It was bitter cold last weekend at Mad River where my daughter teaches skiing on weekends. -22F Nobody took a lesson but she had to be there for line ups. Occasionally it gets 'Butt Cold' in N VT. I saw -48 once at Jay Peak.
Growing up in the Boston area we played hockey on the lake after school almost every day all winter. Once the ice got thick enough, around this time of year, the town would snowplow one cove after a snowstorm and the fire dept. would hose it down so we would get a nice fresh surface. I can remember playing on 10 deg. days when we all stripped down to T shirts after 1/2 hr. or so to keep from overheating. The T shirts would steam.
"Wind chill is not relevant if you're properly dressed", lol.
Pretty sure the coldest skiing I've ever done was at Mont Sainte Anne back when they still did 24 hr racing. It was -27 F at noon on Saturday and it was -31 at noon on Sunday. No idea what it dropped to overnight, but no one trying to use their bases to glide on could get anywhere.
To add insult to injury, the parking brake cable had frozen in my car. Imagine skiing for 24 hrs then not being able to leave.
Got to remembering that they used to 'harvest ice' on Lake Quannapowitt in my home town, and other lakes in eastern Mass., until the 1930's. I looked up a reference since one can google anything today. http://www.yeoldewoburn.net/Chronwork.PDF
In my childhood in the 50s, the old abandoned icehouse still stood with it's piles of sawdust that had been used to insulate the ice all year. My friends and I used to climb into the rafters and jump into the sawdust piles. They were filled with old rusty nails and other detritus and my activities would always be reported to my mother, usually before I got home. I was known to everyone in town and the mother's informal network was very efficient.
Denis, The coldest I have ever experienced is -48F (not wind chill) on a January Tues. and Wed. nights in Mt. Sutton Canada, probably 35 years ago. The daytime high on Wed, while skiing was -21F. Had to come in after no more than 2 runs to check for frostbite. Had to have my car thawed out, then had an engine block heater installed with the electric cord hanging from under the hood. Thought a knife had penetrated my chest when several of us went outside one evening to help push a snow-stuck car. Never have minded the "cold" since! The Colonel
.... the town would snowplow one cove after a snowstorm and the fire dept. would hose it down so we would get a nice fresh surface. ...
That's awesome. Life in the liability-less past. That's possibly because some of the town staff and fire dept. were hockey players too, and knew how much better they could make it.
Can you imagine Fairfax Co. Fire doing that, and essentially, verifying the safety of everyone?
That's strange. I'm in the valley right now and this morning when I started my car the thermometer read +20. I'd been watching the weather channel in my room at the Blackwater Falls Lodge and they said it was zero at Elkins. I was prepped for that but not so. The temp varied from 16 - 20 as I drove to CV ski area. There was sun until 12 - 1 and south facing slopes were getting snowbally.
This evening I learned that kids in VT had no school today. They weren't worried about the kids, rather the buses wouldn't start.
Temps bottomed out at 2 am then came back up pretty fast in response to a weather system that brought a little light snow to the valley this aft (More fell further north). The coldest air bottomed out in the lowest areas & it was well below 0.
Yeah the extreme temp varitations are strange, but it happens all the time up here. Esepcially in the early mornings when it's "inverted" or whatever the term is for warmer air above colder air or there are pockets of cold air trapped in bottoms...can be seen when all the chimney smoke hugs the valley floor(could be some other technical event terminology but everyone around here calls it inversion). I talked to about a 1/2 dozen folks who live on the valley floor yesterday who had anywhere from -10 F to -20 F...most of the lower numbers where on cortland road. I talked to someone from Red Creek who had 4 F, someone in strign town who had 8F, my girlfriend said it was about 10F in the heights and 14F in Davis when it was still reading -15 at Cluss lumber on Cortland Road right before the sun came up. 30 F feels like a heat wave this morning. I also know places/slopes in the valley where I would wager it snows probably 20-40 % more then the recorded averages.
