The snow total on Black Cat was 8.7 inches. It changed to sleet at 8 a.m. and then to freezing rain around 10. It has been freezing rain ever since. The trees and power lines are now totally coated.
I just got off the phone with the NWS-Gray who told me they're getting more reports of power outages. However, the observer in Wolfeborough told them that it started raining so heavy that it was knocking the ice off of things (it takes a lighter rain to freeze more, or else the force of the rainfall will bust up the ice buildup.)
The temperature is 30 degrees and we're not likely to see it go up much for several hours. The saving grace with this storm is that the air is a bit warmer where the rain is coming from, so it's not freezing as quickly as it could. Also, the snow was mostly powder, so the trees didn't get cemented over before the changeover.
The snow is now cement, though. I'm glad I got the major shoveling done before the changeover, because the parts I left for 'after breakfast' made me feel like a contestant on 'America's Biggest Loser.' Any roads that still need plowing will now require bigger equipment - this stuff is full of water now.
Snowpack here is now 32 inches. As I mentioned in a few days ago, we've had a lot of water come down from the sky as snow and most of it is still on the ground. The reason the snowpack isn't higher is because it's constantly compacting down on its own weight. Today's water content is an inch and a half. My guess is that what's on the ground now has water content that easily surpasses the rainfall of the May 2006 flood. If what's on the lake ice melted quickly (ONLY what's on the lake ice) the water level would rise about 4-5 inches. Now add runoff from the mountain snowpack, the islands, and shores... inflow from rivers... you do the math.
When I posed this curiosity to the NWS a few minutes ago he said they were beginning to look at the situation. Next week, he said a hydrologist will be testing the snowpack in various places to measure its water content. This, in turn, will help the Northeast River Forecast Center in Taunton MA to start crunching the numbers for spring flood potential. As long as the weather stays cold enough to give us powder snow, doesn't rain, and spring comes very slowly over a period of several weeks, we should be fine.
The season snow total is now 89.1 inches. The first half of February has brought us 31.6 inches, and February's precipitation total (melted snow, rain, etc. is 3.96"
More info on today's storm is on
www.blackcatnh.com/weather.