Thank you for the compliments on the new weather data with the web cam. GWC, your cam was actually one of several that originally inspired me to this idea - it's one of my favorites.
...Storm Log...
At 9:00 p.m. on Black Cat we passed the 1-foot mark for the snowstorm. There was an average of 12.5 inches in the yard with many places blown down to bare ground by northeast winds that gusted to 39 mph this afternoon. There are other areas of snow drifted over 2 feet. On the lake's new snowpack, the bottom layer is turning to mush like it always does, because the water below the ice is still above freezing and radiating "heat" up.
On land the snow is *not* the perfect western-style powder they're getting in Vermont and NY State. It's not snowball-making snow, either. It has about the consistency of manmade snow from the ski areas. This is due to a brief period of heavy sleet and just a tad bit of freezing rain between 3 and 5 pm. During that time the wind was straight east and introduced just a little bit of the milder ocean air from the seacoast part of the state, but it was short lived.
As the storm moved farther up the coast our winds actually wrestled between east and northwest for a half-hour or so. When the winds were east, sleet and some freezing rain would mix. After a few minutes it would blast out of the northwest and change to all snow again, and repeated the process a few times in the course of an hour.
Around the dinner hour the winds switched into the northwest and stayed, indicating the storm's passing by. A normal winter storm would be over at this point, but this thing is such a strong whirlpool in the atmosphere that it's pulling the snow around to its backside as well. On the strenth of the "whirlpool;" check your home barometers! The pressure here has dropped to 29.05, which is more often seen in the eyes of Category 1 hurricanes.
After a 1-hour lull during the storm's passage, the snow is now back in high gear. For snowfall reports go to this self-updating text report from the National Weather Service:
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/er/box/products/PWMWRKGYX
There is a link to it and many others like it, at
www.blackcatnh.com/weather.
Forecast... Tomorrow should be bittersweet for skiers... on one hand it will be great to cut some freshies in the slopes but getting there will be the issue since blizzard conditions will continue into the early morning (off and on), even after the snow stops falling. Also, tomorrow will be a return to the walk-in freezer we've been living in for over a month now, and winds will howl out of the northwest. If it weren't for the presence of fresh snow, tomorrow and Friday would be good days to hang out in the base lodge.
For the mountains this means more snow because the nearby storm will keep the air unstable and moist enough to wring out more snowflakes from any air current that finds itself riding uphill into the cooler summit air. This should continue into Friday, gradually diminishing.
...UPDATE AT MIDNIGHT...
Woweee, windy. Winds now averaging 15 out of the NW (and blocked by a tree in that direction too) and gusting regularly to 30 mph... increasing. Lights flickering. Temp is headed back into the single numbers within the hour. I just went to use the mouthwash, whose bottle I haven't opened since this time last night, and it actually gave a "hissss" as it opened. That shows how dramatically the air pressure has fallen with this storm so close. Pressure's 29.07 and on the way back up.