Snow Depth Days
of the Northeast: 2001-2002

Daily/Monthly Data

The following table summarizes the snow fall and depth days from sites that are posting that data on the old wxobs-sne mailing list. If people also prepare Web pages for daily information for their site, I'll include links to them. Cells under the "snow" column are the snowfall for the site in that month, under "SDD" are the depth days for the month.

Location October November December January February March April May
Snow SDD Snow SDD Snow SDD Snow SDD Snow SDD Snow SDD Snow SDD Snow SDD
Collinsville CT 5.1 6 14.1 92 1.4 0 9.4 13
Ashland MA 8.5 16 11.8 29 2.5 3 6.3 6
S Attleboro MA 3.2 6.5 8.5 15.5 2 2.5 5.9 6.5
Fairhaven MA 1.3 0 7.3 12 1.4 1 1.7 2
Marlboro MA 10.5 20 13.4 43 2.7 10 9 12 0.5 0
Milton MA 6.2 5 12.6 15 2 4 5.2 4 0.6 0
Milton-BHO MA 10.1 17 15.7 49 6.4 9 6.8 8 1.3 0
Pepperell MA 10 19 19 107 3 33 12.6 24 0.5 0 0.5
Sudbury MA 10.5 30 13 48 2 10 8.5 12 0.5 0 .25
Poland Spring ME 13.1 83 18.6 274 7.5 283 15.1 27
Deerfield NH 202 137
Derry NH 7.8 15 17.4 96 3.6 49 11.4 16 1.3 0 0.5
Penacook NH 9 30 18.5 83 1 85 14.5 27 0.5 0 0.5
Charlestown RI 0.1 0 7.5 14 1.2 1 1.9 1 0 0
Woonsocket RI 6.3 2.6 0 0

2001/2002 season to end of last month

The persistence quotient is lower than the ultimate value if there is still snow on the ground at the site. This data will be updated each month.

Location Snowfall Depth Days Persistence
Quotient
Collinsville CT 30.0 111 3.7
Ashland MA 29.1 54 1.9
S Attleboro MA 19.6 31 1.6
Fairhaven MA 11.7 15 1.3
Marlboro MA 36.1 86.5 2.4
Milton MA 26.6 28 1.1
Milton-BHO MA 40.3 83 2.1
Pepperell MA 45.6 183 4.0
Sudbury MA 34.75 100 2.9
Poland Spring 54.3 667 12.3
Deerfield NH 0 339 ...
Derry NH 42 176 4.2
Penacook NH 45 226 5.0
Charlestown RI 10.7 16 1.5
Woonsocket RI 8.9 0 0.0

Contributors

Name Location Email name Email domain
Dennis Bollea Fairhaven MA 76624.2745 compuserve.com
A Cadoret Woonsocket RI cumulus att.net
Jim Corbin S Attleboro MA ah728 osfn.rhilinet.gov
Wayne Cotterly Poland Spring ME cotterly prodigy.net
Bob Davitt Deerfield NH bdavitt authentica.com
Matthew Douglas Milton MA mdouglas attbi.com
Milton-BHO MA
Todd Gross Sudbury MA toddwx rcn.com
Paul Hansen Marlboro MA paulh01 attbi.com
Jim Hilt Derry NH jimhilt attbi.com
Andrew Plona Collinsville CT nwconnecticut comcast.net
Jot Ross Ashland MA jotspot ma.ultranet.com
Chris Seeber Charlestown RI cseeber cox.net
Paul Venditti Pepperell MA paulvenditti prodigy.net
Ric Werme Penacook NH ewerme attbi.com

Credits

Jim Corbin, a meteorologist from Rhode Island, proposed the concept of both snow depth days and the persistence quotient, but he didn't have good names for them.  After a bouncing around various ideas, I came up with Depth Days.  It seems to fit into colloquial speech well, e.g. "When mired in the Depth Days of February, she thought fondly of the Dog Days of August." Of course, none of us snow lovers would ever think that. I picked Persistence Quotient while putting this page together, we'll see how it wears with time.

Musings

I think depth days is a great statistic, and I'm surprised that it is catching on slowly outside of the wxobs-sne mail list. I never expected that the NWS would embrace it quickly, but I had hoped that TV meteorologists would start using it, in monthly summaries, if nothing else. It would be nice if ski areas would use it, but they may not wish to if they are not likely to be #1 consistantly. (And if only one area reports depth days, it would not be a good comparative statistic.) I see that UVM has graphs of snow depths at Stowe through many seasons.

Last update: 2004 March 5
Ric Werme

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