bch2014

If you’re looking for cheaper lodging, checkout areas in the French Alps like Serre Chevalier, Isola, and La Grave (famous amongst the extreme skiers). To @amarshall’s comment regarding elevation dictating lodging prices, the French Alps have a particular elevation/snow quality gradient that exists elsewhere, but is less pronounced. Keep in mind that for a storm coming off the Atlantic, the first large mountains are it hits are the French Alps. With that brings warm air… If you go further east, you’ll generally find that snow levels drop. 1600m on the Arlberg is roughly equivalent to 2000m in the French Alps.

Les Trois Vallees is generally one of the most snow-sure areas of the Alps, so you chose well (assuming you booked at advanced notice). That, and, the Arlberg region of Austria are probably the best at advanced notice (though we got skunked there at Christmas 2022). Places like the Dolomites, the Maritime Alps (i.e. Isola 2000, Auron), and the Southern Swiss Alps (i.e. St. Moritz) are much less snow sure but great when they're "on."

Does anyone in this thread have any Chamonix experience? I'll be skiing there on 1/31 and 2/1 and have a question regarding terrain selection for a guided day. Pending snow conditions and weather, my friend and I are planning on spending 1/31 skiing at Les Grands Montets, as we hear that it has the best lift-served/on-piste skiing in the valley. If the weather is poor, we can audible to Brevent or Les Houches. For our second day, we want to do a day of guided skiing to get off-piste. The most famous run is the Vallee Blanche, but it seems that it's less about the skiing and more about the scenery and the "experience" (i.e. the stop for lunch halfway down the valley, etc.). Quite frankly, I spend a lot of time of time in France for work, so I'm more interested in the highest quality ski experience possible rather than the dining/culture aspects as I already get plenty of that. If you've done the Vallee Blanche, would you say I'm being stupid and that we should just do it, or can you recommend other guided zones that might be more worthwhile?

Leaving for MPL for work on the evening of 12/1 for the week, returning on 12/6. Would love for a cold coastal to cancel my trip.

Sprinkles in Hoboken!

Where in Jersey is she? Things are still pretty frozen here in terms of blooming flowers... But the lawns never went ultra brown, to be honest.

https://www.weather.gov/wrh/climate?wfo=box Change the code at the end to BTV, OKX, etc depending on the geography you're looking for..

^Picked the wrong year to go. Was there last year.

Army is so inconsistent. One week they’re kicking Top 25 Air Force’s a$$, the next, they’re struggling against the ‘Saders.

If snowmaking is going to be banned, there needs to be lots of other carbon-intensive, recreational activities banned too. People have already mentioned golf, but recreational boating, transatlantic/pacific leisure trips, etc are a few low hanging fruit!

It’s interesting that NNE is going to be so far above normal. NYC is about to record its 3rd below normal month in the last four.

Brightening up noticeably here in Hoboken.

Long drive from Mammoth to the closest beach, but yes, theoretically possible.

Block Island. We summer.

I was in Italy in late June 2019 when there was a heat wave of similar magnitude (upper 90's-low 100's-not seeing the 110+ that Tip referenced in any forecasts). The Lake Como area was nice during the heat, though it is not particularly high elevation so you don't get the alpine cooling effects you might expect given the scenery...

High schools were supposed to be open.

Things seem *SLIGHTLY* brighter here in Hoboken than they did 15 minutes ago.

I live ten minutes away and still haven’t been, haha.

Flip side is that it was one of the best seasons in recent memory for the Laurentians. Not sure the correlation between that area and Jay, but I was up at Tremblant in late February and the depths were impressive.

September is the toughest month, no?

All major OKX climo sites finished May BN on temps except EWR (+0.2).

Yeah, the reason why I said sleet is that I wasn't seeing any accumulation/hailstones. Just hearing the pingers.

Sleet mixing in here in Hoboken.

BOS has had 9 straight days of BN departures. When was the last time that happened?