Snow Depth Days
of the Northeast: 2012-2013

The season in review

It was a very quiet first part of the winter, but February brought a new jet stream pattern and suddenly it's a top-ten winter. Worcester's season reached the fifth snowiest on record by mid-March. No snow in October (or September!), a little in November. Some in December, less in January which had a couple of thaws. The latter one brought temperatures in the high 50s and even low 60s throughout the region and left only traces of unpiled snow.

March was fairly normal but chilly until mid-month whereupon I saw temperatures rising slowly for the rest of the month with the snow cover ending on the 28th.

An April event of note was 0.5" of sleet that fell on the 12th.

Daily/Monthly Data

The following table summarizes the snow fall and depth days from sites that are posting that data on local weather observations mail lists and a couple others. 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
Fairhaven MA 3.8 9 4.7 39 23.6 110 14.8 25
Marlboro MA 2.5 2 11 30.5 4.9 64 35.1 245.5 24 141.5
Pepperell MA 2 1 18 52 6.9 221 36 198 30 226
Poland Spring ME 1.7 2 23.9 60 6.7 132 36.1 261 11.9 220 1.2 1
Bow NH 1.2 1 17.6 46 9.2 174 43.2 331 23.2 487 1 47
Bristol NH 2.4 2.4 21.9 52.5 9.2 166.5 28.7 173.4 18 135.3 0.6 0.6
Penacook NH 1 0 13.6 30 8.9 78.5 36.6 212.5 13.9 183 0.5 0
Charlestown RI 1.4 2 10.3 16 6.3 67 32.7 182 2.7 3
Woonsocket RI 4.4 4 12 27 5.9 59 33.3 196 14.3 20
Mt. Mansfield VT 4 19 4 161 33.5 565 17.7 1305 38 1536 31.4 2169 13.3 1968 13.2 393

2012-2013 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
Fairhaven MA 46.9 183 3.9
Marlboro MA 77.5 483.5 6.2
Pepperell MA 92.9 698 7.5
Poland Spring ME 81.5 676 8.3
Bow NH 95.4 1086 11.4
Bristol NH 80.8 530.7 6.6
Penacook NH 74.5 504 6.8
Charlestown RI 53.4 270 5.1
Woonsocket RI 69.9 306 4.4
Mt. Mansfield VT 155.1 8116 52.3

Contributors

Name Location
Dennis Bollea Fairhaven MA
A Cadoret Woonsocket RI
Wayne Cotterly Poland Spring ME
Paul Hansen Marlboro MA
Jim Hilt Bow NH
Chris Seeber Charlestown RI
Paul Venditti Pepperell MA
Ric Werme Penacook NH

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 NE Weather Spotters 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.) The University of Vermont has graphs of snow depths at Stowe through many seasons.

Last update: 2015 December 31
Ric Werme

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