Researchers Unpack the Complexity of Snow in Vermont

VERMONT | Last summer, in the Jericho Research Forest, Arne Bomblies and his research team were waiting for snow.

“What we’re after is a better predictive model of snow in Vermont and in the Northeast in general,” said Bomblies, associate professor in the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences. “The goal is to ultimately understand how things like trees, slope aspect, elevation, rainfall, and cloudiness impact snow and be able to model that.”

“Snow is critically important to the state and the region,” said Beverley Wemple, a professor of geography and geosciences. “Our winter recreation economy depends on our snowpack. Our winters are shifting rapidly and we need more information about these dynamic changes.”

Long-term observations of snow in Vermont come from various sources, including a network of volunteer observers and notably a measurement station near the summit of Mt. Mansfield.

“The Mount Mansfield snow stake is a critical source of high-altitude snow information, but it records only snow depth. We have no idea how much water that corresponds to and what that means for water runoff or how sensitive the snow is to the sun,” Bomblies said. “Compare that to places in the western United States where they have snow-measuring stations monitoring the full range of winter weather dynamics, including the important snow-water equivalent.”

Bomblies and his team installed sensors to measure wind speed, humidity, temperature, snow density, and water equivalent.

“We’ll be able to directly sense all of the components that make up snow and see how that changes as rain starts to fall or how a particularly sunny stretch affects the snow,” Bomblies said.

The implications of this project are deeply important, not just for snow monitoring but also for snow tourism in Vermont and climate change.

“There’s a growing concern in the Northeast that the warming climate is going to make winter recreation much less available,” Bomblies said. “Vail Resorts has invested money into snowmaking equipment, but sustaining artificial snowmaking in a warming climate will be challenging.”

While overall warming is a worry for snow research, increased weather variability during a winter season has become more drastic and a larger cause for concern.

“It used to be that once it got cold, it stayed cold, with maybe one or two ‘January thaw’ events, commonplace surges in temperature often accompanied with rain,” Bomblies said. “Those have become much more frequent, and it’s one of the features of the changing climate.”

According to the Gund Institute for Environment’s recent Vermont Climate Assessment, the state’s traditional winter season will be shortened by as much as a month in some parts of the state in the future.

“It's certainly a concern around here, what climate change will look like in Vermont, where winter is such an integral component of our identity and livelihood,” Bomblies said. “With data collection starting now, we can improve modeling and follow research projects and help significantly here at UVM.”