dryslot Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 Thanks. I can't see the sig from my phone so that's why I asked. Had flurries earlier but skies clear now. Biting wind. Gotcha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dendrite Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 Thanks. I can't see the sig from my phone so that's why I asked. Had flurries earlier but skies clear now. Biting wind. At least we could deliver you cold and flakes. Maybe I missed it, but how long are you up here? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoastalWx Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 At least we could deliver you cold and flakes. Maybe I missed it, but how long are you up here? I'm up with my folks until Friday morning. If I had some more time I would hit you up for beers. I'll be up a lot doing some work through the spring so we'll have to get together. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 4-5" here at Topnotch Resort and Spa in Stowe... elevation 950ft-1,100ft depending on where on property. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wxmanmitch Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 Or better yet we just bulldoze VT and turn it into a giant manmade lake. There was actually a large glacial lake in the CT River Valley (now referred to as glacial Lake Hitchcock) after the end of the last ice age. Not sure if it would've been wide enough to cause lake effect or upslope snow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skierinvermont Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 Maybe .5" today but pretty sure I got some 70+mph gusts at the summit around 7pm.. MWN gusting 105 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 Nice snowy night in the upslope region. Impressive 10-13" amounts on the western side. We only ended up with just over 5" on the Mountain Road. Significantly less though towards the center of the village, maybe only 2-3". Either way, the "rain" event ended up with a solid net gain from the 1" before the rain, and then the upslope topping at the end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Met1985 Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 Nice snowy night in the upslope region. Impressive 10-13" amounts on the western side. We only ended up with just over 5" on the Mountain Road. Significantly less though towards the center of the village, maybe only 2-3". Either way, the "rain" event ended up with a solid net gain from the 1" before the rain, and then the upslope topping at the end. Thats is nice. Down here in the mountains of Western North Carolina we ended up with about an inch and a half, but that is beautiful. I hav been thinking about moving up that way around Saranac Lake region but cannot talk my wife into it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.Spin Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 Nice snowy night in the upslope region. Impressive 10-13" amounts on the western side. We only ended up with just over 5" on the Mountain Road. Significantly less though towards the center of the village, maybe only 2-3". Either way, the "rain" event ended up with a solid net gain from the 1" before the rain, and then the upslope topping at the end. Since the radar suggests the snowfall is done, it looks like the totals for the event here will be 9.7” snow and about 1 ¼” of liquid. Even down here in the valley it appears that the entire storm’s worth of liquid went into the snowpack, so it should be a great net gain for the slopes. The Mt. Mansfield Stake was at 20 inches as of the ~5:30 P.M. report today, and I’m not sure how much more they got tonight, but it’s getting tantalizingly close to that 2-foot mark. The forecast also suggests we’ve got the opportunity for more snow this week. I’ll probably be up for a bit so I’ll run a liquid analysis at midnight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 Thanks. I follow your predictions and cant thank you enough. I understand nws' target audience but i would think they would just mention the possibilities. Whatever, ive spent quite a few epic days in thigh deep powder after btv predicted 2-4". Keeps the crowds away. Oh and its snowing harder again. It is incredibly meso-scale though and very hard to predict given the factors that go into it. A lot depends on snow growth, inversion levels, low level lapse rates, RH values, wind speed, wind direction, lake temperature (could the lake even be a factor), etc. It is very humbling and difficult to predict upslope... not necessarily "will it happen?" but more, "how much?" Its pretty simple to recognize the signs of some upslope precipitation. You see west or northwest winds and some high RH in the low levels, and you pretty much know that some precipitation is going to fall out of the sky somewhere in the are of the Greens. But will it be the west side or the east side that jackpots... or will it only concentrate itself directly over the immediate Spine axis? How far upwind or downwind will it be significant? Does it reach far enough back to pummel BTV and the eastern Champlain Valley? Or is it snowing 1"/hr in Montpelier to the east? Those are the aspects I find fascinating about these events. Today it was interesting to see the heaviest snows work their way down the Greens and then the real heavy 3o0-40dbz stuff stopped moving south and stalled south of I-89, which allowed lake moisture to get involved due to the marginal, but decent fetch. Of course it is usually snowing elsewhere in the upslope region, but its fun to see why one area jackpots and another doesn't. Or why one upslope event suddenly turns into a raging blizzard, while another is just wind-blown rimed snow pellets.followed by scattered flurries. We got lucky the other day with 5" through 4pm during a 20% chance of snow showers point 'n click (8" storm total). This time its Addison County into Washington County (but also up the west side of Mansfield in Underhill). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 Since the radar suggests the snowfall is done, it looks like the totals for the event here will be 9.7” snow and about 1 ¼” of liquid. Even down here in the valley it appears that the entire storm’s worth of liquid went into the snowpack, so it should be a great net gain for the slopes. The Mt. Mansfield Stake was at 20 inches as of the ~5:30 P.M. report today, and I’m not sure how much more they got tonight, but it’s getting tantalizingly close to that 2-foot mark. The forecast also suggests we’ve got the opportunity for more snow this week. I’ll probably be up for a bit so I’ll run a liquid analysis at midnight. Sweet! Looks like you cashed in as usual, 9;7" is a pretty decent total out of this... that's at least double what the bulk of the main Stowe village got. That must've been some serious snowfall rates that continued through the evening. I was up at the ski area at like 10pm and it was still blowing very hard... incredibly challenging to get any idea on snowfall as the rock hard previous snowpack was swept clean, leaving large drifts in the lee of objects. Given how wind packed the snow was, the overall total is likely not going to be nearly as large as it would've been in a totally calm environment. That wind was roaring even through the forest floor today...nothing was sheltered from that wind. However I'm not working tomorrow so won't be doing any early morning measuring, haha. . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.Spin Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 Event totals: 9.7” Snow/1.24” L.E. This last round of snow really dropped in density to sub 3% H2O, and it is settling fast – the depth at our stake is the same as it was at the 6:00 P.M. reading. Details from the 12:00 A.M. observations are below: New Snow: 2.1 inches New Liquid: 0.05 inches Snow/Water Ratio: 42.0 Snow Density: 2.4% H2O Temperature: 10.4 F Sky: Partly Cloudy Snow at the stake: 9.0 inches Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adk Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 I'm about to go find out what is collected up at Bolton. I got reports from skiers of anything between 8-12 on the western side with a quote from MRG "There were thigh deep drifts of pure blower." This was just a wonderful event and the more work I do with upslope snow the more and more I think the emphasis has to be on temperatures. PF and I both discussed the textbook upslope event of 12/6-12/7 last year where over 40 inches fell. In that case it was just incredible fluff. Like way beyond Utah powder. A quote that sums it up: "closing your door hard cleaned off your car." As it is, we now have a base, and new snow on top. With another 4-8 inches at least coming this weekend winter is here. Schuss time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allenson Posted December 29, 2011 Author Share Posted December 29, 2011 Well, picked up just shy of a whole inch here. We usually do better than this with these events, often picking up sloppy seconds, but this time, barely thirsty thirds. We did have one nice mini-blizzard yesterday evening which was fun to watch. 3-4" otg. There was actually a large glacial lake in the CT River Valley (now referred to as glacial Lake Hitchcock) after the end of the last ice age. Not sure if it would've been wide enough to cause lake effect or upslope snow. Indeed. There are outwash, delta and terrace-type deposits and very flat ancient lake bottoms that one can fine around here in the CT River drainage. And of course, the Champlain Valley was once a large inland arm of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Lake Hitchcock was very long and narrow, so I would think the fetch would have had to be just right to trigger and lake effect snows... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j24vt Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 We are about 5 miles east of Mount Mansfield and only picked up 1.7 inches of snow in yesterday's storm. Don't even need to shovel before skiing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.Spin Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 Here’s what I’ve seen for storm totals for the Vermont ski areas using their 48-hr snow totals. The list is from north to south along the spine of the Greens: Jay Peak: 8” Smuggler’s Notch: 12” Stowe: 8” Bolton Valley: 11” Mad River Glen: 8” Sugarbush: 12” Middlebury: 6” Pico: 10” Killington: 10” Okemo: 4” Bromley: 0” Magic Mountain: T Stratton: 1” Mount Snow: 0” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eyewall Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 In talking to the BTV MIC at the NWS he said there were likely 50:1 ratios in places! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wxmanmitch Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 It is incredibly meso-scale though and very hard to predict given the factors that go into it. A lot depends on snow growth, inversion levels, low level lapse rates, RH values, wind speed, wind direction, lake temperature (could the lake even be a factor), etc. It is very humbling and difficult to predict upslope... not necessarily "will it happen?" but more, "how much?" Its pretty simple to recognize the signs of some upslope precipitation. You see west or northwest winds and some high RH in the low levels, and you pretty much know that some precipitation is going to fall out of the sky somewhere in the are of the Greens. But will it be the west side or the east side that jackpots... or will it only concentrate itself directly over the immediate Spine axis? How far upwind or downwind will it be significant? Does it reach far enough back to pummel BTV and the eastern Champlain Valley? Or is it snowing 1"/hr in Montpelier to the east? Those are the aspects I find fascinating about these events. Today it was interesting to see the heaviest snows work their way down the Greens and then the real heavy 3o0-40dbz stuff stopped moving south and stalled south of I-89, which allowed lake moisture to get involved due to the marginal, but decent fetch. Of course it is usually snowing elsewhere in the upslope region, but its fun to see why one area jackpots and another doesn't. Or why one upslope event suddenly turns into a raging blizzard, while another is just wind-blown rimed snow pellets.followed by scattered flurries. We got lucky the other day with 5" through 4pm during a 20% chance of snow showers point 'n click (8" storm total). This time its Addison County into Washington County (but also up the west side of Mansfield in Underhill). Yes, I share this fascination with WNE upslope precipitation as well. Unlike synoptic scale snows, which are relatively easy to forecast because they are from features that are large enough for most numerical weather models to handle, upslope precipitation is more toward the small end of mesoscale. Even meso models like the NAM often don't adequately handle it. Maybe BTV's 4 km WRF does a little better, but many times the idiosyncrasies of this phenomenon are on scales of less than 4 km. I've seen upslope events here in the Berks where it can be cloudy and snowy on one side of a hill, while less than a mile away the sun is coming out with flurries. You can use models to help diagnose when an event will occur, but predicting the final outcome is next to impossible. Unlike N VT, here in the Berks it takes nearly perfect conditions to get an upslope event that can produce anything beyond a dusting to an inch. Forecasting when these events occur is very challenging and often leads to more busts than scores. I need to actively research the successful events and find out what conditions led to their occurrence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adk Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 Here’s what I’ve seen for storm totals for the Vermont ski areas using their 48-hr snow totals. The list is from north to south along the spine of the Greens: Jay Peak: 8” Smuggler’s Notch: 12” Stowe: 8” Bolton Valley: 11” Mad River Glen: 8” Sugarbush: 12” Middlebury: 6” Pico: 10” Killington: 10” Okemo: 4” Bromley: 0” Magic Mountain: T Stratton: 1” Mount Snow: 0” Going to say that if bolton got 11, 6 stuck around. Though found some really nice snow on a few protected trails on my first lap this morning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 We are about 5 miles east of Mount Mansfield and only picked up 1.7 inches of snow in yesterday's storm. Don't even need to shovel before skiing! LOL... yeah incredible gradient in the town of Stowe. Working up the Mountain Road it just increases and increases. Last night when I was at Frieda's in the Village I was thinking, man there cannot be more than 2" of new snow here... then by Topnotch and Nordic Barn its over 5". I didn't measure at the mountain this morning but I'm sure Megan (the other reporter on my days off) was just throwing a guess out there as I was up there around 9-10pm last night and it would've been impossible to actually find out how much snow fell. That wind was unlike anything I've seen yet this year up there. Just building creaking gusts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 The amazing thing is that this is the NWS Airport Cam looking at Mount Mansfield, and you can see there's really nothing on the ground at BTV. However, only 15 miles as the crow flies to Mansfield, there were reports of a solid 10" in Underhill which sits at the base of that large western slope of Mansfield. Then in Nashville/West Bolton a little closer to Mansfield, the view changes quickly to a more snowy one. And in Underhill it was a classic fluff bomb. Always hard to forecast when one part of a county gets a dusting while the other half gets Warning criteria snowfall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 Also, in other news... its cold out there. A lovely day to ride the FourRunner Quad to the summit in a stiff 20-40mph breeze at sub-zero temps. Nothing like a nice near 40F below wind chill type of winter day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dendrite Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 Indeed. There are outwash, delta and terrace-type deposits and very flat ancient lake bottoms that one can fine around here in the CT River drainage. And of course, the Champlain Valley was once a large inland arm of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Lake Hitchcock was very long and narrow, so I would think the fetch would have had to be just right to trigger and lake effect snows... Wasn't there a large lake Winooski in W VT too? I wonder how much LES would make it here off of NW winds from the Champlain Sea/Winooski. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adk Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 It was 0 in the Bolton Valley lot at 5:59 this am as I strapped on the skis. I have to say however it was a very warm 0. Of course there were also STUNNING views this am from Bolton across the CPV and right into the maw of whiteface and it's slides which were in the morning alpenglow. I could have stayed there all morning. Saturday's event is going to be another wack-a-do. Mixed precip overnight leading to moist westerly flow with passage of mid level low. Can't say I'm not expected a few new inches along the spine through the day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaineJayhawk Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 Driving by a local pond today I saw a kid with hockey stick in hand chasing a puck around, so at least there are some winter activities to be had now. And it appears there will be tons of ice-creating weather to be had near-term. Good for the anglers and aspiring hockey players, I guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 Here's BTV's storm total map from this past event: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 I haven't looked at this next event much but I am getting very interested in the early next week cold shot. This has the potential to be another significant upslope snow event for the usual suspects. The last few runs of the GFS have been hammering home this point with long duration moist, W to NNW flow, strong CAA bringing in good snow growth temperatures in the low level lift region from topography. This certain bears watching in my mind as I think we could get another decent dump out of this late Sunday night through Tuesday morning. 12z GFS showing the favorable position of the surface low off to our NW with a strong cold shot moving down the backside. Upslope snow is in progress by 15z Monday. 12 hours later at 3z Tuesday its ripping. Tuesday morning at 9z its still snowing. Finally starts to cut out around 15z Tuesday but I bet with that very cold flow every little bit of moisture will get squeezed out so I bet we keep light snow going on the summits through Tuesday. Now I haven't looked at any soundings yet but in my experience this is the "model signal" we see for these events with very light QPF amounts on the panels and steady NW winds. The duration of this looks to be the more promising aspect as this is being modeled as a 24 hour type event. I know this probably interests only the same 5 people but there's really not much else to talk about, lol. It is certainly something to watch though for the ski resorts, skiers/riders, and anyone that lives in the communities on either side of the Green Mountain Spine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoastalWx Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 Up in N Conway and not a cloud in the sky with snow covered Mt Washington visible as clear as day. About a 2-4" snowpack here. 4" is the exception. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ginx snewx Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 Up in N Conway and not a cloud in the sky with snow covered Mt Washington visible as clear as day. About a 2-4" snowpack here. 4" is the exception. Funny I was just looking at the Web cams, sweet views today. Take a ride up 16 to Wildcat up by Jackson, great view, not far from you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NorEaster27 Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 Here's BTV's storm total map from this past event: what resorts are those east of Addison Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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