Graupel Strikes Again!

I posted this on Facebook:

You know I’m still enthralled with snow and almost all winter precipitation in Maine. You can keep the ice but then again how would I have ever met graupel if I hadn’t moved here. Yesterday morning there was a brief bit of precipitation. It looked like graupel to me until I looked more closely. Check out the Star of David-shaped bits of frozen water!





























And got this cool reply from a friend:

These photos made me think of this verse:
 Job 38:22
“Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail,”

What is that wintry precipitation??

This is the weirdest precipitation. It consists of tiny little white balls that melt pretty much on contact but are very cold. They look like Styrofoam pellets. Is this miniature hail? (Very elusive; hard to photograph. Ignore the dirty car in the background and look at the bottom of the window. I took the picture from inside my car looking at the stuff on the outside ledge of my car with the dirty car in the parking spot next to me.)

I really wanted to know what it was so I went to the ultimate source: Facebook. Here's the ensuing conversation:

From a friend in Colorado: We get those here too. I know, they are weird.
From my cousin in Florida: Looks like hail to me?
I reply: It's softer than hail. It's like a tiny snow ball. 
From a friend here in Farmington: Sleet
I reply: It doesn't look like any sleet I've ever seen before. Too dry...sleet is icier and wetter in my experience. Now I'm going to have to look up the science of sleet to see how one word can encapsulate two such different things!
From a friend in Texas: This is why Scandinavian countries have a dozen different words for all the different types of snow.
Tomorrow, I leave for Galveston with the Butterfly Friends. One of them replies: Galveston is going to feel so good!   
Next comes a URL from a Farmington friend: The pic isn't good, but from your description and photo - and they aren't that unusual here. smile emoticon https://www.washingtonpost.com/.../graupel-the-wintry.../ 

From that website:
When you think of wintry precipitation, you probably think of snow first. Then sleet, and maybe freezing rain. But it’s likely that the word “graupel” doesn’t come to mind.

Graupel, which is a kind of hybrid frozen precipitation, is sometimes referred to as “snow pellets.” The National Weather Service defines graupel as small pellets of ice created when super-cooled water droplets coat, or rime, a snowflake.

Graupel pellets are cloudy or white — not clear like sleet — and often are mistaken for small hail. The most critical necessity for the formation of graupel is extremely cold air at the cloud level. This creates the super-cooled water (liquid water that exists below the freezing point), which adheres to the snowflakes.

A capped snowflake under a microscope, which shows rime on both ends. (U.S. Department of Agriculture)

Then she posted this photo which looks just like what I saw:

What's wrong with this picture?

Snow makes a driver do funny things. Parking on Broadway in Farmington is usually head-in angled, not parallel. But with so much snow piled on the side of the road from the plowing (and because it hasn't been removed yet), parking has switched.

Surviving Nemo

View from my apartment door on Thursday Feb. 7, 2013 around 1:30 in the afternoon.

 View from my apartment door less than 48 hours later on Saturday Feb. 9, 2013. And this time, I could barely get the storm door open 'cuz the snow had drifted up against it. (I just opened it far enough to stick my arm out and take the pic.) We actually only received about 7" here in Farmington. The further east and south you went, the more snow they got.

"There's got to be a morning after..." And fortunately it's often sunshine and beauty for us. And all our snow was light and fluffy so shoveling was pretty easy, too.

 

Maine Awnings

Sue's neighbor sent her this photo. It's a picture of Sue's house as seen from the neighbor's yard. This is called a "Maine awning." It looks like an awning protecting the porch from sunshine . . . until you look closely and realize that's snow that has slowly slid off the roof but stayed together as one giant sheet of frozen something and it's just hanging there. How does it do that??

Recycled Sled Contest

I saw this sign in the stairwell of my building last week.

Somehow I missed the first one last year, but I decided to attend this year! It was attended by a small but creative group of students. Here you can see two students riding their recycled sled down the hill by the amphitheatre (behind the student center).

I believe this is the sledder who used a snow shovel for her sled (the body in the foreground is a photographer).

This was constructed from a box that a mini-fridge came in (a dorm-sized refrigerator). That's a beaver (UMF's mascot) on it. One sledder used this as a sled with the beaver on the front and didn't get very far but the next sledder used the same sled but turned it 180 degrees and put the beaver on the back and was quite successful!

Cookies, music, warm beverages, and prizes -- it was quite a successful and very fun event.

Resident Sand

I saw this area and the sign in the parking lot at Deering Oak Park. This raises so many more questions for me than it answers. I can guess, but I really don't know.

WinteRush

When I went to pick up the candidate at The Comfort Inn, I arrived earlier than we had planned, so I hung out in the lobby. I watched the news while I waited--that's a rare treat for me since I don't have any television reception in my apartment and I refuse to have cable. The ending story was on WinteRush in Portland. They were interviewing a team that was doing a snow carving and told of all the fun family activities that would be in Deering Oaks Park that day. It looked like fun but I didn't think much more about it until I happened to drive by Deering Oaks Park. So I pulled over and found a parking spot and checked out the snow carvings. Pretty fun!

After I voted for my favorite (I'll never tell which one), I headed back to my car and ran into Marisella, a friend from UMF! It was so great to see her. She was there with her family. Her little one had done the sledding on the hill and also the "book trail". There's a children's book about snowshoeing and they had made an enlargement of each page (poster-sized) and put them all around the park. The kids borrowed the snow shoes provided and followed the trail, stopping to read the book at each station along the trail. There were also snowball fights and hula hoop contests and many other fun events planned.

Sunshine 'n Snow

This is what I love about winters in Maine . . . sunshine and snow. Cold weather without humidity and without wind. It's the best!

Big Snows

It hasn't been much of a winter so far. Titcomb Mountain didn't even get to open until January 8 and missed the whole winter vacation opportunities. But we are making up for lost time, now. These are snow pics from February 2nd and February 5th. About 3 inches fell on February 1st, starting in the late afternoon. By 6am on the 2nd, the University announced it was closed for the day. Many more inches fell on Groundhog's Day. Below is a lazy person's version of time-lapse photography. Every couple of hours, I stuck my head out the door to the apartment and snapped a photo. You can't really tell much unless you look at the garden wall in the lower left corner of the picture. There's not much of it to see with all the snow, but as the day progresses, there's even less of it to see.

Photo 1: Feb. 2nd at 9:40am

Photo 2: Feb. 2nd at 11:20 am

Photo 3: Feb. 2nd at 1:20 pm

Photo 4: Feb. 2nd at 3:10pm

Photo 5: Feb. 3rd at 8:00am

Photo 6: Feb. 6th at 8:00am

XC x 2

I went cross country (xc) skiing again tonight! It was a balmy 23 degrees tonight . . . 4 degrees warmer than last night. There was only 1 "customer" out skiing when I arrived. The two staff members on duty were a student named Natasha and Leigh. Leigh is an amazing woman who headed up UMF's nationally famous Ski Industries program at UMF for many years. Her office is on the second floor of the Education Center with mine and I've really enjoyed getting to know her this past year.

I explained what a rookie at all of this that I was and I knew from a conversation with Leigh earlier in the week, that Natasha was a really good cross country instructor. I got my equipment and was getting ready to head out, uncertain if I was going to have the great personal service from the night before or if I was on my own. Suddenly, Leigh is by my side ready to go. Oh my goodness!! I got really good coaching last night, but tonight, I had my own private ski lessons from a gifted teacher. About every fifteen minutes as she would find a way to explain the subtleties of what I needed to do next to REALLY cross country ski (and not just "get around" on skis, or as I called it, cross country walking), I would have to stop and just say, "Leigh, as a fellow educator, I gotta tell you that you're phenomenal!" It was such a treat to be in the presence of an amazing teacher and I had to pinch myself as I realized I was having the privilege of being the student! I learned so much that night. I was able to build on the confidence and balance I had gained the night before, but I leaped forward about 9 weeks of personal coaching in this one night. I ached from using muscles that have never flexed before but I not only understood what to do, I could feel when I was doing it and when I wasn't, I knew how to correct it. Wowser, was it awesome.

Thank you, Leigh!!! Thank you UMF for arranging for this equipment loan and providing this week of free skiing and coaching!!!

Cross Country Skiing

UMF is hosting a week of cross country skiing. They got a big trailer full of equipment from some association that promotes winter sports in Maine. So M, W, F they're offering cross country skiing from noon to 1:30 and M, T, W, Th they're offering it from 6 to 8pm (headlamps provided). And on M and W nights, they're offering clinics for newbies from 6 to 7.

I was aiming for the 6pm clinic tonight but didn't realize how long it would take to put on all those layers, so I didn't get there until 6:20. I was their first customer of the evening. Jim, who runs the Fitness and Recreation Center, and Lucas, a senior political science/geography major, were in the trailer just waiting for me. :-) They were both incredibly patient and they were really good teachers. They got me all outfitted with boots, skis, poles, and a headlamp. Since no one else was there, they decided to both go with me! Talk about special attention! I started out slow and uncertain and did "a lot of rookie moves" but as the time wore on, I got better and more certain. It was pretty fun!

Around 7:00, two UMF students came to ski. One of them had been there both M and T nights. I guess the temperature (18 degrees F) and the falling snow might have scared people off, but there was no wind and it was not very humid. I was appropriately layered in my clothing (on top I had silk long johns, a long sleeved t-shirt, a sweatshirt, a hoodie, and a windbreaker with a hood . . . that's a lot of layers!). But I actually brought an additional layer (a big thick jacket) and didn't need it. It was quite pleasant. I was never cold.

I've only been cross country skiing one other time . . . three years ago when I first moved here, MRM took me to Titcomb. That was a fabulous introduction and tonight was a great re-introduction. Now I've gone twice and I think I'll go again tomorrow. w00t!

Home again home again jiggity jog

I had the chance to spend 6 days in Denver over this winter break. Well, it was supposed to be 6 . . . One of several really big snowstorms hit Boston the day before I was supposed to return. I called Southwest Airlines to say my schedule was flexible and I'd be happy to swap my ticket for a later date if they would do it at no extra charge. And they did. So I left 48 hours later than originally planned and had a delightful 2 extra days in Denver.

Now that Southwest flies out of Boston, I always double check fares out of both Boston and Manchester. When I fly out of Manchester, parking is $8 a day. When I fly out of Boston, if all goes well, I can take a bus out of Portland for $26 one way that takes me right up to the Southwest terminal and I can park my car at the Portland bus station for $3 a day. Even better is if I can take the bus out of Augusta which is 45 minutes of drive time instead of 2 hours and the parking is free, but so far that infrequent bus schedule hasn't suited my flight times. But on this trip, Boston (and all the accompanying expenses) was cheaper than Manchester and I do enjoy not having to drive those last 2 hours but instead sit on a bus with free wifi, electrical outlets on every row, and a movie on the little screens overhead. And on this last ride, they offered bottled water and pretzels. :-)

So the storm left Boston incapacitated on Wednesday and I wasn't scheduled to fly out until Thursday. But the idea of sitting around an airport uncertain of take off or landing and hanging out with people who'd been stranded in the airport for 24 hours with even greater uncertainty did not appeal to me. And I figured someone who couldn't fly out on Wednesday would be thrilled to have my seat on Thursday. I did double check the flight status: my scheduled flight left Denver 9 minutes late and arrived in Boston 7 minutes early, so I would've been fine in my travels. But the only reason I was heading back Thursday was to attend a meeting on Friday that didn't happen, so I could easily justify returning later.

I lucked out with the way the winds drifted the snow after the big storm and before I arrived. Here's my car in the parking lot in Portland. I don't think Portland received as much snow as Boston (probably only 1 foot compared to Boston's 2 feet), but it still could've been a problem. As you can see, I didn't even have to brush the snow off my car. And that pile of snow in the back of my car would have daunted me 4 years ago and I would've used the shovel that I keep in the trunk of my car to move that snow. But nowadays I'm less daunted and sure enough, I pulled right out of that spot over that little bank. There was a car parked in the fire lane behind me which made negotiating the departure a little tricky, but I even handled that like a pro and left the Portland bus station just as the new snow was falling for the next storm.

3/14/09 What's on the horizon?

Today I went to the "Town Transfer Station" (can you say "The Dump"?) to drop off my recycling. If you look at the top part of this photo, you can see that even the dump has a gorgeous view. It doesn't matter where you are, there are mountains and trees and beautiful sky in your view. Now look at the bottom half of the photo and you'll see what mud season is all about. When you get a lot of snow in the winter, it melts in the spring, often before the ground is unfrozen, so the water can only soak so far down and then it just sits on top and makes mud. Lots of mud. But if it's mud season now, spring can't be far behind!

3/12/09 Moonlight Snowshoeing

The Fitness and Recreation Center (FRC) at UMF offered a free opportunity to community members: Moonlight Snowshoeing. I signed up! The event was postponed from its original schedule due to inclimate weather so we went on Thursday night instead of Tuesday night. The sky was clear but it was a bit nippy (13 degrees when we arrived, 9 degrees when we left--that's 23 degrees colder than the temperature at which water freezes). We met at the Fitness Center, had our snowshoes issued to us, and got in the van. There were only 11 of us, and I actually knew 6 of my fellow snowshoers! Three were former students, one was the brother of a former students, one holds the record for most appearances in my class videos than any other non-class member, and the other is the friend of a faculty friend whom I had met at a party.

We drove about 20 minutes from campus to the home of the director of the FRC. He lives on a lake and has his own snowshoe trail! There wasn't any moonlight, but it was a beautiful clear dark night. So it started out as "Starlight Snowshoeing". We used flashlights and it was actually very fun. The trail was easy to follow, even by flashlight. About halfway through the hike, the moon started to rise. It was gorgeous. The rest of the hike was by moonlight! And there was hot chocolate for all at the end. I tried to take photos of the moonrise but my camera wouldn't work. I got one faint message about needing to replace the batteries (which was odd because they were just fine earlier in the evening) and then nothing. Later that night, in the comfort of my own apartment, I took out the camera to see what was wrong and it worked just fine. I think it was so cold out there that my camera wouldn't operate! I've read that warning on technology before but I've never worried about it before. Wow. It was actually so cold out there tonight that either my camera or my batteries (or both) wouldn't function.

For me personally, I had a very hard time snowshoeing in weather that cold. Being out of shape didn't help but having subfreezing air in your lungs makes it very hard for oxygen to get to all the places it needs to get. At one point, I didn't think my lungs were going to work anymore, even going slow didn't help! Fortunately, it was only when we were going uphill. Flat land and downhill were manageable. And the trail was a nice mix with most of the uphill at the beginning. I don't want to admit that it might have been because almost everyone on the trip was half my age. I'm still 21 so it can't be that! There were three FRC employees in the group and they spread themselves out throughout the crowd. In the second half, Jennifer, the Aquatics Director just hung out with me and we stayed waaaaay behind the rest of the group. ;-) She's a very patient woman. The consistently slower pace along with the more even slope helped a lot. I felt badly for her but I had a blast. I just hope she wasn't looking for any kind of workout.


Here we are helping each other put on our snowshoes (well, I didn't help anyone...I didn't know what I was doing).




















These two photos were taken for Alison, my friend who introduced me to David, shown in these photos. She encouraged him to come and even 2 hours earlier they were on the phone and as far as he knew, she was planning to go. But she didn't show. That's okay, we had a great time anyway. Sorry to miss you Alison!!

2/26/09 Snowbound Hoedown

Now you can't get much better than this for a student event on campus. I received this notification via email today:

Make a Snow Sculpture! Win a Prize!

Snowbound Hoedown

Snow Sculpture Competition

Friday, February 27th 8:00 am-5:00 pm in the Mantor Library Green area

Awards Reception 5:00-6:30 pm at the UMF Art Gallery

Hot Drinks, Cool Music, Great Prizes!

Sponsored by The Ministry of Experimental Arts

This contest is open to the public.
Register at VAPA office in Merrill or in front of Mantor Library.