Why has Boston had NO SNOW so far this winter?

[Memnoch]

Hmm, I don't like this cold much - it was about 5F here in Boston, with a wind chill of -10. It's too cold to snow then, right?

[Bungleau]

Not quite yet. It all depends on the amount of water vapor in the air.

A google found this:

If you could turn all the water vapor in a volume of saturated frigid air into snow, you would get less snow than if you did the same thing to a volume of saturated chilly air. How much less? A lot less. At 32ºF (0ºC), a cubic meter of saturated air (strictly speaking, saturated with respect to ice) contains about 2.7 grams of water vapor. At 0ºF (-18ºC), it contains six-tenths of a gram (only about a fifth as much as at freezing), and at -40º (on either scale), it contains only 0.07 grams (only a fortieth as much as at freezing). This helps explain why the heaviest snowfalls almost always occur when the temperature is not far from freezing, about 24º to 32ºF (-4º to 0ºC).

So it's not too cold to snow, but the colder it is, the less water vapor is available to become snow.

BTW... it warmed up today. Negative SEVEN.... [img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img] wind chills of "just roll over and die". School was canceled again today...

[Iron Greasel]

It was -37 C here this morning. That's about -35 in Fahrenheit. Do I win?

[Bungleau]

Nope. Not until you get to -40 (-40).

However, I'll quit that game long before I get there. So you win

[Memnoch]

Well, we got our nor'easter today - managed to get about 3 inches of snow here in Waltham, though it looks a bit more for some reason. Initially we were expecting about 6-8 inches but it's apparently turned to sleet or something.

Anyway, it's good to see some white for a change at least. Unfortunately it's supposed to rain later so will probably wash it all away. Maybe I'll move to Alaska or the Yukon or something.

[machinehead]

We have about 8" and it is still coming down hard out this way. You don't have to go to Alaska - just take a drive to the west if you need to see the white stuff.

[ 02-14-2007, 03:09 PM: Message edited by: machinehead ]

[SecretMaster]

Originally posted by Memnoch: Well, we got our nor'easter today - managed to get about 3 inches of snow here in Waltham, though it looks a bit more for some reason. Initially we were expecting about 6-8 inches but it's apparently turned to sleet or something. Anyway, it's good to see some white for a change at least. Unfortunately it's supposed to rain later so will probably wash it all away. Maybe I'll move to Alaska or the Yukon or something.

Same here. Well, we were expecting 4-6 inches and we got 5. Plus they cancelled school for the day, and my job closed for the day. Very very nice. And tomorrow the school has a delayed opening.

However Memnoch, I think if you visited the people in upstate New York around Oswego, I don't think you'd be complaining about snow. They've been pounded week after week with massive blizzards. They have something like over 120 inches of snow on the ground... Street signs are being covered up for the love of nature.

[Chewbacca]

This snow sucks. It was wet and heavy shoveling last night. Today it has froze into a hard like ice state nearly impossible to move. I'm already ready for the thaw!!!!

[Memnoch]

It sucks now because it's frozen solid! Plus the idiots who clear our parking lot just shovelled all the snow so it was piled up against the cars. As my car was the last to leave the lot this morning, every other idiot had piled their snow in front of mine, and needless to say it was frozen solid at that point.

Still, looks pretty, doesn't it.

[Memnoch]

OK, I decided I don't like it anymore now - my scraper broke trying to scrape the ice off my car!