NNE Winter Part 3

[powderfreak]

slowed down for the past hour or so, and the most recent snow has definitely more fluff to it. Clouds over the mts were lifting, but then it just started to close back in with light snow returning. 2.5" down.

Radar's showing some moisture working its way in from the west. Maybe we get another shot this afternoon. Every little bit helps.

That's about twice as much as we have at 1,500ft about two miles from you but on the east side. Blocked flow.

[N. OF PIKE]

I think this pattern will be mostly dry for New England and more mid atl centric next week

[CardinalWinds]

Just a hair over 1" here.  I am quite surprised.  How did I manage that much with a blocked flow?  I was still asleep while it was falling so I didn't get to see the radar during...lol.

 

Agree with the cold and dry next week.  I'm as amateur as it gets on this board and even I can't see a way out of suppression depression here.

[dendrite]

33F and spitting flurries.

[tamarack]

He has a far better chance at daily snows on the right flow then i ever will, I am in the perfect down slope dandy spot and see 0" annually

I'll match your downslope and raise you some CAD.  

Since Jan 3 we've had a couple "20 flake" days, plus 0.2" IP last Saturday.  12z gfs looks cold throughout the 16 days, but less than 1" qpf, and 60% of what it does have comes during hrs 372-384.    

 

[dryslot]

I'll match your downslope and raise you some CAD.  

Since Jan 3 we've had a couple "20 flake" days, plus 0.2" IP last Saturday.  12z gfs looks cold throughout the 16 days, but less than 1" qpf, and 60% of what it does have comes during hrs 372-384.    

 

 

Yeah, Models are not all that appealing right now as far as what they show for qpf amounts, Maybe that changes as we move along over the next 2 weeks

[dendrite]

Looks like spring in my yard with the usual south and west facing areas bare but a good 4-6 inches of glacier elsewhere. Even yesterday when it was in the low 40's I was able to walk on top of it with no footprints showing.

Yeah...parts of CON have taken a beating. There's a lot of grass showing at my work. Still a uniform 9" here and the driveway is still covered with thick ice.

[powderfreak]

Just a hair over 1" here.  I am quite surprised.  How did I manage that much with a blocked flow?  I was still asleep while it was falling so I didn't get to see the radar during...lol.

 

Agree with the cold and dry next week.  I'm as amateur as it gets on this board and even I can't see a way out of suppression depression here.

 

You know what, I got home and found about the same here as at the base of the ski area which was surprising...

 

Check out my ghetto snow board... an old piece of a shed resting on top of a beach cooler.

 

1.25" though... and cored it to get 0.06" liquid.  So roughly 20:1 ratio stuff.

 

Biggest snowfall in what, 2 weeks? 

 

 

And a view from Topnotch a little further up Mountain Road.

 

[Lava Rock]

Yeah, Models are not all that appealing right now as far as what they show for qpf amounts, Maybe that changes as we move along over the next 2 weeks

Gonna be too bad if most of our winter has come to pass. Don't care about sub zer temps. Just prefer normal temps with good snow chances. "There's always February......" lol.

 

btw, what happened to the "pattern looks great"?

[dryslot]

Gonna be too bad if most of our winter has come to pass. Don't care about sub zer temps. Just prefer normal temps with good snow chances. "There's always February......" lol.

 

btw, what happened to the "pattern looks great"?

 

I will take cold, We don't need frigid, Even if it snowed, Its not much fun riding in sub zero temps, But i would do it if i had to

[Lava Rock]

I will take cold, We don't need frigid, Even if it snowed, Its not much fun riding in sub zero temps, But i would do it if i had to

I've gone on one one local ride so far. Pretty sad. I don't think there's one place in the state save for northern county that may have any riding and it's probably limited. Just not looking good this wknd or possibly next. Hard to imagine we could lose the whole month jan.

[CardinalWinds]

You know what, I got home and found about the same here as at the base of the ski area which was surprising...

 

Check out my ghetto snow board... an old piece of a shed resting on top of a beach cooler.

 

1.25" though... and cored it to get 0.06" liquid.  So roughly 20:1 ratio stuff.

 

Biggest snowfall in what, 2 weeks? 

 

dec16.jpg

 

And a view from Topnotch a little further up Mountain Road.

 

dec16b.jpg

 

Yeah, I can't remember the last time I was excited for an inch of snow.  Maybe in 1974 as a kid in Baltimore?...lol.  Well, at least the ground is 100% covered again.  Hope to keep it that way with the cold coming.

 

But don't post those pics in the pattern thread, PF...our good friends to the south will have very little patience for any more VT complaints...even though the snow today did absolutely nothing to alleviate the poor conditions up here

[eyewall]

The Euro is s **** show for sure as we are not far from being blanked for 10 days LOL. Obviously I know clippers can locally produce due to mesoscale features missed in the globals, but certainly I would still punt the idea of a widespread big ticket for almost the remainder of the month at this stage of the game. Cold and dry will mean the snow guns will be working overtime.

[powderfreak]

I will take cold, We don't need frigid, Even if it snowed, Its not much fun riding in sub zero temps, But i would do it if i had to

 

Did you see the 18z NAM for this weekend?  lol

 

 

 

 

[powderfreak]

The Euro is s **** show for sure as we are not far from being blanked for 10 days LOL. Obviously I know clippers can locally produce due to mesoscale features missed in the globals, but certainly I would still punt the idea of a widespread big ticket for almost the remainder of the month at this stage of the game. Cold and dry will mean the snow guns will be working overtime.

 

Well this is a nickle and dime pattern.  No way will a shortwave amplify enough into the coming arctic airmass to really bring us a widespread synoptic snow, unless we pull a rabbit out of a Norlun hat this weekend or something.

 

But with that said, I think the arctic front will bring some fun for Sunday, even if its just an inch or two.  I feel ok about nickle and diming it going forward but as far as getting something amped up this far west is unlikely.

[eyewall]

Well this is a nickle and dime pattern.  No way will a shortwave amplify enough into the coming arctic airmass to really bring us a widespread synoptic snow, unless we pull a rabbit out of a Norlun hat this weekend or something.

 

But with that said, I think the arctic front will bring some fun for Sunday, even if its just an inch or two.  I feel ok about nickle and diming it going forward but as far as getting something amped up this far west is unlikely.

 

I agree and if it has to be that way give me one of these again:

[dendrite]

Still think you guys are punting too soon for Jan considering it's 1/16.

[powderfreak]

Still think you guys are punting too soon for Jan considering it's 1/16.

 

Yeah I guess it depends what exactly "punting" means.  Its sort of vague like "torch" and open to interpretation.  I'm looking at it more of relative to normal January snowfall...as well as outdoor recreation from snowmobiling, X-C, and backcountry skiing too.  Stuff that would require us to build some snowpack quickly if we aren't punting this month.  Relative to normal snowfall, we'd need one heck of a second half of the month to get anywhere near normal (heck even 50-75% of normal may be a stretch but don't want to reference models as they are dry today, but may come back tomorrow), which is sort of what I mean if I reference punting...sort of like this month won't live up to normal "January" status in snowfall, and lets try again for normal in February.

 

But if by punting, we interpret that as getting shut-out, then you're right.  I don't think that happens.  But if we see a couple 1-4 inch events, that's not exactly redeeming the month.  It would take a widespread solid warning criteria event I think to gain back any respect for January at this point, which is BTV's snowiest month of the year climo wise.

[powderfreak]

 I moved my response over to the NNE thread for this one.  Even I'm getting sick of talking about it in the pattern thread and don't think that's the right venue for these types of discussions anymore.

 

6" below normal for the date isn't even that bad. 40-50" on the season would be like 30" below normal the rest of the way. You guys are just really jaded right now.

 

Yeah those BTV stats don't sound bad, and we are jaded.  I think the difference is really in the winter recreation and mountains.  The mountains are getting some pretty decent departures in both snowfall and snowpack.  Snowpack is the bigger issue.  2011-2012 was atrocious in the Champlain Valley/BTV area (as the sub 40" total shows), but in the mountains it never got nearly as dire as it seems this year.  It wasn't perfect, but I'll also say that was a horrific winter from Killington south in the Greens (ie. like 100" of snowfall at Killington, while we managed our way to 211" up here).   

 

To be honest, 2011-2012 probably jaded us even more.  That was an awful winter region wide but we still sort of upsloped our way out of it through Jan/Feb.  While BTV was 37", here in Stowe it was 90" and we had a decent snowpack most of the winter.  The fact that we got like 4-5 more feet throughout the course of a winter here in town and are only like 20 miles away as the crow flies from Burlington, didn't help the feeling of relative invincibility haha.  This winter has brought me back to earth so far.  We can get screwed, lol.

[klw]

Looks like we picked up about 1.4 total. Still lightly snowing.

[wxeyeNH]

30.6F very light snow.  Nice thick dusting on the old snow.  Maybe 1/4" or so.  Radar shows more echoes forming to my SW.  Would be nice to get an inch or so to freshen up the remaining snowpack.

[mreaves]

Just got home and measured an inch and a half. Not a lot but more that I was expecting. One of the things that I have noticed since I have been on Eastern and AMWX, is that I tend to focus on what the upcoming pattern is going to be like and any larger storms. These small events sneak up on me because I am always looking out further, either for the next big event or for the big torch that could take it all away. I need to enjoy what I have in the present.

As for what PF wrote, I think part of the problem is that in a lot of places there is a weird distribution of what little snow there is. I'm at about 1200' and my front yard was bare before today. Down the hill in South Barre at around 800', they have maintained more than I have. The cold has held in the valleys a bit more. Many of the mountains look bare. This is not a pretty time of year without snow.

[Lava Rock]

30.6F very light snow.  Nice thick dusting on the old snow.  Maybe 1/4" or so.  Radar shows more echoes forming to my SW.  Would be nice to get an inch or so to freshen up the remaining snowpack.

must look nice. I kinda forgot what snow looks like.

[dryslot]

Did you see the 18z NAM for this weekend?  lol

 

 

 

 

 

I did, But, Its the Nam, If it still shows this Saturday, I am on board.........

[j24vt]

1.3" today

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 1.7” Snow/0.08” L.E.

 

Subsequent to the 6:00 A.M. clearing of the snowboard this morning, there was 1.4” of new snow at our location from today’s activity.  It was certainly fluffy, midwinter type stuff, and it’s doing a good job of covering the old snow.

 

Details from the 6:00 P.M. Waterbury observations:

 

New Snow: 1.4 inches

New Liquid: 0.05 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 28.0

Snow Density: 3.6% H2O

Temperature: 29.8 F

Sky: Light snow (1-12 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 4.0 inches

 

Another couple of tenths fell with snowfall from this evening, and I’ll incorporate that into tomorrow morning’s analysis.

 

This event has finally pushed the season snowfall total past 50”, and since that’s one of the benchmarks I typically like to check each season, I looked into my data for the average date of reaching that point.  On average, 50” is attained on December 31^st, so this season is running a bit more than two weeks behind average pace.

[ono]

Smuggs today:  It snowed on and off, and we had ~2.5" or a bit more at the Village by tonight.  

 

Last night, it was rain-mix-snow progression at the base, but the temp and observations appeared as though it would be snowing harder up high. This was the case when I drove up to Notch lot to mess around in the snow- here, we witnessed more intense snowfall and more accumulated depth @ 1700' vs 1100' around 11PM last night.

 

But the snow accumulation up top today @ 3000' was ~3". To be honest, I was expecting something around 4-6" as a ballpark- perhaps some compaction occurred, but that 4-6" really seemed plausible for the lower temps the upper elevations assumedly experienced. Not close- it skied like, and was, 3" of right-side-up snow on frozen granular- improved over a few days ago, but not that great- not even close to a powder day. A rock hard base defines the ski experience until we get some substantial snow.

 

My observations didn't seem to add up- 1100' received just about as much snow as 3000' with a temp profile that would suggest otherwise.  Compaction may be a partial component. But depending orographics to produce proved contrary to experience here.

 

This season proves my lack of appreciation for this pattern.  Only up we go...

[adk]

We can't just talk about snow depth. We have to talk about snow pack quality. 2011-2012 was lean but the snowpack that was down was SNOW.  Not the case this year. Our 22 inches of snowpack is ice. You just can't do anything with that. That's what is the primary difference to me. 

 

Anyway...models are having a tough time with this arctic front moving in sunday. Showing some strange qpf patterns in VT.  Be interesting to see how this blows in. 

[powderfreak]

Smuggs today:  It snowed on and off, and we had ~2.5" or a bit more at the Village by tonight.  

 

Last night, it was rain-mix-snow progression at the base, but the temp and observations appeared as though it would be snowing harder up high. This was the case when I drove up to Notch lot to mess around in the snow- here, we witnessed more intense snowfall and more accumulated depth @ 1700' vs 1100' around 11PM last night.

 

But the snow accumulation up top today @ 3000' was ~3". To be honest, I was expecting something around 4-6" as a ballpark- perhaps some compaction occurred, but that 4-6" really seemed plausible for the lower temps the upper elevations assumedly experienced. Not close- it skied like, and was, 3" of right-side-up snow on frozen granular- improved over a few days ago, but not that great- not even close to a powder day. A rock hard base defines the ski experience until we get some substantial snow.

 

My observations didn't seem to add up- 1100' received just about as much snow as 3000' with a temp profile that would suggest otherwise.  Compaction may be a partial component. But depending orographics to produce proved contrary to experience here.

 

This season proves my lack of appreciation for this pattern.  Only up we go...

 

Interesting.  There was a noticable different between base and summit by yesterday afternoon on this side.

 

For once the Coop came in with a similar snowfall than I had, haha.  But that's a good shot of liquid at 10:1 ratio... despite my 20:1 ratio at home. 

 

DAILY HYDROMETEOROLOGICAL DATA

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BURLINGTON VT

522 PM EST THU JAN 16 2014

STATION            PRECIP   TEMPERATURE   PRESENT         SNOW

                   24 HRS   MAX MIN CUR   WEATHER     NEW TOTAL SWE

...VERMONT...

MOUNT MANSFIELD     0.28    28  14  16                3.0  25

 

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 1.9” Snow/0.08” L.E.

 

There’s nothing to report past the 0.2” from yesterday evening, so that should mark the end of this event.

 

Details from the 6:00 A.M. Waterbury observations:

 

New Snow: 0.2 inches

New Liquid: Trace

Temperature: 23.5 F

Sky: Partly Cloudy

Snow at the stake: 4.0 inches

 

For those resorts that have updated this morning, I’ve also grabbed the 48/72-hour snow reports covering the snow from this past event for the Vermont ski areas;  With the north to south listing, one can see that the Northern Greens, as well as the northern areas in the Central Greens are starting to do their thing:

 

Jay Peak: 3”

Burke: 4”

Stowe: 5”

Bolton Valley: 5”

Sugarbush: 5”

Pico: 1”

Killington: 1”

Bromley: 1”

Magic Mountain: 1”

Stratton: 2”

Mount Snow: 1”

 

The next opportunities for snow appear to be in the Saturday/Sunday/Monday timeframe.  I haven’t looked at the models yet, but the point forecast here at the house suggests rounds of snow similar to what we just had:

 

• Saturday Snow showers likely, mainly between 1pm and 3pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 35. Calm wind becoming southeast around 6 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches possible.
• Saturday Night Scattered snow showers before 5am. Cloudy, with a low around 21. West wind 5 to 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 40%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 2 inches possible.
• Sunday Snow showers likely, mainly after 5pm. Cloudy, with a high near 29. Southwest wind 7 to 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 2 inches possible.
• Sunday Night Snow showers likely. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 10. Southwest wind 10 to 14 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%.

 

The forecast models certainly imply some potential in the next few days, and on top of what’s already been picked up, it could almost be time to head up to the hill again depending on how things go.