J.Spin

The update the BTV NWS made to their Storm Total Snowfall map yesterday bringing back that 12-18” shading along the Green Mountain Spine in this area seems like it was appropriate. Our forecast did mention the potential for a bit more backside snow today, but we haven’t seen anything substantial develop as of this evening, so what we’ve got now may be the final total for the system. If the total stays there, then Winter Storm Jett will sit in the second place spot on the season behind the January 6th system that brough 22.7” of snow. A few other post-Winter Storm Jett notes with respect to the season: The storm pushed this month’s total snow to 50.7”, ensuring an above average February with respect to snowfall. That means that for this season, December, January, and February will all end up above average for snowfall, and that’s the first time that’s happened since the 2010-2011 season. Even with the very high reliability of snowfall up here in the Northern Greens, it still seems difficult to get all three of those midwinter months to achieve above average snowfall, so that’s a feather in the cap of the 2024-2025 season. The storm pushed this season’s snowfall to date past that of 2018-2019 and 2007-2008 (the updated cumulative snowfall plot is below). We don’t know if this season can hang with those seasons going forward, but for now it’s running in the ballpark of some seasons with good overall snowfall numbers. The storm brought season snowfall to ~160”, guaranteeing that we’ll see at least an average overall snowfall season here in our area.

The winds have simply been roaring around here today, with gusts in the mountains hitting 50 to 60 MPH. Temperatures on the lower slopes have been in the teens F, which isn’t that bad, but with those winds, I didn’t have any interest in riding the lifts today. The question of riding the lifts today at Bolton Valley was moot anyway – all the major lifts started on wind hold early in the morning, and by midday the resort had already cancelled all aerial lift operations for the day due to the relentless winds. The snow report indicated that it “Might be a good day to put those skins on and head uphill.”, which was sage advice. A trip to Timberline seemed like an appropriate goal for a quick ski tour today, with its relatively low elevation enabling one to stay out of the gusts hitting the highest ridgelines. Folks seemed to be following the advice from the snow report, and I saw about 20 cars in the Timberline lot with uphill skiers coming and going when I got there in the early afternoon. The Timberline Uphill Route was in good shape, and one could easily use it to make great time on the ascent, aside from some spots where drifts quickly filled in the track. The wind was at your back on the ascent, and the gusts would give you a massive boost right up the hill, so that was an enjoyable way to make the ascent even easier. There was a mix of clouds and sun out on the mountain this afternoon, and with those temperatures in the teens F, when I was in the sun and out of the wind, it felt really nice. I took a run on Spell Binder, getting first tracks… at least as far as I could tell. There may actually have been some other skiers that had skied it earlier today, but the wind would erase everything so fast, you might never know if someone had skied it more than 30 minutes before you. There were obvious wind slab surfaces in the most exposed areas, but once I was below the Spell Binder headwall, it was easy to find areas that were out of the wind and had some nice powder. At our house down in the Winooski Valley we picked up 1.62 inches of liquid equivalent from Winter Storm Jett in the form of 18.8 inches of snow. While the overall snow density from the system was 8.6% H2O, the last half foot of back side upslope snow from the storm cycle was in the 6 to 7% H2O range. Some of that powder was hit by lighter winds and compacted a little more, but it still skied quite well. The powder depths I encountered on my descent were generally in the 8 to 24-inch range, depending on how much wind had snuck into various areas. With 1.62 inches of liquid equivalent from the storm at our site down in the valley, the mountain could easily have picked up a couple inches of liquid in their snow. Whatever the case, my tour today revealed that the storm put down an absolute resurfacing aside from the usual scoured areas. The resort is reporting a storm total of 18 inches, which seems quite reasonable, and I’m sure it was tough getting accumulation numbers up there with those winds.

I was out a little while ago for observations, and we were getting 2”/hr. snow, and from what I’ve seen, this is the most intense snowfall from this system thus far. With this evening’s snows it looks like this season’s snowfall progress has actually jumped a bit ahead of the 2007-2008 season.

Aside from the change to Winter Storm Warnings, there hasn’t been too much to update with respect to the BTV NWS maps for this event – the most recent Storm Total Snowfall maps with the general 8-12” shading have been he way to go. There was a bit of a bump with this morning’s map update though, which returned some of the 12-18” shading along the spine in the Bolton Valley to Stowe stretch.

I see that Ginx has popped into the NNE thread with a couple of updates on the season, and we’ve hit midmonth now, so it’s probably a good time for the seasonal snowfall progression update from our site anyway. I saw the reference to the 2007-2008 season in his first post, and indeed that was a solid, 200”+ season down here in the valley. We haven’t been running with the 2007-2008 pace (green line in the plots below) so far this season, but we’ve been getting a bit closer as of February. Looking at the season as a whole, it really comes down to November: the 2007-2008 season had a decent November with roughly 20 inches of snow, but this season we had a below average November with only 4 inches of snow. Were it not for that slow start, this season would actually be running right up there with 2007-2008. Another decent season that’s getting some mention is 2018-2019 because Matt Parilla has recently updated his website to provide the cool parameter of “Last Snowier Winter”, so I’ve added the 2018-2019 data as the orange line in the plots below. The 2018-2019 season doesn’t come to mind quite as quickly as 2007-2008 does (it didn’t quite break 200” here in the valley), but it was clearly solid with respect to snowfall if it’s running in the neighborhood of 2007-2008. We’re still behind the snowfall pace of 2018-2019 at this point, but we’re in the midst of Winter Storm Jett hitting us with some decent accumulations, so this season may make up a bit of ground in the coming days The first plot below covers snowfall up through Feb 15 for a closer look at where we’ve been comparatively among the three seasons, and then the second plot goes out through the end of March for a look ahead at how the 2007-2008 and 2018-2019 seasons progressed over the next month or two. One can clearly see from the plots how this season started out well behind the other two, but it also speaks to the strong pace of snowfall we’ve seen over the past couple of months to be able to gain ground on those seasons, where Mother Nature really didn’t take her foot off the snowfall pedal.

I hadn’t been up to the mountain since Wednesday, so I was eager to see how the ski conditions were faring as we move into the weekend. Winter Storm Iliana had hit the area at the end of the week, and while I didn’t see any mixed precipitation at our house near the Waterbury/Bolton line, I’d heard reports that the system had brought mixed precipitation to some areas. Overall though, snowfall has certainly continued to roll on at a solid Northern Greens pace in recent days – the Bolton Valley snow report was indicating 34 inches of snow in the past week. It’s the President’s Day holiday weekend, so the potential is there for a lot of visitors at the local resorts. We also have another large system (Winter Storm Jett) coming into the area this evening, and it should be hanging around through the rest of the weekend. I’m not sure how that plays into the plans of folks who are visiting the area for skiing, but I figured I’d just pop out for a relatively short ski tour in the Bryant Cabin area today. I headed up to Bolton around midmorning, and there were no signs posted at Timberline about the upper parking areas being full. There were also plenty of available parking spaces when I got up to the Village, and I actually was able to park in the closest spot to the Broadway Trail in the backcountry lot. The lower section of the Bryant Trail had been freshly groomed, and they’d done a serious grooming – the groomed area was so wide that it could easily support two-way traffic for automobiles. Temperatures were in the teens F and there was some sun mixed with clouds, so it ended up being quite comfortable. I toured up and around Bryant Cabin to the Not a Trail traverse, and then made my way down into Gotham City. Skier traffic wasn’t bad at all – a few of the most convenient Bryant Trail glades like JJ’s, and Big Blue had seen some decent skier traffic, but most glades had seen little to no activity at that point. I had first tracks down through the Grizzwall and Gun Sight glades. After my tour I stopped in at the new Nordic and Backcountry Center by the Village Circle to check it out and grab a couple of maps. Speaking with some of the associates, they said it had been busy in the early morning when people were stopping in and renting backcountry gear, but it was relatively quiet when I was there around midday. I also took a quick tour around the Village for some photography, and there weren’t any life queues at the lifts that I saw, so I think the fact that it’s a blackout period for some types of resort passes was helping to keep the number of visitors in check. Even when I was leaving the resort around midday there were still no signs at Timberline indicating that the upper parking lots were full, so that was another sign that visitation wasn’t hitting the packed levels that it does on some weekends. I’d started checking the consistency and depths of the snowpack right from the start of my tour, since I was curious if there had been any mixed precipitation over the past couple of days. I didn’t find evidence of any firm layers in the snowpack, so if they picked up any mixed precipitation on the mountain, it must have been extremely minimal. The uppermost layers of powder in the snowpack certainly weren’t of champagne consistency, and that made sense based on my liquid analyses of Winter Storm Iliana from down at the house. The storm brough 0.40 inches of liquid to our site in the valley, and the snow density for the storm came in at exactly 10% H2O. So, it was a very synoptic-like medium density snow that was topping the snowpack. Thankfully, it skied great, and there wasn’t any upside-down feeling to the powder atop the snowpack. I could cut nice deep turns into the powder on steep terrain with no issues. I toured in the 2,000’ to 2,700’ elevation range today, and powder depths were typically anywhere from 30 inches on the low end to 40+ “swallow-your-entire-ski-pole” inches before I’d hit a substantially firm layer. I could find spots where there was detectable wind slab about a foot down, but in the sheltered areas of the backcountry network where I was touring, those were generally few and far between. The overall snowpack depth at 3,700’ the Mt. Mansfield Stake is 85 inches as of today’s update, and snowpack in the 2,000’-2,700’ range I toured today was clearly at least 30 to 40 inches deep, since I wasn’t necessarily reaching ground level in my depth checks. Like Wednesday, I was again finding extra “unexpected” lines opening up as lower vegetation becomes completely buried. And, right now we have Winter Storm Jett hitting the area with another 6 to 12 inches of snow expected, so we should be adding another significant bump to the snowpack in terms of both depth and liquid equivalent.

I received a text alert this morning that we’ve been put under a Winter Storm Watch, which in association with Winter Storm Jett that is currently crossing the country. The latest BTV NWS maps are below, and on the Event Total Snowfall map they currently have some of the 12-18” shading here along the spine in the Bolton Valley to Stowe stretch of the Northern Greens. I see mreaves also recently posted a copy of the preliminary map above as well.

On Tuesday I headed home from Burlington at the end of the day amidst heavy snow that was falling at an inch per hour or more. The roads weren’t horrible, but the low visibility made driving really tough, at least through to the Williston area. In an exact reversal of the usual geographic snowfall trends we see here in the Northern Greens, the snow intensity lightened up the farther I headed into the mountains, and there was only light snow falling at home on the Waterbury/Bolton line. I checked the radar to see what was up, and there was an interesting band of snow aligned east to west stretching out from the Burlington area. We were just on the southern edge of that band here in the Winooski Valley, which is why the snowfall was lighter. As the band sank southward a bit more though, the snowfall intensity increased, and by morning we’d picked up 3.1 inches of snow here at the house, with Bolton Valley reporting 4 inches of new snow. The addition of the new snow was intriguing enough to get me to head up to the mountain for a quick morning ski tour using the Wilderness Uphill Route. Temperatures up at the resort were in the teens F, and with solid sunshine, it was a welcomed change from touring in the single digits F. There were no concerns about the new snow messing with the existing powder density gradient because the added snow was incredibly dry – my liquid analyses from down at the house indicated that the snow density came in around 2% H2O. A modest amount of snow that dry certainly doesn’t provide a resurfacing, but with plenty of deep powder already available off piste, and excellent subsurfaces on piste, it was plenty of snow to serve as icing on the cake and make the turns really effortless on any pitch. The snow from this localized band was just another small addition to the healthy midwinter snowpack in the Northern Greens, but all these events keep adding up - the depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake is currently at 82 inches, which is between 7 and 8 feet. The healthy snowpack depth is becoming noticeable because more and more of the off-piste underbrush is disappearing, and on this tour, I started to notice lines opening up that I’m not too familiar with. Some of these novel ski lines are due to the extensive work that Bolton Valley has done on their mountain bike trails, but some are indeed arising from the fact that the mountain snowpack is simply getting deep enough to bury a lot of vegetation. We’re currently in the midst of Winter Storm Iliana, which will likely change the composition of the snowpack again. I haven’t seen any sort of mixed precipitation in this area, but snow analyses here in the valley have revealed snow densities anywhere from 7 to 13% H2O, so there is some denser snow in there. The composition of the snowpack will probably change yet again heading into the weekend – the forecast suggests that Winter Storm Jett will affect the area with potentially a foot of snow or more in the mountains, but we still have a couple of days to see how that system plays out.

We’re under a Winter Weather Advisory for the next system coming into the area (Winter Storm Iliana), with snow accumulations along the spine of the Greens in this area topping out around 4 to 6 inches. The latest BTV NWS maps are below:

Hey, every part of the globe deals with climate change differently. As they say, it’s just something you’re going to have to get used to going forward. So… “Deal with it.”, I guess?

Yesterday I headed up to Bolton Valley with my younger son and some of his friends to ski the accumulations from Winter Storm Garnett. The resort was reporting 8 inches of new snow from the system as of their morning update, so on top of the accumulations that we’ve been getting from the parade of small and moderate storms over the last several weeks, it was just another layer of frosting on the cake. Down in the valley we’d picked up 0.40 inches of liquid equivalent from the storm at that point, so the upper elevations of the resort should have picked up at least a half inch of liquid. That’s a moderate resurfacing of the slopes, but the quality of the subsurface snow is so high at this point, that even a half inch of liquid equivalent sets up some fantastic skiing. The depth of the snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield Stake is now 84 inches, or put another way, the snow is 7 feet deep, so more and more steep slopes and ledges are coming into play every day. Another important aspect of Winter Storm Garnett was that it came without much wind at all, so that has finally allowed some of the wind-scoured western facing pitches at Bolton to start building some snowpack. In practical ski terms, the state of the snowpack plus the new snow let us focus on a “steep and deep” day, hitting areas like Devil’s Playground, some of the chutes off Upper Crossover, and various other places. The heavily scoured steep areas definitely need a few more moderate storms, or perhaps a big system with easterly instead of westerly flow to acquire a deep base, but a lot of steep, fun terrain is already in play.

The shortwave that hit the area overnight sort of felt like it came out of nowhere, but the snow cranked up enough to deliver a half foot across the Northern Greens, and it was still falling early this morning. As the morning progressed though, the snowfall eventually subsided, and the sun came out to give us a nice window of pleasant weather between systems. The sun helped bring the temperatures up around 20 F at the mountain today – I definitely felt that warmth down at the Timberline Base at 1,500’, but up above 3,000’ along the ridgelines, it was still well below 20 F, and the sunshine could only do so much. The overnight snow made conditions at the resort even better than what I’d experienced yesterday. The rapid-fire storms that keep coming through just sort of blend together, but Bolton Valley is reporting 2 to 3 feet of new snow in the past week, and that snowfall is constantly refreshing the on-piste surfaces and the off-piste powder. My younger son was up at the mountain with a group of about 10 friends today, so I joined them for a bit and enjoyed some of the especially good conditions on Wilderness since the lift has recently been down for mechanical work. The Vista Quad was down for a couple of periods today for mechanical issues of its own, so Wilderness would develop a lift queue during those periods, and the Timberline Quad would as well to a lesser extent. The Vista Quad eventually looked like it was running again, so hopefully they’ve taken care of whatever mechanical issue popped up. The next system in the storm parade is Winter Storm Garnett, which looks to bring 4 to 8 inches of new snow to the mountains by tomorrow. The snow from Garnett has already started falling here at our house in Waterbury, so hopefully there will be a nice fresh coating of powder to kick things off at the mountain in the morning.

I received a text early this morning that we’d been put under a Winter Weather Advisory for the system expected to come into the area this evening (Winter Storm Garnett). The point forecast around here suggests accumulations in the 4-9” range, which is in line with the northern areas of the yellow 6-8” shading on the Event Total Snowfall map.

That just kept rolling along all night – at observations time this morning it was light snow with fairly large flakes up to 15 mm here at our place. In their forecast discussion, the BTV NWS says it’s shortwave energy with a pocket of mid-level moisture and northwest flow.

I didn’t have time to get out for turns this morning, so on the way home from Burlington I headed up for some afternoon/evening skiing at Bolton Valley to check out what the new snow had done for the slopes. I hadn’t been up to the mountain since Wednesday, so that mean all the snow from Winter Storm Freya yesterday, including the intense backside squalls this morning, had recently been added. It often gets cold quickly as the sun goes down, but with temperatures in the upper 20s F today in the Champlain Valley, I figured it was a decent one for reasonable evening temperatures on the mountain. It was in the upper teens F when I arrived at the Village, which wasn’t bad, but there was also quite a brisk wind from the west that bit right into you while descending the trails. At least it was at your back while riding the lifts. In terms of the ski conditions, you could tell that the mountain had received a decent shot of new snow for the slopes. Down at out house in the valley, Winter Storm Freya brought over a half inch of liquid equivalent, so the mountain should have picked up between a half inch and an inch of liquid from the storm. The only issue is that there appears to have been a lot of wind during various parts of the storm, so in the most exposed areas, much of that new snow had been scoured away. I could feel the extra coverage on the groomed slopes in protected areas though, and that would change quickly when you came to a windy spot, so you had to be on your guard and ready to lose some grip in those areas. Overall, though, there was some nice carving on the terrain I hit on the lower mountain off the Mid Mountain and Snowflake chairs this evening.