Just How Cold Has It Been?

hen it comes to most weather variables, it is always best to take a step back and look at the big picture to determine if recent weather has truly been extreme in any particular way. For Mount Washington and much of the east coast, November started out warm. Over the past week, that has changed and now it has been cold. In fact, I have heard a lot of people I know say it is 'very cold'. So as I often do in my blog, let's take that step back and look at the big picture to see if it really has been 'very cold'.

Obviously, one of the best ways to do this is to look at what the temperature has been lately and compare that to what would be considered average. Before I go any further, here is the link to our website where you can look at the very same data I am to write this blog. From there, you can choose to look at the F6 from this month like I am, or if it interests you, you can look at past data too. The F6 is a form used by weather stations across the country to summarize climate data for a month at a time.

Anyways, looking at the last 7 days, November 17-23, temperatures have been 12, 18, 20, 21, 22, 25, and 24 degrees BELOW normal. Now I had written that the warm temperatures at the beginning of the month were significant, well, these temperatures are certainly even more significant on the other end of the spectrum. To continue to put this into perspective, on November 8, the summit was sitting at 11.1 degrees above normal for an average temperature. As of today, we are now 0.4 degrees below average for the month. That is a huge change to say the least!

So, I think that it is fair to say after looking at all this that, yes, it has indeed been 'very cold'.

Moving on to a different topic: the impending storm. I briefly mentioned this in my entry a couple days ago and now that we are much closer to the event, details are becoming more clear. Well, at least some things are becoming more clear. I certainly have no doubt that a significant amount of moisture is coming with this storm. Water equivalents of several inches is on its way, it's just a matter of what form all that water falls as. On the summit itself, precipitation is going to remain frozen or freezing for the entire event since temperatures will not rise above the freezing mark. The first batch of precipitation will fall as all snow. Then sometime later tomorrow or early Thanksgiving Day, a surge of warmer air will likely change snow over to a messy mix for a time, then back over to snow again as cold air returns on the backside of the storm. For valley locations around Mount Washington, I think there will be a period of plain rain with this storm, especially south of Mount Washington. However, just like on the mountain, there will be snow on the front and back side of the storm.

I am hoping that this storm can help get the summit closer to the average snowfall for the month of November of 40.8 inches. Right now, we are at 23.3 inches. Bottom line with this storm, whether on the summit or in the valley: it's going to be a mess.