First snow of the season with my new GPS

Mark the calendar...December 29, 2015 is the first accumulating snow of the 2015-16 winter season here in Sandwich.  I estimate from the windshield of my car this morning that we got about 3/4 of an inch of snow...followed by continuous rain that is still pouring down at noon.  Most of the snow is gone and what is left is slush.  In fact it's been slush since at least 7 am but that didn't stop the boys from running outside as soon as they woke up to go play in it!

I myself am eager to go out and play in it.  I got a present...a new wireless universal GPS receiver!  I am excited to go outside and set up a sampling campaign to measure snow fall.  This first snow is a race against time.  The longer it takes me to set it up the less snow there is left in the yard!  But it will be fun is to use these same sampling locations to measure snowfall totals throughout the season.

Last year we had the biggest and best snow winter that Cape Cod has ever seen (or at least that anyone I talked to has ever seen on the Cape).  I tried to write down snow totals and to take lots of pictures of how high the drifts were or how big the snowplow mountain was after each new snow.  But basically we have NO DATA for the snowiest winter on record; Boston set its all-time snowiest winter record with 110.6 inches!  This year there are mixed predictions.  Some say that it will be even snowier than last year due to El Nino.  Others say that it will be too warm to see much accumulating snow.  Only time (and my diligent sampling of snowfall) will tell.  Here is an article from the Boston Globe with other amateur forecasts Could this be the beginning of another bad winter?  The Globe and I obviously have opposite opinions of what kind of winter is bad or good.  For the purposes of this blog remember that MORE snow = BETTER winter!

I am waiting for the GPS to charge.  While I wait the snow keeps melting sped on by driving rain to the point that there is not much left to measure.  But one great part about myObservatory is that I can still see the changes in pictures.  Here are some images from noon.

All that is left is the slush pile of snow that came off the shed roof and a skim of slush on the porch (and a very muddy white dog who is enjoying himself in the downpours!)  There are spots of snow/slush in the woods that seem protected from the worst pelting of the rain.  And there are giant puddles all over the driveway and yard.


Since I have some time to wait for my new toy I've been putting some more thought into my sampling campaign.  I have decided to do two different sampling campaigns for each snowfall...one will be randomly generated by the sampling campaign feature of myObservatory; the other will consist of specific points that I think will give a good average snowfall for the yard.  Over the past three years living in this house I have watched how the snow drifts around the yard; where it seems to lay in heavy or light; where it seems least touched by dogs and children; where it seems averaged by the expanse of the yard around it.  This is the information that I will use to decide where my non-random samples will be taken.

Update:  Now it is 3 pm.  The GPS has charged!  And...there is hardly any snow left in the yard.  But I refuse to let this stop my good fun.  I set up a new station in the 'Our house' dataset called Snowfall.  I moved my photos from earlier today into the new station.  I am now using the freeform sampling feature in the myObservatory app to take estimated snow depths and photos of any snow left on the property.  In addition to this sampling I will be setting up my regular sampling campaigns so that when the snow flies again I will be ready.  Bring it on Cape Cod winter...The Cape Condons are ready!