powderfreak

We are getting severe downslope winds on the east side of the blocked flow. Gusts to 60mph and almost the entire ski area is shut down. Even in town, ripping 30-40mph gusts. Light snow but it’s a lot of wind.

Thats encouraging. Cars white here but still small flake size.

Old school thread start. Well done Tip.

Yeah that wouldn’t be surprising. The long duration totals into Friday will probably get there. 2-4” every period (12-24 hours)? Personally I think the GFS is way overdone on scope and total. That QPF would require a great maritime moisture feed or be on the backside of a synoptic storm. I’ve just seen these set-ups, and it’s largely just moisture slowly lapping up against the Greens. But it’s not deep moisture… so shallow low level snow will favor the west slopes and nooks and crannies through the Spine IMO. The Upper East Side will do fine but probably a strong gradient as one drops in elevation on the east slope.

The ASOS’s are registering it as haze (HZ) or mist (BR). Arctic cold just squeezing out low level moisture, of which there isn’t much but just enough? METAR KMPV 070200Z AUTO 31005KT 2 1/2SM BR OVC011 M16/M18 A2970 METAR KMPV 070155Z AUTO 32005KT 2SM HZ OVC011 M15/M18 A2970

Same here. Looks like a fog or mist. Flow is quite blocked and looks to be during this event. I’m not super high on this one… think it’s going to be small dense Arctic flakes east of the crest. We just drove back from BTV and the snowiest place on the drive was Williston on French Hill (I-89) from the rest area until you drop down into Richmond. Flakes were a bit bigger and road was covered. Everywhere else was a fine mist like visibility. Radar confirms too, the best lift is occurring like 10 miles west of the actual barrier.

This is a wild 6-hour panel.

Good point. Cant make this stuff up. Precip pattern is NW flow. When it goes prolonged SE flow, the precip pattern flips.

Hopefully one of these lifts north. Going cold and dry in SNE after the past few years, would be brutal.

Almost like a teabag up north here. Should keep flakes in the air for several days up this way.

Days and days?

This has western slopes written all over it. Blocked flow spreading down the western foothills.

On every skier’s Xmas wish list. Custom JSpin poles with the marketing slogan, “don’t just wing it.”

He's gonna come up to a stake strapped to the side of that thing one of these days lol. Would turn into the best 2,000ft snow plot out there.

I know I tickled the bear a bit with those comments. I might head up tomorrow or Tuesday to check it out, ha. In the end, without a consistent plot of measuring in the EXACT same spot all the time it’s hard to judge sometimes. Like if @J.Spin always went to exactly the same plot of trees to measure at Bolton. @bwt3650 always went to the same cluster at Jay. “What did your group of trees get in this event?” . I think there’s a lot of that to my anal retentiveness, it’s just apples to oranges (consistent spot vs skiing around making an observation) and I wish it was all apples to apples and we had western SNOWTEL stations everywhere. Stowe’s annual snowfall dropped about 40-50” when we went to a one/two location measuring vs skiing around estimating (330” to 280”). I think Sugarbush has dropped markedly since they went to their snow cams too. Which is why I doubt we will see it up north. I know what happens when you are handcuffed to a singular spot, even if you “feel” there’s more out there. My money will always be on 20% more increases from Sugarbush to Mansfield and Mansfield to Jay (300” vs 360” type).

Looks like we have some more light QPF coming in the mountains.

I feel this, despite my life requiring 10pm to 5am. Persistent poor snow growth arctic light snow at 1-3sm and 12 degrees. Roads look like Alaska tundra with dry dense sifting around between the snowbanks. Champlain Valley in on it too with BTV at 0.75sm -SN at 18F. KBTV 050156Z 04006KT 3/4SM -SN VV017 M08/M11

I think it was a pretty well modeled event for sure, went about exactly as they showed. Being obsessed with “new snowfall” isn’t the best either, it can dampen things a bit, ha. Like with Mansfield (3,000ft) at 22” in past week, I know that’s getting all settled out and such. For whatever reason my focus goes to what is the very recent addition to the snowpack because that’s what goes into the annual tally. Snow definitely can add up over time and skiers usually don’t care when or how it ended up there or even exactly how much it is as long as it’s good. It’s just anal retentive measuring on my part to be quite honest .

It’s interesting how different people perceive snowfall. A friend skinned next to Gilpin and said the number he’d pick was 18” for snowfall, no chance anything near 30”. Said he did find one pitch that was ridiculously deep but on the whole he was thinking 18”. Skied Mansfield and then went to Domeys Dome next to Gilpin. Classic snowfall audit… but again, not Jay, just his estimates in the area. I only share this not as a "ha, don't believe it" but because it was exactly what I always say... that area gets more snowfall but about 10-20% more on average than Smugglers Notch/Mansfield area (which gets 10-20% more than Sugarbush/MRG). It just fit my long-standing beliefs, that's all. And in America, we all like information that fits our own thoughts . I always find the different estimates interesting and sort of funny.

19/10 -SN

The clock keeps freezing. I'm about to just remove it lol. I'm not sure why the new Brownrice vendor can't just have a time stamp on it like the old one. The video is always live and the clock is cheap and freezes up. High Road Plot did 17.5" in this event (2.5", 11.5", then 3.5" this morning). The Snow Cam Lookout Plot did like 14". Given the wind speeds, not surprising the elevated snow board measured less than the ground based one.

You know what I always look at in your cam images... that trash can out by the road, and how high the snow is up it lol. The stuff in the foreground is tough to judge, but that trash can seems to give the reading .

Social media has changed it 100%. People now actually know what’s going on in places that aren’t their backyard. In the 1990s, it was phone, newspaper, TV and radio. No one really knew what was going on.

The clock is wrong. Just a cheap battery operated thing that freezes. The cam is live. That is an elevated wind-swept spot on the Lookout knuckle… not ideal but cam station needed to be near power/comms. The High Road ground-based board in the bowels of Mansfield between the Quad and Gondola is the long term ticket.

Isn’t it the leeward side? Windward is facing the wind. Froude number quickly rose above 1.0 early this morning. The snow band migrated eastward from the topographic barrier.