powderfreak

Finally a nice day after the multi-day siege of wind and snow.

What we know for sure is that we don’t know.

One of the more impressive walks from staff parking to the Mtn Ops Center at 5am this morning. I don't have to, but the morning walk in the elements really sets the tone of the day to me. The snowbanks were getting sculpted into hard slab, which only happens in high, sustained winds.

From a friend at about 3,000ft today between Stowe and Smuggs on the Snuffies/Sterling Pond trail. 6-8 foot drifts filling the trail between the trees after 3 days of 50-80mph winds.

That cam is the poster child for this event haha. The thing had an extra flip in it the other day… we think the wind literally pushed it enough to trigger the flipping mechanism. That thing looks like it just went through battle for the past 72 hours of 50-80mph wind and sub-zero cold. It’s like, “I’m still standing. I might have a black eye, missing a shoe, and struggling but what else ya got another Nature?”

The most insane wind I can remember here this morning. Blew down the old school red snow fence at top of Quad by the Octagon. I also found a large tower pad in the Spruce base from halfway up the Meadows Quad. The Lookout Cam looks haggard like it’s been in battle with Mother Nature for days. Now accumulating parts of trees as they get shredded.

This is some of the most incredible wind I can remember. Day 3 of tropical storm gusts at 0F and snow. As gnarly as it gets up here at the mountain.

It’s been an impressively long stretch of high winds and cold.

It’s like 3 foot drifts alongside large areas of scour. The wind has smoked all open areas, with drifts in the lee of any topography change. It goes from wind stripped crust, to deep snow. Highly variable, comes with long duration windstorms.

-SN obs go back to January 6th at 8pm. Solid wintry vibe for the past 48 hours. 8F… 8” wind-packed OTG. Not deep winter but winter.

Dude anything is going feel balmy if it’s like 15F with little wind. This has been a pretty gnarly stretch in the high elevations. We’re going to report/record a storm total of like 6” with monster drifts and thigh deep snow in areas . Toll Road: Stafford wallowing through thigh deep from the Stone Hut last night.

I have no idea how you’d tell. We have 3-5 foot drifts and then nothing. Like this Smuggs photo… 2” overnight and this haha.

Just continues to blow and snow. 2” at the plots and 3 foot drifts.

High Road at midday. Wind just filling everything in between the trees. The board starts 2” off the ground, so when the whole thing fills in, it tries to capture the real snowfall. If this stake started at the packed out snow level, it would be 2” higher over most readings.

Nice, that looks like a healthy snow plot 4-6” of new snow. Scour 0” over old pack and 12” in the drifts.

It does show in the means.

You guys can clean up on the real biggies, but it can be a while between them. That’s how I look at your snow climo. Very low floor but decently high ceiling climo.

No mercy.

That’s pretty impressive to be honest. Last four years aren’t even close to normal.

Drifts and scour. Upper mountain snow plots showing 3”, Midway parking lot filling in. Who knows how much is out there.

Some truly gnarly conditions out on the hill today. 50-60mph gusts even in the base area. White out conditions and single digit temps in the parking lots. Upper mountain was just crushed by wind, no idea on actual snow accumulations because everywhere is wind affected. Wind shredding the Lift Closed banner.

I was thinking your home base must be doing well? Earlier I saw 7.6” in Jericho and 8.0” in Waterville with snow continuing. This should pack into Smuggs’ NW facing topographic bowl if the wind can stay down on that side. Meanwhile the Stowe SE facing topographic bowl and down the West Branch has been getting crushed with wind. Really hindering actual accumulations despite snowing consistently the whole time with low visibility. Even at home the flags are straight out. Like rocks in a river, the lee side is in the backside "churn" of the barrier.

I think there’s actually a decrease in “snowfall” with height because of wind and lower ratios… but doesn’t mean there’s less SWE. I saw someone say Smuggs has more snow at the base than the top, and I’m talking it through… upper elevations could be seeing wind packing that QPF into 10:1 3-4” while calm spots down lower are doing 20-30:1 of fluff. Like if you get 0.30” QPF… 700ft in Jericho is calm and 8” at almost 25:1. Meanwhile high elevations could be 3” of 10:1 wind-packed stuff. Mansfield High Road checked in with 3” of dense wind packed snow, for comparison but felt like the QPF was in there.

Yeah I dunno, maybe I’m just off. Definitely seeing much higher winds east of the crest. Maybe that’s just skewing my perception on accumulations. Would need to see where the QPF is landing. This felt blocked to me, with 3-4” just west and 0.5-1.0” just east. Like even up by Jay… Alpine Haven (1500ft) at 3.5” while Westfield at (1,100ft) just 1.0”. Same around here. J.Spin sneaks through the Winnoski gap with 3.9”. That’s like a 0.7-0.9 type Froude to me.

I'll try to look but my guess is this is closer to 0.5-0.75 for Froude. A 1.0 usually dumps more than what's happening now on the Spine itself. I think because of the Winooski River gap there you do well at a wider range of Froude numbers. This looks really blocked up to me. Edit: Looking at the NAM and GFS Froude, you're right, it's unblocking a bit throughout the day up to 1.0 or even just above later this afternoon. It was at 0.50 last night and early this morning. Then tonight it goes back down to 0.5 - 0.7 on GFS with the less mixing (overnight).... before daylight starts to mix it out and rise it back up to 1.25 at max afternoon mixing.