November 14, 5-am
....say hey.....the
www.waterville.com has done turned on their sno-maker and the white stuff is gently drifting across the High Country slope, up at about 3600-3800ft elevation. Just don't believe that stuff that says WV is a 4000 foot high ski area, because it ain't. The ski area is built on White's Peak, and it gets up to about 3800' as opposed to the 4000' as promoted and advertised since 1966. Mt Tecumseh is 4002' high, making it one of the shortest of the 48 4000' mountains in NH, but the ski area don't go up to the top of Mt Tecumseh. Down here at 1800', my thermometer says it is 21-degrees. This is the first time the sno got turned on this season, and it well could be that last night was the first hardcore, killer-diller frost, cold enough to make all the well-kept, green golf course grass go dormant.
So, who knows, maybe the ski area will actually be open on this Saturday, Nov 17?
.........
... meanwhile, about 24-hours later on Nov 15.....apparently they just left the sno-guns or sno-wands running all day yesterday, throughout the above freezing temps of the daylight hours and never turned the High Country sno system off; above 32-degrees, what comes out is water, and below 32-degrees, what comes out is man-made sno; the laws of physics still apply, even to a Sununu ski area. The sno-system is still running and the High Country area is looking all very white, so I suspect that WV-High Country, one 400'-long slope, way up top the hill, will be open on Saturday, November 17, just like it says in their website.
My thermometer now says 20-degrees.
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Sunday, Nov 18 ..........it's a pretty big surprise to me how good the sno-making at WV has been going since it started last Wednesday.......it's 18-degrees now here outside my window at 1800' and looking at the ski area, the High Country is all very white.....and it looks like there's sno-making on the Tippie Canoe trail....probably to open up the North Side lift next. Everywhere else in sight....mountains....Mt Osceola, Noon Peak, Mts Tripyriamid, Mt Tecumseh, Jennings Peak, Green Peak, Snows Mountain, Flat Mountain......no snow no-where.....everything natural is all is looking sunny, dry and the beige-brown-greens of November......but no natural snow on the ground anywhere......in years past....it was standard procedure for the Valley to be totally white with a snow cover from November 8 to March 8 ....... so you know what, the snow is S-N-O-W W-H-E-R-E ?
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Thursday, Nov 22....taking about a 2 1/2 mile walk earlier this morning that took me.......over the river.....through the woods.....past the golf course.....and up & down the hill....gave me a pretty fair look at the still very green and well-kept grass in the WV 9-hole golf course fairways.....and you know something....the grass there all looks and feels underfoot like it is still alive and growing and not yet to go winter-dormant.....who know's....could be it has something to do with the summer water irrigation system and deep roots and the cold nights-warm days of recent weeks just not having enough cold uumfph to penetrate down into the roots.....because it all looks pretty much green and still alive to me....
At 11:52-am my outside ordinary type of a mercury thermometer, which is in the sunshine, is saying 60-degrees.
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And, at 1:58 it is saying 70-degrees in the direct sunshine......how's about that...... 70-degrees on November 22, 2012.