NNE Winter 2013-14 Part I

[MaineJayhawk]

It was clear when I left home, but upon reaching Conway, NH I encountered snow that only became heavier as I made my way to Crawford Notch. The original plan was to summit Mts Crawford and Resolution and also go to the Giant Stairs. However, the trailhead parking area was a sloped ice rink with an inch of snow covering it. Fearing my lil red hotrod would not be able to get out of there seven hours later, I opted for a quick Plan B which was Mt Willard at the head of Crawford Notch.

Rt 302 through the notch was neither plowed, treated nor even visible but travel on it wasn't too bad. I reached Crawford Depot which is where the trail starts and parked next door at the AMC Highland Center. It was 19F and the wind was ripping through here, sending the snow horizontal. I put on my winter gear and started off. Right away I noted that I probably should have brought the snowshoes.

There was a couple inches of snow covering an inch of slush which was covering water. I ended up having ice covering the bottom 12" of my leg. Perhaps I should have put on the gaiters!

Half a mile in is Centennial Pool, which was flowing fast with yesterday's rainfall.

It only took about half an hour or so to go the 1.6 miles to the ledges overlooking Crawford Notch. Had I been thinking I would have used the panorama function on my camera to capture the vastness of the notch.

It was snowing pretty good with visibility under one mile. Soon, however, the snow started falling heavier, reducing visibility to about 1/3 what it was in the above pics. Before I headed down I took a temp and wind measurement ... 14F with an 8mph wind (I was sheltered, thankfully). Windchill of 4F.

The trip down was quick. I arrived back at Crawford Depot where the wind was really whistling. I measured a temp of 14F and wind gusting to 27mph. Windchill was -8F. Walking back to the Highland Center into the wind was ... um ... invigorating! A nice little trip on this holiday, and I was thankful to be able to do it.

[borderwx]

happy thanksgiving NNE, hope you all enjoy the day.

 

getting pockets of blue now in the valley. 3-4" new this AM on the hill.  Mt did better, 6", good drift skiing, loud sandpaper underneath.  Met a friend from the other side in Montgomery, they did a but better, 8"+ his guesstimate.  High quality fluff.

 

winds still moving it around and still haven't seen better then 3/4 mile vis with the snow squalls.

 

Which holiday is more variable, T-day or Easter, man its a joy to every year to see what Nature will deliver.

 

Wicked nice notch shots there MJH

[CoastalWx]

Great pics as usual.

[dendrite]

Eric wins the golden turkey award.

[Ginx snewx]

Nice Eric. Get out in it.

[powderfreak]

Phenomenal skiing out there...in the 6-8" range for new snow in the last 24 hours.

[Ginx snewx]

Phenomenal skiing out there...in the 6-8" range for new snow in the last 24 hours.

awesome

[j24vt]

Look like it is still snowing hard on Mt Mansfield. We are still seeing light snow flurries at our house

[MaineJayhawk]

Phenomenal skiing out there...in the 6-8" range for new snow in the last 24 hours.

Nice day to be in the mountains if you like winter weather. Looks like I'll have more fun on Sunday .. bringing the snowshoes this time

[adk]

Phenomenal skiing out there...in the 6-8" range for new snow in the last 24 hours.

 

Yep. Pretty much. 

[powderfreak]

Yep. Pretty much. 

 

1,500ft snow board....somewhere in the 6.5" range at the base.  Settled depth is now 12-13".  Not a bad natural snowpack at the base for Thanksgiving.

 

[powderfreak]

awesome

 

Classic upslope event last night... 8" reported at the Jeffersonville COOP on the west side of the Notch, while my board at the east side of the Notch has 6.5".

 

This was 4am and it was cranking at 1"/hr.

 

[powderfreak]

Is that settled depth at 1600ft? Or up top? Any clue what's up at the stake?

 

That's settled depth at 1,549ft (to be exact, lol) and that picture above is new snow at that elevation.  The west side got a little more based on the Jeffersonville total at 1,000ft of 8".

 

Having a foot of snow on the ground at the base is a good start.  Patrol even opened some natural snow trails today (and the poaching was widespread), and its the first time in my 7 years that there are trails open on natural snow only for Thanksgiving.  A very promising start.

 

45" this month on the upper mountain. 

[Hitman]

That's settled depth at 1,549ft (to be exact, lol) and that picture above is new snow at that elevation.  The west side got a little more based on the Jeffersonville total at 1,000ft of 8".

 

Having a foot of snow on the ground at the base is a good start.  Patrol even opened some natural snow trails today (and the poaching was widespread), and its the first time in my 7 years that there are trails open on natural snow only for Thanksgiving.  A very promising start.

 

45" this month on the upper mountain.

+1. I have a good base at the house(1650') with fluff on top. It is really fantastic out there today. I did 2 natural snow trails this morning. Great conditions for any time of the year. Just watch out for water bars. Happy holiday!

[powderfreak]

+1. I have a good base at the house(1650') with fluff on top. It is really fantastic out there today. I did 2 natural snow trails this morning. Great conditions for any time of the year. Just watch out for water bars. Happy holiday!

 

Same to you man!  Man having a place at 1,650ft in the snow belt must be awesome.  I'd love to live in the same spot as now, but just up another 1,000ft, lol. 

[ono]

Just checked smuggs update. 12-14" over the last 24 hours. Wow.

[J.Spin]

Below is the north to south listing of available 48/24-hour snowfall totals from the Vermont ski areas – 48 hour totals should roughly represent the whole storm, and 24-hour totals should represent the backside snows:

 

Jay Peak: 16”/13”

Smuggler’s Notch: 14”/14”

Stowe: 11”/8”

Bolton Valley: 9”/8”

Mad River Glen: 9”/4”

Sugarbush: 7”/5”

Pico: 5”/3”

Killington: 5”/3”

Okemo: 4”/T

Bromley: 4”/2”

Magic Mountain: 2”/2”

Stratton: 3”/2”

Mount Snow: 4”/2”

 

The snow depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake is also back up to 21”, back to the high mark of the season that was reached back on the 13^th; it’s once again getting close to that 24” mark:

 

[Hitman]

Same to you man!  Man having a place at 1,650ft in the snow belt must be awesome.  I'd love to live in the same spot as now, but just up another 1,000ft, lol.

I'd love to live here someday. Working on it.

[powderfreak]

Below is the north to south listing of available 48/24-hour snowfall totals from the Vermont ski areas – 48 hour totals should roughly represent the whole storm, and 24-hour totals should represent the backside snows:

Jay Peak: 16”/13”

Smuggler’s Notch: 14”/14”

Stowe: 11”/8”

Bolton Valley: 9”/8”

Mad River Glen: 9”/4”

Sugarbush: 7”/5”

Pico: 5”/3”

Killington: 5”/3”

Okemo: 4”/T

Bromley: 4”/2”

Magic Mountain: 2”/2”

Stratton: 3”/2”

Mount Snow: 4”/2”

The snow depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake is also back up to 21”, back to the high mark of the season that was reached back on the 13^th; it’s once again getting close to that 24” mark:

Just drove past your area coming back from eating Turkey in Jerhico, and noticed flurries in the air at the Cider House on RT 2.

The only place it was snowing on the drive was within a half mile of your road, lol.

[powderfreak]

Actually a little snow shower activity in Stowe now. Temp is 20F.

[borderwx]

16"/13"?

 

I really would love to know how people measure snow depth. thats almost knee deep.  Jay is  the opposite of how the hawaiins measure wave height

[ono]

16"/13"?

 

I really would love to know how people measure snow depth. thats almost knee deep.  Jay is  the opposite of how the hawaiins measure wave height

 

are you saying Jay was being generous with 16"?  I always view Jay's reporting with a grain of salt, while I feel Smuggs under reports snow often.  Jay seems to place a lot of their business model/marketing on their natural snow- for Smuggs, it's not really part of their business model- they, more or less, dominate the family resort niche- and don't need to push their numbers (which are very good numbers in general).

 

So when Smuggs reports 12-14", I believe that to be an fair report, though Smuggs doesn't really have a system like Stowe that approaches a more scientifically-rigorous measurement of snowfall.  Often, it seems Smuggs reports their snowfall events from the base only (or a random mix of on-mountain measurements that falls short of representative)- e.g. Smuggs reports 5-8", while neighboring Stowe reports 7-12" for the same event  (which represents the spread between base and summit- thanks PF).  Sometimes, it seems like the guys at Smuggs almost under-report their snow numbers- weird, but I've had days where there was 12"+ on the mountain widespread, and only 7-9" reported.

 

The problem I have with Jay is the opacity of their reporting and the lack of webcams- it would be nice to have less "Get up here NOW, it's snowing like crazy!" reporting and be more straightforward with how they report their snow measurements.

 

 I guess it comes down to Smuggs, often, does not seem to place snowfall reporting as much of a  priority as Jay, and neither seem to have an objective reporting system like Stowe in place.  PF- you should pat yourself on the back a bit- a lot of people really appreciate this- cheers!

[Hitman]

Clear and 10f. Just took a walk and the stars are out and the snow is squeaky.

[powderfreak]

I'm not going to comment on Jay's snowfall reports, except to say they by far take the cake for most un-trusted snowfall reports. They do get the most snow, but maybe not as much as it seems? I know a NWS skier who took issue with some of their snowfall reporting while he was visiting, but he also said that the mountain is so prone to drifting he couldn't get a consistent depth anywhere...but felt average depths were not nearly as high as they said.

As for Smuggs...they usually only report summit depths as far as I know. Or at least upper mountain. The Jeffersonville COOP had 8" (that guy lives at the base of Sterling essentially), so 12-14" on the upper mountain would work. The difference between Stowe and Smuggs all depends on the type of event. Ono like you said, sometimes I'll have 8-12" while Smuggs has 6-8", but then there are days like today when I have 6-8" and Smuggs has 12-14".

Smuggs to me is very honest and likewise a lot of Stowe locals think I under-report. The issue is we all know where the deeper pockets are. We know where the snow drifts and fills in. What glades get filled deep. We as skiers avoid the scoured areas and aim for the pow. Quite often you can be skiing knee deep on a day when 6" falls. Or at Stowe you can ski the Kitchen Wall and it's 3x as deep as the report. That doesn't mean it's under-reported.

The goal is to find a sheltered place, and more importantly measure in the same place as often as possible. If you are always measuring in different locations, how can you compare it? At least in a consistent spot, people can say ok, I know when Stowe says 6", this is what the mountain will ski like. It's all relative to that one measuring place.

Likewise I know Sugarbush is honest and sometimes people say under-reports at times. Same with Bolton. Skiers in powder are often an enthusiastic bunch too...I've noticed that a lot of skiers will over-estimate the snowfall. I'm the one carrying a tape measure, and have asked people to guess what they think the snowfall is and 9 out of 10 times they guess too high. People that say they think it's 8-10", usually haven't actually measured anything.

Lastly, remember that a snowfall report is only valid at the time it's submitted, and 6am reports at most mountains will errr on the low side. The reason being, at that time we only truly know the base area snowfall. We are getting summit snow from grooming. No snow reporter at any mountain east or west has been up at the top by 6am. So you low ball it to be safe. That's why you see updates at 9am that have more exact numbers. Example being say you have 6" at a base area snowstake...you go out with 5-7" or 6-8" knowing the average difference is around 2" between top/bottom. But then you get up high, and the high elevations got blasted with 12" of fluff overnight. Skiers on the mountain saw the 6-8" on the 6am, and call under-reporting. But you can always update and add inches, so at 9am the report says 6" base and 12" summit. Once a number is out there you can't lower it easily, but it's very easy to say opps, sorry, you'll have to ski

powder deeper than you planned. So start low and don't go big until you can confirm it with your own eyes.

Another common reason people think under-reporting, is the timing of the report. I've seen Smuggs issue as early as 5:30am and Stowe is always out by 6am, 615 at the latest (measured at 530am though). The lifts open at 8am or 9am depending on the lift. If it is snowing, you can get a good shot of snow in those 2-3 hours between report and opening. 6am says 4-6", but by 8am that's 6-9" when skiers hit the slopes. They then say it's under-reporting, but it's just that it's been snowing for another 2.5 hours.

[J.Spin]

What are the chances this is the start of our season long snow cover? I'm sure it is in the higher elevations but I don't remember the last time it started in November for areas where people live.

 

It’s pertinent that you bring that up, because the start of the seasonal snowpack, and the similarity between the current season and the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 seasons has been on my mind over the past week, especially in the context of this recent storm.  That topic hadn’t come up in conversation until this point, since much of the related forum discussion was about the rain and how the snow was going to get all washed away, but the farther north and west one went in the region, that was obviously tempered.  I was very interested in seeing if our snow on the ground would be maintained with this latest storm, and indeed even bolstered as the case was, because it held the possibility of starting the seasonal snowpack.  I almost cored the snowpack this morning to get the water content, but I didn’t quite have the time.  In any event, I can look at my liquid analyses from the recent rounds of precipitation and make an estimate of what’s in there, and I’d say it’s somewhere in the range of 1 to 1 ¼ inches of liquid.  The tough part is figuring how much of yesterday’s rains hung in the snowpack and how much percolated through, combined with any snow that actually melted.  Even at the low end of that liquid estimate, looking at the upcoming forecast, it doesn’t seem like the snowpack is going to disappear in the immediate future, and as we move farther and farther into December it’s more likely to stick.

 

I was sort of caught off guard a bit with the potential for the start of the snowpack because I hadn’t put in my driveway marking poles yet.  I suddenly came to that realization yesterday, and I think the later starts to the snowpack of the past couple of seasons had me a bit complacent.  I had to shovel around the few inches of dense snow that was out there, but I was able to take advantage of the warmer period during the middle of the storm to find the edges of the driveway and get the poles in.  It would be much tougher to get that done now, since all the wet base snow is locked up and there’s a bunch of new snow on top of it.  We’ve now had continuous snow on the ground here since November 22^nd, so if this does represent the start of the seasonal snowpack, that would be the start date.

 

With regard to your question about snow cover, I can only speak from data for my location, but the above date is actually similar to, although slightly later for a snowpack start date than the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 seasons I mentioned above.  I put together a comparative table below that has that information and includes the total number storms and snowfall for November (data for this season are in blue, and are naturally pending):

 

 

Looking at the parameters in the table, this November has been curiously similar to those Novembers, and it’s somewhat surprising because they were La Niña style seasons.  Going forward, it will be interesting to see if December follows any sort of trends, because the Decembers that followed those Novembers were great for snowfall – we picked up roughly 55” in December 2008, and almost 70” in December 2007.  Scale those numbers to mountain levels and that’s a couple of snowy months for the slopes.  We’ll just have to see how December 2013 goes in the snowfall department since it’s not quite the same global pattern, but at least it’s been an above average November.  We’re actually only about a week ahead of average on snowfall though, and as we move into December, Mother Nature really has to keep on the gas or it’s easy to fall behind that average pace; we’re heading deeper into winter and mean snowfall increases by about 1.5”/day.

[powderfreak]

Diamond dust or whatever you want to call it, but it's 5F and snowing out of a mainly clear sky. Big flakes floating down at the mountain but I don't know where it's coming from haha.

[OceanStWx]

Diamond dust or whatever you want to call it, but it's 5F and snowing out of a mainly clear sky. Big flakes floating down at the mountain but I don't know where it's coming from haha.

 

You're basically walking around in the snow growth zone. Ha

[Mikehobbyst]

Clear and 10f. Just took a walk and the stars are out and the snow is squeaky.

"squeaky", like a rubber ducky squeak?

[borderwx]

I'm not going to comment on Jay's snowfall reports, except to say they by far take the cake for most un-trusted snowfall reports. They do get the most snow, but maybe not as much as it seems? I know a NWS skier who took issue with some of their snowfall reporting while he was visiting, but he also said that the mountain is so prone to drifting he couldn't get a consistent depth anywhere...but felt average depths were not nearly as high as they said.

As for Smuggs...they usually only report summit depths as far as I know. Or at least upper mountain. The Jeffersonville COOP had 8" (that guy lives at the base of Sterling essentially), so 12-14" on the upper mountain would work. The difference between Stowe and Smuggs all depends on the type of event. Ono like you said, sometimes I'll have 8-12" while Smuggs has 6-8", but then there are days like today when I have 6-8" and Smuggs has 12-14".

Smuggs to me is very honest and likewise a lot of Stowe locals think I under-report. The issue is we all know where the deeper pockets are. We know where the snow drifts and fills in. What glades get filled deep. We as skiers avoid the scoured areas and aim for the pow. Quite often you can be skiing knee deep on a day when 6" falls. Or at Stowe you can ski the Kitchen Wall and it's 3x as deep as the report. That doesn't mean it's under-reported.

The goal is to find a sheltered place, and more importantly measure in the same place as often as possible. If you are always measuring in different locations, how can you compare it? At least in a consistent spot, people can say ok, I know when Stowe says 6", this is what the mountain will ski like. It's all relative to that one measuring place.

Likewise I know Sugarbush is honest and sometimes people say under-reports at times. Same with Bolton. Skiers in powder are often an enthusiastic bunch too...I've noticed that a lot of skiers will over-estimate the snowfall. I'm the one carrying a tape measure, and have asked people to guess what they think the snowfall is and 9 out of 10 times they guess too high. People that say they think it's 8-10", usually haven't actually measured anything.

Lastly, remember that a snowfall report is only valid at the time it's submitted, and 6am reports at most mountains will errr on the low side. The reason being, at that time we only truly know the base area snowfall. We are getting summit snow from grooming. No snow reporter at any mountain east or west has been up at the top by 6am. So you low ball it to be safe. That's why you see updates at 9am that have more exact numbers. Example being say you have 6" at a base area snowstake...you go out with 5-7" or 6-8" knowing the average difference is around 2" between top/bottom. But then you get up high, and the high elevations got blasted with 12" of fluff overnight. Skiers on the mountain saw the 6-8" on the 6am, and call under-reporting. But you can always update and add inches, so at 9am the report says 6" base and 12" summit. Once a number is out there you can't lower it easily, but it's very easy to say opps, sorry, you'll have to ski

powder deeper than you planned. So start low and don't go big until you can confirm it with your own eyes.

Another common reason people think under-reporting, is the timing of the report. I've seen Smuggs issue as early as 5:30am and Stowe is always out by 6am, 615 at the latest (measured at 530am though). The lifts open at 8am or 9am depending on the lift. If it is snowing, you can get a good shot of snow in those 2-3 hours between report and opening. 6am says 4-6", but by 8am that's 6-9" when skiers hit the slopes. They then say it's under-reporting, but it's just that it's been snowing for another 2.5 hours.

 

sorry everyone, wasn't really asking the question, just poking a little fun Jay's way. I don't know about other mountains, well Burke, but their snow report is more, yes there is skiing or no, but I have in over a decade on Jay seen it snow straight down exactly 3 times.  I just get a kick out of it.

 

Base is in above 2500', the water actually helped to seal things up. Best start in years.  Its 1F now, crystal clear.

[powderfreak]

You're basically walking around in the snow growth zone. Ha

Haha, MVL was --SN at 7sm too. It's not like snowing as much as they are just in the air, if that makes sense. Suspended, hanging there.