Spring

[freddyp]

 Spring must be coming, the sunny, somewhat warm day  today has knocked the snow level in my yard down from 4 feet..... to 3 feet 10 inches.

[Jaws]

One can only hope Spring is around the corner, but I'm not holding my breath, as we've had continuous snow cover on the ground since the beginning of December, IIRC, and that almost never happens. And I don't discount snow in April as I've seen that too.

The recent trend here has been colder than usual for the past 18 to 20 months with last summer the coldest I can remember. Cabin fever is driving me nuts.

[PGTips91]

Spring must be coming, the sunny, somewhat warm day  today has knocked the snow level in my yard down from 4 feet..... to 3 feet 10 inches.

I've never been in snow except for a couple of  times when I went to a ski resort, so it is mainly in pictures that I know it.

I read recently about the way snow tends to persist due to the way it reflects the sunlight and absorbs heat when it melts or sublimates, cooling the remaining snow/ice.

Energy fluxes related to snowmelt

There are several energy fluxes involved in the melting of snow [1]. These fluxes can act in opposing directions, that is either delivering heat to or removing heat from the snowpack. Ground heat flux is the energy delivered to the snowpack from the soil below by conduction. Radiation inputs to the snowpack include net shortwave (solar) and longwave radiation. Net shortwave radiation is the difference in energy received from the sun and that reflected by the snowpack due to the snowpack albedo. Longwave radiation is received by the snowpack from many sources, including ozone, carbon dioxide, and water vapor present in all levels of the atmosphere. Longwave radiation is also emitted by the snowpack in the form near-Black-body radiation, where snow has an emissivity between 0.97 and 1.0.[2] Generally the net longwave radiation term is negative, meaning a net loss of energy from the snowpack. Latent heat flux is the energy removed from or delivered to the snowpack which accompanies the mass transfers of evaporation, sublimation, or condensation. Sensible heat flux is the heat flux due to convection between the air and snowpack.

The good news is that Spring will eventually arrive ...

that means that the inverse will apply to me, here in the antipodes, Autumn is on its way ...


Paul

[freddyp]

I've never been in snow except for a couple of  times when I went to a ski resort, so it is mainly in pictures that I know it.

I wish I could say the same.....Here's a pic out of my back window a couple of weeks ago and one of my car the day I went in the ditch and the snow fried my alternator.

The past few days have been very sunny and in the 40's and 50's.................Yee Haw

[Jaws]

You must be good luck Freddy, posting the Spring topic. Been close to sixty here for a couple of days and then it rained today, again in the fifties.

Almost all the snow is gone, but my sump pump is working like crazy, kicking in every few minutes.

Cheers

[rji]

I wish I could say the same.....Here's a pic out of my back window a couple of weeks ago and one of my car the day I went in the ditch and the snow fried my alternator.

That's not that bad.  At least you didn't lose power for several weeks of subzero temperatures after a blizzard, like the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota.

Edit:  typo 

[rnojonson]

Hi folks, I live just west of the bermuda triangle in Ohio (Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus) at the north apex. We had two sunny days above 50 degrees. I was forced to get on the bike and absorb the vitamin D. There was not one car on the road with the windows up. If that's not a sign of spring, I don't know what is.