Fading snow

With temps climbing into the 60s today, I decided to tempt fate and move the snow blower from the front yard to its summer place by the sheds. The last chunk of snow, well, really, ice, is almost gone from our deck.

The corner of our yard, sheltered from the sun, is still snow-covered. At the camp, there's still a foot or more of ice that's been pushed into the cove by the strong northwest winds.

I'm guessing that it will take at least a week, maybe even two, before the cove is open. We're still hoping to open up around the first of May.

Dept. of Snow

It wasn't enough that Holden won the top spot in last weekend's snowfall totals. We need to keep our edge and so are trucking in more snow.

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Uphill in the snow both ways

At this writing, we have four inches of snow (.032 cubic hectares for our metric readers). The forecast suggests that we'll double that and then some before the day is over. We  have a couple of plans for the afternoon and will make a decision late morning. I don't mind a day at home. I have school work and work work aplenty.
Late-season winter blasts are nothing new. I'm not sure that I'd even call this a late-season event. Last year we had a hard freeze in mid-May. The crocuses were peeking out in the warmer parts of our yard a couple of days ago. They're not silly. They grow based on the ground temperature, which is getting progressively warmer even as the air above does its own weird thing.
The April Fool's Day storm of 1997 was as big a storm as you'll get, two feet of white cement. That's another thing about later-season storms - the snow contains much more water. A mid-January storm can have a fluff factor of 15:1 - 15 inches of snow for each inch of melted liquid. Storms during April and May can have ratios down to 8:1.
I was working at a small startup in Westford. (We were building a $100K 100GB fileserver.) Our CEO and CFO were scheduled to start their big roadshow that would prepare investors for our initial public offering later in the year. Important meetings were scheduled for New York that day and later in Miami.
The execs went to the airport while the rest of the crew was back at the office. (Working from home wasn't much of an option. The company shared a single 56K modem line at its corporate Internet connection. Microsoft's PPTP was just rolling out and not well understood.) We got hourly updates about their attempts to get on one flight and then another throughout the day. At day's end, they were still at Logan and the money guys were still in New York. At six o'clock, we dug out our cars and drove home. I'd be back 12 hours later for another day.
The roadshow was rescheduled and we had our IPO in the summer. IIRC, the strike price was $5.00. It briefly peaked at $5.25 and never saw those levels again.
If you're a New Englander, you can't get very far by trying to blame your troubles on the weather. The  April Fool's Day storm had almost no effect on the company's fate. We earned our bad luck from our own hard work. 

Uphill in the snow both ways

At this writing, we have four inches of snow (.032 cubic hectares for our metric readers). The forecast suggests that we'll double that and then some before the day is over. We  have a couple of plans for the afternoon and will make a decision late morning. I don't mind a day at home. I have school work and work work aplenty.
Late-season winter blasts are nothing new. I'm not sure that I'd even call this a late-season event. Last year we had a hard freeze in mid-May. The crocuses were peeking out in the warmer parts of our yard a couple of days ago. They're not silly. They grow based on the ground temperature, which is getting progressively warmer even as the air above does its own weird thing.
The April Fool's Day storm of 1997 was as big a storm as you'll get, two feet of white cement. That's another thing about later-season storms - the snow contains much more water. A mid-January storm can have a fluff factor of 15:1 - 15 inches of snow for each inch of melted liquid. Storms during April and May can have ratios down to 8:1.
I was working at a small startup in Westford. (We were building a $100K 100GB fileserver.) Our CEO and CFO were scheduled to start their big roadshow that would prepare investors for our initial public offering later in the year. Important meetings were scheduled for New York that day and later in Miami.
The execs went to the airport while the rest of the crew was back at the office. (Working from home wasn't much of an option. The company shared a single 56K modem line at its corporate Internet connection. Microsoft's PPTP was just rolling out and not well understood.) We got hourly updates about their attempts to get on one flight and then another throughout the day. At day's end, they were still at Logan and the money guys were still in New York. At six o'clock, we dug out our cars and drove home. I'd be back 12 hours later for another day.
The roadshow was rescheduled and we had our IPO in the summer. IIRC, the strike price was $5.00. It briefly peaked at $5.25 and never saw those levels again.
If you're a New Englander, you can't get very far by trying to blame your troubles on the weather. The  April Fool's Day storm had almost no effect on the company's fate. We earned our bad luck from our own hard work. 

North of the blizzard

We're all abuzz with news of the Boxing Day Blizzard. Snow's forecast to arrive in the early afternoon and get serious shortly after dark.

The demarcation line for the Winter Storm and Blizzard warnings runs through the city of Worcester. A blizzard in this context is not related to overall snowfall amount, but the strong winds and heavy snow leading white-out conditions for three or more hours. Because the storm is off-shore, the strongest winds may not extend so far inland.

It's still a serious storm, though, with the potential of two feet of snow and we're ready. On Thursday afternoon, I got the snowblower ready. It started easily, but didn't roll so well on the flat tire. It had been sitting on that flat tire for several months, so the sidewall was cracked. Fortunately, our local repair shop had an inner tube that fit the tire.
We have a couple of sheltered places where I think that I can get measurements of snowfall rates and overall amounts.The NWS guidelines for reporting on the storm are easy to understand. I expect to file my first SkyWarn report in the late afternoon.

Worcester, the trend-setter

It looks like southern New England night get its first major snowstorm this weekend.

Sunday through Monday...the potential exists for a significant
winter storm though significant discrepancies continue between
the operational models and ensemble members. The 12z model runs
have generally trended westward again with surface low pressure
track except for the European model (ecmwf). Two camps exist...the 12z GFS remains
deepest within the western envelope of the gefs and GFS ensemble
means...with good clustering noted between Nantucket Island and the
40n 70w benchmark position Sunday night...as phasing occurs sooner.

via Area forecast discussion National Weather Service Taunton Massachusetts 1035 PM EST Wednesday Dec 15 2010

In other parts of the country, municipalities are discovering what Worcester has known for quite a while - let the citizens clean their own sidewalks and fine 'em if they don't. The Wall Street Journal, New Shovel-Ready Project, reports that not only are cities around the country forcing property owners to clear the sidewalks.
In addition, a recent Massachusetts SJC ruling allows property owners to be sued for failing to clear snow and ice that didn't fall directly from the sky.
So, get your gear ready, folks. Winter's coming.

see more There I Fixed It

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Finally, some snow

The snow dusted us late last night, so light that you couldn't even measure it sideways.

Nevertheless, with all of the cold weather that we've had, below freezing all week, I think we've earned a bit of pretty.

More on snow

Here's what the weatherman who's not on TV is reporting at this hour (~8:00z)

Best chance for 8 inch amts vicinity orh to lwm mht afn region. 

Next shift has the opportunity to convert. 

This holding back on a conversion should be an indicator to all 
customers our uncertainty regarding snow amounts...especially the 
afternoon daylight hours with temperatures near freezing. Treated/plowed roads 
at times during the afternoon in the watch area may be just wet...after 
the initial morning burst of snowfall. 
via Weather Discussion : Weather Underground

Meanwhile, in the Mother Country,

Met Office warns Britain to brace itself for more heavy snow

The South East is forecast to see the worst of the freezing weather, with up to four inches falling on high ground in Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Sussex and Kent.

...
'Icy roads will be a major problem as the gritters will have a small window of time to cover a large area.'
via Mail Online

More on snow

I wish that the weather forecasters would consistently report on the snow density for storms. The density is a more accurate measure of how much precipitation will fall or has fallen. It's a better way to determine the equivalent impact of a snow storm. A foot of heavy wet snow is going to disrupt our lives more than a foot of dry, fluffy snow.
For example, early in the cleanup of last week's storm, heavy and cement-like, as you may recall, our snowblower stopped. We learned that it has a cracked gearbox. We cleared the rest by shovel.
This week, because a replacement part hasn't been available, we'll clear this snow by shovel as well. If we knew the snow density, we could better estimate how much ibuprofen we'll need to have a side dish for this evening's dinner.
Also, with a snow density forecast, we would know if it's going to be good snow for forts, snow people, and the like. Last week's was great for that; this week, around here, not so much.
Meanwhile, even though we can't be doing much with the snow except to move it, we can admire the some of the classic works of one young Calvin.

via AmyOops: Calvin and Hobbes Snow Art

If it ain't happening here, it ain't happening

With a tip o' the hat to Tip O'Neill, all weather is local.
The four or so inches of snow that's outside is just enough bring squirrels and birds from near and far to our feeder. Remembering that there's still a lot of seed under the new cover, the squirrels are digging down easily and eating their fill.
It's not a blizzard, though. It's not even a snow storm.

Oh, sure, for the folks down the mid-Atlantic and along the south coast, it's a very big deal because a) they're getting it a lot worse than we are and/or b) they don't get a lot of snow, so a snow storm to them is a big storm to them.

via Drudge
It's not us, though.

Back in the early days of the Intertubes, a massive storm covered the eastern United States. The Storm of the Century, they called it. I had created a script that would download the latest satellite image from the NOAA ftp site and set the image as my desktop background.
The other folks in the office would gather around my workstation as the storm progressed up the coast. It would lay down more snow over a wider area than any storm on record.
After the SotC had come and gone, and, true to form, most people said, "We  got a foot of snow? Big deal. Storm of the Centry? Pfft." Or, they said something that sounded like "Pfft".
Blizzard of '78? The one that Bruce Schwoegler called the Holocaust?. Folks west of the mid-state ridge maybe got a foot of snow and chafed against the statewide closure of the roads. Again, pfft.
It's not a big storm unless it's happening to me and then you'd better listen to how big it is. 
And then, between the start and end of writing this post, another inch of snow has fallen and the wind is picking up. Maybe we've got a snow storm after all.

Making America safe on snow days

Parents, with the snow and the cold, it's always a challenge to keep house-bound kids from saying, "I'm bored" every 37 seconds.
So, it's good to know that the government is here to help you.

That's right, the National Counterterrorism Center has a page for kids.

Your kids can learn about counterterrorism and even find links to other federal government agencies that have pages for kids. (I'll bet that your first-grader can't wait to get to the The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau page.

But, to finish up back where we started, let's give our kids something really special — pictures that they can color:
They'll thank you, I'm sure.