Starting to get a bad Feeling....

[TwinTips21]

Laofer you have a win/win situation. Cold and snowy means lots of turns early on. Warm and dry means youll get farther on the house.

 

[loafer89]

My house is coming along nicely and framing work is being finished on the second floor. With the good weather in the forecast we should have a roof on by the end of this week.

I took my GPS unit with me and was suprised to find out that our house is at an elevation of 890 feet which I guess is a decent elevation for Connecticut. It was also cold for September and only 54F when I was there at 6:00pm.

I get the feeling that this part of Connecticut is fairly snowy in the winter.

 

[riverc0il]

GPS units are not accurate at tracking elevation unless you calibrate the unit to a known barometric preassure and/or known elevation. i have a garmin 60csx which is +/-3m for long/lat positioning... but the elevation is 3-4x worse when correctly calibrated, worse when not calibrated. even during a six hour hike and being correctly calibrated at the start of the hike, my unit has wandered 100 vertical feet during the course of a hike. best to pull up terraserver or topo zone and get the elevation from a topo map.

 

[loafer89]

I never calibrated my Garmin but it was pretty much spot on when I visited Mount Washington, being off on the summit benchmark by less than 10 feet. It was also very accurate in the Sierra at known places of elevation.

My towns official elevation is 656 feet, but the center of town is all downhill from me. My builder should have my elevation on the site plan, it is pretty cool to almost live on a mountain.

 

[Greg]

I never calibrated my Garmin but it was pretty much spot on when I visited Mount Washington, being off on the summit benchmark by less than 10 feet. It was also very accurate in the Sierra at known places of elevation.

My towns official elevation is 656 feet, but the center of town is all downhill from me. My builder should have my elevation on the site plan, it is pretty cool to almost live on a mountain.

I think GPS accuracy is more of a result of the number of satellites acquired. 4 or 5 and you should get a farely accurate elevation. I've never heard that barometric pressure can affect GPS accuracy - GPS just uses trangulation based on the distances from your satellites to determine long/lat/alt. My GPS elevation is 860' (damn, loafer - you beat me!) and that's right in line with the topo maps.

At that elevation you should see decent snow in NE CT. NW CT typically gets a bit more so at least I should beat you there! Have you hit the Bidwell Tavern yet? :beer:

 

[bvibert]

I think GPS accuracy is more of a result of the number of satellites acquired. 4 or 5 and you should get a farely accurate elevation. I've never heard that barometric pressure can affect GPS accuracy - GPS just uses trangulation based on the distances from your satellites to determine long/lat/alt. My GPS elevation is 860' (damn, loafer - you beat me!) and that's right in line with the topo maps.

Greg, I think you and Steve are both right. I believe some units use barometric pressure to determine altitude, which isn't very accurate even if calibrated because a sudden change in weather can throw it off. Some units use satellites like you said, which should be more accurate as long as the right number of satellites can be seen. I think some units use both methods...

 

[bvibert]

Greg, I think you and Steve are both right. I believe some units use barometric pressure to determine altitude, which isn't very accurate even if calibrated because a sudden change in weather can throw it off. Some units use satellites like you said, which should be more accurate as long as the right number of satellites can be seen. I think some units use both methods...

Interesting discussion here:
http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=212778&highlight=gps+elevation

 

[salida]

Since 1950, only one El Niño has started in the Fall, the El Niño of 1968.

Historians... role call... Anyone vauguely remember what happened in the Winter of 68-69...

Check out all these records set in the 68/69 winter http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ussc/SCoptions11?state=New Hampshire&short=27

One to note might be greatest NH snow depth Pinkham, 164 in, or greatest NH seasonal snowfall 364 in, Mt. Wash...

Ok so you can find correlations in almost any article like that, but god damn it, for those people saying they have bad gut feelings, your karma will most certainly come back and haunt you.

 

[ctenidae]

Interesting that Vermont's records are mostly from one storm in 1947. The two most recent are 2003. 12/16/03 must have been one seriously epic day.

That February storm in 1969 must have been amazing. Maine shows records then, too.

BTW, that site could be a serious time waster. Did you know that the day with the highest likelihood of Sunnapee getting 5 inches or more is March 15th, with a 15% chance? I'm putting in my vacation request now.

 

[loafer89]

My GPS unit (Garmin IQ) uses satellites and I had 6 online yesterday evening for my elevation reading.

I will ask the builder for an official elevation if he has one for our houses siteplan. The thermometer in my car also tells me that we live higher up as it was 54F when I left Coventry and 60F when I drove north to Enfield.

I have not been around much yet in Coventry, yesterday evening I drove to our town lake/beach and it is really nice, but I have yet to do much more than just visit the house progress.

 

[loafer89]

My GPS elevation is 860' (damn, loafer - you beat me!) and that's right in line with the topo maps.

I checked with the builder yesterday and the community varies from 800' to 900' in elevation. My GPS unit picked up on 8 satelites yesterday and had a better calibration on altitude and it settled on 841' for my house with my high point at around 860'.

The roof is going on today, so we hope to be in the house by December 1st.