Wait and See

When I had my babies I did not find out their sex before giving birth.  I’m a “wait and see” kind of gal and love a good surprise.  I’m not going to lie; I have been snooping around the extended forecasts, looking for confirmation of A BIG SNOW WINTER.  I’ve looked  at the charts, trends, OLRs, NOAs, OAs and sunspots and all I can really tell you, is that is too early to tell. It is fun to speculate but we are going to have to wait and see.

Most forecasters are confirming an El Nino and the possibility of a weak El Nino bringing more precipitation to the East Coast.  The white precip, right?  Lacking a solid forecast I turn to the power of positive thinking, something skiers are very good at.  If I had a dollar for every time I would see one of you on the hill last year and you’d say something like, “Did you see the forecast – snow next week!”  And I was right there with you, holding out for the mega storm.

I like to see the positive side of things and I like to look at problems as a chance to improve the current situation.  But don’t get me wrong, I don’t snort rainbows 24-7.  I can be as cynical as the next.  And while I step into “whiny Kelly” for a moment, can I say that the number of inspiration posts on facebook is starting to have the reverse effect on me.  They are supposed to give me a lift and now every time I see one I think, “I know, I know – stop reminding me!”

 

Sorry for the detour – had to get that off my chest. 

With little meteorological science to rely on, I am going with my gut when I say that I am  confident that we are headed into a snowy VT winter.  We certainly deserve a good winter after enduring Irene and one of the weirdest seasons on record.  Last season, our largest single-day dump was 15” on Oct 29.  On February 29 – March 3 we received 22” over the 4 days.  The cruel thing about the October snowstorm is that it set optimists up for, what we believed would be, an amazing year.  We ended the season with tropical weather and 100 inches total snowfall, about 45 inches below a “normal” year.

Believe it or not, last year wasn’t Mount Snow’s lowest snowfall on record.  In 1979-80, 97 inches was recorded.  I was also able to find a rebound trend that was kind of interesting.  I looked at the lowest snowfall years on record and the year following.

 1991-92               102”

1992-93                234” (most on record dating back to 77-78)

 

1994-95                116.5”

1995-96                222”

 

1999-00                137.5”

2000-01                224”

 So let’s hear it for those good ole’ Southern Vermont Mother Nature rebounds and set our sights on 200+ inches of fabulous, powdery, mind-boggling snow, this year.   If you have any top-secret weather intel or predictions, please share.  Me, I am just going to kick back and wait and see.

Tiny URL for this post: http://tinyurl.com/9afh7de