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NNE Winter Snow Thread II


dryslot

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Event totals: 3.7” Snow/0.46” L.E.

Thursday 3/10/2011 6:00 P.M. update: In Burlington today the snow continued into the afternoon, but with warm temperatures, there wasn’t any additional accumulation to speak of. Eventually the precipitation became all rain, and as I headed east into the mountains around 5:00 P.M., it continued as plain rain until I got to the east of Richmond. Some snow started mixing in there, and that’s what the precipitation was all the way through to the house.

After I cleared the 1.5 inches of snow from this morning, I knew it was going to be one of those warming events where I might miss the maximum accumulation of snow in the afternoon, so I monitored it by web cam. The new snow topped out at 2.2 inches, although it has since settled down a bit due to the mixed precipitation. The stack contained 0.31 inches of liquid, which includes part of the mixed precipitation, but if the snow continued on at the same density as it did this morning, 0.22 inches of that would be from the snow.

It was great to get Scott’s snowfall updates from Stowe today, I’ve added the latest snow totals I’ve seen for the Vermont resorts that have updated this evening in the usual north to south list:

Jay Peak: 6”

Smuggler’s Notch: 10”

Stowe: 8”

Bolton Valley: 8”

Mad River Glen: 6”

Sugarbush: 5”

Pico: 7”

Killington: 7”

Okemo: 4”

Magic Mountain: 4”

Stratton: 4”

Mount Snow: 4”

Some details from the 6:00 P.M. Waterbury observations are below:

New Snow: 2.7 inches

New Liquid: 0.31 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 7.1

Snow Density: 14.1% H2O

Temperature: 34.7 F

Sky: Snow/Rain

Snow at the stake: 36.5 inches

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Had a sleet fest a while ago, tapering off some now to just light snow & a few pellets. Just plowed out the road and 3" or so feels like a foot.

Looking ahead and at the radar, I'm not sad in the slightest to see the heavy stuff seeming to stay well off to the west. The full-on change to rain will happen sooner or later but the less we get the better. Keeping an eye on the train along the coast of North Carolina.

I am sitting in that gray valley...although I will say we have mix of sleet and rain right now 34F, with a 70/30 mix of sleet/rain. From what the kids have said sounds like only a dusting earlier this morning.

Yep, exactly what I encountered on my way home till I hit that magical elevation mark.

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Powder--love the second pic above with all the flakes. Good shot.

2.3" new yesterday, 2.8" event total. 0.44" of liquid for the event. Snowpack back up to 33".

Up to 37 now with some light drizzle and things quite drippy compared to last night. I woke up at 5:15 this morning and decided to roll over and go back to sleep for a bit. The roof slid, rumbling and roaring, and woke me up about an hour later. Nice alarm clock. ;)

Rain train streaming up from the south by the looks of the radar. Not here yet though.

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Powder--love the second pic above with all the flakes. Good shot.

2.3" new yesterday, 2.8" event total. 0.44" of liquid for the event. Snowpack back up to 33".

Up to 37 now with some light drizzle and things quite drippy compared to last night. I woke up at 5:15 this morning and decided to roll over and go back to sleep for a bit. The roof slid, rumbling and roaring, and woke me up about an hour later. Nice alarm clock. ;)

Rain train streaming up from the south by the looks of the radar. Not here yet though.

It'll whip right through, express train. No harm, no foul. The 1100' club is a better idea, we could even go to 1200' and make it more exclusive.lol

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Event totals: 3.7” Snow/0.49” L.E.

Thursday 3/10/2011 6:00 P.M. update: It was an easy round of analyses this morning, with no snow overnight and thus no core sample needed. I did find 0.03” of new liquid in the gauge this morning, bringing the L.E. to just shy of a half inch for this event. The sky was cloudy at the house with a temperature of 37.4 F, although in the Burlington area there are notable amounts of blue sky visible.

Snow is back in even in our valley point forecast tonight however, and persists through Sunday night, so we’ll have to watch for that. Looking beyond the weekend, the NWS discussion suggests clear conditions for Monday and Tuesday, and then another couple of systems with snow chances in the middle to late part of the week.

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Powder--love the second pic above with all the flakes. Good shot.

2.3" new yesterday, 2.8" event total. 0.44" of liquid for the event. Snowpack back up to 33".

Up to 37 now with some light drizzle and things quite drippy compared to last night. I woke up at 5:15 this morning and decided to roll over and go back to sleep for a bit. The roof slid, rumbling and roaring, and woke me up about an hour later. Nice alarm clock. ;)

Rain train streaming up from the south by the looks of the radar. Not here yet though.

The radar doesn't look nearly as ominous as I tought it would. I was expecting much more rain with this system, goes to show you that I don't know much!

bml.gif

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The radar doesn't look nearly as ominous as I tought it would. I was expecting much more rain with this system, goes to show you that I don't know much!

Yeah we are going to luck out, I think. SNE is going to take the brunt of the rainfall with this (after PA, S.NY, and NJ)... I bet most of us still see .25"-.5" of rain as that band moves through, but it won't be the 1-2" of rainfall that this could have been.

Also, looking at liquid amounts and snowfall yesterday, it appears a lot of areas used up .4-1.0" of QPF on the snow side of things yesterday, which certainly helped things.

Overall, I was never really feeling a huge melt with this system. Plus, there's still snow from yesterday sitting on the cars outside my window (I'm down in the village today, not at mtn) so until yesterday's snow completely melts off, I'm considering this a big win, haha. Yesterday's snow was awesome with 4-10" and that's truly sacrificial snow... put it down just to protect the older stuff and so there's something to melt first when the rain comes.

The top of the mountain will come out with a net gain from this. I am positive of that. 10" of dense snow doesn't go anywhere quickly, and plus, the summit Mansfield has still not gone above freezing yet. Currently 31F there on the Meso-West site. Upper elevations will likely do a net gain with this one in the northern Greens.

Storm total snowfall from this system for the ski areas north of I-89:

Jay Peak 11"

Smugglers Notch 10"

Stowe 10"

Bolton Valley 10"

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It'll whip right through, express train. No harm, no foul. The 1100' club is a better idea, we could even go to 1200' and make it more exclusive.lol

I'll barely make that cutoff! ;)

Good to hear on the rain swath too--doesn't look too bad on the ol' radar.....

I don't know about you guys, but I could really use a week or two stretch with little in the way of precip, of whatever form. I'm pretty buried out at the house right now and I don't have much room left to pile up the snow and lot of rain doesn't sound like a whole lot of fun either.

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I'll barely make that cutoff! ;)

I don't know about you guys, but I could really use a week or two stretch with little in th way of precip, of whatever form. I'm pretty buried out at the house right now and I don't have much room left to pile up the snow and lot of rain doesn't sound like a whole lot of fun either.

We were talking about that at the mountain the other day... we've had a great run in February and March so far, with a lot of significant QPF events (primarily snow luckily). Mountain Operations is already thinking about warmer-month construction and infrastructure upgrades and starting to get concerned with the amount of water locked up in the snowpack (and the size of the snowpack), because there comes a point where it will start to throw planned construction off-schedule. If Mountain Ops had their way, we'd close the mountain one day and all the snow would disappear the next, haha.

Usually the first week after closing is spent using the snow cats to dig out work roads. I've seen them dig tunnels up the mountain through 8 feet of snow just so they can start early warm season construction projects. Us skiers want the snow to stick around as long as possible, because I'll continue to skin up and ski down until the last patches melt. Its a great way to get the dog exercise and its the best "Town Park" a village can have, haha. A nice spring day after the ski area closes the parking lot will still be filled with groups of locals hiking/skinning and skiing. Its like a social activity after the tourists go home, haha.

But yes, I've reached that point where a nice 10-day stretch of low RH, clear and calm weather. Sugaring weather. Highs 45-50F, lows near 20F... full sun. Slow snow melt. Great spring skiing, riding, and touring... ahhh.

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We were talking about that at the mountain the other day... we've had a great run in February and March so far, with a lot of significant QPF events (primarily snow luckily). Mountain Operations is already thinking about warmer-month construction and infrastructure upgrades and starting to get concerned with the amount of water locked up in the snowpack (and the size of the snowpack), because there comes a point where it will start to throw planned construction off-schedule. If Mountain Ops had their way, we'd close the mountain one day and all the snow would disappear the next, haha.

Usually the first week after closing is spent using the snow cats to dig out work roads. I've seen them dig tunnels up the mountain through 8 feet of snow just so they can start early warm season construction projects. Us skiers want the snow to stick around as long as possible, because I'll continue to skin up and ski down until the last patches melt. Its a great way to get the dog exercise and its the best "Town Park" a village can have, haha. A nice spring day after the ski area closes the parking lot will still be filled with groups of locals hiking/skinning and skiing. Its like a social activity after the tourists go home, haha.

But yes, I've reached that point where a nice 10-day stretch of low RH, clear and calm weather. Sugaring weather. Highs 45-50F, lows near 20F... full sun. Slow snow melt. Great spring skiing, riding, and touring... ahhh.

Exactly. I always set a cut-off date of March 15th for when I start to hope for weather other than snow. My want is to get the golf courses up and running. I am one of those who enjoys all 4 seasons and the weather they bring. Getting to the point that it is time to shift gears.

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But yes, I've reached that point where a nice 10-day stretch of low RH, clear and calm weather. Sugaring weather. Highs 45-50F, lows near 20F... full sun. Slow snow melt. Great spring skiing, riding, and touring... ahhh.

Let's all collectively will-it so, and it will happen.

Oohmmmmm................

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12z NAM continues to show good NW upslope flow light snows during the day on Sunday. 24 hour precip totals on Sunday show that we could pick up a couple fluffy inches. Won't be much but hopefully enjoy to cosmetically freshen up the look of things around here after the rain stops.

nam_p24_066m.gif

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Don't know if the overall pattern is anything alike, but the gfs output the past few runs looks distressingly similar to how it looked this time last month, temps adjusted seasonally, of course. That was early in my 16-day snow-free zone (which I'd rather not repeat), and a rerun of the nice 2/25-28 action, but with seasonally adjusted temps, is a couple cold rains.

Currently fog/dz in AUG. Had two relatively short bursts of heavier RA 10-11 AM. Snowbanks don't look much lower, but they've visibly pulled back from the plowed sidewalks.

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33F with some sun this morning right now. Winter cancel.

All done?

32F here--had some light snow overnight to the tune of 0.1". Looks like more is headed this way...

Yesterday's rain left 0.56" in the bucket and dropped the pack from 33" to 31". Pretty wet & wringable out there now. Dooryard is a mess. :arrowhead:

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32.8F with a nice -SN. There's probably .1-.2" of fresh white out there. These flakes are true aggregate pancake parachutes. They fall incredibly slowly and are huge. The cats are jumping at the window trying to catch these suckers. They look like giant moths.

Judging by the obs at MVL, it looks like we switched over to snow around 4am. Fairly steady precip since then but its wet so only a tenth or two of new snow down here in the village. I bet the mountain has an inch or two by now. We've even had a burst down to 1/2sm vis.

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All done?

32F here--had some light snow overnight to the tune of 0.1". Looks like more is headed this way...

Yesterday's rain left 0.56" in the bucket and dropped the pack from 33" to 31". Pretty wet & wringable out there now. Dooryard is a mess. :arrowhead:

Yep, same here. Went down to West Leb last night, I was actually surprised that they still had as much snow on the ground as they did. Ran into some nasty rain and fog on the way home. 32F here too.

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