#2721 "November Singleton Sunset Snow Clouds"

#2721 "November Singleton Sunset Snow Clouds"
10x12 by 0.5 inches oils on smooth panel 

The weather system bringing the first significant snow accumulation of the season was on the western horizon. The centre of the initial system was passing south of Lake Ontario. Thermal troughing would develop over the Great Lakes after the cold air settled into the basin. It looked like the start of winter. There were sure to be snow squalls off the Great Lakes but these would be unlikely to reach as far north as Singleton. 

Those clouds were laden with snow and virga was already wafting toward the ground. The automated software used by short-range weather prediction had been saying that the snow started hours before and was continuing. These packages simply extrapolated the radar patterns and had no way of knowing that the radar echoes were all virga and not snow reaching the ground. Virga is typical when the cold conveyor belt feeding into the system is cold and dry. It was a very chilly day to be outside in the raw easterly wind. 

The snow started overnight and the visibility dropped to less than a kilometre - the first marble point on our shore was obscured by snowfall. A rule of thumb indicated that the snow would accumulate at about a centimetre an hour. 

I measured 9 centimetres of accumulation on cold metal surfaces. The accumulation over concrete and the lawn was closer to 7 centimetres due to the associated melting with the higher heat capacities of those surface types. 

This was the last of the smooth MDF panels that I had prepared. I wanted to do one last sunset on the slippery surface. I included the marble point on the west side of Jim Day Rapids which is something that I do not often do. 

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Warmest regards and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick