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NNE Late Fall & Early Winter


Allenson

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High of 62F today after a low of 36F... warm day.

The only remaining proof of the snow squalls on Friday was high elevation (3,000ft or a bit above) due north facing aspects.

Our 1,550ft base area snow board location...we put the bridges back up over the small creeks to get to this spot and made sure the reflectors were still on the trees so I can find it in the dark at 5am. We won't put the boards out yet because the porcupines have been known to snack on them.

The snow surfaces department was testing some fan guns at 55 degrees. Thursday night through Saturday morning they are hoping to have the system online and cranking.

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Really high launchpad this morning, as the temp rose from 35 at 9 PM to 50 at 6 AM, with a SW wind making noise most of the night. Big difference from yesterday's frosty 18, which then rocketed up 41F, just missing 60. Maybe today...

Last night had some big temperature fluctuations around here as well...

We were 38F at midnight last night with calm conditions, then by 2am it was 56F with a light south wind. Then it stayed in the mid 50s for a few hours, when around 4am or 5am the wind went calm and by 7am we were back down at 36F. It is amazing how you can have 20F temperature swings overnight between a calm wind and a light 5-10mph breeze. Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks did not have as large of a temperature change but had a similar experience with it being 45F at 4:17am with a 5mph wind. SLK went calm by 6am and the temp dropped to 32F shortly thereafter.

Meanwhile, the Saint Johnsbury ASOS to the east of MVL and with a similar elevation/topography of Morrisville (700ft in the bottom of a valley) remained calm all night and slowly ticked down to 30F by 7am.

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There sure are a lot of chairs on that lift :)

131 "carriers" I think. It was the first thing I noticed after the chairs got put on the line... like you noticed, there is a recognizable difference in the number of chairs from the old quad. I guess that's how you increase capacity 30-40% without changing the line speed (1,000ft/min) haha.

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Interestingly close call this weekend. Sean's moisture and a passing cold front come oh so close. But don't quite link up right. Bummer. Still, after frontal passage I'd expect some snow showers across the northern VT high terrain friday am. Not too exciting however and again next week looks like we'll get into the 60s.

Oh well. Reminds me a lot of 2007 when it was very warm all fall.

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we were over 40 this AM, 42F to be exact, chinook winds in charge

Indian summer rolling along, back to swatting mosquitos at night before bed :axe: , but great moon viewing with the telescope, warm!

little fuzzy in memory, but I'm pretty sure Dec 2007 had 2 back to back nor'easter that put 60"+ on the hills, looks like we might need it again

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we were over 40 this AM, 42F to be exact, chinook winds in charge

Indian summer rolling along, back to swatting mosquitos at night before bed :axe: , but great moon viewing with the telescope, warm!

little fuzzy in memory, but I'm pretty sure Dec 2007 had 2 back to back nor'easter that put 60"+ on the hills, looks like we might need it again

Looking at the long-range model guidance I can comfortably say we won't be open the weekend of the 19th. There's already talk of the 23rd hopefully, but it might even be the 26th if the cold shots are delayed longer than the models think. Stowe doesn't really have a set-up for anything but a top-to-bottom 2,100 vertical feet opening...like the Jet at Jay or Heavens Gate at Sugarbush, or Glades at Killington where less verts and terrain can be utilized for an opening. We usually know we need a more favorable window for snowmaking than other mountains due to the acreage we need to cover to open, but on the flip side we hope our infrastructure is better and more efficient at making snow during those windows. :arrowhead:

The worst part is always trying to cover the base area.... from 2,000ft to 1,500ft. I think it was 2006 we had a good, well-covered route down to around 2,000ft and then it became "patchy" but still continuous thanks to the groomers. It was one of those things that you'd start the day with a top-to-bottom route and end the day with about 5 segments on the lower mountain. Patrol was putting out boo all over the place. We ended up closing after 4 days around Thanksgiving and didn't open again till December 6th or something like that.

I hope we don't have another one of those starts... though 2006-2007 really turned around from Valentines Day onward ;)

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.NEAR TERM /UNTIL 7 PM THIS EVENING/... AS OF 942 AM EST WEDNESDAY...MINOR UPDATE AS OF MID- MORNING...PRIMARILY TO GO MOSTLY SUNNY ACROSS THE ENTIRE FORECAST AREA...AND TO RAISE HIGH TEMPERATURES BY 1-2 DEGREES ACROSS THE BOARD. 9 AM TEMPERATURES ARE RUNNING 4 TO 9 DEGREES ABOVE READINGS THIS TIME YESTERDAY...AND WITH INCREASINGLY ADVECTIVE SOUTHERLY FLOW DEVELOPING ACROSS THE AREA...NO REASON TO DISAGREE WITH PRIOR FORECASTER`S ASSESSMENT OF RECORD...OR NEAR RECORD HIGHS IN MANY LOCATIONS TODAY. A TAD HESITANT TO GO TOO HIGH ON THE TEMPERATURES WITH ONLY SHALLOW MIXING TO AROUND 900 MB PER RUC SOUNDING PROFILES...AND MARINE MODIFIED LOW LEVEL BACK TRAJECTORIES FROM OFFSHORE SOUTH OF LONG ISLAND. NONETHELESS...STILL EXPECTING MAX VALUES GENERALLY IN THE 65 TO 70 DEGREE RANGE AREA WIDE. ENJOY YOUR DAY.

RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURES FOR WEDNESDAY...NOVEMBER 9TH ARE SHOWN BELOW:

LOCATION......RECORD YEAR

BURLINGTON.....67...1945

MONTPELIER.....63...1975

MASSENA........67...1950

ST. JOHNSBURY..68...1996

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This is getting ridiculous. Isn't there some correlation with warm Falls and crappy winters (e.g. warm and little snow). I've got over 20 years of weather journals but I recall some winters that had some early snows (november) and good cold, but totally fizzled once winter really got going. This is not going to bode well for a lot of the resorts that wanted to open for T-giving.

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A bit off topic, but does anyone know if it has ever snowed in July at Stowe? Powderfreak would know...

Not since 1950 or so when records started being kept at the summit. That's the only month of the year without measurable snow ever being recorded.

The June record is 4.0" and for August it is 0.2"... not sure of the years though. That's what I can find quickly on the BTV climate page.

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Not since 1950 or so when records started being kept at the summit. That's the only month of the year without measurable snow ever being recorded.

The June record is 4.0" and for August it is 0.2"... not sure of the years though. That's what I can find quickly on the BTV climate page.

Surprised you are not all over the upslope potential.

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Not since 1950 or so when records started being kept at the summit. That's the only month of the year without measurable snow ever being recorded.

The June record is 4.0" and for August it is 0.2"... not sure of the years though. That's what I can find quickly on the BTV climate page.

Thanks. I have a student who is a Stowe devotee (cousin of the Stowe devotee I taught last year) who claims it did...I could not find anything about it.

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Surprised you are not all over the upslope potential.

I'm really not that impressed... maybe a couple inches way up high as H85s cool on Thursday night, but the upslope on Friday looks very spotty to me. With the duel low pressure systems to the northwest, a good strong cyclonic flow never really develops. That second and deeper low up near Hudson Bay never really allows a good sfc-700mb cyclonic flow to develop around the low pressure system tracking east of New England into the Maritimes. What we end up with is a decent amount of low level dry air out of east/central Canada getting fed in on a WNW flow under the residual synoptic moisture. Honestly the RH progs out of BTV are not inspiring for any sort of upslope explosion of precipitation.

The wind direction is good though and there will be some left over synoptic moisture to act on, but with the important SFC-5,000ft column drying out relatively quickly on Friday morning, I bet we are just left with occasional snow showers over the mountain and flurries elsewhere. I could see a couple inches of wet snow falling during the stratiform precip Thursday night after H85s cool, but I just don't see more than a dusting to an inch additional from upslope flow.

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Thanks. I have a student who is a Stowe devotee (cousin of the Stowe devotee I taught last year) who claims it did...I could not find anything about it.

Yeah it would be incredibly hard to get it to snow at 4,000ft in July (obviously since it hasn't happened in the last 60 years of crazy weather events).... MWN has the advantage of being a full 2,000ft higher and they have recorded some light/trace amounts of snow in July. You gotta remember that with a standard lapse rate its usually about 10F cooler on Mount Washington than it is on Mansfield due to that 2,000ft difference. It can get into the lower 40s at the summit during cold troughs (that's with H85 temps in the 0C to +3C range which is very, very cold in July), but you need that extra 2K feet that MWN has to get into the 30-35F range during those cold outbreaks.

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I'm really not that impressed... maybe a couple inches way up high as H85s cool on Thursday night, but the upslope on Friday looks very spotty to me. With the duel low pressure systems to the northwest, a good strong cyclonic flow never really develops. That second and deeper low up near Hudson Bay never really allows a good sfc-700mb cyclonic flow to develop around the low pressure system tracking east of New England into the Maritimes. What we end up with is a decent amount of low level dry air out of east/central Canada getting fed in on a WNW flow under the residual synoptic moisture. Honestly the RH progs out of BTV are not inspiring for any sort of upslope explosion of precipitation.

The wind direction is good though and there will be some left over synoptic moisture to act on, but with the important SFC-5,000ft column drying out relatively quickly on Friday morning, I bet we are just left with occasional snow showers over the mountain and flurries elsewhere. I could see a couple inches of wet snow falling during the stratiform precip Thursday night after H85s cool, but I just don't see more than a dusting to an inch additional from upslope flow.

I'm a little more positive but generally agree. I think we have a period of sustained orographic snow showers but nothing crazy. The flow pattern is generally good and some models actually show that 0-5kft column moistening up with some lake moisture. regardless I think we're talking at most over all 2-4 across the very highest terrain.

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I think we have a period of sustained orographic snow showers but nothing crazy. The flow pattern is generally good and some models actually show that 0-5kft column moistening up with some lake moisture. regardless I think we're talking at most over all 2-4 across the very highest terrain.

It looks like the latest NWS point and click for Mt. Mansfield is right in line with your thoughts adk:

Tonight: Rain and snow, becoming all snow after 11pm. Low around 25. North wind between 6 and 14 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches possible.

Veterans Day: Scattered snow showers. Cloudy, with a high near 30. Northwest wind between 14 and 18 mph, with gusts as high as 31 mph. Chance of precipitation is 40%. New snow accumulation of less than one inch possible.

It’s been almost a week since the last round of snow, so it will be nice to have a refresher to get things whitened up. Roger Hill and Bob Minsenberger have been mentioning it in their forecasts. Roger indicated that folks may want to watch out on the roads in some of the higher passes tomorrow morning in the north, but it shouldn’t be too bad for the valleys. It looks like some activity remains through tomorrow, and then he said to be on the lookout for a little morning flare up on Saturday.

Typically I’d think this would at least get the

going for another round of outings, but perhaps not as many as usual with the great skiing that last month delivered.

The next weather disturbance appears to be coming at the beginning of next week, although I haven’t seen any snow mentioned with that one yet.

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Pretty interesting night last night for a while--crystal clear, big ol' fat moon and a stiff southerly blowing. T'was pretty cool and not in the temp sense.

50F this morning ... which happens to be a degree above the normal high for the date. Thought it felt warm.:sizzle:

Heh, 52 at my pad this morning. Positively libatious.

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This is getting ridiculous. Isn't there some correlation with warm Falls and crappy winters (e.g. warm and little snow). I've got over 20 years of weather journals but I recall some winters that had some early snows (november) and good cold, but totally fizzled once winter really got going. This is not going to bode well for a lot of the resorts that wanted to open for T-giving.

I've seen posts here (or back at Eastern) saying that Oct temps correlated poorly with the following winter's, but that Nov temps correlate better. My 13 years' record at my current location offers little help, as the relationships are all over the board. For Oct-Nov together, only the extremes (warmest was 01-02, followed by 2nd mildest winter; coldest 02-03, also coldest winter) show anything. Nine of 11 years the Oct-Nov avg is less than 1F away from my 13-yr Oct-Nov - it's almost like the two months' departures cancel out in most years. Not this one, unfortunately, which is looking more like 01-02.

Further trivia on temp swings Mon-Tues overnight: Sometime between the 35F at 9P and 50F at 6A, the temp slipped to 29.

Yesterday was 61/35, 1F cooler for the high but the month's first above-32 minimum. Today is #2, with some very dense fog on my commute, and RA beginning here in AUG right about noon, still fairly light.

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