Allenson Posted April 9, 2013 Share Posted April 9, 2013 Yeah, lovely low-40s here too. On Sunday we did our training on Northeast side near Aloha camps. There was about 2-3" of ice, we had to swim out 25 feet or so to get to the ice. But standing and jumping and we could break through it. The wind was whipping and pushing the ice to the North side, after an evolution you would look up and the hole was 20 feet down the lake pretty quick. Guess we got in our training at the right time . Nice, man--that sounds like fun. I've paddled around in a canoe during ice-out time but never gone for a swim, lol. I think my earliest dip is sometime in late April. Grapes to raisons. It's crazy how fast it goes when it finally does. Sometimes it's the wind and sometimes I think it just sort of gets waterlogged and sinks, the latter of which may have been what happened last night. I remember one year when I was staying at my family's place for the winter, one April night I hit the sack and the ice was in, I got up the next morning and boom, gone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mreaves Posted April 9, 2013 Share Posted April 9, 2013 I saw that this morning as well, it would have been very cool to catch on the time lapse! Yesterday 85% of post pond was ice and this morning same thing just a small portion of the south side had some ice visible. On Sunday we did our training on Northeast side near Aloha camps. There was about 2-3" of ice, we had to swim out 25 feet or so to get to the ice. But standing and jumping and we could break through it. The wind was whipping and pushing the ice to the North side, after an evolution you would look up and the hole was 20 feet down the lake pretty quick. Guess we got in our training at the right time . Pond on our property is still solidly iced in, but that is just starting to receive some sun, so always much later than other places around. A good cam to catch for time lapse of the ice is my friends over on Lake Winnipesaukee www.Blackcatnh.com Yeah, lovely low-40s here too. Nice, man--that sounds like fun. I've paddled around in a canoe during ice-out time but never gone for a swim, lol. I think my earliest dip is sometime in late April. Grapes to raisons. It's crazy how fast it goes when it finally does. Sometimes it's the wind and sometimes I think it just sort of gets waterlogged and sinks, the latter of which may have been what happened last night. I remember one year when I was staying at my family's place for the winter, one April night I hit the sack and the ice was in, I got up the next morning and boom, gone. Is this early for Morey? I imagine Joe's Pond in Daville still has a ways to go. They have a pretty big ice out competition there every year with 4 - 5,000 entrants. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.Spin Posted April 9, 2013 Share Posted April 9, 2013 Haha yeah I don't know which house is J.Spins but I know his area and there are only like 10 houses in that little jackpot zone under the Spine...if you actually live in Waterbury Village that's a few miles east of the Spine axis, like Stowe Village. Here at the ski area we are closer to the same axis as JSpin (albeit at a much higher elevation) relative to the Spine. J.Spin really lucked out finding a house right in that like 1-2 mile wide zone which has the highest chances for precipitation and snowfall in any given flow. Yeah, we just sort of got lucky on our location, with my wife teaching in Morrisville and me at UVM in Burlington, we wanted a spot in between, and although they easily could have in our case, skiing and weather didn’t even factor into it at the time. We found a new build that we really liked and it was ~25 min from each location. I had no clue that it was so close to Bolton Valley until quite a while after we’d visited it. I also had no idea about the snowfall, aside from my next door neighbor telling us during our first autumn that we lived in a very snowy spot; I had no perspective at that point so I couldn’t get a feel for what that meant. Finding out that we were just a few minutes from Bolton Valley and got a ton of snowfall just ended up being huge bonuses, although perhaps it was fate for a skiing/snowfall enthusiast. I feel privileged to be able to document the snowfall in such a unique spot; as PF has mentioned before, the area we’re in could be the snowiest spot in all of New England at or below 500’ elevation. Indeed being very close to the line of the Green Mountain spine means that we don’t seem to down slope in either the westerly or easterly directions. Our area may not top areas on the east and west sides of the spine (especially those at higher elevations) for snowfall when they are in their prime flow, but most storms are going to drop a decent accumulation in our area if the moisture is there. I’d say the in terms of snow, the only aspect that is really not prime (in a relative sense) for our location is the lower elevation. That has some effect on snowpack depth, and the process of actually getting snowfall in marginal temperature events. But neither of those aspects appears to be overly exaggerated – the upslope assist seems to help get the snow levels a bit lower than they otherwise might be for a similar elevation elsewhere, and we’ve got a lot of trees that help with snowpack retention. Snowpack building is far superior in this area compared to the west slopes, but not as good as parts of the eastern slopes, certainly those at higher elevations. All in all though, it’s a pretty nice spot with quick access to almost anything one could want – we’re just a couple of miles from the center of Waterbury, which is the junction of Route 2, Route 100, and I-89. There are certainly snowier places if one goes up in elevation though. This is a bit of a digression, but the discussion reminded me of what could be an analogous setup near where we used to live out west. The enhanced snowfall we get at low elevation reminds me a lot of what seems to go on in the town of Fernie, BC; at only ~3,300’ elevation, it’s very low for the area, yet somehow they get over 140” of snow annually. We lived at a higher elevation than that in our town of Hamilton in Montana, a few hours south of there, and only got about 25” of snow per season. To provide a perspective on how low that is in terms of elevation for the area, I’ve added a topographic map of Montana below. If you look in the western part of the state where the mountains are located (Fernie is just a bit north of the border in the northwest part of the state), you’ll see that it’s very hard to find terrain below that 3,000’ mark, so indeed 3,300’ is quite low for the region: I don’t know of any towns in that part of the Rockies that get so much snow at such a low elevation the way Fernie does (in fact, snowfall is really paltry in most valleys out there compared to what I’m used to here in Vermont), so I’ve always felt as though Fernie has got a similar thing going on to what’s happening here in the Winooski Valley. Actually, having lived in both areas, for the most part the snowfall in the mountains of western Montana and neighboring British Columbia is pretty close to what we see in Northern Vermont, so despite the differences in elevation it makes for a surprisingly good comparative location. With the peaks topping out around 10,000’ though, snow preservation is vastly superior in the high elevations there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tamarack Posted April 9, 2013 Share Posted April 9, 2013 Temp appeared (thru wunderground) to be hanging tough around 40 at my place. Thursday night could be interesting, though my thinking is that it begins with just enough IP at my place to show on windshields Fri morning, then changes to a wonderful period of 33-34 rain, with maybe some slushies atop Mile Hill. Long Pond in Belgrade was about half cleared this morning, but with light winds & no sun/heat, it may not look much different this aft. Once the ice turns black, all its structural integrity is gone. Try to pick up a piece of foot-thick and it disintegrates into vertical icicles in your hands. If that happens out on the pond, it probably only takes minutes for those narrow, melting crystals to disappear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lava Rock Posted April 9, 2013 Share Posted April 9, 2013 The scene at the hood this morning--clinging to scraps: Heavysnow79--the ice went out on Morey overnight. I was there yesterday morning and there was still ice but a look at the webcam this morning reveals nothing but open water. Unfortuneately it wasn't captured on the timelapse video other than a few chunks floating by in front of the inn.... Are you using a Stardot Netcam cam? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lava Rock Posted April 9, 2013 Share Posted April 9, 2013 Temp appeared (thru wunderground) to be hanging tough around 40 at my place. Thursday night could be interesting, though my thinking is that it begins with just enough IP at my place to show on windshields Fri morning, then changes to a wonderful period of 33-34 rain, with maybe some slushies atop Mile Hill. Long Pond in Belgrade was about half cleared this morning, but with light winds & no sun/heat, it may not look much different this aft. Once the ice turns black, all its structural integrity is gone. Try to pick up a piece of foot-thick and it disintegrates into vertical icicles in your hands. If that happens out on the pond, it probably only takes minutes for those narrow, melting crystals to disappear. Always thought it was neat to see the ice go out. Just turns black and pretty much sinks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.Spin Posted April 10, 2013 Share Posted April 10, 2013 Well, the precipitation may not be 100% pure snow, but the snowpack at the stake is 77” as of this evening, and based on the point forecast it could be a decent week of weather for Mt. Mansfield depending on where that frontal boundary sets up: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weatherMA Posted April 10, 2013 Share Posted April 10, 2013 GYX has a nice AFD out and seems relatively bullish. Seems like a WWA situation at least especially given that its early-mid April. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allenson Posted April 10, 2013 Share Posted April 10, 2013 Is this early for Morey? I imagine Joe's Pond in Daville still has a ways to go. They have a pretty big ice out competition there every year with 4 - 5,000 entrants. It is a bit early and I was surprised that it went out as quickly as it did. Average date is 4/15..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allenson Posted April 10, 2013 Share Posted April 10, 2013 Are you using a Stardot Netcam cam? No, that was just with my 'regular' camera--Nikon D40.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted April 10, 2013 Share Posted April 10, 2013 One year ago on April 10th... middle of a massive upslope snow event. Total snowfall was near 30 inches once it was all said and done with 3.5" of liquid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.Spin Posted April 10, 2013 Share Posted April 10, 2013 One year ago on April 10th... middle of a massive upslope snow event. Total snowfall was near 30 inches once it was all said and done with 3.5" of liquid. And just think, that was back when there were only a couple of feet of snow at the stake, and of course less than that in the lower elevations. Imagine it on top of the current snowpack – that would last a while. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ginx snewx Posted April 10, 2013 Share Posted April 10, 2013 Alert, St Johnsbury VT bear in residence caller has locked herself in the bathroom. Lol damn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klw Posted April 10, 2013 Author Share Posted April 10, 2013 Alert, St Johnsbury VT bear in residence caller has locked herself in the bathroom. Lol damn where did you hear this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ginx snewx Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 where did you hear this?new england alerts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OceanStWx Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 GYX has a nice AFD out and seems relatively bullish. Seems like a WWA situation at least especially given that its early-mid April. The low level cold wedge on forecast soundings just can't be ignored. Definitely most bullish for the ME mountains, but NH will get theirs before the mix creeps in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weatherMA Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 The low level cold wedge on forecast soundings just can't be ignored. Definitely most bullish for the ME mountains, but NH will get theirs before the mix creeps in. Sweet!If you have the time it would be awesome to hear more detailed thoughts in such an anomalous set-up. It would be cool to get even 1" on the grass especially because of all the complaints it would bring out. But looks like sleet is more likely than pure snow. fwiw the SREF's are insanely bullish with 4" probs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OceanStWx Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 Sweet! If you have the time it would be awesome to hear more detailed thoughts in such an anomalous set-up. It would be cool to get even 1" on the grass especially because of all the complaints it would bring out. But looks like sleet is more likely than pure snow. fwiw the SREF's are insanely bullish with 4" probs. For starters, you have the H9 temp signal that I spoke about in the AFD. That little bullseye of anomalously cold H9 temps is showing you the intense CAD potential here. This is why guidance (MEX/MAV) has slowly been coming in colder and colder as climo becomes less and less weighted. NAM 2m temps at PWM are about 36 for Friday, and I think that will be pretty close to reality. This isn't a North American outlier solution either. The Euro ensembles are a good 4 to 6 degrees below normal at H8. That's why I was a little more on the side of IP. With warmth aloft shunted closer to 800 mb, ZR should be confined to the higher elevations before the hyrdometeors can completely refreeze. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weatherMA Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 Makes sense, thanks for the easy to understand post for my limited knowledge haha. I can't wait to take real met classes. Look forward to seeing how it plays out. I hope we get some accumulating IP rather than 33F rain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OceanStWx Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 Makes sense, thanks for the easy to understand post for my limited knowledge haha. I can't wait to take real met classes. Look forward to seeing how it plays out. I hope we get some accumulating IP rather than 33F rain. This is one of those storms where the rip and readers struggle. Because guidance wants to put a diurnal trend on temps, but a 40 degree high at PWM may not come until precip ends Friday evening or something like that. So temperatures will probably fall then level off for most of Friday and only rise once precip is winding down. This obviously has a huge impact on your ptype. If you're not careful with your forecast and dump straight guidance in there, you wind up with RA all the way into the mountains. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klw Posted April 11, 2013 Author Share Posted April 11, 2013 BTV has a map out http://www.erh.noaa.gov/btv/html/StormTotalSnow/StormTotalSnowFcst.png Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weatherMA Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 Advisories up for 3-5" even at low elevations. GYX is significantly more bullish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dryslot Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 Advisories up for 3-5" even at low elevations. GYX is significantly more bullish. Chris is really trying to place a damper on my 1st round of golf for Sunday...................... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkO Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 http://www.erh.noaa.gov/gyx/StormTotalSnow/StormTotalSnowFcst.png Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 I'm going with 3-6" for the ski area forecast up here... really doesn't seem like all that difficult of a forecast for the higher elevations. Mid-layer warming might be the only issue if its snow or sleet, but its freakin' cold up there already. 31F at the base and 23F at the summit and its probably not warming much today with continued low level cold drain. Beautiful day though... but feels like mid-winter again, lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radarman Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 Anybody want to weigh in on timing for N. VT? Specifically, is the day for skiing tomorrow in the snow or Saturday? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nittany88 Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 I'm going with 3-6" for the ski area forecast up here... really doesn't seem like all that difficult of a forecast for the higher elevations. Mid-layer warming might be the only issue if its snow or sleet, but its freakin' cold up there already. 31F at the base and 23F at the summit and its probably not warming much today with continued low level cold drain. Beautiful day though... but feels like mid-winter again, lol. current.jpg Watch that warm tongue at 750-700mb, could be a sleetfest if its true in its depiction on the NAM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 Watch that warm tongue at 750-700mb, could be a sleetfest if its true in its depiction on the NAM. Yeah I just saw that looking at the soundings...it's like barely above 0C at like 700-800mb. What I'll be interested to see and maybe it's just my inner weenie thinking, but I've noticed in marginal situations the SE flow into the east slope can cause just enough upslope cooling to keep the east side of Mansfield as snow while its raining or sleeting in the Underhill State Park on the other side. I've seen the rain/sleet in Stowe Village go to snow from upslope enhancement on the immediate east side, then rain/sleet on the down slope into Underhill on the Teardrop. That may be a bigger factor if the warm layer is lower in H85 area though...not sure low level upslope cooling will have any impact at like 9,000ft....most likely no. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dryslot Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 I think IP is going to be the soup dejour here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 Yeah if we get 1/2-3/4" QPF at 3:1 ratios..lol, 2-3" of snow/sleet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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