Weather It Is (A Recap and Looking Forward)

Good Morning:

It's Monday December 16th (two days after my Hebrew Birthday and 11 days before my English birthday -- of 50!).  I grew up in NY and I remember the big snow storms of 1978 last lasted a day and a half.  Ours lasted 3 days (with a break during the day on Friday to prepare for Shabbat).  It was hard to measure the snow exactly, but here in Efrat we had 10 cm on Thursday, cm inches on Thursday night, and 41 cm Friday night into Shabbat morning (for a total of 66 cm).  This works out to about two feet of snow, exceeding by a bit the big storms that I remember from when I was just 15 years old.

Folks say that this storm was as large as or even larger than the ones they remember from 1992, but they also say that back then (when their fathers walked up-hill both ways to school in the freezing cold) that the cold lasted two weeks.

I measured 187.5 mm of rain in the gauge (which is 12 inches in length).  This fell from Wednesday the 6th until the night of the 11th of December. I just melted down one gauge full of snow: it came out to another 87.5 mm. The snow was a bit compact, having sat on the ground for a day or two, so it is hard to know whether I should double this amount (to arrive at 2 feed) to account for the first snow we had that was compacted over the first two days (in retrospect, I probably should have).  So, lets say that we had at least 275 mm of liquid equivalent precipitation, and possibly as much 350 mm.

These amounts (from one storm!) are at least half the winter's "normal" (annual) amount!!!

The temperatures have dropped to freezing again, and we're frozen in -- still waiting for the roads to be cleared. The more snow there is, the harder it is to clear -- it has to be moved and lifted.  Yesterday, it took about half a day to melt the snow in my gauge, even though it was indoors at 70 F.  Yesterday, it reached only into the low 40s.  Yes, the snow will probably disappear over time, and yet, I want to bring to your attention another mechanism for "melting" the snow: it is called sublimation (my wife pointed it out), and you can see the snow evaporating (without melting first) into the dry air just off our porch.  It occurs when the sun heats the snow.

Considering that we are very close to the shortest day of the year (The winter "Solstice"), this snow (unlike late January or February storms) won't be in a hurry to sublimate.  Hence, we'll have to wait for rain to melt the snow (or just warm temperatures).  Temperatures should indeed moderate to more normal levels during the next week or so (and perhaps even above normal).

Speaking of rain, an upper air disturbance should approach in a couple of days, but it will bring only clouds.  Looking head to the end of next week, some light rain is possible as temperatures should remain relatively mild.

In other words, after having had half of winter in a week, we're going to take a break.

Barry Lynn