Some of our winter weather is controlled by a weather oscilliation know as the North Atlantic Oscilliation, or NAO. This is defined by the difference in atmospheric pressure between an area above Iceland and above the Azores. Ordinarily, low pressure in the winter sits over Iceland, and high pressure over the Azores, and this creates […]…Continue Reading This Winter, explained.
Tag: Weather
Putty Knives
A couple of storms ago, I caught myself absentmindedly sticking our most important snow fighting tool into my pocket, and it occurred to me I’d left it out of the list of techniques and equipment I’ve written about in the past. Yes, for some storms, the most important tool in our kit seems to be the lowly putty knife. […]…Continue Reading Putty Knives
Snow Days
Luther Tenny (Facilities Snow Guru, and master of the Snow Plan) keeps much better track of snow storms than I. The weather station down at the track records liquid precipitation year round, thanks to a small heater melting snow in the rain guage. This has recorded .91″ so far in January, compared to 1.35″ to […]…Continue Reading Snow Days
Magic (Salt)
We’ve had quite the snow week, even though it rapidly disappeared in the rain Sunday. I’ve written about how we remove snow in the past, it’s one of my favorite posts. And what I said certainly still holds true, that a job well done means that no one really noticed we did anything at all. […]…Continue Reading Magic (Salt)
New Breadloaf Weather Station
Thanks to Environmental Council, Facilities Services has installed a second weather station, this one up at Breadloaf campus. It’s hanging on the side of the Laundry shack, next to the really cool old telephone booth. We use weather information from the station on main campus all the time, from worrying about snow removal to tracking […]…Continue Reading New Breadloaf Weather Station
What a Storm
“No enemy but the weather, and the wind, the wind, the wind.” Michael Carey, from “The Thing about Farming”, The Noise the Earth Makes. We had some wind yesterday. I’m thinking you noticed. Peak wind gust at our Middlebury College Weather Station was recorded at 51 mph, but what I found most impressive was the sustained wind […]…Continue Reading What a Storm
Lightning Strike
Our wild and crazy summer weather here at Middlebury continues, this time with a tree being struck by lightning. (Side note to the faithful readers out there. I feel for you-has this blog been getting depressing lately? With vandalism, more vandalism, storms, more storms, even still more storms, and disease, it seems like the Middlebury Landscape […]…Continue Reading Lightning Strike