Snow Depth Days
of the Northeast: 1999-2000

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 1.0 1 0.0 0 18.7 99 9.0 250 1.8 3 3.7 3
Ashland MA 14.6 86 10.7 100 2.8 4
S Attleboro MA 10.4 45 7.0 59 1.9 2
Fairhaven MA 0.5 0 4.8 13 6.5 16 1.3 2
Marlboro MA Trace 0 15.8 84 12.0 159 2.5 4 Trace
Milton MA 14.7 74 10.7 105 3.2 3
Sterling MA 18 108 12 242 5 6
E Walpole MA 10.8 78 7.2 71
Poland Springs ME 0.6 1 0.1 0 17.6 79 21.4 338 12.1 48 5.1 6
Deerfield NH 15.5 91 17 394?
Derry NH 18.5 56 10.8 138 6.3 10 1.0 0
Penacook NH 17 61 12.6 296 16 59
Charlestown RI 5.1 16 8.0 34 0.6 0
Woonsocket RI 0.1 0 13.9 85 7.2 103 2.4 ?

1999/2000 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 34.2 356 10.4
Ashland MA 28.1 190 6.8
S Attleboro MA 19.3 108 5.6
Fairhaven MA 13.1 31 2.4
Marlboro MA 30.3 247 8.2
Milton MA 28.6 182 6.4
Sterling MA 35 356 10.5
E Walpole MA 18.1 149 8.2
Poland Spring ME 56.9 472 8.3
Deerfield NH 32.5 485 14.9
Derry NH 36.6 204 5.6
Penacook NH 45.6 416 9.1
Charlestown RI 13.7 50 3.6
Woonsocket RI 21.2 188 8.9

Contributors

Name Location
Dennis Bollea Fairhaven MA
A Cadoret Woonsocket RI
Matthew Carow E Walpole MA
Jim Corbin S Attleboro MA
Wayne Cotterly Poland Spring ME
Bob Davitt Deerfield NH
Matthew Douglas Milton MA
Paul Hansen Marlboro MA
Jim Hilt Derry NH
Paul Himottu Sterling MA
Jot Ross Ashland MA
Andrew Plona Collinsville CT
Chris Seeber Charlestown RI
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 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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