Happy March 14 Nor-Easter!

[j44ke]

We got about a foot and it is still coming down. So are tree branches and the trees themselves. Snow is almost melting as it falls. Wet and heavy like cement. Power has been out for an hour. I'd be surprised if we get it back today, but we have a really good local crew who seem to be able to work magic. I went for a walk around the house in snow shoes, but it is not the best idea right now to go into the woods. See video at link below and make sure sound is on.

March 14, 2023 snow trees and far off cows

[Saab2000]

Not an atmospheric river nor a bomb cyclone nor a polar vortex. Just the good ol’ original, the Nor’easter. I hope the weather channel and other purveyors of horror were reporting on how dangerous it is and that nobody should be outdoors, while reporting from outdoors.

[Tom]

Six inches of very wet snow after it changed from rain about midnight here in Schenectady. The big old maple in the front just dropped a bigger branch than the big branch it dropped in last week's snow. We've talked about removing it and replacing with six or eight birches, this spring it looks like the time. If we hadn't cabled the two halves together ten years ago I'm sure it would be laying on my neighbor's cars this morning.

Still snowing but it is drier. The wind is kicking up.

[SlowPokePete]

March 14, 2023 NorEaster by SPP™ SlowPokePete, on Flickr

March 14, 2023 NorEaster by SPP™ SlowPokePete, on Flickr

March 14, 2023 NorEaster by SPP™ SlowPokePete, on Flickr

SPP

[vertical_doug]

Where's Lumpy?? Thunderbolt?

[gregl]

Not a particularly "big deal" in Sibera-cuse. We'll end up with 7-10" when it's done... what we call a CNY "dusting". Now the hills to the southeast should get 18". I'm already planning on taking tomorrow afternoon off to ski at my favorite nordic venue. Should be the best snow of the season!

Greg

[echappist]

We got about a foot and it is still coming down. So are tree branches and the trees themselves. Snow is almost melting as it falls. Wet and heavy like cement. Power has been out for an hour. I'd be surprised if we get it back today, but we have a really good local crew who seem to be able to work magic. I went for a walk around the house in snow shoes, but it is not the best idea right now to go into the woods. See video at link below and make sure sound is on.

March 14, 2023 snow trees and far off cows

How are you managing to stay warm?

We got ~7” of wet and goopy snow last week, and that was enough to knock out electricity. The kicker is that the furnace blower needs electricity to run, so we ended up without heat for 18 hours, and the house cooled down to 55 F.

[bigbill]

In an amazing coincidence, I was just looking for the lotion for Sunday's sunburn from riding in Scottsdale.

[j44ke]

Not a particularly "big deal" in Sibera-cuse. We'll end up with 7-10" when it's done... what we call a CNY "dusting". Now the hills to the southeast should get 18". I'm already planning on taking tomorrow afternoon off to ski at my favorite nordic venue. Should be the best snow of the season!

Greg

We got up to about 15” and then an hour of sleet kind of packed it down again to 14”. Now it is back to pounding snow again.

I just spent 2.5 hours digging a bunch of big pine limbs and their relatives out of the drive. The snow is really wet and dense. Hard to find them without dragging a hook. Which is what I did. Good I did it because the plow just showed up. Makes it easier.

I also spent some time freeing the saplings that got bowed down with the snow load and then trapped in the drifts. Or got pinned by tree limbs from the bigger trees. Better to get them out & up now than let them freeze overnight.

Pines are pretty interesting. Their limbs fit into the trunk like a socket, and that allows them to release limbs to keep the trunk from snapping. When you get the limbs on the ground, the secondary branches just kind of pop off. Can’t be only structural, no? Must be some tree chemistry at work?

How are you managing to stay warm?

We got ~7” of wet and goopy snow last week, and that was enough to knock out electricity. The kicker is that the furnace blower needs electricity to run, so we ended up without heat for 18 hours, and the house cooled down to 55 F.

Whole house generator. By Wisco. Runs the propane boiler and the heat pumps. Also the well. Hot water comes from the boiler and goes into a storage tank. Oven is not on the generator but (now) the stove top is. Power isn’t enough to run our giant espresso robot. That thing needs its own generator - a Maserati engine or something.

Every time one of these big storms has come, the propane company tops off our tank because they know everyone is probably going to lose power for 24-36 hours. Longest we’ve run on the generator is almost three days.

[vertical_doug]

We got up to about 15” and then an hour of sleet kind of packed it down again to 14”. Now it is back to pounding snow again.

I just spent 2.5 hours digging a bunch of big pine limbs and their relatives out of the drive. The snow is really wet and dense. Hard to find them without dragging a hook. Which is what I did. Good I did it because the plow just showed up. Makes it easier.

I also spent some time freeing the saplings that got bowed down with the snow load and then trapped in the drifts. Or got pinned by tree limbs from the bigger trees. Better to get them out & up now than let them freeze overnight.

Pines are pretty interesting. Their limbs fit into the trunk like a socket, and that allows them to release limbs to keep the trunk from snapping. When you get the limbs on the ground, the secondary branches just kind of pop off. Can’t be only structural, no? Must be some tree chemistry at work?
.

And now imagine this for 40 consecutive days and you know what it is like to be in Mammoth or Alta or Snowbird this year.

[SlowPokePete]

March 14, 2023 NorEaster by SPP™ SlowPokePete, on Flickr

SPP

[bironi]

We got about a foot and it is still coming down. So are tree branches and the trees themselves. Snow is almost melting as it falls. Wet and heavy like cement. Power has been out for an hour. I'd be surprised if we get it back today, but we have a really good local crew who seem to be able to work magic. I went for a walk around the house in snow shoes, but it is not the best idea right now to go into the woods. See video at link below and make sure sound is on.

March 14, 2023 snow trees and far off cows

Ah!
The sound of silence.
Sounds like you're getting a workout.

[Saab2000]

Ah!
The sound of silence.
Sounds like you're getting a workout.

Exactly this. Got what you need? Worry not about the rest. Chill and enjoy the silence. Read. Watch nature do its thing.

[sk_tle]

What a contrast. Here it has started to be hot enough this last week or so to not only enjoy the beach during the day, but to have late afternoon/early evening picnics there.

[j44ke]

18” is the final tally.

The silence is nice definitely, even when it is punctuated with cracking trees. But snow days like we just had require a fair amount of labor. If your trees fall onto the town road, neighborly politeness dictates you go down and move it so the town plow guy doesn’t have to. I’m not complaining. I enjoy the work though sometimes I have to talk myself into it and get a running start.

[monadnocky]

We hit the jackpot just west of Concord. It was like for 24+ hours getting blasted with a firehose of wet snow. Power went out yesterday AM, came back on until yesterday evening, then at 7:30 it went out again - looking at Eversource's outage map I fear it will be several days before we get it back (I do have a whole-house standby genny - in my neighborhood, it's a must and everyone on my road has one).

A quick walk this morning down the dirt road I live on revealed some pretty apocalyptic stuff - hyperbole, perhaps, but it's pretty bad. Large branches and whole trees down everywhere. I could hear them coming down throughout the night - a sound I haven't heard too much of since the 2008 ice storm. Not a pleasant sound for sure. The snowplow berm at the end of my driveway is up to my head - I have no idea how I'm going to clear that, as it's half dirt and stones anyway - the blower won't touch it and I'll break shear pins for sure if I even try. I was surprised to find a 8 inch diameter, 10 foot long pine log embedded in the berm. Must have been nothing to the plow.

Final tally is tough to assess due to compaction but it's definitely over 2 feet. A town just to our west - a little closer to the Monadnock area - got 31 inches. Time to get nervous about your roof when that happens, especially with some rain on the way Friday. Funny, because here at my office in Warner, just north of my hometown up 89, it looks like they only got about a foot. Ten miles difference in north-south, over a foot difference in terms of total amount. Amazing.

All in all, may have been one of the largest storms I lived through besides the Blizzard of '78. Very location-dependent around here, and I was in the bullseye.

[monadnocky]

18” is the final tally.

The silence is nice definitely, even when it is punctuated with cracking trees. But snow days like we just had require a fair amount of labor. If your trees fall onto the town road, neighborly politeness dictates you go down and move it so the town plow guy doesn’t have to. I’m not complaining. I enjoy the work though sometimes I have to talk myself into it and get a running start.

This is when a battery operated chainsaw and Sawzall come in really handy....

[gregl]

Befitting the snowiest major city in the country, the storm was a non-event for us. Worked all day yesterday in the office, fired up the snowblower after dinner last night, and back to work and school this morning as usual. However, I feel the need to take the afternoon off from work. My skis are in the car and the trails are calling...

HF Ski Cond.JPG

Greg

[thollandpe]

Very location-dependent around here, and I was in the bullseye.

Interesting. I was working at Williams College when hurricane Irene decimated the southwest corner of Vermont. One of the profs there told me that they had recorded their highest-ever rainfall amount. Not monthly, weekly, or even daily, but hourly. And that was the key to Irene's devastation, that highly localized storm cells dumped an insane amount of rain in a very concentrated area. So that one side of a hill could be devastated while the other side did fine. He also said that pattern was a peculiarity he was seeing from climate change, and a new normal.

[Tom]

Around here it was elevation. We all got the same water but some of us rained for a third of it and the snow was 5:1 while five hundred up it was all snow at 8:1. You can go two miles from 12" to 24" no problem.