Skiing in May: Would you pay a premium for it?

[mondeo]

First off, the person who really just eyeballs his own numbers REEEEAAAAALLLLY can't make a counter argument of show me detailed calculations.

Second, the general numbers. During the late spring/summer/early fall, the sun puts out roughly 350 watts of constant energy on each square meter. In the winter, there are two factors which change this, making it's impact much less. First, in winter, on a good day you'll get like 200 watts per square meter. Now for the killer. In the winter, the snow it's hasn't started melting much. Solid, non melting snow will reflect back over 90%. However, this is the killer, snow that has already STARTED to melt, (aka, has some wetness to it) will only reflect back 50%.

Maybe someone has time to do the real numbers out, but at a MINIMUM, I'd say 6" of melt per day is reasonable, if you took precautions to minimize the melt. 12" is a plausible number, without needing to do specific math.

Numbers I used were average insolation in Vermont, 60% reflectivity (giving some credit for putting new fresh down constantly.) Summer will be higher insolation due to both the decreased angle of incidence and longer day, but I figure the somewhat northern exposure will cancel out some of that. 350 watts/sq m is only good to melt a gram of snow per second per meter, plus I'm guessing it doesn't take into account clouds.

 

[Greg]

My geek-meter is pegged right now... :blink:

 

[mondeo]

My geek-meter is pegged right now... :blink:

Mine goes to 11...

 

[RootDKJ]

Mine goes to 11...

That's good, because it's 1 higher

 

[Highway Star]

2°C = 3.6°F.

OMG you're sharp. LOL.

 

[tcharron]

Numbers I used were average insolation in Vermont, 60% reflectivity (giving some credit for putting new fresh down constantly.) Summer will be higher insolation due to both the decreased angle of incidence and longer day, but I figure the somewhat northern exposure will cancel out some of that. 350 watts/sq m is only good to melt a gram of snow per second per meter, plus I'm guessing it doesn't take into account clouds.

Is *only* good to melt that much? That's a pretty hefty number per square meter. :lol:

 

[mondeo]

Is *only* good to melt that much? That's a pretty hefty number per square meter. :lol:

3.6 l/hr, so melts into 0.036 cm layer of water/ hr, call it a 12 hour day (even though, again I'm guessing here, 350W/m is at noon,) ~0.5cm of melt water/day.

 

[mondeo]

OMG you're sharp. LOL.

I'm sorry I didn't catch that your brand of douchism at that point in time was simply pointing out that he had a typo with 2°C/1000" instead of 2°C/1000'. You've never actually made any comments that would lead me to believe your IQ was above 50, so I figured I was just helping out someone that doesn't know the conversion factor.

My bad.

 

[Highway Star]

I'm sorry I didn't catch that your brand of douchism at that point in time was simply pointing out that he had a typo with 2°C/1000" instead of 2°C/1000'. You've never actually made any comments that would lead me to believe your IQ was above 50, so I figured I was just helping out someone that doesn't know the conversion factor.

My bad.

What? I'm just waiting for you to make a valid heat transfer equation for the melting of a large area of snow/airated ice.








(cue crickets chirping)

 

[mondeo]

What? I'm just waiting for you to make a valid heat transfer equation for the melting of a large area of snow/airated ice.








(cue crickets chirping)

Eh, I'm getting bored with proving you wrong.