That Lake Effect Snow Band Was Wild, Even In Vermont

In this photo taken a little after sunset near Georgia, Vermont looking
to the Northwest. That dark line of clouds off in the distance is
that lake effect snow band. It was snowing hard under
those clouds. 

I was absolutely fascinated by that incredible lake effect snow band that stretched from Lake Superior, over to get more energy from Lake Huron, before crossing Lake Ontario to blast the New York shore near and just south of Watertown.

At least 48 inches of snow fell in Carthage, New York and 33 inches buried Watertown, and these aren't final figures.

Lake effect snows are very common, and those snow totals didn't break all time records.

But the huge length of the lake effect snow band, the persistence of it, its unusual influence here in Vermont and the timing of it are all pretty fascinating.

Equally impressive was how well forecast it was.  Weather computer models and meteorologists accurately anticipated this entire scenario at least two days in advance.

First, I'll get into the timing of this thing.  You can get lake effect snow off the Great Lakes this time of year, but it's unusual. And something this impressive is quite rare for the end of February.

To get a decent lake effect storm, you need open, unfrozen water on the lakes. Cold air coming in from Canada picks up moisture from the lakes and then dumps it as snow on the shore. Usually, the Great Lakes are largely frozen this time of year, which means there's not much open water to gather moisture. Which means any lake effect snows in late winter are usually pretty paltry.

Radar image of the lake effect snow band Friday coming ashore
on the left by Lake Ontario and extending toward the northeast
to near St. Albans.  Click on the image to make it bigger and
easier to see. The apparent gap in the snow band near
Lake Placid is just mountains blocking the radar beam from
picking up the fallling snow in that region. 

Ice extent on the lakes right now is close to the lowest on record for this time of year, so there was plenty of open water for this thing to feed on

It was rare and fascinating to see how long this narrow snow band stretched.

In most places, it was not more than 15 miles wide, but at one point Friday, it stretched more than 1,200 miles from Lake Superior to northern New England and southern Quebec.

That the snow band affected Vermont so much was also a wild moment for me.

Strong lake effect snow bands often extend into Vermont, but in weakened form. A lot of the moisture from these things gets dumped out in the Adirondacks.

By the time a snow band gets to the mountains of Vermont, there's not much left. So you get accumulation of perhaps several inches to, sometimes as much as 10 inches or so in the northern Green Mountains.

In this case, the band stayed pretty much intact all the way to northern Vermont and southern Quebec on Friday.  True, it wasn't nearly as strong as it was near the shore of Lake Ontario, but it still had some oomph left.

The exception is the Champlain Valley, because the Adirondacks formed a "shadow" which kept the moisture from reaching the ground there. The snow largely skipped over the valley and hit the western slopes of the Green Mountains instead. That's how it usually works with Great Lakes snow bands.

Like most snow bands, this one wavered back and forth. It lifted north to just along the Quebec and New York and northwestern tip of Vermont by late Friday afternoon, then settled south again Friday evening.

It was fascinating to see that band of clouds to the northwest of my place in St. Albans, Vermont early Friday evening, wih the moon and Venus shining overhead.  The snow band settled slowly south later, and it snowed heavily for a time in St. Albans around 9 a.m. We picked up just 1.5 inches of new snow last night, but I'm sure it was much heavier to my east, out toward the Green Mountains near Bakersfield.

It is hard to tease out exactly how much snow was from the snow band itself and just wrap around moisture behind the storm that had passed well to our Northeast by Friday.

But preliminary totals are pretty amazing nonetheless. The summit of Mount Mansfield received 10 inches of snow from the actual storm system on Thursday, then 16 inches in lake effect and wrap around moisture on Friday.

Storm totals since Thursday, including the main storm, wrap around moisture and the lake effect band, amounted to a very impressive 17 inches in Greensboro by 7 a.m. Friday, 14 inches by 10 a.m. Friday in Eden, an 13.1 inches in Glover.

Since the snow kept coming Friday afternoon and night, I can't wait until snow total updates come in later today.

By this Saturday morning, the lake effect band had broken up, but lingering lake moisture and more damp, cold air coming down from Canada will keep light snow showers going for much of today.  Valleys will get two inches or less of new snow today, but the mountains could pull off a few more inches.

Enjoy the deep powder on the mountains Sunday, because it's going to warm up for much of next week, which will settle the snow, make it wet and/or a bit crusty. Sunday will certainly be the best powder day in northern Vermont in the winter of 2019-20.

Here's a video of people driving through the lake effect snow near Watertown, New York. As you can see, some motorists weren't all that smart:

Final Look At Vermont Snowstorm. And Yes, A Little More Snow This Evening

Quite a winter wonderland in my St. Albans, Vermont yard this morning
despite the fact it is March 24 - technically spring

It's painfully bright outside my St. Albans, Vermont home this morning. There's blue sky and bright sunshine. The fresh snow being hit by the high angle spring sunshine is blinding. (It will cloud up later, so the eyes will get a break. Meanwhile, sunglasses rule.)

We're not entirely done with the snow this weekend yet, believe it or not. No, there's no new big snowstorm coming, at least in the immediate future. But a strong cold front coming through tonight will drop at least a little more snow.  

MORE SNOWFALL TONIGHT EXPLAINED

Though the cold front is strong, the good news is it's starved for moisture. So nobody is going to get another foot or two of snow. The National Weather Service office in South Burlington is saying most places in northern Vermont will get an inch or snow or less out of this cold front. Some mountainous areas could pick up a couple inches.

That forecast looks like it will be accurate. However:

Much like this big snowstorm we had Friday turned out to be a big overachiever, there is some evidence this evening's cold front could also give some of us a snowy surprise or two.

As I said, the cold front is pretty strong. It will be moving into some pretty unstable air. This combination could really kick off some heavy snow showers or even squalls, despite the relative lack of moisture in the air.

Jackson the Weather Dog appears to be trying to measure the
water equivalent of the wet snow in his St. Albans, Vermont
driveway this morning. 

Some of us, especially in the northern half of the state, could get some bursts of heavy snow. That would quickly mess up the roads with ice and poor visibility.

It could also lead to some surprising accumulations. I'm quite sure the NWS meteorologists who are way, way more skilled than me, are right that most of us will only get an inch or two of snow, or even less.

But there is the potential that a few places in the North could pick up several inches of snow if any of the squalls end up moving sluggishly.

This kind of thing happened on the night of March 16 when a few places in the northern mountains and the Northeast Kingdom picked up a half foot or more of snow. I'm not saying that will exactly happen again, but, again, some people might have some surprise shoveling to do again.

The snow will tend to diminish in intensity as it heads south over Vermont overnight, so southern areas will get little or no snow.

A MELTDOWN COMING?

If you're sick of snow, and my raising the possibility of more snow tonight has depressed you, now I have something a bit uplifting.

After tonight, it looks like there will be no precipitation through at least Friday. Starting Monday, each day at least through Thursday will be sunny to, at worst, partly sunny.  It will start off cold Monday and Tuesday, with high temperatures staying in mid and upper 20s in cold northern areas, to low to mid 30s for most of us, to upper 30s in the warmer valleys, especially south.

That will allow winter sports enthusiasts to continue enjoying all this snow. Plus the strong late March sunshine will erode the snow in sunny corners on both those days. That will give us hope.

Then it will start to warm up. Quite a few 40s will pop up Wednesday with a good shot of 50s by the end of the week. So places with little snow on the ground will have bare ground again by the end of the week. And in snowy low and mid Vermont elevations, the snow cover will take a hit.

No rain is in the forecast through Friday night at the earliest, so in the short term, the meltdown won't cause any real flooding problems. Even as temperatures are expected to stay near or above freezing, even at night Thursday and Friday nights.

No promises on flood threats after that. It all depends on rain and melt patterns and paces.

IMPRESSIVE SNOW STATS

Hmmm. No signs of daffodils in front of my St. Albans, Vermont
house this morning, despite the fact that is is technically spring.

Snow stats are impressive right now in some spots for the end of March.  In some high elevation towns, the snow cover is deep, deep, deep.

Averill, Vermont, way up there in the Northeast Kingdom, had a four feet of snow on the ground as of Saturday morning.

Some other towns in the Northeast Kingdom had at least three feet of snow on the ground. The snow depth atop Mount Mansfield had exceeded 10 feet by the time the snow stop flying Saturday.

Seasonal snowfall for the winter of 2018-19 is now up to 101.8 inches in Burlington, which is the 12th snowiest on records dating back to the 1880s. We could move up in those rankings, because it usually snows at least a little in April. Just sayin.

At least I'm pretty sure Burlington won't have the snowiest winter on record. That was 145.4 inches in 1970-71. At least I HOPE we don't get another nearly four feet of snow before the season finally wraps up.

Depending on where you are in Vermont, it looks like different seasons. The National Weather Service office in South Burlington received 6.7 inches of snow out of the storm. But along the Lake Champlain shoreline in Burlington, accumulations were closer to three inches.

By the end of the day Saturday, the March sun had melted some of that snow. There were big bare patches already, and it really did look like March.

Meanwhile, in harder hit places, like my place in St. Albans well east of Lake Champlain, that foot of snow we received still had me in a deep winter wonderland by the end of the day Saturday.

I whined about the snow, but it could be worse.

I talked via phone with a customer at work yesterday in South Lake Tahoe who reported there was still nearly six feet of snow on the ground outside her home.

The Mammoth Mountain Ski Area in California has had 648 inches of snow so far this winter. That's 54 FEET of snow. 

The deep Sierra snow is good news for Californians who want a water supply for the rest of the year. The snowmelt will feed reservoirs during much of 2019.

During the height of the California drought, water managers saw unprecedented bare ground this time of year at a high Sierra measuring site. This year, on about the same date as the 2015 measurement, they found 113 inches of snow on the ground, or about nine and a half feet of snow. That snow had the equivalent o 43.5 inches of rain in it, so there will be plenty of water coming from the Sierra this spring and summer.

So Much Snow That Big Good Boy Had To Dig Path For Small Good Boy

The area around Durango, California just received about 80 inches of snow in about a week, with maybe three feet in just three day.

That's a TON of snow by any measure. People had trouble getting around, and so did their best friends.

Case in point is the video below, in which a small good boy has trouble making it back home through the deep drifts. Luckily a bigger good boy was available to clear a path for the stuck little guy.

Here's the sweetness in the snow:

Wednesday Afternoon Update: The Snow Just Keeps On Coming

I showed you a pic of my back deck this morning, but
now it's even more buried because of snow sliding off
the roof and additional accumulations of snow. 

As expected, it's been snowing all day in most of Vermont, and the accumulations are getting crushing.

At my house in St. Albans, in northwestern Vermont, the storm total was up to 12.5 inches as of 4 p.m. today. That's less than many areas have gotten, but it's still a wicked pain.

The snow is rather wet and heavy and difficult to move. And as I said, it keeps coming, so the shoveling is getting extremely old.

Winter storm warnings remain up for the western half to two thirds of Vermont. Pretty much only the Connecticul River Valley below St. Johnsbury is exempt from this. Most of the Adirondacks remain under the gun, too.

Storm totals continue to impress and get more impressive. At last report, Graniteville, in central Vermont was up to 29.5 inches new. Williamstown has 24 inches new. Westfield is up to 22 inches.

A side note: At the bottom of this post, you'll see Elsa from "Frozen" come to the rescue.

In most of Vermont, except the Connecticut River Valley, expect another three to eight inches of snow by 8 a.m. tomorrow, with locally higher amounts along the Green Mountains and on the western slopes of those mountains.

The snow is getting downright dangerous. Big avalanches are fairly rare in the Vermont mountains, but can happen when there is a layer of icy snow, followed by big accumulations of wet or powdery snow, which is the case now.

Today, six U.S. Army soldiers were injured in an avalanche around Smuggler's Notch, Vermont as they were conducting mountainneering training. At least five of them were taken to a hospital, television station WCAX reported. It's definitely unusual to have such a dangerous avalanche in Vermont, so that tells you something. This was also the second avalanche in that area this week.

The National Weather Service in South Burlington, Vermont took the unusual step today of warning back country skiers and riders to be extra cautious in the Green and Adirondack mountains over the next few days as the risk of more avalanches continues. 

I'm only partly dug out this afternoon in St. Albans,
Vermont as the snow relentless continues to fall

Power outages have diminished since this morning, but with more snow loading on trees tonight, there might be additional problems.

This evening's commute, and tomorrow morning's will probably be tricky once again.

The snow will finally, slowly wind down tomorrow, but some accumulation will continue, especially in those Green Mountains and western slopes. Actually, the mountains could pick up a few additional inches Friday and maybe Saturday.

As noted this morning, the weather is going to trend colder, so most of it will stick around for quite awhile. High temperatures will not get out of the 20s this weekend and the first part of next week.

And, yes, we're still looking at the possibility of yet another nor'easter next week that has the potential to dump a bunch more snow on us here in Vermont. It could still miss - it's a long way away, but the risk is still there and we have to watch it.

Now for something completely different, here's a man dressed as Elsa from "Frozen" pushing a police van out of snowbank in nor'easter-wracked Boston. I'm  not making this up:

Nor'easter Snowstorm Unexpectedly Crushes Vermont With Snow

It doesn't look like I'm going to go outside and enjoy
my back deck at my St. Albans, Vermont house anytime
soon as the snow continues to pile up.

Especially for a nor'easter that a few days ago was expected to give Vermont a glancing blow at worst, we got crushed with snow

As of 8 a.m. Wednesday morning, it was still snowing and some parts of central Vemont were already closing in on two feet of new snow. East Barre reported 24.9 inches of snow, Wolcott has 21 inches new and several places are at around a foot and a half.

Even the Champlain Valley, which was only expecting a few inches, will probably go over a foot by the time this is over.

Here in St. Albans, where I live, the storm total was 9.5 inches by 8 a.m. this morning, and it was still snowing steadily. Burlington has clocked in with ten inches of fresh snow.

Totals are impressive in southeastern New England, too, but that was more expected. Even so, the storm overperformed there as well. In Massachusetts, Uxbridge received 27.8 inches; Milford got 26.6 inches, and Billerica received 25.6 inches. North Foster, Rhode Island received 25.1 inches.

Maine and New Hampshire got slammed, too. Danville, New Hampshire reported 27 inches, Rochester and Wyndham, New Hampshire reported 25.5 inches ,and in Maine, 23.5 inches came down in West Newfield and Limerick.

It's not over yet. In southern New England, the problem will be heavy local snow squalls that will bring another very quick one to three inches in some spots, and cause the kinds of sudden whiteouts that lead to highway pileups.

Here in Vermont, we've got quite a bit more snow to get through yet. It will snow all day and tonight in most areas.  Expect at least another three to six inches of snow by tomorrow morning, and weather advisories have been upgraded to a winter storm warning in western Vermont today and tonight.

I imagine quite a few places will get more than six inches of fresh powder between now and this time Thursday morning. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a foot of additional accumulation in parts of the Green Mountains and Adirondacks.  

Just know that roads are bad. You can also expect some scattered power outages due to snow loading on trees.

And in those western slopes and mountain summits, the snow will continue on Thursday.

So yeah, this is unexpectedly epic.

It gets worse in the fact that it's going to get colder, and we're going to get back to normal January conditions by the weekend. That means daytime high temperatures staying in the 20s when normal highs this time of year are around 40 degrees. Nighttime temperatures will be in the upper single number and teens.

All this means the snow isn't going to go anywhere for quite awhile.

More "good" news: It's possible another nor'easter could affect us toward the middle of next week. This is by no means a certainty. It could still easily miss. But we said that about the storm we're getting now. Bottom line: No guarantees, either way.

This is shaping up to be similar to last year. By March 1 of both 2017 and 2018 most of the snow in Vermont had disappeared after record warm temperatures in February. Then in March, heavy snows arrived.

It will be interesting later this week when the National Weather Service office in South Burlington comes out with its latest spring flood outlook.

The last one, issued two weeks ago forecasted a normal to below normal risk of spring flooding. Soil moistures were high, but snow cover was well below normal. If there's not much snow to melt, the risk of flooding is low.

Now, there's a lot of snow. Especially in the mountains The snow depth and water content of the snow in the mountains at this point isn't setting any record highs, but it has increased substantially.  (The snow depth at the summit of Mount Mansfield went from 47 inches on March 1 to 76 inches this morning.)

The far southern Green Mountains and the Berkshires have especially heavy snow depths and water content in the snow.

Last year, spring flooding in and around Vermont turned out to be scattered and minor when the snow finally melted. This year, who knows? If there are a lot of warm rain storms in late March or April, we could have problems. If things melt pretty gradually, no worries.

But we'll worry about that later. Right now, it's snow, snow, snow. Careful on the roads today, tonight and tomorrow. And keep watching that snow pile up.

California Ski Resort Has Had About 65 FEET Of Snow This Season

Uncovering a ski resort shack recently at Squaw Alpine
near Lake Tahoe, California. 

Here in Vermont, ski season is winding down, after a weird winter, that ultimately ended up OK with a fair amount of snow for winter sports enthusiasts.

A few die-hard resorts are open in the North Country, but as things green up and warm up, that will end soon, too.

Out in California, maybe not as soon as here. Several ski resorts have had 700 inches or more of snow this stormy snow season, and one resort is flirting with 800 inches.

According to the Weather Channel, the Sugar Bowl Resort in the northern Sierra Nevada mountains has had 777 inches of snow so far, and more might be on the way. That's nearly 65 FEET of snow.

Imagine shoveling that out of your driveway.  Then again, you wouldn't even be able to find your house, so there's that.

Of course, there was never 65 feet of snow on the ground at Sugar Bowl Resort because some snow compacted and melted over the course of the season. But still, there's a LOT of snow out ther.e

Believe it or not, the deep snow at Sugar Bowl isn't even close to the record for the most snow in one season at a place in the United States.

That honor goes to Mount Baker Ski Area in Washington State, which had 1,140 inches of snow during the winter of 1998-99. That would be 95 feet of snow.

This year, all that snow stored up in the Sierra Nevada mountains is a good thing, since it will melt over the course of spring and summer and feed reservoirs needed for drinking water and agriculture.

Melting snow from the Sierra Nevada normally supplies about one third of California's drinking and irrigation water supplies.

The melt from the Sierra Nevada hasn't started in earnest yet. In fact, they might get a little more snow in the next couple of days.

The one drawback to all this reservoir-replenishing snow in the California mountains is what happens if it melts too fast?

Snowpack in the Sierra was 164 percent of average as of April 1, which is normally near the peak of the snow depth in those mountains. That's the most since 2011 and the seventh most since 1950, says the Los Angeles Times.

If any strong heat waves develop over California, the rapid snow melt could overrun rivers, especially in the San Joaquin Valley, which already had its share of flooding during the winter storms earlier this year.

The bottom line: California is loving all this water coming off the mountains, but they don't want it all at once. A little at a time, please.

Monday Evening Update: Wow! This Storm Is Really Turning Into Something Big!

One forecast for the storm. Areas in bright red, pink
and very pale blue (northeastern Pennsylvania and
Maine) can expect 10 to 24 inches of snow.
That's an awfully wide area for one storm. 

I normally don't like to be a big hype monster when I do this here blog thingy, but this upcoming storm keeps getting more and more impressive.

I'm pretty sure this will be the Northeast's biggest, worst and most destructive nor'easter for the month of March since the infamous "Storm of the Century" of March 1993.

(There have been storms I consider as bad or worse than this one in other months of the year besides March.)

I'll try to update as briefly and concisely as I can this evening, and then I'll keep at it for the duration. As always, Vermont impacts will be listed beneath the overview.

Blizzard warnings with this storm have been greatly expanded to cover eastern Pennsylvania, much of New Jersey, the New York City area and the mid ad lower Hudson Valley of New York, most of Connecticut and Massachusetts and parts of coastal New Hampshire and southwestern Maine.

That's a pretty impressive area under a blizzard warning. Plus, surrounding areas near the blizzard zone will come damn close to a blizzard.

I won't call this the Storm of the Century or Historic, but it's definitely impressive.

A huge area of the Northeast, from Pennsylvania to Maine, is in for 12 to 24 inches of snow.

There will be one particular burst of snow that will move northward during the day Tuesday which will be especially  impressive. This goes from Pennsylvania to central New England. At times, snowfall rates could easily exceed four inches per hour.

This heavy burst of snow will start the day early in the morning, and move north into central and northern New England by late afternoon. The band might weaken somewhat over northern New England, but even there, two or three inch snowfall rates are certainly possible, which is really damn intense.

Combined with winds, travel during this several hour-long burst will pretty much be impossible.  There's some pretty extreme language being bandies about. The National Weather Service near Philadelphia is telling people to "shelter in place" during the height of the storm Tuesday because it will be too dangerous to be outside.

Snowfall rates will be so high that one Massachusetts forecaster said it will be "puking snow."

In coastal areas, after a serious thumping of snow with several inches per hour, precipitation will probably mix with ice or rain, making things even more difficult.

New York City, for instance, expects very roughly a foot and a half of snow, with an interval of mixed preciptation possibly thrown in.

Boston might get a foot before a changeover to a mix Tuesday.

Winds will be terrible along the coast and a fair amount inland, gusting to 50, 60 maybe even 70 mph.

With areas near the coast expected wet snow and ice, this combination could really lead to some serious power failures.

The storm will obvious cause coastal flooding too, with a storm surge combined with battering waves. I'm thinking some coastal homes structures might be severely damaged from Delaware to Maine.

The bottom line is everything is basically just going to stop in the northeastern United States on Tuesday. No travel, no business, no school, pretty much no nothing.

Any business stupid enough to require their employees to come to work in the hardest hit areas (a very broad area) deserves to go out of business.) If your employer tries to make you go to work tomorrow in the expected worse hit areas just quit your job, because your employer hates you.

Things will improve at least somewhat Wednesday in all areas except northern New England and maybe northeastern New York.

Still, it's going to take awhile to clean up this mess.

VERMONT IMPACTS:

It will be snowing in at least southern Vermont by the time day breaks Tuesday. The snow will spread rapidly northward, getting to Burlington by at least 8 a.m. and the Canadian border by 9 a.m., as it looks now.

A familiar site in Vermont on the day before a big snowstorm:
The sun fades behind a thickening veil of high clouds late
this afternoon over Georgia, Vermont. 

The storm won't look that impressive in the first few hours, but don't let your guard down. The moisture will be moving into dry air now over Vermont, so it will come down lightly at first.

But that band of very heavy snow will work its way north during the day, first hitting southern Vermont in the late morning and reaching the central and northern areas during the afternoon and evening.  

The expected very heavy snow, which will be powdery, combined with increasing winds, will create very low, near zero visibility on the highways.

Plus, Vermont road crews probably won't be able to keep up with the pace of the snowfall. Our highway department people are really very good, but there is only so much they can do. When it's snowing at a rate of one to four inches per hour, you can't keep the roads clear.

So basically, if you can be home by 10 a.m. in southern Vermont and noon in the north, that will be a good thing.

I would not be surprised if most of Vermont gets 5 to 12 inches of snow in just a six hour period Tuesday.

The snow will likely lighten up to light to moderate intensity later Tuesday night and through the day Wednesday, but still continue to gradually pile up.

Worse, the winds will increase to gusts between 30 and 40 mph, so the visibility, the blowing and drifting are going to be miserable through Wednesday.

If you really must drive to work Wednesday morning, expect a really tough time out there.  Conditions won't technically reach the official definition of a blizzard, but it will be close.

Snow will gradually taper off Wednesday night and Thursday, with the last people seeing the snow stop being in the upper elevations in northern Vermont.

The National Weather Service in South Burlington expects pretty much everybody in Vermont to get 12 to 18 inches of snow out this storm, with local amounts up to two feet.

OK, that''s not the biggest snowstorm ever, but it's definitely impressive. Probably the biggest storm of the winter.

On the bright side, the snow will be powdery, which means despite the strong winds, I'm not expecting widespread or super long lasting power failures in the Green Mountain State.

But that's not a big bright side. However, it'll be best just to stay inside in Tuesday and Wednesday. Take a snow vacation, will ya?