I was feeling giddy about the 7 inches of snow we got Monday night. I knew we were going to take a hit on Tuesday with heavy rain, but I figured we would hold on to enough goodness to make this a solid gain for us.
Well, the weather had different ideas. In the time it took me to clean the snow off my driveway, the temperature jumped from the mid-20s to near 40 degrees. This graph tells the story:
That softened the snow and the heavy rain and gusty winds did the rest. That’s how 7 inches of snow gets melted down to a couple inches of glop, with water all over the place.
My mistake was bothering with snow removal this morning, instead of taking my snowmobile out for a spin. It has sit in the garage for almost 3 weeks. Just a brutal winter for sure…
Here is the time-lapsed video of the meltdown:
But seriously though, the snow was melting Tuesday afternoon as fast as it was accumulating early Tuesday. I can’t recall such a dramatic meltdown immediately after a snowstorm in the heart of winter. Totally surreal… I’m just about done waiting for something good to happen.
Weekend Outlook:
Temperatures have dropped below freezing Tuesday night and the bleeding has stopped. In terms of adding moisture content to the trail base, I guess we could say that we added. But it came at a very steep price. We just can’t win this winter.
A deep freeze on Thursday will tighten things back up in the swampy low-lands and on the lakes. If we can score some accumulating snows Friday night, that could grease the skids for some weekend riding. But conditions would be marginal at best and milder temperatures will return for the weekend.
Next Week:
Another opportunity (or tease) lurks on the horizon for Wednesday of next week:
This is a decent set-up, but the lack of a blocking high over eastern Canada or Greenland makes me nervous about the storm taking an inland cutter track like the one we had on Tuesday. But who knows, maybe we get lucky this time…or not:
Even if we get our pot of white gold next week (and keep it for more than a day), the commercial snowmobiling season has been an utter bust. At this point, we can only hope that the page turns for 2016-17.
Until next time…
Darrin
