J.Spin

With temperatures in the 30s F today, I was unsure if snow surfaces up at the mountain were going to soften. Our younger son was up at Bolton Valley with some friends though, and when we texted him for an update, he said that indeed the snow had softened up. With that news, my wife and I headed up for a few runs this afternoon. Visibility was near zero on the mountain with low clouds and fog, but it did give the mountain that low light solstice/holiday feel. Indeed the snow surfaces were great. We’d waxed our skis pretty thoroughly just in case, but we didn’t encounter any areas of sticky snow, it was just buttery smooth spring-style snow that you could really sink an edge into. I’m not sure if the snow was stiffer up high, but we were just lapping the Mid Mountain Chair, and everything on the lower mountain was great. The Wilderness Lift was also open today, so the natural snow terrain that they’ve opened is still in decent shape. Those surfaces that have softened today will of course tighten up when temperatures drop back below freezing, but hopefully the storm coming in to the area tomorrow will do a decent job of covering up the current base. There certainly seems to be the potential for a decent resurfacing of the slopes with an inch or so of liquid equivalent in the forecast.

Just as we were headed up to the mountain this afternoon, I received a text alert that we’d been put under a Winter Weather Advisory. Related BTV NWS maps are below. The Event Total Snowfall map has us somewhere in the 6-8” or 8-12” range of accumulations through Tuesday, but we’ll have to see how things play out for the lower elevations during the warmer part of the storm.

Last night we picked up another 4 to 5 inches of snow here in the valley from the weak cold front swinging through the region, and not surprisingly, the mountains picked up twice that amount. Bolton Valley was reporting 10 inches of new snow atop the 15+ inches they’d received from the storm at the beginning of the week, and this new snow came in around 5% H2O according my morning liquid analyses. The new drier snow atop the base was a recipe for some great skiing. My older son was off from work this afternoon, so we popped up to the mountain for a ski tour on Wilderness. The Winooski Valley down by the base of the Bolton Valley Access Road did better with this event, and whereas the coverage was somewhat patchy after the last storm, it was generally continuous with a few inches present this morning. I checked snowpack depths during the tour as usual, and it’s getting tougher to get measurements as the snowpack gets deeper, but with settling through the afternoon, depth increases seemed to be as follows relative to what I found yesterday: 2,000’: 10-12” --> 15-16” 2,500’: 15-16” --> 18-20” 3,000’: 18-20” --> 20-24” So essentially, the snowpack depths I found today were about 500 feet lower in elevation than equivalent depths I found yesterday. The Wilderness Uphill Route had seen plenty of skier traffic, and there was a dual skin track all the way to the Wilderness Summit that made conversation easy while we ascended. I was hoping to bring my son over toward Fanny Hill again in line with the tour I’d done yesterday, but ski patrol had fenced off Upper Crossover. They really want touring to be confined to Wilderness, and I guess that’s not too surprising with the amount of operations they have going on Vista. With the amount of activity we saw going on all around the resort, it’s obvious that they’re going full tilt in preparation for re-opening on Friday. I’m not sure how much of the mountain they’re going to open, but with the amount of natural snow out there, they’re going to have a lot of options. In terms of the skiing, it was great. Conditions were already excellent yesterday, and now Mother Nature threw another 10 inches on top of that, so it’s about what you’d expect – lots of bottomless powder. We hit the Wilderness Summit just as sunset was approaching, so the views to the west were stupendous on such a fine afternoon. With the snow remaining deep, you wanted to shoot for intermediate pitches and above for decent turns. Based on my experience from yesterday, we did have full fat skis today, so that helped a lot with floatation and the ability to turn on those lower-angle slopes a bit more.

When I checked the Bolton Valley snow report today in anticipation of heading up for a ski tour, I saw that they had updated their Monday morning total to 15” up top as well, so they must have reassessed what fell: Tuesday: We are still reeling from the season's first big snowstorm that smothered the northern Green Mountains in a heavy blanket of prime base building snow Sunday night to Monday morning. In addition to the 12-15" we woke up to Monday morning, it appears we're in for another 1-3" today here in the upper elevations and - perhaps even more importantly - the return of cold temperatures on the ol' "wet bulb" to fire up snowmaking efforts again. As we get closer to Friday we'll keep you posted on trails and lifts for this weekend, but perhaps needless to say, we will definitely be expanding terrain this weekend, including Snowflake Lift, a small buildout in the HIde Away Terrain Park and several trails making their season debut. Stay tuned on that front. No lift service today, but we've gone ahead and opened the Wilderness Designated Uphill Route so you can get some fresh pow laps in if your schedule allows. Based on PF’s comment about skiing on just the top 4”, and the density of the snow down here at our house, I brought mid-fats for today’s tour. I figured I’d be riding Sierra Cement, but that wasn’t at all what I experienced. I’ll mention more about the snow density after covering the storm accumulations and snowpack depths. There’s a very impressive elevation gradient with respect to the snow accumulations from this storm. Down at the base of the Bolton Valley Access Road at 340’, there isn’t even complete coverage on all aspects – I’d call the snowpack there T – 2”. I didn’t monitor the snowpack too closely on my ascent to the Village, but coverage was certainly continuous by 1,000’. Up in the Village around 2,000’ or so, I found 10-12” of snow, and here are some measurements at elevations during my tour: 2,000’: 10-12” 2,500’: 15-16” 3,000’: 18-20” As the numbers reveal, there’s a huge snow depth gradient above 2,000’ – you’re basically looking at the depth going up about an inch every 100’ of vertical. Now those numbers are for total snowpack depth because I’m not sure if I’d be able to distinguish exactly what portion came from this most recent storm, but much of it was from this storm (as Bolton’s summit storm total of 15” would suggest). The Wilderness Uphill Route has a beautifully packed skin track in place at this point, so travel on the snow is easy. And getting back to that discussion of snow density, it’s not Sierra Cement. In the higher elevations, the density going several inches down into the snowpack is sub-10% H2O powder – I’d put it somewhere in the 6 to 8% H2O range if I had to guess. You sink well down into it, I’d say a good foot, and it’s nicely right-side-up. As I mentioned, I brought mid-fats, but fat skis are actually the tool you want (or a snowboard, etc.). It was quickly obvious on my ascent that some decent pitch would be required for turns, so I toured all the way to the top of Wilderness. I checked out Bolton Outlaw, and it had seen enough traffic to track it up pretty thoroughly, so I continued on to Upper Fanny Hill and put the third set of tracks down there. I continued on to Fanny Hill proper and got probably the fourth set of tracks there. The powder skiing is fantastic as long as you’ve got at least intermediate pitch. Shallower than that and the powder is just too deep to keep decent momentum (and that’s another reason to bring fat skis because you can make use of that extra floatation). In terms of snow quality, it’s as I described at elevation, and of course the overall depth decreases as you descend, but the quality stays high right down to 2,000’. Only just as you approach 2,000’ do you encounter any sort of snow quality issues, and there’s a slight crème brûlée crust in there a couple of inches below the surface where there must have been a bit of warming. At that elevation it’s still quite subtle and you can essentially ignore it. As Bolton’s snow report indicates, the resort is considering expanding terrain, and moving to some of the natural snow terrain is pretty obvious at this point. We’ll have to see which terrain can hold up to lift-served traffic, but I can’t believe there’s not more talk about this storm and what it could do for the start of the season. This storm was a total liquid equivalent bomb, and not only that, the snow is good to go. This storm was an absolute season-starter. Sometimes storms like this come in so dense or warm, that the tenor will be “This is going to be a great base as soon as we get some good snow on top of it”. Well, there’s no need to wait, the snow is already good to go, and it’s currently getting covered more with the snow from today. It’s not every day you get such a base-building storm that immediately offers up fantastic midwinter skiing. We didn’t even have to wait until December for this one – it somehow snuck in during November, which is another great bonus.

The snow around here today was persistent, but generally light. This evening though, it’s been ramping up to another level. Even on the basic BTV NWS radar you can see much of the spine lit up from with that WNW flow coming in. The snowfall is 1-2”/hr. at times with visibility maybe a couple hundred feet.

Here’s the north to south listing of the snowfall totals that the Vermont ski areas along the spine are reporting. The totals reported in the north and north-central areas are definitely higher than in the south, and the distribution is actually reminiscent of the north to south gradient we see with a lot of more typical storms that have upslope added in. Jay Peak: 15” Smuggler’s Notch: 14” Stowe: 10” Bolton Valley: 12” Mad River Glen: 14” Sugarbush: 13” Pico: 7” Killington: 7” Okemo: 8” Magic Mountain: 2” Stratton: 5” Mount Snow: 3”

About a half hour ago I received a text alert that we’d been put under a Winter Weather Advisory – this seemed to come on pretty quickly, just as the snow was starting up here, so I assume the BTV NWS has seen something in the latest modeling that had them go with the advisory. We are getting a bit of slushy accumulation when the snowfall intensity is high enough, but with the marginal temperatures, it seems like heavier snowfall is what it would take to get any sort of substantial accumulation down here in the valley.

Thanks Kevin; I just tested it by entering the storm totals from this season thus far, and it seems to be working smoothly as usual. The effort that goes into this resource is greatly appreciated.

The mountain snowpack that had been building up over the first half of the month melted back somewhat in the middle elevations at the end of last week, but this latest winter storm seemed to have the potential to replenish it. As of this morning, we’d picked up roughly 4 inches of new snow composed of 0.6 inches of liquid at the house, so the local mountains should have added enough new snow to set the table for more low-angle touring in the powder. Bolton Valley was reporting 3 to 4 inches of new snow overnight, and 5 inches in the past 48 hours. Assuming a similar density of snow to what fell at our house, plus whatever snow was in place before, it definitely felt like it was worth a visit. In the Winooski Valley at the base of the Bolton Valley Access Road, we found 1 to 2 inches of new snow from this most recent storm, and up in the Village, total depths were 4 to 5 inches. Temperatures this morning were around the freezing mark, with a mix of wintry precipitation types as we set out on our tour. We found that snow depths increased a bit with elevation, hitting 5 to 6 inches around 2,500’ and 6 to 7 inches where we topped out around 2,700’. The powder skiing was decent, with snow that was relatively dense but not sloppy or soggy on the upper half of our tour. The density did increase a bit more as we descended back toward the base around 2,000’, but the snow still hadn’t progressed to that spring-style sticky snow. I had freshly waxed up my skis in the morning, and that did appear to help give me an slightly easier time than my son who hadn’t. While today’s powder was decent, the snow I found while out ski touring last week was definitely superior. I think that last week there was a touch more base, the snow overall was a bit deeper, and most importantly, the snow was notably drier. All those factors came together to set that skiing above the quality of what we found out there today. This dense snow that we just received does have the water content to set up a more substantial base though, and it’s really going to be great with some additional rounds of snow on top. The models do suggest that there are some events in the pipeline over the next week, so we’ll see what the mountains get from those.

I see that the BTV NWS made a bit of a bump around here in the numbers on their Event Total Snowfall map, and that change is represented in our corresponding point forecast as well. Based on the forecast discussion, it sounds like it was due to some increases in the projected liquid equivalent from the storm. Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 657 AM EST Tue Nov 21 2023 .NEAR TERM /THROUGH WEDNESDAY/... As of 650 AM EST Tuesday... …There were also some increases in liquid equivalent amounts which favor slightly higher localized snowfall amounts for the Adirondacks and Green Mountains. Snow...General amounts haven`t changed much; still expected 2-4 inches for the Adirondacks and southern/southeastern Vermont. However, the increase in QPF has nudged the potential slightly higher for a few very localized spots to see 6 inches; can`t completely rule out these amounts. Updated maps for this event are below:

I received a text alert earlier this afternoon that we’d been put under a Winter Weather Advisory. The associated BTV NWS maps have been added below.

Nice winter vibe indeed – and while we haven’t had any huge storms yet, these typical November rounds of snow have been building up to the point that people are definitely getting out to enjoy it. That second image in my report with the person in it was someone I saw just as I was finishing up my ski tour – they were out for a Nordic ski around the Village, and I bet it was someone who lives right up there. I saw them passing above me while they skied the access road, and I quickly fired off a bunch of shots before they disappeared into the clouds. PF’s winter vibe Stowe pictures from Saturday definitely played a role in getting me out for yesterday’s ski tour. Since I couldn’t quite get a solid visual from the Bolton Valley Webcam to know how the snowpack was looking, I was just about the head down to the basement for another pre-season leg workout… but thinking about how the higher elevations looked in PF’s pics helped tip the balance. If that was what it looked like before this most recent storm, there had to be enough out there at this point for some low-angle turns. And there certainly was. With the clearer skies today, you can now see that Mansfield is lit up with the white of the recent snows from about 3,000’ on up, so that’s definitely helping with the winter vibe as well. From what I note in the GFS modeling and BTV NWS forecast discussion, it looks like the next snow chances are coming right up in a couple of days as we head into the pre-holiday weekend, with a cold front coming through Friday into Saturday, and a northern stream shortwave Saturday into Sunday. As the BTV NWS explains, getting more than just a few snow showers from the cold front would require a more GFS-style solution vs. an ECMWF one, but both models do show the shortwave. .LONG TERM /SATURDAY THROUGH TUESDAY/... As of 327 AM EST Wednesday...Heading into Saturday, reinforcing northern stream shortwave energy will likely result in scattered terrain-focused snow showers as snow levels fall to below 1500 ft. The cold air advection will also steepen the low-level lapse rates, allowing for breezy 15-20 mph northwest winds. With temperatures in the 30s to low 40s, it will feel more like the teens and 20s. A wild card to consider is the evolution of the upper level pattern with regards to the coastal low that undergoes explosive cyclogenesis as it tracks close to the 70W/40N benchmark and into downeast Maine/New Brunswick on Saturday. The 00z GFS indicates a faster transition into a negatively tilted trough as downstream ridging builds over Newfoundland by Saturday afternoon. In contrast, the 00z ECMWF is more amplified with the H5 trough, resulting in the transition from neutral to negative tilt not occurring until Saturday night. If the GFS solution materializes, then the colder air will catch up with the exiting precipitation shield, resulting in the formation of an anafrontal wave east of the Champlain Valley and rain changing over to accumulating snow. Whereas if the ECMWF is right, then only scattered snow showers are expected. There is still time for model guidance to come into better consensus so be sure to monitor the latest forecast. Whatever happens though, these rounds and rounds of modest snows are often how the Northern Greens do it, and before you know it, you’re skiing on it.

The cloud ceiling seemed to be around 1,500’ to 2,000’ this morning, so I really couldn’t get a good view of the snow coverage up at Bolton Valley via their Main Base Webcam. What I could see on the cam was that everything was white… extremely white. The snow coverage looked great, but the clouds were just too thick to get a good sense for what the snow depths were like beyond the areas where they’ve made a bunch of snow. This latest system did just drop another round of accumulation though, even down to the lower valleys, and the natural snow from all the storms we’ve had in the first half of the month has not been melting back in the higher elevations. Even without a real-time view, it felt like the snow from this latest storm should have pushed the snowpack to the point where it was ready for some touring on low-angle slopes, so I decided to pop up to the mountain this morning on my way to Burlington. With this latest storm, the snow never really seemed to accumulate much to the west of our area in the lower elevations, so there were only a few traces of snow in Bolton Flats and at the base of the Bolton Valley Access Road. Accumulations gradually increased as I headed up in elevation though, and here’s a rough summary of the snow depth profile I encountered this morning: 340’: T 1,000’: T-1” 1,200’: T-2” 1,500’: 1-2” 2,000’: 2-3” 2,250’: 3-5” 2,500’: 4-6” As the summary shows, the depths increased slowly at first, and it wasn’t until somewhere in the 1,200’ to 1,500’ elevation range where snow coverage became continuous. Assessing the depths in the Village parking lots at around 2,000’, I wasn’t initially sure if I was going to end up ski touring of just going for a hike, but I threw my skis on my pack because it looked like touring would be good to go as long as the base snow was substantial enough. Snow depths increased notably above 2,000’ mark, and a few minutes into my ascent, it was obvious that I was going to be able to ski on the descent. I had my climbing skins in my pack, but never put them on my skis because the hiking was easy enough, certainly easy enough that I didn’t want to add the extra transition time that putting on the skins would throw into the tour. If one does want to skin on the ascent though, there’s plenty of base to do it. Indeed it’s the sufficient base snow that sealed the deal in terms of the skiing. Below these recent couple of inches, there’s a good amount of consolidated snow at varying degrees of depth. I only had time to tour up to about 2,500’, but the depths did look like they were continuing to improve above that point. It’s best to seek out low-angle, nicely maintained, grassy terrain at this point, but with that, you’re good to go for some very nice powder turns. I saw a couple of older ski tracks on my tour, but nothing from this morning, and that was helpful – untouched snow provided the very best powder turns, so staying away from any footprints or other snow traffic is the best bet. In the untouched snow, turns were bottomless, and I was only on 86 mm skis. The top half of my tour definitely offered the deepest snow and most ability to play around in the powder, but it was still decent all the way back down to the main base around 2,000’. In the lower couple hundred feet of vertical though, you just had to be more selective in sticking to the untouched snow for the smoothest turns. Rock skis or regular skis are both options if you know the terrain you’re going to be on. I didn’t have rock skis, but only made a hard touch or two to objects below the subsurface. Touching below the subsurface is pretty inconsequential on grassy, low-angle terrain, and thankfully, Bolton’s Wilderness area has plenty of those types of slopes.

A good chunk of that GFS modeled snow was from that one potential event around Thanksgiving, but even without something specific like that, the modeled pattern looks decent. The most recent GFS run shows 4 to 6 additional systems over the course of the next couple of weeks – and they all bring snow. We can certainly have those relatively benign Novembers that bring near zero or just a couple inches of snow (I guess the weenies would call those the “boring” Novembers), but thus far this November hasn’t had that demeanor. We’ve already seen four accumulating storms and eight days with snow, and the first half of the month is naturally the more challenging portion for snowstorms and snow accumulation. We average 6 accumulating snowstorms during the month of November, so with 4 so far as we approach mid-month, that’s been a solid start. And relative to the first half of the month, the second half of the month really takes off with respect to average snowfall – that acceleration is quite apparent on the cumulative seasonal snowfall plot:

Boy, those pictures really do have a midwinter vibe; thanks for sending them along. They give a great sense of how things have been going around here. October was on the slow side with respect to winter moving in, but this first third of November has been solid. Things started right up on the first of the month with that initial storm. The snow depth at Mt. Mansfield Stake is only slightly above average, but the beginning of November can easily be volatile, so the slow and steady increase in snow depths instead of melting back speaks to some consistency. The data from our site in the valley are in line with a strong start as well – even down at this elevation we’ve already had three accumulating storms, and six days with snow. That storm on the 9th pushed the cumulative season snowfall to twice the average, and only two seasons in my records have had more snow up to that point. We’ve already had as much snow as we’d have on average by mid-month. This season’s cumulative snowfall plot for our site shows how things took off right at the start of the month, and we’ve really stayed at or above average since then. I’ve only seen a few flakes in the valley this weekend, but any slopes above 2,000’ or so are white with the snow, so you get that winter feel with view in just about every direction out here in the mountains. Tomorrow’s system is looking decent for another round of accumulation in the mountains and maybe the valleys as well.

I received a text alert early this morning that we’ve been put under a Winter Weather Advisory for the next system coming into the area, and I believe this is our first advisory of the season. Advisory and projected snowfall maps are added below. The current system started to give some accumulation here at our site last night when the snow levels dropped, so these systems coming through with modest valley snows have made it feel like a typical early November thus far. The snowfall data speak to this as well; average seasonal snowfall through Nov 8 is 2.0”, and we’re within a couple tenths of that as of this morning’s observations.

Here are some additional dates: Date of first accumulating Mt. Mansfield snow by season: 1955: Oct 17 1956: Nov 9 1958: Oct 27 1959: Sep 15 1960: Oct 23 1961: Oct 15 1962: Oct 24 1963: Oct 30 1964: Oct 10 1965: Oct 4 1966: Sep 24 1967: Sep 2 1968: Oct 5 1969: Oct 22 1970: Oct 17 1971: Oct 8 1972: Oct 10 1973: Oct 17 1974: Oct 2 1976: Sep 22 1977: Oct 4 1978: Oct 9 1979: Oct 8 1980: Sep 28 1981: Oct 3 1982: Oct 16 1983: Oct 24 1984: Oct 2 1985: Nov 17 1986: Aug 28 1987: Oct 4 1988: Oct 8 1989: Sep 24 1990: Oct 26 1991: Sep 21 1992: Sep 30 1993: Oct 5 1994: Oct 4 1995: Oct 29 1996: Nov 1 1997: Oct 1 1998: Sep 23 1999: Oct 4 2000: Oct 8 2001: Oct 7 2002: Oct 18 2003: Oct 2 2004: Oct 11 2005: Oct 17 2006: Oct 13 2007: Nov 6 2008: Oct 3 2009: Sep 30 2010: Oct 7 2011: Oct 30 2012: Oct 8 2013: Oct 24 2014: Oct 26 2015: Oct 17 2016: Oct 26 2017: Oct 27 2018: Oct 13 2019: Oct 18 2020: Oct 17 2021: Oct 18 2022: Oct 8 2023: Oct 22

Well, that definitely puts this season’s first accumulating Mt. Mansfield snow in the books, so Oct 22 is the date for the winter of 2023-2024. The stats for this parameter are below for comparison – this is later than the mean date of Oct 11, but well within 1 S.D., so quite normal in that regard. Assuming a normal distribution, about 25% of seasons will have later first snowfall dates than this one. The dates of first accumulating Mt. Mansfield snow for some recent seasons are shown below as well, so this season sits later than the past few, but ahead of most of that stretch in the mid-2010s, which was a surprising run of later October dates. Date of first accumulating Mt. Mansfield snow: Mean: 10/11 Median: 10/10 Mode: 10/17 S.D.: 15 days N: 67 Most Recent: 10/22 Most Recent Days Deviation: +11 Most Recent # of S.D. Deviation: +0.732 Most Recent S.D. % Lower: 76.8% Earliest 8/28/1986 Latest 11/17/1985 Date of first accumulating Mt. Mansfield snow by season: 2008: Oct 3 2009: Sep 30 2010: Oct 7 2011: Oct 30 2012: Oct 8 2013: Oct 24 2014: Oct 26 2015: Oct 17 2016: Oct 26 2017: Oct 27 2018: Oct 13 2019: Oct 18 2020: Oct 17 2021: Oct 18 2022: Oct 8 2023: Oct 22

I saw that there were inquiries about the average date for first Mansfield snow, so I updated the slide I have that gives the cumulative 1st snow percentages by month as well as the stats on the date of first snow. On the discussion of dates for the past few seasons, here are the data: 2008: Oct 3 2009: Sep 30 2010: Oct 7 2011: Oct 30 2012: Oct 8 2013: Oct 24 2014: Oct 26 2015: Oct 17 2016: Oct 26 2017: Oct 27 2018: Oct 13 2019: Oct 18 2020: Oct 17 2021: Oct 18 2022: Oct 8 Indeed as bwt showed, it was October 17th in 2020, and 2021 was right there with it on the 18th. Last year was actually somewhat interesting – it was on the earlier side with snows down around Sugarbush and Lincoln on September 23rd, and there were a few inches of accumulation in spots like the Battell Shelter. The Mansfield area didn’t actually appear to pick up snow from that event though – PF provided a firsthand report, and he said it was all ice there. Finally, on October 8th, Mansfield got its first snows. The list of first snow occurrences by month on Mansfield is below, and those numbers are used to generate the percentages in the graph. October is clearly the predominant month for Mansfield’s first accumulating snows: August 1 September 10 October 51 November 4 Sum 66 We’re clearly well into the 1 S.D. window for first snows on Mansfield now, since that starts at the end of September, so anything that might come out of this system or that next one would be right on track.

Now that we’re into June, snowfall here in the valleys is likely complete, so I’ve put together the final numbers at our site for the 2022-2023 season. Overall snowfall was a bit below average, but roughly in the ±5% range of the mean. As shown in the seasonal snowfall progression plot below, snowfall generally lagged a bit behind average pace before finally catching up from late February into March. The lagging snowfall is not as big a factor once the winter snowpack is in place, but it’s still a knock against the season and would probably push it below a C average in the C- range if a grade were to be given. I don’t think there’s too much of an argument for a D+, as the snow season/ski season were just too good for that. The season snowfall rank of 9 puts it smack in the middle of the data set, which is another nod to the average nature of the season. The seasonal snowfall progression plot nicely points out several parts of the season with excellent skiing as indicated by the plot areas with the steepest slopes. The snowy period in mid-November was nice, and offered up some powder turns, but nothing outrageous for November. Those four periods in mid-December, late-January, late February into Early March, and then mid-March were all excellent. That mid-December period was especially great because the storms set up what felt almost like a midwinter base below the powder, and it was a period of top notch skiing during the holidays and right into Christmas week, which we haven’t seen too much in the past few seasons. Being a rather ho-hum, average season, there weren’t too many records set for the site, but interestingly, this past January’s 14 snowstorms just snuck in for the record ahead of five other seasons with 13 storms. The 12/31 storm gets that date because it’s when the snowfall technically started, but the bulk of the snowfall and all the snowfall observations were really in January, so it was a January storm in the records. Interestingly, it wasn’t even a snowy January, but the storm frequency was there. The only other record set was for latest accumulating snowfall and frozen precipitation on 5/17, which beat out the latest snow from the 2015-2016 season by a day. Total Snowfall: 150.1” Season Snowfall Rank: 9 of 17 October Snowfall: 0.0” November Snowfall: 10.4” December Snowfall: 30.6” January Snowfall: 37.8” February Snowfall: 27.9” March Snowfall: 42.5” April Snowfall: 0.6” May Snowfall: 0.3” Total Days with Snowfall: 104 October Days with Snowfall: 0 November Days with Snowfall: 13 December Days with Snowfall: 22 January Days with Snowfall: 23 February Days with Snowfall: 20 March Days with Snowfall: 19 April Days with Snowfall: 5 May Days with Snowfall: 2 Snowstorms: 55 October Storms: 0 November Storms: 9 December Storms: 9 January Storms: 14 February Storms: 12 March Storms: 9 April Storms: 1 May Storms: 1 Average Snowfall per Storm: 2.7” Largest Storm:18.0” 2nd Largest Storm: 14.0” 3rd Largest Storm: 13.5” 4th Largest Storm: 13.1” 5th Largest Storm: 7.8” Sum of 5 Largest Storms: 66.4” Storms ≥10": 4 Date of Largest Storm: 3/13/23 First Frozen Precipitation: 11/13/23 First Accumulating Snowfall: 11/13/23 1st 1" Storm: 11/16/23 1st 2" Storm: 11/16/23 1st 3" Storm: 11/16/23 1st 4" Storm: 11/16/23 1st 6" Storm: 11/16/23 1st 8" Storm: 12/16/23 1st 10" Storm: 12/16/23 1st 12" Storm: 12/16/23 Last Accumulating Snowfall: 5/17/23 Last Frozen Precipitation: 5/17/23 Length of Snowfall Season: 186 days Start of Season Snowpack: 12/12/23 Days with >0" Snowpack: 144 Days with ≥1" Snowpack: 127 Days with ≥6" Snowpack: 91 Days with ≥12" Snowpack: 55 Days with ≥24" Snowpack: 4 Days with ≥36" Snowpack: 0 Max Snow Depth: 28.5” Date of Max Snow Depth: 2/16/23 End of Season Snowpack: 4/13/23 Continuous Snowpack Season: 124 days Snow-Depth Days: 1375.5 inch-days Total liquid equivalent: 26.09” Frozen liquid equivalent: 12.59” % Frozen L.E.: 48.3% Total Snow/Total Liquid Ratio: 5.8 Total Water Content: 17.4% Total Snow/Frozen Liquid Ratio: 11.9 Frozen Water Content: 8.4% 2022-2023 Winter Storm List 11/13/22: 0.4” Combination of moisture streaming in from Lake Ontario and coastal low pressure 11/15/22: 6.1” Developing coastal low tracking over Cape Cod into the Gulf of Maine 11/17/22: 1.7” Upper level trough passing through Northern New England 11/20/22: 0.9” Lake-effect snow from Lake Ontario 11/20/22: 0.3” Strong upper level trough and associated cold front 11/21/22: 0.1” Weak clipper-type system 11/23/22: 0.4” Weak upper level disturbance passing though the region 11/25/22: 0.4” Low pressure system centered over James Bay 11/30/22: 0.7” Dynamic low pressure system tracking just south of Hudson Bay 12/3/22: 0.3” Low pressure system over the Great Lakes lifting north of our region 12/11/22: 1.9” Upper level shortwave traversing our region with weak surface low following 12/13/22: 1.1” Retrograding and deepening low pressure near Nova Scotia 12/16/22: 14.0” Winter Storm Diaz - low pressure tracking along the New England coast 12/18/22: 0.5” Decaying cyclonic upper gyre across southern Ontario with Lake Ontario moisture 12/19/22: 3.5” Spoke of weak shortwave energy among Midwestern cyclonic gyre 12/22/22: 7.8” Winter Storm Elliot - Powerful system tracking though the eastern Great Lakes 12/26/22: 0.5” Upper shortwave scooting across area + LES moisture 12/28/22: 0.4” Weak low pressure passing north of the international border 12/31/23: 0.2” Surface low passing through New England 1/3/23: 1.3” Winter Storm Hudson - system passing from Midwest through Great Lakes with frontal boundary in New England 1/9/23: 1.3” Trough dropping out of Canada with moderate cold frontal passage 1/12/23: 4.8” Low pressure from the Ohio Valley tracking through Northern New England 1/16/23: 0.2” Retrograding storm system over the New England coastal waters 1/18/23: 0.2” Deamplifying shortwave approaching area from the Great Lakes 1/19/23: 6.3” Winter Storm Iggy - low pressure passing near Cape Cod 1/22/23: 4.4” Winter Storm Jimenez - low tracking right along the New England coast 1/24/23: 1.0” Strong cold front 1/25/23: 13.1” Winter Storm Kassandra - dynamic, vertically stacked low pressure system moving from Ohio Valley to Great Lakes 1/28/23: 0.4” Rapidly moving trough/wave 1/29/23: 1.0” Winter Storm Leona - low pressure tracking along the northern tier of our region 1/30/23: 1.1” Low pressure system crossing from the northern Great Lakes 1/31/23: 2.5” Arctic front 2/1/23: 0.1” Classic, long-fetch lake-effect snow band off of Lake Ontario 2/2/23: 2.0” Strong arctic front 2/6/23: 0.1” Weak clipper-type low pressure system passing north of our area 2/7/23: 0.6” Weak low pressure passing northwest of the region 2/9/23: 1.9” Strengthening low pressure system passing to the northwest 2/13/23: 0.9” Upper level trough passing through the area 2/17/23: 1.5” Winter Storm Nova - low pressure from Ohio Valley tracking through Central VT 2/21/23: 0.8” Moderately sharp frontal boundary 2/22/23: 7.7” Winter Storm Olive - low pressure moving along warm front through New England 2/25/23: 0.6” Weak upper-level vorticity pushing through fast zonal flow 2/26/23: 7.1” Low pressure from Ontario/Quebec border passing southeast across our region 2/28/23: 4.6” Winter Storm Piper - Low moving through St. Lawrence Valley with secondary low developing off the coast 3/1/23: 3.9” Quick moving low pressure system moving across from the Great Lakes 3/4/23: 13.5” Winter Storm Quest - Strong, vertically-stacked low pressure moving from Ohio Valley to New England coast 3/7/23: 1.7” Upper level low circulation stalled over eastern Canadian Maritimes 3/13/23: 18.0” Winter Storm Sage - Strong low pressure curling into the New England Coast 3/16/23: 0.6” Weak upper-level disturbance 3/18/23: 1.5” Deep, strong upper low in Northern Great Lakes/Ontario with cold front and Lake Ontario LES 3/25/23: 1.3” Strong low pressure system passing to our northwest with secondary low off the East Coast 3/29/23: 0.7” Strong cold front with snow squalls 3/31/23: 1.8” Winter Storm Uriel - Large, dynamic, vertically-stacked low over the Northern Plains lifting through the Great Lakes 4/17/23: 0.1” Low pressure over the Great Lakes moving northeastward 5/16/23: 0.3” Cold front and robust, moisture-starved shortwave trough

I’m very much on board with all the thoughts you’ve put in your posts on this topic, and I’m glad you were able to add in the 2022-2023 season snowfall from those additional resorts to show where they came in. I added a couple more that I could find to fill out the north to south list along the spine a bit more. These numbers get very difficult to find once the season is done, so it’s good to have it here just for reference. Jay Peak: 353” Smuggler’s Notch: 223” Stowe: 221” Bolton Valley: 241” Mad River Glen: 186” Sugarbush: 200” Pico: 198” Killington: 198” Bromley: 152” Magic Mountain: 150” Mount Snow: 156” The thing I don’t get though, which stems from the main discussion I was having with bwt about seeing how the quality of this past winter turned out for Jay Peak, is comparing the total snowfall from this winter to that of the previous two. Actually, they must have not have had the 2021-2022 season snowfall data available back when I made that post, but they do now, and that season had already halted a potential streak of three sub-300” seasons. Here are the numbers from their mountain data page: 2019-2020: 252” 2020-2021: 291” 2021-2022: 311” 2022-2023: 359” I get it that people have issues with the rigor of Jay Peak’s snowfall measurements, but their data still indicate that they had a roughly average snowfall season (similar to what BTV observed, and what I observed at my site). It’s not as if the resort artificially jacks up their snowfall numbers to get them above 300” every season, since there are literally two recent seasons in a row that were below 300”. So, whatever methodology they’re using for measurement, it’s a big leap to assume that suddenly, this season, it ceased to be internally consistent to a massive degree. I noted how it was surprising to see Jay Peak coming in with roughly average snowfall when the rest of the resorts to the south were clearly running below average. It is surprising, but can we really dismiss it? Perhaps they did get a number of hits that just didn’t catch the resorts farther south. We know that we can’t really see the radar very well there, and bwt sure did seem to have a heck of a lot of snow at his placed based on the images sent in to the forum. If the images we saw were substantially below average, then imagine what average looks like.

I accidentally clicked on the start of this thread and read the initial couple of posts about Jay Peak and the potential for the quality of the winter, and since we’re just about at the end of the typical snow season, it seemed like a good time to follow up on those posts. The resort reported 353” of snow for the season, so indeed they rebounded from the previous couple of sub-300” seasons and as their track record would suggest, they didn’t end up with three of those in a row. All in all, their season snowfall wound up within a few % of average. We were a touch low here at our site with 150.1” of snow on the season, but that’s still probably within 5% deviation from average. And, the BTV data indicate that their snowfall was extremely tight to their average (I’m seeing 72.8” this season relative to a 72.7” average listed at their site). It’s interesting to note that with season snowfall being very tight to average at those three somewhat disparate sites, some locations within the triangle of geography they form didn’t quite reach average snowfall. Perhaps it’s just the highest elevations of the Bolton-Stowe-Smugg’s stretch of the spine, but the resorts there reported 241”-221”-223” respectively, which is definitely well off their average pace. I was wondering if that stretch of the spine saw the greatest deviation from average snowfall in the state, but even with some of those larger systems that hit the central and southern parts of the state, those ski areas seemed to come in below their averages. It wasn’t an especially upslope-heavy season, so maybe that threw off the numbers in some of the higher elevations. Perhaps we had enough synoptic snow at our site to make up for the leaner amounts of upslope snowfall, but the lower elevations around here seemed to be closer to average snowfall than what the resorts are reporting. Unfortunately, I don’t really know the averages for the low elevations sites in the state, but I see that Greensboro 3.9 NNE CoCoRaHS site coming in with roughly 170” of snowfall. I have to think the average snowfall there can’t be too much higher than that if they’re off the spine, but the CoCoRaHS site information data does indicate the elevation there is over 2,000’, which would probably bump it up somewhat. If the snowfall there is mostly from synoptic systems, then maybe this was a typical snowfall season in that area. There were actually a number of sites in the state with totals in that 150”-170” range, and plenty of Vermont CoCoRaHS sites over 100”, which probably represents at least a decent season for a lot of them.

Unlike the previous couple of weekends, there were no real concerns about the weather for skiing this past weekend – both days looked quite reasonable without any major bouts of precipitation expected. Saturday looked great with clear skies all morning, so I eventually headed back out to Mt. Mansfield for some turns. I was torn between skinning and hiking for the ascent. There appeared to be nearly continuous snow through various routes around The Nose side of the resort, but there were also plenty of areas in which the snow had melted out and dry ground was present. Since there were some breaks in the snowpack near the base area on Lower North Slope anyway, and since I’d been skinning for the past couple of weeks, I decided to set myself up for hiking on the ascent. To generally stay on dry ground, I kept my ascent on trails to the south of the main North Slope/Lord route, and it made the route a bit less steep. There was still a lot of snow around, so I’d often find myself skirting the snow line on various trails, and I ended up mixing it up with some hiking on the snow as well. I set my goal on ascending until I found a major break in the continuous snowpack, but I couldn’t really spot any obvious ones from the route I took, and I eventually topped out by the Octagon/Fourrunner Quad Summit. The views of the Presidential Range were impressive, and it’s obvious that there have been recent snows in the elevations above tree line. On my descent of the main North Slope/Lord route, I did discover that there’s a fairly large break of about 50 feet or so in the continuous cover on North Slope, but I just couldn’t see it from where I ascended. Coverage is pretty much continuous aside from that break, and the couple of breaks in snowpack down by the base. I saw a mix of people who were both skinning and hiking while I was out, and if I was to do it again, I think I’d bring along my skins so that I had them with me. The snowpack is strong enough in a number of areas such that there are long stretches where skinning is the more practical and efficient approach, and having the flexibility to swap back and forth between skinning and hiking would be a nice option to have for a smooth ascent.

Similar to last weekend, Saturday seemed like the better weather day for skiing this weekend, so yesterday I headed to Stowe for some turns on the spring snow. I visited the Gondola terrain last time, so this outing I decided to get in some skiing on Spruce Peak while the south-facing terrain is still offering some reasonable descents. Starting from the MMSC parking lot, I had to hike for roughly 5 to 10 minutes before I was able to start skinning, and then I eventually made my way over to Main Street for the rest of the ascent. Main Street coverage is nearly continuous over most of its course except for the very bottom down near the base of the Sensation Quad, and up in the flats near the top. So, I topped out a bit shy of 3,000’ on the ascent vs. continuing on to the summit station of the Sensation Quad. I was definitely happy to stop where I did though, because southerly winds were absolutely howling ahead of the approaching storm. Main Street faces directly south with lots of exposure, so winds were sustained up in the 30 to 40 MPH range near the 3,000’ mark. I actually pulled into the forest to remove my skins and gear up for the descent, and that gave me a break from the constant buffeting of the strong winds and helped avoid the likely frustration of things flapping around and flying away. Main Street offered up lots of those steep, buttery spring snow carves that is typically does, and I didn’t spot any major areas of undermined snow that were of any concern. I was able to get down into the flats above the base of the Sensation Quad with just a couple short stretches of breaks in the snowpack. Although not quite 100% continuous from the Sensation Quad summit because of the break in the upper flats, the area still offers up quite a good yield of skiable vertical for the investment of the ascent. Taking in the views across to Mansfield gave me a nice look at the ski options throughout the resort, and there are still numerous ascent and descent routes for great touring. The snow on Nosedive looks a little more burnt out than I would have expected, but the melt out is different every year, which is part of what makes it interesting. North Slope and the surrounding trails in that area seem to have some great coverage, so there should be some good options around there for quite a while. Near the end of my tour, rain shafts started to show up among the mountains to the south, and I was able to watch the peaks disappearing as the incoming storm moved into the area. The first spits of rain started to hit just as I arrived at my car, so the timing of the storm was right on with what the forecast had indicated. This past week has been seasonably cool, and it looks like that has helped to slow down the spring melt. With the forecast looking relatively cool for the next week or so, that should help to preserve the snow and ski options as we head into May.

Based on the forecast, today seemed like the better half of the weekend for turns, so I decided to head to Mt. Mansfield and make use of all the snow that’s still out there. A look at the Stowe Mountain Cam this morning showed that coverage still looked continuous on the Gondola side of the resort, and since that area generally melts out faster than the terrain under The Nose, I decided to ski that while it was still in good shape. Based on what I’d seen from the webcam and views from the valley, the cloud ceiling seemed to be sitting at around 3,200’ on Mansfield, so my plan was to continue my ascent until I hit the lowest cloud deck, or the snow became too firm at elevation, whichever came first. Indeed, as the webcam view had indicated, coverage on Gondolier was pretty much continuous from top to bottom. It turns out that there are a couple of small breaks of a few feet, but they’re nothing substantial that would ruin a top-to-bottom run. It remained mostly cloudy today, and not especially warm with temperatures around 50 F, so I was initially worried about the snow being generally too stiff for quality turns. It was a little tough to tell exactly how it was going to ski during the ascent, but the sky began to brighten a bit in the midafternoon period, and the cloud ceiling started to rise. The ceiling rose all the way up to 3,600’, and then slowly continued to rise beyond that, so I opted to make a full ascent to the Gondola Summit Station. The brightening skies probably provided that extra punch of solar radiation to ensure that the snow quality was decent at all elevations, so in the end, the whole descent provided some fantastic spring turns. I’d expect some decent gaps to open up on the Gondola terrain over the next week if the weather was going to be mild, but the snow there might actually hold out for a while. The forecast suggests numerous snow chances over the next couple of weeks, so that could result in some accumulation and decent preservation as we head farther into the spring ski season.