Any compulsive weather addicts know how tricky it is to forecast weather for a region-most people say the forecasters are “wrong”. A better interpretation would probably be to say they aren’t accurate, and Vermont is a great example of why. The National Weather Service has various offices, and ours is in Burlington at the airport. They cover a large area, from Lake Placid to Montpelier, and from the Canadian Border to Killington. The only way to accurately forecast an area this large is to break it into regions. For example, our region is number 9, Western Addison, including the cities of Vergennes and Middlebury. And here lies the problem with forecasting, particularly in the winter. Middlebury campus is under the same forecast as Lake Champlain, and Vergennes shares the forecast with Brandon. It’s a huge geographical area, and one forecast for such a space is bound to lose accuracy across the region. Addison may get an 1″ of snow, low in the valley, while East Middlebury may be getting hammered with 6 times that, under the same forecast.

The Weather Underground has been taking the National Weather Service forecast, and re-packaging it on their website, along with access to some great radar maps, blogs, photos, etc. Recently, however, they’ve starting forecasting themselves, called Best Forecast, and what makes this different is the data, not only from all of the NWS weather stations, but all of the personal weather stations such as ours. Slate just wrote a great article explaining this. Suffice it to say that Best Forecast is now taking into account microclimates, so when pulling up a Middlebury forecast on the WU, we are getting a Middlebury campus forecast.

How accurate? We’ll find out tonight and tomorrow. The NWS is forecasting a dusting to 2″ of snow tonight, with an additional 3-5″ possible tomorrow before it changes to rain. Temperatures mid 20′s tonight, mid 30′s tomorrow. Best Forecast? Lows of 28 tonight, 50% chance of snow or rain, high of 45 tomorrow, snow than rain in the afternoon, snow accumulations of 1″ possible. I’m not placing bets on who is correct here, but the Best Forecast feels right to me. I’ll post an update when all is said and done.

UPDATE 4PM: The NWS issues forecasts at fairly regular times, 3 PM or so being fairly regular. Their update for the western addison zone has changed slightly, 2-4″ during the day tomorrow, changing to rain in the afternoon, back to snow Friday night with an additional 1-3″. Mid 30′s tomorrow, mid 20′s tomorrow night. Best Forecast has changed little-snow and rain tomorrow, accumulation 1″, chance of ice pellets, snow and rain friday night, only 60% chance, no accumulation mentioned.

UPDATE 12 NOON FRIDAY: The NWS has changed their forecast, as the storm seems to have slowed down from the west. No snow last night, and only light snow now at noon, not accumulating. So do we call this a win for Best Forecast? Both forecasts now are in line with each other for snowfall tonight, 4-6″, but Best Forecast is calling for temps today around 45, with the NWS saying mid 30′s, which it is now. I’d be surprised if temps rise today.

We don’t know how much snow we got here on campus, as the wind was drifting the snow so radically that some places were devoid of snow, while others were 6′ deep in drifts. I asked the guys in the landscape department how much snow we got, and the answers are unprintable. I measured 20″ in my driveway, but that was pretty windblown too. According to the National Weather Service, Cornwall got 22″, Bridport 24″, so we’re thinking somewhere in that neighborhood sounds about right.

Snow Totals Map-click for larger version

This is one for the record books, both the storm and this winter. The Burlington Weather Service office recorded 25.8″ of snow, beating our Valentine’s Day storm of 2007 by a tenth of an inch. (Incidentally, the record storm was last year, January 2-3, where they got 33.1″. I’ve erased that from my memory) This is the largest March storm, however.

In terms of our yearly records, we’re at 124.3″, third highest total. Number two comes in at 132″, in 1886-87, and the record holds at 145.4″, in 1970-71. I can see us beating 1886, but if we break the ’70 record there is going to be some sore shovelers at Middlebury.

Speaking of sore, yes, there are still some sidewalks not cleared yet. We’re trying! The problem with massive snows like this is that our regular plows just can’t handle it. You can only push a huge pile of snow for so long before the wheels start spinning or you have nowhere to put it. For these types of events we put large snowblowers on a couple of our tractors, but that’s slow going too. And because classes were still being held, the extra sidewalk traffic impeded progress all the more. Uncleared sidewalks means snow shovelers are walking through snow from building to building, dragging a snowblower through drifts.

And on top of all of that, a lot of us couldn’t even get to work. For the most part, the only workers that made it in lived in Middlebury, except for snow miraculous sidewalk tractor operators, who I’m thinking were airlifted in. My own road was roughly plowed by a Monument Farms tractor half the size of my house-the cows have to be fed-but the town plow didn’t make it until the end of the storm Monday evening.

Tired of the snow? If it makes you feel any better, the stake at the summit at the top of Mount Mansfield says they’ve got 90″. That’ll be there a while.

This winter, extraordinary high pressure sat over Greenland, matched by high pressure over Alaska. This caused a breakdown in the polar vortex, causing cold arctic air to dump southward, on top of us. This cold air spilling south is replaced by warmer continental air. A similar event happened last winter as well. Scientists are blaming our colder than normal temperatures and our increased precipitation on this unusual pattern.  Much research is taking place now on this event, known as a Warm Arctic/ Cold Continent.

Average Pressure Pattern

High Pressure, February 2010

The reason for this is a disturbing lack of arctic ice. In January, there was a record setting amount of missing ice in the Arctic, about twice the size of Texas. In the summer, more heat is absorbed by the ocean, which releases in the fall, warming the air above and causing the high pressure. Ocean temperatures are well documented to influence weather patterns, such as the El Nino events, or even hurricane patterns in the Atlantic ocean. And most weather researchers are laying the blame of the lack of arctic ice right at the feet of global warming.

This weather pattern has been breaking down the last couple of weeks, as low pressure is forming in the arctic, creating more sea ice, keeping the cold air locked in the polar vortex. It may be that the groundhog was correct, and our exceptionally snowy and cold winter may be coming to an end.

There is a lot more to snow sculpting than meets the eye. Our department does quite a few things, but probably one of the most unusual is making giant blocks of snow for the annual Winter Carnival snow sculpture contest.

Not this year, obviously, but some years the primary ingredient can be a little tricky. I’ve heard stories of past years: hauling snow from breadloaf, or moving it from Kohn Field. This year, we merely pushed snow up in piles right out in the quad near where we need them. Didn’t even have to push from any sort of distance.

We start with the box itself. Hopefully you’ll get a feel for the size from the picture-it’s about 7′ tall and about 6′ wide. 4 panels mate together, and then are held by ratchet straps.

We then start some mixing. Yes, with a backhoe. We’re talking quite a bit of snow here. By adding water to a fluffy snow it packs better, like the perfect snowman snow you used to wait for growing up. We blend it until it is about the consistancy of mashed potatoes. Some years this part of the process is miserable, what with the cold and all. This year, the day started in the teens, but quickly warmed into the upper 30′s.

Next, we start adding the snow to the molds. I’ve always been a big fan of the power of hydraulics, never more so than figuring out how to get several yards of snow 8 feet up in the air.

The snow gets placed into the molds in what civil engineers call ‘lifts’, or many individual layers each compacted to remove air pockets. This is a pretty important step. We work about 1′ of snow at a time, and carefully fill the edges of the crate, and use a tamper across the entire surface. Student volunteers are very helpful at this stage-that’s Grace (I never got her last name), she’s the organizer of the competition this year, working with Brian Paquette from our landscape department. And yes, that’s me behind the camera, not avoiding work, I took the next turn.

We fill the boxes to the top, wait for them to set up for a little bit, then take the ratchet straps off and move the contraption to the next location. This year we made 5 snow cubes, as only 5 teams entered. Then, later during winter carnival, the students have at it. We supply shovels, ice scrapers, and other implements of mass destruction.

Here’s one of the teams. Like I said, it was warm that day. This team wouldn’t tell me what they were making at the time. I had no idea the competition was so cut-throat. I came back briefly to campus over the weekend to photograph the finished sculptures, and, like most years, was impressed by the creativity. I never seemed to have progressed past snowman, or feeling expansive occasionally, snow fort.

This was what the team above made, couch and tv set. I’m hoping the antenna for the tv came from the ground, not a live tree.

One of my kids liked the ice cream cone best. It was about 10 degrees outside when taking this picture, so maybe this inspiration came from the middle 50′s of the previous day.

I liked the idea of the mini-Mead Chapel right below the larger version.

We don’t know what this is. Cobra head? Squirrel tail? Modern snow?

This was the winner, both by Grace the judge, and by my kids (not that they had any say in the matter.) Wine and cheese, obviously. Pretty cool.

I was introduced to this my first winter at Middlebury, during the Valentine’s day storm of 2007. The roads were impassable- I’d tried with a friend in a four wheel drive truck, and we’d turned around and went back to the college to spend the night. This was no ordinary storm, but a a blizzard, so strong we couldn’t keep up with it, either by shovel, tractor, or plow. The most important work of the night remained, though, so we broke into teams of two or three, shovels and putty knives in hand, and trudged from building to building, closing doors.

A plumber told me Middlebury has 110 buildings. I asked him how many exterior doors were on campus, and got a look like I’d lost my mind. Fire codes dictate at least two per building, and some many, many more, so let’s say there is 500. Most of these buildings are heated centrally with steam, from the Service Building. The operators in there work wonders, 24/7, heating the entire campus. Ever had snow block your main door at your house, preventing it from closing? Even if you don’t notice immediately, I bet you quickly figure it out as the draft quickly goes through the house. Some storms seem block doors better than others. Now imagine if even a couple of doors on campus are like that. The magicians in the heating plant notice. Now imagine those storms where even 10% of the doors are stuck part way open. The steam can’t compete,alarms in the plant go off, and precious steam and heat literally goes out the door.

So we go out, putty knives in hand, cleaning door thresholds, making sure the door is re-sealed against the building. The knives scrape the snow from the threshold, and from the underside of the door. It builds up against the door frame as well. If you’re really unfortunate, or in the right storm, hot air from the building is melting the snow in the way, and it re-freezes to rock hard ice.

We’ll gladly do the shoveling, plowing, and salting. Save us some time, though, and close the door behind you. What, did you grow up in a barn? Snow stuck in the threshold? Grab a knife from the dining hall if you have to, I won’t tell Aunt Des.

Luther reports 11 snow events so far this year, a snow event being one all of facilities needs to respond to. An average winter contains 18 snow events in total. He also states 19 of the last 20 days in January has seen some snow, and 24 of the 31 days in December.

I never got around to posting this, but here’s a great satellite picture of the nor’easter that hit us on January 12. I’ve lost the name of the site it came from, but I remember it’s from the National Weather Service. We’re in a break from snow now, as the bottom seems to be dropping out of the thermometer. Some of the coldest arctic air we’ve seen in 2-3 years is plunging south, so stay warm.

The issue with snow and ice is always one of traction. Getting rid of most of the snow is relatively easy. Shovels, plows, snow blowers, brooms, even backpack blowers are all used, depending on conditions. The challenge in the winter is the last 1/4″ or so, the snow or ice remaining that doesn’t want to go anywhere. The problem is warmth, and the fact that the very first snow that falls on sidewalks or roads bonds to the surface, and can be very hard to scrape away and remove. This is what makes winter treacherous, and what makes walking and driving difficult.

In the past, Facilities Services has used sand, and a lot of it. Spread on top of this bonded snow/ice hard pack, the sand gives traction on top, making the walk or road a little less slippery. Most of the time. Sand comes with costs, though, some obvious, some not so much. Sand use in winter is linked to phosphorous loading in streams, sedimentation buildup in catch basins, retention ponds, and waterways, and even airborne pollution, as the cars and trucks driving across the sanded surface grind the particulates into finer particles and allow them to become airborne. But the worst part of sand? The carbon footprint, not only in spreading a heavy product, but repeated trips to refill, the continual scraping of the surface to try and remove the leftover hardpack repeated over days, and worst of all, the massive amount of work and fuel required in the spring to clean all the sand up. After all that work, there is still snow and ice left on the walk. The sand seems to disappear, moving off the hardpack to the edge, and the walks are slippery again.

The other solution to the ice problem is to get rid of it, frequently by melting it. In a bulk scale, this usually involves rock salt. Ever make homemade ice cream? Rock salt lower the freezing point of ice, so that it stays liquid at a colder temperature, allowing the milk to freeze. Applied to a road, the salt thaws the ice or snow hardpack, where it runs off as water, drying the road. This certainly has it’s problems too, not only in the carbon footprint to get salt across the country, but in effects both in water and soil of excessive salts. There are other ice melter products, from calcium chlorides to magnesium blends used on airport runways, but most bulk applications still rely on plain old salt.

Facilities wasn’t satisfied with sand, as anybody walking across our sidewalks in the past might attest to, but we weren’t sure about salt, not wanting to make an environmentally worse choice. (It’s neck and neck, actually, between sand and salt, if you actually take the time to weigh the pros and cons.) A couple of years ago we started using Ice Ban as a pretreatment. This liquid is the byproduct from food manufacturing (I believe our source is actually from beer), and sprayed on sidewalks and roads before a storm can prevent the dreaded bond from forming, allowing the snow to be completely removed. This is tricky, though, as conditions need to be perfect in order to apply, and this only seems to be about 2/3-3/4 of our snow events. Then we discovered magic.

Magic Salt is ordinary rock salt treated with ice ban, or an equiviant. This agricultural by-prodcut gets sprayed on the salt, turning it brown and giving it a somewhat funky smell. It makes the freezing point of water drop even lower, meaning less treated salt is needed to melt the equivalent amount of snow or ice. Some estimates claim 30-50% less. And much much less sand/salt mix, up to 3 times less. Less product=less carbon. And we’ve got cleaner sidewalks. This is our first year of trying Magic Salt, and so far we’re impressed. But don’t take my word for it, the proof is in the pictures.

Here’s a sidewalk treated conventionally with ordinary rock salt (not by the college). Yes, the sidewalk is clear, but note not only the chunks of excessive salt remaining, but the white residue of the salt on the walk. It’s very easy to over apply salt.

This is one of our walks, treated with Magic Salt. Very clear, but notice there is no excess salt on the surface, and no white buildup of salts on the sidewalk either.

One night this week it snowed on top of cleared sidewalks in the middle of the night, and night time temperatures were in the single digits. Temperatures this cold are below the effectiveness of straight salt, it just won’t melt the snow. The sidewalk above was treated with straight rock salt the day before, and you can see the bond that formed between the walk and the snow. There are footprints in the snow above. Compare it to the the picture below.

This sidewalk was treated with Magic Salt the day before, and, while it has received more foot traffic than the walk above, you can still see how there is no bond formed. Even walking on this sidewalk was more pleasent, and not as slippery as if the snow had bonded down. And with this type of surface we can…

Sweep the walk clear. A broom on one of our tractors came along and in no time at all discovered the bare surface again.

Here’s a slideshow of some pictures of the snow. Click on them for a larger, colder, and slightly more depressing view.

[Show as slideshow]

Snow removal starts several days before the storm, sometimes as much as a week. It’s best to not get surprised by a storm and, while it happens, is rare. The more foreshadowing involved, the better shape we are in handle the storm. So we wait, and watch. Luther Tenny, Assistant Director of Facilities Management, oversees snow removal operations, and lives and breathes the weather forecast all winter long. (And all summer, too, but for golf.) He makes “the call”, and sets the operation in motion.

If conditions are right, the day before the storm we spray an anti-icer called Ice Ban on our roads and walks. It’s a topic for another blog post-suffice to say it prevents the snow from forming a bond with the pavement, and helps clear the ground quickly and easily. The devil is in the aforementioned conditions, so while it’s a useful tool, we don’t apply all the time.

Snow removal gears up at 2 AM, about the time students are wrapping up for the night, and starts with the big iron. A loader, a back hoe, and a single axel tandem truck plow snow on the major arteries of campus. These include Old Chapel Road, Porter Field Road, the Service building, Stewart Hill, CFA, Bicentennial Hall Road, and other places I’m sure I’m forgetting. The early start time ensures when staff start arriving at 4 AM to start their day they can arrive safely, and have a plowed lot to park. It is also nice to have main roads open for not just ourselves, but for the town of Middlebury as well.

At 4 in the morning things get more interesting. 6 snowplows on one ton trucks head out, and start plowing driveways, parking lots, loading docks, and other places too small for the large equipment. I’ll outline a typical route-all of them are about this long. Ready? Emma Willard, both front and rear parking lots. Storrs Ave.-the small faculty staff lot, and hop across the road for the library loading dock while you’re in the neighborhood. 3 South, then Twilight Hall, 125 Main Street (Public Safety), then the Meeker parking lot, then go down South Main Street and do 121, 119, 99/105, 100/102, 104, 106, and 108/110. Now head up Franklin Street, and do The Mill, 91, 115, and 131. Still Snowing? Repeat.

Also at 4 the sidewalk tractors join the fray. 4 people, in a couple of types of tractors, and a Trackless, head out and plow our 10 miles of walkways. In square footage, it’s over 8 acres of mostly concrete sidewalks. All the tractors have a small sander on the rear, spreading sand to keep the walks from becoming too slippery. These operators are really the unsung heroes of the snow removal team. Think of the  first snow of the year, with no snow banks as reference points, and how hard it is to remember not only where the walkways are, but where are the lips, bumps, manhole covers, trash cans, and other obstructions are, and you’ll get a feel for what they are up against.

6 Am comes, and the light is beginning to break. Unless there is a tremendous amount of snow, the sidewalk tractors have opened enough up for the shovel crews to head out in gators to all the buildings. 43 people in facilities, ranging from electricians and plumbers, to floor crew, Recycle center staff, general services, landscapers, and carpenters, to anybody else we can rustle up, load up the gators with shovels, sand, salt, other ice melters, and ice scrapers, and go shovel out all campus buildings on 10 different routes. Not just main entries, but every fire door, wheelchair ramp, garage door, fire escape, basement hatchway, and front and rear door need to be shoveled clear.

On a normal storm, most routes are done by 9:30 or so. Everybody goes back to the service building, cleans their equipment, and scrounges some coffee or hot chocolate. Then they go back to their regular job for the rest of the day.

The landscape crew stays on the snow detail, for a couple of days sometimes.  The sidewalks may need to have snow pushed back more, to make room to push off the next snow. Fire hydrants, oil fill spigots, and propane tanks need to be found and cleared. Unoccupied houses still need to be shoveled, along with decks, plazas, and roofs. Even most of the Bicentennial Hall roof gets shoveled off, with a pair of electric snow blowers, so the building doesn’t fill with fumes, and many shovels. Kohn field is cleared of snow for early spring practices and the track is cleared as well.

On average, snow events number about 15 a year. Even a 1 inch storm demands some response-the tolerance on campus is considerably lower than an average driveway. And come spring, all the sand and torn sod needs to be picked up as well. It’s great fun, actually, being part of such a large team of diverse individuals all coming together to move snow. At least for the first couple of storms…

I’ll fill you in on what you missed. It snowed today, in case you hadn’t noticed. Snow reportsaround us are saying 11-17″ of snow. I’m calling it 14″ on campus, give or take. Truthfully, I’m not really sure. I’ve been shoveling snow all day, and have no idea how much fell. It just kept falling. And falling. The station recorded 1.08″ of precipitation, so it’s an 14:1 snow ratio. That means wet and heavy, a three advil night for many of us in the facilities.

What I am finding more interesting is the storm coming thursday night into friday. The Burlington Office of the National Weather Service is getting all excited in their normally stoic forecaster discussions. We could be in for an unusual storm.  Apparently, a cold front is coming up from Cape Hatteras, and occulding, or combining, with another front  right off the southern New England coast. The pressure with this storm is impressive, and is forecasted to bring strong easterly winds, with gusts of 50-60 MPH, particularly on the western slopes of the Green Mountains. (Breadloaf!) They are comparing this event to a storm on April 16, 2007 where there was damaging winds all along the slopes of the Green Mountains. Some of you may remember this as the Rutland “norricane”, which wiped out approximately2100 trees in the Rutland area. Fortunately, I don’t think we’re looking at much precipitation from this down here in the valleys, or maybe even just rain, as the warm easterly winds mix down. Also, as the weather service points out, rarely do we get significant winds and precipitation at the same time, it is usually one or the other.

For you weather geeks, most of this National Weather service forecasts I get from their forecaster discussion-something I’ve probably mentioned before. I think it’s the way various offices communicate with each other, and share ideas. I think it predates the internet-their straight text product reads like a time when bandwidth was measured in minutes, so you’d better write concise (there is an idea-blogs never would have made it before broadband connections, as idiots like me couldn’t afford to ramble on incoherently). Unabbreviated reads like this, but the weather service has a translation page, or I read it at the Weather Underground.