoRaHS this morning.
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Vermont snow levels lowering

An image of October snow on the Bolton Valley Web Cam
The Bolton Valley web cam showing that snow made it down to the elevation of the Bolton Valley Village today

As the forecasts suggested, colder temperatures came into New England overnight, dropping freezing levels for another round of Vermont Snow. In the Northern New England thread at the American Weather Forum, Powderfreak contributed several pictures of the snow at Stowe, Eyewall provided some from Bolton Valley, and Borderwx added one from Jay Peak. Notable accumulations made it down all the way to 2,000’, which is the lowest so far this season. Some grainy snow even accumulated briefly on our picnic table down at our house at the 500’ in the Winooski Valley, and that’s just about average for picking up our first traces of snow at our location. I’ve added the text from my report to American Weather below:

“We just documented our first frozen precipitation and accumulation of the season down here at 500’ in the valley. It started pouring out a few minutes ago as one of those bursts of precipitation came through in the northwest flow – you can see those yellow 28 db returns that disappear as the pulse of moisture barrels into the mountains:

A radar image showing a pulse of moisture that brought October snow to our house in Waterbury
As a pulse of heavier moisture ran into the mountains today, it dropped snow all the way down to our house in the Winooski Valley

Hearing the racket of the heavy precipitation outside, I decided to check out on the back deck because I know how these things sometimes go – indeed there was frozen precipitation among the rain, in the form of sleet and other dense granules that can typically make it down through the warmer layers of the atmosphere. I don’t even have my snowboard set up yet, but our picnic table out back sufficed to catch the accumulation. Seasonally, the timing of this event was right on track, with the mean for the first trace of snow here at Oct 20th from nine seasons of data. The event has actually brought the median value for that first trace of frozen down from Oct 21st to be right in line with that mean date of the 20th, and the S.D. dropped from seven days to six, so it’s helped to tighten up the data spread. The accumulation might have actually reached the 0.1” threshold for an official accumulation, but I was definitely caught off guard and by the time I grabbed my ruler and made measurements, all the accumulation was below that 0.1” mark so it will have to go down as a trace.”