They don't shoot straight up the mountain.īOOKMAN: With no intervention, the trail will continue to deteriorate, meaning people will head off trail, stomping on plants to get up the mountain. Back in the day, trails were often about getting from the base to the top as fast as possible, but then they become rivers during a big storm.ĭUMAIS: Sustainable trails tend to be longer because they switch back and forth a lot. It's like, this is trade work now.īOOKMAN: Other stretches of this trail are being completely repositioned to follow natural contours. It has to.ĭELUCIA: Long gone are the days of just, like, rolling rocks around in the woods for fun. She's laying in a wider, more gradual set of stone stairs than what was here before. The federal government, along with private foundations, the World Trails Network and the AMC, are spending about $1.8 million to make this path more resilient.ĭUMAIS: So we are both widening the trail and hardening the trail.īOOKMAN: Dumais is pounding crushed stone with a hammer. She's on one of the trail crews that's spending the next four summers rebuilding every foot of this hillside. Visits to national parks have doubled in the past 50 years to more than 300 million people annually.īOOKMAN: The results are evident here, heading up the ridge, exposed rocks in the middle of the path, muddy sections and washouts from recent storms.ĪNNIE DUMAIS: It had water running down the middle of it and kind of washing away material.īOOKMAN: This is Annie Dumais. And it's like this perfect storm in the Whites that we're trying to constantly battle.īOOKMAN: Trail systems and national parks around the country are facing these same dual pressures, crowds and changing weather. DeLucia says they leave their mark.ĭELUCIA: You know, and then we add, you know, the climate-related, you know, weather impacts that are more frequent and more severe. Now, on a busy weekend, as many as a thousand hikers come here. It crosses streams and climbs peaks and, with no smoke, offers views for days. Today, the loop is around 9 miles in total. But beginning with Indigenous people, humans have been visiting these woods for thousands of years. I mean, this - it is phenomenal.īOOKMAN: The trail was established 200 years ago. The Franconia Loop is one of its calling cards.ĭELUCIA: The Franconia Loop Trail is rated some - the best loop hike in the country, or it's been featured in Backpacker Magazine. This national forest draws millions of visitors annually to hike, fish, ski and camp. It's one of the many groups that cares for and about the White Mountains. Yeah, really wild.īOOKMAN: This is Alex DeLucia. TODD BOOKMAN, BYLINE: Most days, you can pull into the Franconia Ridge trailhead parking lot, look up and see alpine peaks well above tree line, but not this day with all the haze in the air.ĪLEX DELUCIA: That's the wildfire smoke from Canada. New Hampshire Public Radio's Todd Bookman takes us to the White Mountains, where efforts are underway to preserve a popular trail. Many were already under pressure from a surge in use. The storms have also taken a toll on hiking trails. Since hail can cause the rainfall estimates to be higher than what is actually occurring, steps are taken to prevent these high dBZ values from being converted to rainfall.Intense rainfall in the Northeast in recent weeks has wiped out roads and bridges. Hail is a good reflector of energy and will return very high dBZ values. These values are estimates of the rainfall per hour, updated each volume scan, with rainfall accumulated over time. Depending on the type of weather occurring and the area of the U.S., forecasters use a set of rainrates which are associated to the dBZ values. The higher the dBZ, the stronger the rainrate. Typically, light rain is occurring when the dBZ value reaches 20. The scale of dBZ values is also related to the intensity of rainfall. The value of the dBZ depends upon the mode the radar is in at the time the image was created. Notice the color on each scale remains the same in both operational modes, only the values change. The other scale (near left) represents dBZ values when the radar is in precipitation mode (dBZ values from 5 to 75). One scale (far left) represents dBZ values when the radar is in clear air mode (dBZ values from -28 to +28). Each reflectivity image you see includes one of two color scales. The dBZ values increase as the strength of the signal returned to the radar increases. So, a more convenient number for calculations and comparison, a decibel (or logarithmic) scale (dBZ), is used. Reflectivity (designated by the letter Z) covers a wide range of signals (from very weak to very strong). "Reflectivity" is the amount of transmitted power returned to the radar receiver. The colors are the different echo intensities (reflectivity) measured in dBZ (decibels of Z) during each elevation scan.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |