Still Snowing
Today is a week of bad weather. Despite the cancellations on Saturday night we had two unexpected guests, a dentist and a veterinarian from the Bologna area. Needless to say they didn’t make it very far up the Grandes Jorasses and they were back in bed when we got up in the morning. It has been snowing lightly for three days. Last night the temperature dropped to almost -3°C (26.6°F). To convert from degrees Celsius to degrees Fahrenheit you follow the very simple formula: °C9/5+32=°F. I’ll let you use the new formula to figure out the daytime temp which has rarely gone above 3°C. Most of our thermometers are in Celsius. The only thermometer we have in °F is our meat thermometer, which I bought in the US because here in Italy they cost a fortune.
Yesterday was over a week that I had had a shower. Friday is usually my shower day but the weather was nasty so I postponed it. Despite the flurries and near freezing temps, it looked like it might clear up enough to get a shower and wash some laundry (see lead photo). To take a shower involves converting our [Turkish] outhouse into a shower stall. When we started taking care of Rifugio Boccalatte we had the grand idea of bringing up a solar shower. Little did we know, at the time, how long it would take to get the water in it warm enough to take a shower. Using the meat thermometer, I determined that the water coming from the kitchen tap was hovering right around 32°F. Any colder and it wouldn’t be flowing. I also determined, using the meat thermometer, that water boils at 194°F which is 16° lower than at sea-level which explains why our pasta is always mushy. So we have bypassed the solar part of the shower and just pour hot water into the thing and hang it in the outhouse. Not all that bad actually. The rooms is small enough that if the water is hot enough it warms up the whole room and you can see the steam coming out of the cracks around the door.
Doing laundry involves a similar procedure: warming water to soak the clothing then warming more water to wash the stuff by hand a few hours later. Usually we rinse using cold water but judging by the temperature of the water from the tap I figured that, with a little sun, they might dry quicker if I used hot water. The opening in the clouds was only fleeting and they froze solid in less than 5 minutes out on the line. I moved them inside near the heater where they are still hanging damply.
It snowed lightly most of the day yesterday and most of the night last night. We woke to more snow than usual and my morning was once again punctuated by clearing off the snow from the solar panels. I have been reading The Avalanche Handbook so I can report with relative certainty that the snowfall we have been receiving is in the form of graupel. Graupel is formed when a formed snow crystal is forced up and down through super-cooled water, which accumulates on the crystals in a process called riming. We have actually been able to witness the formation of graupel right before our eyes! The valley temps are considerably warmer due to the relatively sunny weather compared to the foggy/cloudy conditions here at 2803m. This warm air forces falling snowflakes back up through the clouds that formed them (the same clouds that have been lingering around the hut all week). Since the hut is situated right on the edge of a cliff, the snow is most often seen rising past us rather than falling on us which accounts for the low snow accumulations and for the graupel form of the snowflakes. Since these rounded snow particles don’t bond well to each other they are a major contributor to snow pack failure leading to avalanches. In fact there was a major avalanche (considering it is July after all) on the French side of the Mont Blanc caused, most likely, by this very feature of the new fallen snow.
Our basil plant, like us, is happy that we have heating this year so he doesn’t have to face the elements like his floral cousins outside.
Tags: Rifugio Boccalatte
Luke
Like the snow course, Luke…seems that at least one of the victims of the avalanche was Dutch. I’m wondering if perhaps I should concentrate on rock this summer as the amount of snow that continues to fall there combined with the conditions you describe and the high winds result in soft cornices and avalanches. Will keep you posted. Take a shower for Luci’s sake!