J.Spin

It’s certainly getting there for Browning. Annual snowfall in the area is only 60”-80”, depending on where you look, so 48” is definitely approaching that low end of the range. The region seems to get one of these sort of events every few years. With their front range location they typically see a lot of downsloping/Chinooks, so it takes a special sort of setup to get events like this to occur. The area, as with much of the Montana Front Range, is really feast or famine relative to west of the divide.

Yeah, there’s another tenth or two out there in the gauge, so it looks like we’re a bit past 4.8” for the month. This September has been wetter than average, so the lawn is doing well. Seeing the picnic table talk in the forum, I just did a quick check on the Mansfield point forecast, and indeed flakes are starting to appear out there toward the weekend: Friday A chance of rain and snow showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 41. Breezy, with a north wind 16 to 20 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Friday Night A 30 percent chance of snow showers. Partly cloudy, with a low around 33. North wind around 16 mph. If potential flakes are starting to appear down below 4,000’, we’re certainly getting close now. It’s October by that point, so it’s totally normal, but it’s always interesting to watch those first volleys of winter make their way into the models and forecasts.

Certainly, spice of life.

From what I’ve observed over the years, it seems to be a term that weather weenie types often use for dramatic effect. I think they’ve tried to define it here at times, but you’re absolutely right in that some people use it in a threshold manner, and some use it to describe a degree of deviation. Throw in the spin factor and selective use of whatever climate sites people quote to serve their agenda, and you get a beautifully pointless weenie brew of never ending debate about the term.

Indeed your points are well taken wiz, as we know up here in the mountains of NNE we’re potentially multiple climate zones away from the valleys of SNE. Even relative to our normals though, one day of reaching 70 F in September seems… unremarkable.

LOL, seriously – I check in here and listen to the discussion, then go to my point forecast to find highs in the 60s F and think WTF. Indeed, like many, I use the NWS point forecasts. Maybe we’re lucky up here because we’re covered by BTV, but even with the partially automated nature of the service and the fact that we’re in a mountain microclimate area, the simple point and click nails the temperatures and precipitation for us the vast majority of the time. The BTV NWS folks are literally experts in meteorology and our local mountain climates, so it seems silly to not use their products.

Thanks for the update dryslot; it seems right in line with all the recent talk in here about how September is the new August. Most of our friends from back in Montana have been saying how all those record-breaking powder blizzards impacting the lower valleys that used to take place in August are now taking place in September. So I guess it checks out.

Yeah, either way you phrase it, you nailed it. There’s really not another lift-served area anywhere in the Eastern U.S. with its combination of such high annual snowfall and low skier traffic. Weekend powder mornings where you can spend the first couple of hours simply walking right onto the Timberline Quad are something you’re just not going to get at similarly snowy resorts along the spine. In the big leagues of Northern Greens snowfall, Smugg’s is probably the next closest contender, and indeed Smugg’s has got the low-speed lifts to preserve the power like Bolton, but they’ve just got a lot more overall skier traffic. Normally, when a ski area has a good thing going with respect to great powder and low skier traffic, it’s only a matter of time before it gets “discovered” and that changes, unless there are other factors in play. When it comes to Bolton, I think there are a couple of key things helping to keep it so low key: 1) The neighborhood: Bolton Valley is literally surrounded by the ski giants of the Central/Northern Greens. We’re talking about being within about an hour of the likes of Stowe, Smugg’s, Jay Peak, Sugarbush, and Mad River Glen. When you look at these neighbors, you’ve got five ski areas that in terms of snowfall, terrain, and various other factors are perennial contenders for top ten in the entire Eastern U.S. In general, people are going to have a hard time passing up all those places to hit Bolton Valley. 2) Terrain: Bolton indeed has some classic steep terrain in line with those surrounding resorts, but it’s not going to be as long and continuous. Most advanced and expert skiers really like those long, continuous fall lines that go on and on, and that’s just not Bolton’s terrain. On every main lift at the resort you’re going to find that the terrain rolls and/or flattens out in one spot or another, and that just doesn’t appeal to a lot of skiers. As a Tele skier I absolutely love that setup because just as my quads are cooked, I can rest them while making a traverse to the next line, and by the time I get there I’m ready to dive in. If I was on my snowboard though, that would be hell. A fantastic run I love at BV is the full descent of almost 1,700’ vertical from the Vista Summit down to the Timberline Base. That’s hardly what folks would call a “fall line” run, but I love it. When making that run I’m typically going to do 3 or 4 substantial traverses (or in some cases even short ascents) to piece together a combination of untracked trails and off piste areas with appropriate pitches and powder the whole way. All told the run might take close to an hour after meandering among all the nooks and crannies of the resort, and one needs a very strong knowledge of the topography and off piste areas to do it, but that’s the kind of skiing I really enjoy. Even more fun is mixing in combinations of hybrid runs that are both lift-served and backcountry with powder that seems to go on forever. That sort of stuff is certainly not going to be everyone’s cup of tea though, and in my opinion that’s part of what really helps to keep the resort so low key despite the top tier snowfall and powder skiing.

Yeah, it was a bit of a blast from the past as soon as I clicked on that link. I actually saw it this morning but only had a chance to respond about the Freedom Pass and the Indy Pass this afternoon.

I saw the link and immediately though of Bolton Valley, since our season passes there come with multiple free lift days at various other independent mountains around the country. We tend to spend most of our ski days in NVT, but we used our passes to pop down to Magic a couple seasons back and it was great. It’s interesting to note that the pass that comes built in with our BV season passes is called the Freedom Pass, and it’s different from the Indy Pass mentioned in the article, but naturally some of the resorts (like Magic Mountain) overlap. I also found it hilarious that right at the top of the article mreaves posted is a picture of our family at Bolton Valley – it’s from a photo shoot we did with them a few years back so the boys are noticeably younger.

Wow, how are there not some sort of flood warnings out there? I just drove from Burlington to Waterbury and it was like driving through a blizzard with the incredibly low visibility from extremely heavy rainfall. Even the fastest windshield wiper speed was no match for gaining visibility. There was ponding on the roads in many places, with several inches in a few low spots, and people had to drive really slowly. I’m just not sure where all this water is going to go around here, because this heavy rainfall is certainly not all that localized. The rainfall was nonstop heavy all the way from the Champlain Valley, into the mountains, and my wife said she had the same thing heading out to the Mad River Valley.

I agree, things seem right on their usual track. I know Tip went off with a big post about how incredibly early the color was, but that’s got to be some sort of more localized thing because I’m really not seeing it in my travels around our area.

Maybe… up in the air… along with my hands… in utter disgust.

LOL, so very this! What’s the hang up about gorgeous weather in September, and even October? If anything I would think it’d be skiers like us up here in the north that might have a bone to pick with a pleasant October, since October snows can sometimes dish out those fun early season powder turns. Indeed although we do get some snow just about every October, I still consider it a bonus and don’t really plan on it. October is great with pleasant days, crisp, colorful leaves, outdoor activities, prepping the yard for winter. I love having nice days to do that stuff vs. trying to dodge 35 F rainstorms to clean up wet leaves, finish final mowings, etc. It is easier to put up with that stuff when you know its dumping at elevation, but it’s still a pain.

Things really are moving along there – the combination of daylight, temperatures, and whatever other factors are involved clearly lets the trees in that area know that their time for potential snow is getting close.

Those houses up there at Bolton Valley really are quite affordable – back when I was in grad school a bunch of the guys (Andor, Shawshank, etc. from SkiVT-L) had a place up there, and if grad students can afford to live there, you know it’s pretty reasonable. Ironically, none of us really skied at Bolton Valley back then because it was the era of the $299 “Big Pass” (Stowe & Sugarbush), and that was really just too good a combo of resorts for anyone to pass up at that price. But those guys would have parties up at that house, and it was a blast going sledding, hiking on the mountain etc. with all the snow. I definitely contemplate what it would be like to move to one of those places up there, more for the ability to simply pop on the skis and hit the powder than for the weather, although documenting the snowfall and annual precipitation at those elevations would be a blast. There are those downsides though of always having to deal with the mountain road, not being able to pop to the store in just a couple minutes, and just generally being farther away from so many conveniences. The commute to Burlington really isn’t bad though, and lots of people do it. For someone who works up there in the Village, or maybe is retired or works from home and doesn’t have to be up and down the road too often, it’s a no brainer if you want to be close to all that recreation and snow. Indeed I remember back when you lived in Jonesville, which is generally going to be a step up from the Champlain Valley in snowfall, but you’d just get hit so hard with downsloping sometimes. I still find it hilarious that we ended up getting our place right here along the spine the way we did, since we had no clue about the distribution of microclimates around here. Being just a mile in either direction (certainly to the west down in Bolton Flats) would likely see a decent drop in annual snowfall.

That’s a good point; that top house up there on Snow Drift Road appears to be just a touch over 2,300’, which is definitely high elevation for a house in this area. It doesn’t have the open views of those houses at Stowe, but it is slopeside, and you literally walk off the edge of the yard and you’re at the Five Corners area of the Bolton Valley alpine trail network. That’s actually quite a prime slopeside spot on the trail network because you can ski right down to the main base via Lower Villager, or the Timberline Base via Timberline Run. It’s a five trail intersection, so you’ve got three additional trails (Timberline Lane, Five Corners, and Upper Villager) starting right there that you can skin up for runs as well. It’s a pretty sweet spot for a skier, or just somebody who likes snow. I’d guess the snowfall average there is pushing 250” a season? With respect to the spine of the Northern Greens, it’s going to have western slopes snow climatology vs. probably a more eastern slopes snow climatology at the houses PF pointed out, but both can obviously be awesome depending on the season.

Preach it Ginx! I guess it could be in the 70s up here, but either way, that’s dreamy weather. People can get so caught up in “seasons in seasons” that they forget to “think outside the box”.

LOL, it was just some fun trolling; there are many places up here where even snowfall one S.D. below average still means substantially more snowfall than one S.D. above average in SNE.

We were battling the same thing – we were on and off cooking on the fire pit this evening and had to dodge some of the light showers. Just when I’d see that the upstream radar was finally clear, a shower would develop out of nowhere up against the spine. Generally I find it’s a pretty minor inconvenience though for all the benefits that the mountains bring, like cooler temperatures, weather variety, moisture to keep the lawn happy all summer, ridiculous amounts of snowy days, tons of snowfall, etc., etc.

I hadn’t thought about it, but that’s quite true regarding the sky visibility in NNE. I’d say our current location here in Waterbury is probably the best of anywhere we’ve lived, and that includes our time in Montana. When we first moved here, I was amazed at how much the Milky Way stood out in the sky. In Montana, we lived in a couple spots in Hamilton, but both were within town limits. Here, we’re 2 to 3 miles outside town, and Waterbury is definitely smaller than Hamilton. Another factor that I think plays into it is the topography around here – we’ve got these narrow valleys and hollows that quickly get you away from any town lights. With the typical broad, flat valleys in Montana, you don’t necessarily get shielded from city lights just by getting out of town. This far north in NNE we don’t really have any big cities (I guess Burlington is the largest up here?), so that’s going to contribute to less overall light pollution.

Down at our elevation we only had a half inch from that mid-May storm, so our distribution of top storms was more typical, with the largest storms from Dec through Feb. Of course, the top five events were woefully low on accumulation in general just due to the tenor of the season. The top five storms for ’15-‘16 here were: 1) 1/18/16: 11.2” 2) 1/12/16: 7.3” 3) 12/29/15: 6.6” 4) 2/8/16: 5.4” 5) 4/6/16: 5.0”

Yeah, the status of that ’15-‘16 season was simply unmitigated. I didn’t think we could even get snowfall numbers that low. My data set indicates the snowfall that season was 2.25 S.D. below the mean, which is roughly the bottom 1% of seasons. I’m still confused/amazed that it’s not down there in the basement for SNE though – before posting I had checked Kevin’s web page for the ’15-’16 totals, and nobody in SNE even reported 50” for the season. The majority of folks reported snowfall totals in the 30s, and some were even lower. Hubb is even listed as 30.5”, so are the numbers there not correct? I guess those numbers are what gave me the impressions of such a bad season.

I know folks can fret unnecessarily about early snow and its “effects” on the rest of the season, but doesn’t ’15-‘16 sort of fly in the face of that? Isn’t that literally the dud to end all duds that puts these other seasons to shame? It didn’t have any of that “special” early snow did it?

Yeah, there’s New England winter, then there’s NNE winter, then there’s NNNE/microclimate/mountains winter. We’re not in an especially hefty snowpack preservation spot for around here, and even we average close to 5 months with snow on the ground each winter. It’s not that we don’t have nice summers (I guess unless you want lots of heat and humidity), but you really want to have an interest in cold weather or “weather-independent” activities or the winters would probably seem interminable.