GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Moderate snow, rain mixing in. Well, this big winter storm is turning out to be milder than the forecasters expected—though Vermont west and north of the core Upper Valley could see some decent accumulations. Maybe powder in the mountains, but lower down it's going to be heavy and wet, so combined with strong wind gusts today, there's a chance of scattered outages. High today in the mid or upper 30s, low 20s tonight behind a cold front moving in. Things will taper off this afternoon.Here's what the expected accumulations look like:
In VT, you want to be west and north (if you like snow);
In NH, it's just the far North Country and the northern Whites that'll see more than a few inches.
Snow was falling strong early today starting around Bethel and farther north and west, while in the towns along the river there's been pretty much nothing. Here's a display of VT road and highway cams around VT to give you a sense of what things look like across the state. Move from page to page down at the bottom, or from state to state up at the top left.
But before all that happened...
a pair of striking sunsets a few days ago.
One looking west from the old Moose Mountain lodge in Hanover, by Clyde Watson;
And one along the Connecticut, by Amanda DeRoy.
In Norwich, turnover at school reflects teacher unrest. Since 2020, reports Alex Hanson in the Valley News, some 30 educators have left the Marion Cross School—a fact brought to the paper's attention by a group of alarmed parents. Though some represent retirements brought on by the pandemic or age, at the heart of the issue, Hanson writes, is discontent with the leadership style of principal Shawn Gonyaw—a 2017 VT principal of the year. Hanson talks to a variety of former teachers, who say "the school became a less welcoming place for teachers and that Gonyaw’s leadership was divisive." The superintendent and school board members explain why they're okay with Gonyaw's changes.Amid concerns about student behavior, Hartford Middle School principal leaves abruptly. The news came in a Dec. 1 letter to parents from district Supt. Tom DeBalsi, reports the VN's Nora Doyle-Burr, after interim principal Justin Bouvier resigned citing health reasons. Teachers' union president Nichole Vielleux tells Doyle-Burr that the school has been contending with “an increase in alarming behavior and a divided staff." Bouvier took the role last spring after his predecessor returned to the classroom. “This is a lot of change,” DeBalsi tells Doyle-Burr. “Something none of us are accustomed to but we are adjusting and things seem to be improving.”A Thanksgiving tradition begun 30 years ago becomes a village in the Norwich Inn. If you're at the inn during holiday time, you can't help but notice the cozy village set up and decorated on a table there. It began, the inn's Gretchen Dwyer tells Demo Sofronas for his About Norwich blog, in 1992, with the purchase of one small building after the birth of her first child. Each year, the day after Thanksgiving, they'd go out to add a building—a library, a school, a train station, an opera house that looked like LOH. "It has now been over 30 years of collecting and the assembly was much too large for my home... so THE INN allowed me to put it up for all to see in their lobby," she tells Demo."There’s still plenty of life in the fading light." Those reassuring words come from the VT Center for Ecostudies and their "Field Guide to December." December is when breeding Evening Grosbeaks come south from the boreal forests of northeastern Canada to fill up at your bird feeder. There are white-footed mice staying active all winter and deer mice nesting, spiders out there preying on springtails, frogs turned to ice (and then back to frogs in the spring), moose—built for snow and harsh winters—struggling to deal with winter ticks as temps grow more mild, and "fir waves" atop mountains. So much to learn!Cold-water swimming: “You’re doing something sort of scary and crazy. But it’s very centering.” That was physical therapist Terry Cioffredi last week explaining to the VN's Frances Mize why she and a small group of other "Brave Souls" were at Wilson's Landing, off Route 10 between Hanover and Lyme, prepping to venture into the river when the air was 25 degrees and the water was below 40. Mize was there to chronicle the whole thing. Most, she reports, "stayed in the water longer than their hesitation in the parking lot might have suggested. Some stood at mid-waist, others all the way to their neck. They whooped and shrieked and laughed."Mt. Washington skier sets off avalanche, suffers "life-threatening lower leg injury." The 30-year-old skier from Bow, NH, was with a friend Saturday morning when the avalanche swept him up. The friend and another skier were able to get to him, and NH Fish & Game mobilized both a National Guard helicopter and a team to reach him by SnoCat and foot if the helicopter could not. As officials spoke to the pair, "concern rose to a level where a highly experienced backcountry paramedic was looped into the call" to give them advice, WCVB reports. The helicopter crew was able to reach the site, and the skier was flown to DHMC for treatment.And while we're on Mt. Washington, it's got the worst weather in the world. That, at least, is what a 1948 Scientific American article proclaimed, and on JSTOR Daily, Ross Pomeroy explains: There are places that are colder, places that are rainier and snowier, and places that are windier. But, as Pomeroy puts it, Mount Washington "has it all"—including, until a 1996 typhoon displaced it, the record for the fastest measured wind gust over the surface of the Earth, as well as a record set early this year for lowest recorded wind chill in the US. How's that happen? Pomeroy explains.Capturing "the beauty in decay." That's how photographer Jim Westphalen describes his work along the back roads of rural VT photographing old barns, one-room schoolhouses, and other buildings deteriorating across the landscape. You may have seen his film, Vanish, when it was in Woodstock this fall. Now Cecilia Larson of UVM's Community News Service pens a profile of Westphalen and his work. It can "feel like a race against the inevitable," she writes, "when his subjects are often buildings that are sinking into their old foundations more and more each day."The Monday Vordle. With a word from Friday's Daybreak.
Heads Up
This evening at 6, the Etna Library will unveil a portrait of Hanover farmer and civic pillar John Tenney that, some 175 years after it was painted, somehow wound up at the Nifty Thrifty Shop in Fishkill, NY. It turns out to have been painted by Tenney's son, Ulysses Dow Tenney, who was a well-knonw 19th-century portraitist (some of his works hang at the State House in Concord, others at Dartmouth), and though no one knows how it wound up in Fishkill, its trip back to Hanover and, ultimately, Etna is chronicled by the VN's Liz Sauchelli. Hanover Historical Society curator Alan Callaway will talk about Tenney's life and what's known about the portrait's travels.
And to settle us into the week...Let's check in on a couple of recent performances at the Anonymous Coffeehouse in Lebanon. Here's folksinger William Lee Ellis, born in Tennessee (son of bluegrass legend Tony Ellis) and now living and teaching in VT, with his song, "Dust Will Write My Name". And singer Grace Wallace with guitarist Tom Davis and "Stormy Weather". Both filmed by Upper Valley live music chronicler Chad Finer.See you tomorrow.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Associate writer: Jonea Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Michael
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