One brief storm in December made up for all of last year. Sutton was a little south of the main snow band for a storm that started early on the 17th. It ended only 13 hours later. At 0700 I had 15.2" of fluffy snow on the snow board. When the snow stopped, I had 12.0" inches more. 27.2" total. New London, just north west had 36", Croydon had 46". I didn't realize just how historic this was until I reviewed my records from Penacook and found the biggest storm there was only 18.5".
Various other superlatives:
On the 17th, I had my first sub-zero temperature of the season. A week later on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, nearly two inches of rain and temperatures up to 56°F melted nearly all of the snow. Snow cover managed to limp to the end of the month except where rain pooled on the frozen or saturated ground and melted all the snow.
January was, in a word, blah. Okay, annoying blah. I recorded an impressive nine snow events. However, six had less than 1.0" of snow and the biggest was only 2.4". There was neither very cold weather nor a January thaw, but we did eke out a sub-zero morning on the last day, -1.0°F. Several days got above freezing, but none reached 40°F.
February was similar, we nearly went below 0°F on the first, and three lows were 1.7°F. All the lows were below freezing. Four days got above 40°F. For nearly all of the month we had about a foot of snow and ice on the ground. Similar to January, we had several (eight) snow events, but overall more than twice the snow, the biggest snow falls were 5.1" and 7.5". Parts of Massachusetts got more snow than New Hampshire.
March was a good month for snow haters. Last year I had more snow in each of March, April, and even May than the 0.3" this March. We had warm weather, with eight days above 60°F and two above 70°F.
There wasn't much to say about April other than its 2" of snow was more than March this year. It was welcome though, as my neighbor hadn't had a chance to burn his brush pile. Snow cover brings a lot of safety to that task, important as we hadn't had much precip of any sort. It gave me a chance to a couple cart loads of my brush too.
| 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 | |
| Ashland MA | 5.5 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 83 | 7.3 | 18 | 31.9 | 275 | 0 | 2 | 0.9 | 0 | ||
| Fairhaven MA | 0.2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6.5 | 20 | 4.3 | 14 | 14.1 | 67 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Pepperell MA | 4.2 | 6 | 0.1 | 0 | 18.1 | 101 | 7.8 | 21 | 25.5 | 253 | 0.1 | 43 | 3.1 | 2 | ||
| Bow NH | 1.6 | 1 | 0.2 | 1 | 30 | 193 | 6.1 | 170 | 23.7 | 346 | 0.1 | 224 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Bristol NH | 1.8 | 1.8 | 0.1 | 0 | 30.4 | 146.2 | 9.3 | 66.5 | 25.2 | 298 | 0.6 | 105 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Sutton Mills NH | 1.6 | 1.2 | 0.4 | 0.4 | 29.1 | 141 | 9.1 | 81.5 | 23.9 | 330.5 | 0.3 | 128.5 | 2 | 1.5 | ||
| Location | Snowfall | Depth Days | Persistence Quotient |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ashland MA | 61.6 | 386 | 6.3 |
| Fairhaven MA | 25.1 | 101 | 4.0 |
| Pepperell MA | 58.9 | 426 | 7.2 |
| Bow NH | 61.7 | 935 | 15.2 |
| Bristol NH | 67.4 | 617.5 | 9.2 |
| Sutton Mills NH | 66.4 | 684.6 | 10.3 |
| Name | Location |
|---|---|
| Dennis Bollea | Fairhaven MA |
| Steve Gunn | Bristol NH |
| Jim Hilt | Bow NH |
| Jot Ross | Ashland MA |
| Paul Venditti | Pepperell MA |
| Ric Werme | Sutton Mills NH |
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 consistently. (And if only one area reports depth days, it would not be a good comparative statistic.)