The science and power behind ice storms
Last week, while much of the state got rained on, I got iced.
I live on the northeast edge of Litchfield County. In my town, and the towns nearby, it was cold enough at ground level that the rain froze when it fell on tree limbs, railings and clotheslines. The birches in my yard were suitably bent.
A lot of this had to do with elevation and cold pockets of air — when I drove east, downhill, the ice was a no-show.
Nor did the rain — which forecasters first thought might glaze larger parts of Fairfield and Litchfield counties — freeze much of anything there.
“We measured .08 inches of ice,’’ said Gary Lessor, director of The Weather Center at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury. “We knew by Saturday it would be less than a tenth.’’
Matt Spies, of Brookfield — state coordinator of CoCoRHAS, the Community Collaborative Rain Hail and Snow Network, which uses a corps of volunteers to collect precipitation data — said by the time he checked his gauges, the little ice that might have been was washed away.
“I got a half-inch of rain,’’ Spies said
This is one of the problems of ice storms — they can weigh heavily in some towns, and lighten up a few miles away. They’re largely unstudied and hard to calibrate. Rain falls into gauges, snow gathers on the ground. But how do you measure ice — radially, on the branch of a tree, or horizontally, on top of a flat surface?
But when the temperatures and storm patterns line up correctly, they have the potential to do serious damage to the environment, as well as make human lives miserable. The events of last week showed that, with icing shutting down a good part of the Southwest U.S.
Because that storm caused minimal problems here, we could dismiss it as something happening in Texas. But the rain and ice we got was part of the same system that proved a killer down south.
“These are massive winter storms,’’ said Bill Jacquemin, senior meteorologist at the Connecticut Weather Center in Danbury.
Ice storms happen when a layer of warm air flows into a column of cold winter air, while a narrow layer of freezingtemperature air gets trapped at the earth’s surface. If snow falls, the warm air melts it into rain. When it hits the earth, it freezes on contact.
Jacquemin said a hard, steady rain doesn’t convert into an ice storm, because the rain washes away the ice as it forms. What’s needed is sustained drizzle and mist. Then, the ice accumulates.
When that happens, the weight of the ice downs tree limbs. Those falling branches, in turn, take down power lines and make travel treacherous.
“Even if there’s a blizzard, people think they can drive, if they give themselves more time,’’ Lessor of Western’s Weather Center said. “People are afraid of ice.’’
New England generally gets a moderate ice storm every five to 10 years and a severe one every 35 to 85 years.
In 1898, a severe ice storm shut down the state’s Northwest Connecticut, with witnesses saying the sound of tree limbs cracking reminded them of July 4 fireworks.
On Dec. 16, 1973, another severe ice storm caused a third of the state to lose power. That storm caused more damage to Connecticut’s trees than the Great 1938 Hurricane.
There has been recent work to study ice storms and how they work.
In the winters of 201516 and 2016-17, researchers at the 7,800-acre Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire’s White Mountains created the first man-made ice storms, using fire hoses to spray trees with water on freezing nights.
What the research team found was that at a quarter-inch of ice or less, trees suffered minimal damage. At a halfinch or more, the branches started falling.
The team estimated that a heavy ice storm could bring down a year’s worth of woody debris in one night. The trees also suffered wounds that did not heal readily. Where icing was heaviest, the damage opened the forest canopy, letting more light onto the forest floor.
Lindsey Rustad, a research ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service, who led the ice storm research at Hubbard Brook said that with climate change making extreme weather events more frequent, it’s important to better understand how ice storms work.
“They happen from Texas to New England to Oregon’’ she said. “They happen all over the world.’’
A Bridgeport Bluefish game gave the Vieira family a breath of normalcy just months after their daughter was diagnosed with cancer and was actively battling the disease. During the slight repreive, they decided they wanted others to experience the same relief.
That was the moment when Katrina and Daniel Vieira decided what would soon become LivFree, a nonprofit organization that sponsors fun outings for families impacted with pediatric cancer.
“With all the support that we received, we felt we needed to pay it forward and this is one of the ways that we saw,” Daniel Vieira said.
The Shelton family brought its nonprofit, which has helped over 300 families, to 107 Main Street in New Canaan.
The Vieiras found out that their daughter Lauren, who they call Liv, was diagnosed with Leukemia Feb. 11., 2015, when she was only 16 months old.
“We were devastated, obviously,” Daniel, Lauren’s father, told Hearst Connecticut Media on Monday, Feb.15.
Her chemotherapy treatment spanned two-and-ahalf years.
“Leukemia is interesting because you go into remission fairly fast and the treatment is still long. So she went into remission a little over a month after her diagnosis,” Vieira said. “St. Patrick’s Day was her remission day.”
The six year anniversary of that remission day is coming up next month.
“We were pretty naive to cancer, as we were going through our treatment, we found more and more families and neighbors actually going through it,” Vieira said.
Vieira said that this past year, with many residents quarantining to stop the spread of COVID-19, may provide just a peek into the lives of what families like his have endured and continue to go through.
“The pandemic is actually setting a little light into what pediatric cancer families go through because we quarantine ourselves for months on end because the immune system of our child is so low due to chemotherapy treatments,” he said.
“For a few months we weren’t able to go anywhere except for doctor visits, which were basically it, and maybe a trip to the supermarket,” he said. “That didn’t include kids, it was just mom and dad doing that.”
Lauren was treated by Yale New Haven Hosptital. The chemotherapy “made her lethargic, sick, it compromised her immune system” and eventually she lost her hair.
“When her immune system started getting a little bit stronger, we went to a Bridgeport Bluefish game,” her father said “It just meant the world to us. Just to be out and kind of regain a little bit of normalcy for a while. That is where we decided that we wanted to pay it forward. We knew what we were going through and we knew other families were going through the same things.”
Lauren is now seven. She loves to dance, her father said, and she has been doing it for the past three years.
“She has been very involved with some of our fund-raising events, some of the events that we have done with kids. We try to keep her involved because she was young when she went through it,” he said.
The nonprofit has acquired the use of a space on Main Street for free from landlord Robert Iannazzo until it is either rented or sold. They hope to share it with others until the 1,800square-foot space gets a permanent tenant or owner.
Even if a tenant is found, the Vieiras were told there is office space upstairs. Iannazo told the nonprofit that they will be able to use it, according to Vieira.
The nonprofit decided to move into the Main Street building, its first office location, because it wants a bigger platform to spread the word.
“Since we have been there, there has been a lot more interest in the space, which was kind of the idea,” he said. “We made it look nice.”
The Vieiras would like to share the space with local businesses that have been affected by COVID-19 and who need a place to share.
“As long as we have the space we want to utilize (it) with others,” he said.“I really want to get the local community involved.”
He hopes to share it with the likes of artists, yoga enthusiasts and others who “align with what we are doing.”
On St. Patricks Day this year, the sixth anniversary of Lauren’s remission, they will celebrate by inviting the public to visit and create greeting cards that will be sent off to hospitals across the state for children battling cancer.
Daniel pointed out that LivFree is still a small operation. “There is no way that we could afford to rent any store fronts, let alone in New Canaan,” he said. He expressed appreciation for the opportunity for the nonprofit to fill the space it is in.
There, they aim to help families with offspring under 26, since people are treated as pediatric patients until that age. Many other organizations don’t support patients over 18, he said.
He hopes to raise $240,000 this year, which he said will directly aid 200 families that have a child with cancer.
“We would like to get the people in New Canaan behind us to help raise that money and people can do individual fundraisers based off our fundraising,” he said. “It is a fun way to get everyone involved.”
After starting as a tiny operation in 2016, the nonprofit has now had the ability to help over 300 families in three years.
The nonprofit asks families what they like to do together. “Whatever they normally like to do, if they like to go to concerts, to amusement parks, ball games,” Vieira said.
He continued, saying that the nonprofit then organizes an itinerary to provide transportation, tickets to the events and then additional funding for food or souvenirs. They also offer overnight hotel stays, if needed. They have also sponsored families to attend a range of activities, including the musical “Hamilton,” a New York Yankees game, a Medieval
Times show, local amusement parks, Disney on Ice and a Bruce Springstein concert.
Currently, during COVID, they observe social distancing guidelines by making sure masks are worn and following occupancy requirements.
“We are sending families to outdoor events such as skiing trips and tubing trips,” Vieira said “We don’t just focus on Connecticut. We focus (on) the whole United States.”
He continued, saying that when families have specific requests, there is no destination too far that LivFree will not try to make a reality for a family.
“What we found with Livfree is that we are obviously giving them a sense of normalcy, but we are also giving them something to look forward to, give them a sense of hope and joy. When they are there they forget about cancer for a while. That is one of the most important things,” Vieira said, clearly speaking from experience.
As for one of New Canaan’s newest nonprofit, Vieira said that the town has been very welcoming. “We have met with the town officials” he said.“Our neighbors have been great. They have been extremely welcoming.
“Come say hi,” he said, beckoning New Canaan residents. “See what we are doing. Learn a little bit more about us and potentially get behind us and support us.”