NNE Spring 2012

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 0.1” Snow/0.11” L.E.

The snow line clearly dropped to the valley bottom overnight, because flurries were falling at the house this morning when I made my observations for CoCoRaHS, and there was a touch of accumulation. At first I didn’t know that any snow had stuck, but then I started to see white on elevated surfaces, and checked the snowboard to find a tenth of an inch down. So, this will go down as the first accumulating snow event of the month. For total liquid, most of that was received yesterday, as close to a tenth of an inch of rain had fallen by 6:00 P.M. On a seasonal note, this is the 44^th accumulating snowfall event of the season at our reporting location, which is the average number of accumulating storms per season calculated from the five complete seasons available. Snowfall is well below average however, so the amount of snow per storm is certainly lower this season. I’d contemplated heading up into the higher elevations for some turns this morning, but I couldn’t see much in terms of accumulation below 2,000’, suggesting that while the snow level dropped quite low, precipitation wasn’t all that robust. It will be interesting to see what accumulation reports come in from the higher elevations, but Jay Peak isn’t indicating any new snow in their morning report.

Details from the 6:00 A.M. Waterbury observations are below:

New Snow: 0.1 inches

New Liquid: Trace

Temperature: 34.5 F

Sky: Flurries

Snow at the stake: Trace

[Ginx snewx]

A closed mountain with new snow is perhaps the saddest picture taken.

[adk]

A closed mountain with new snow is perhaps the AWESOMEST picture taken.

FIFY

[MaineJayhawk]

Earn the turns, bro.

[Ginx snewx]

<p>

FIFY

well yea for you, LOL, enjoy the skinning,probably good stashes today

[Allenson]

How it looks here this morning. Fun to see.

[mreaves]

How it look here this morning. Fun to see.

Similar look in my part of Barre this morning. The snow quickly vanished as I drove down the hill and there was none on the ground along I-89 into Montpelier. The Worcester Range and the Greens looked like they got a nice shot though.

[powderfreak]

A closed mountain with new snow is perhaps the saddest picture taken.

Ginxy! Earn your turns! I think the exact opposite... I see fresh snow and not many people to ski it. Even if 100 people are skinning up and skiing it, there's plenty of fresh to go around for days. Some people go running for 45 minutes, I prefer to get my daily exercise in a 45 minute skin up the mountain. Then the reward is over 2,000 vertical feet of pow.

[Ginx snewx]

<p>

Ginxy!  Earn your turns!  I think the exact opposite... I see fresh snow and not many people to ski it.  Even if 100 people are skinning up and skiing it, there's plenty of fresh to go around for days.  Some people go running for 45 minutes, I prefer to get my daily exercise in a 45 minute skin up the mountain.  Then the reward is over 2,000 vertical feet of pow.

I prefer lifts with 8 hours of skiing 60,000 feet over the course of a day myself

[powderfreak]

<p>I prefer lifts with 8 hours of skiing 60,000 feet over the course of a day myself

Yeah I prefer helicopters but what can ya do?

I'm down in Albany, NY till tomorrow morning... these larger valleys down here is where precipitation comes to die, haha.

Looks like this event is about done. I'm waiting on first hand reports from the 3-4K foot region... I could see up to 4" up there last night.

Last of the snow showers and flurries moving through Mansfield area now.

[Ginx snewx]

Yeah I prefer helicopters but what can ya do?  

I'm down in Albany, NY till tomorrow morning... these larger valleys down here is where precipitation comes to die, haha.

Looks like this event is about done.  I'm waiting on first hand reports from the 3-4K foot region... I could see up to 4" up there last night.

Last of the snow showers and flurries moving through Mansfield area now.

How long does it take you to skin up to 4K?

[powderfreak]

How long does it take you to skin up to 4K?

45-50 minutes to the top of the Quad (3,600ft) if I'm just moving... usually ends up being an hour or 70 minutes because its no secret that I like to take pictures.

I can do a round trip (skin up, change over, and ski down) in like 75 minutes if I have to go to work or something. Otherwise its usually around 90 minutes a lap as its nice to take your time up there and on the way down.

[adk]

How long does it take you to skin up to 4K?

Depends on how high you start. A safe rule is that you should be able to knock off a thousand vert of blue/black trail steepness vert in under 45min and keep that pace up for a rather long time. I think the best I've done (and gpetrics and others) is about 2k of vert in around 40 minutes. That's not really sustainable. Much better to do about 2k in like an hour...1:10 if you have a long day.

[tamarack]

A few snow-things on the vehicles this morning, either mini-graupel or mangled flakes with the points sublimated away. Partly cloudy, breezy, dry. Whole bunch of small brush/grass fires in Maine yesterday, including one that took a couple small buildings. Sandy River cfs is 8% lower than yesterday, less than half the 25th percentile flow (75 yr records) but still twice the record low for the date set in 1964.

[powderfreak]

Depends on how high you start. A safe rule is that you should be able to knock off a thousand vert of blue/black trail steepness vert in under 45min and keep that pace up for a rather long time. I think the best I've done (and gpetrics and others) is about 2k of vert in around 40 minutes. That's not really sustainable. Much better to do about 2k in like an hour...1:10 if you have a long day.

Yeah that sounds right in line with what I've been doing... average around a half hour per 1,000 vertical feet. Nosedive at Stowe is just set-up to be a fast route as its just 2,100 verts of sustained, even pitch. I can do that one in 45 minutes if motivated and on a schedule (doing it in 40 minutes would be a solid push though, haha). Usually I end up around 1:10 with stopping for photos and such. Also depends on how soaked in sweet I want to be when I crest the top and its 19F and blowing and you can feel your body temperature dropping very quickly.

[Ginx snewx]

days and days of upslope per 12 Z GFS

[mreaves]

Lots of little styrofoam balls falling here in Montpelier.

[J.Spin]

Well, just when you think Mt. Mansfield is done manufacturing snow, it starts up again – the mountain just disappeared behind snow as another slug of precipitation approached, so I took a quick look at the composite radar and grabbed the latest image series:

It feels like a repeat of yesterday, but the forecast doesn’t really call for much precipitation tonight.

[N. OF PIKE]

j spin...no drive up bolton valley access road. i wonder if they scored 3 or so last nite at 2.5k

[J.Spin]

j spin...no drive up bolton valley access road. i wonder if they scored 3 or so last nite at 2.5k

Last night I was definitely contemplating a morning trip up to Bolton for some turns; I even gassed up the car yesterday evening on the way home from the park and ride in preparation. But, based on what we got at the house for snow/liquid overnight, what I saw on radar, and what I saw on the Stowe Web Cam, it didn’t seem to quite hit the threshold to make it worth the trip – at least in the context of a work day. I’ve tried to check the Bolton Valley Web Cam a few times as well to get a closer look, but it hasn’t been working for me. I’m curious about what next week brings though; it seems like there’s some potential for the mountains.

[N. OF PIKE]

yes def. potential. hope the low gets situated to the NE and spokes of moisture pinwheel thru on NW winds...and it piles up in the uplsope regions

[powderfreak]

yes def. potential. hope the low gets situated to the NE and spokes of moisture pinwheel thru on NW winds...and it piles up in the uplsope regions

Its not a classic situation (I'd rather the surface to H85 lows more towards CAR and northern tip of ME) as the wind flow for the first part of the week is actually WSW... of course, if there's moisture that'll mean something upslopes into the Greens (literally any westerly component will do) but it won't be your classic flow. Later in the week it looks like we get more into a steadier NW flow regime.

[tamarack]

Nice spring forecast for the foothills. Tomorrow is fine, though with high red flag potential. Then 2 days of mostly cloudy followed by 4 more of cloudy, with precip for every period Sun night thru Thurs (and probably out beyond the 7-day forecast, too.) Maybe some slushy flakes at night. The whole mess shows up as about half an inch qpf on 12z gfs, so a cloudy rainy slushy yucky week might give us about half normal precip. Why am I not surprised?

[J.Spin]

Looks like this event is about done. I'm waiting on first hand reports from the 3-4K foot region... I could see up to 4" up there last night.

Last of the snow showers and flurries moving through Mansfield area now.

Nice call PF; the co-op data for the stake indicate a 4” increase in snow depth, with the snowpack going from 24” to 28”. Of course, that was accomplished with only 2.5” of new snow falling, so apparently it fluffed up upon landing instead of obeying the usual laws of physics and settling:

000
SXUS51 KBTV 052149
HYDBTV
DAILY HYDROMETEOROLOGICAL DATA
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BURLINGTON VT
549 PM EDT THU APR 5 2012

STATION			PRECIP   TEMPERATURE   PRESENT		 SNOW
24 HRS   MAX MIN CUR   WEATHER	 NEW TOTAL SWE
...VERMONT...
MOUNT MANSFIELD
0.26	 27  17  20		  2.5  28

I’ll be curious to see the snow depth at this time next week, based on the current forecast with seasonable temperatures and some chance for precipitation, I can’t imagine it dropping much. Latest extended forecast discussion from BTV:

.LONG TERM /SUNDAY NIGHT THROUGH THURSDAY/... AS OF 328 AM EDT FRIDAY...RIDGE FINALLY BREAKS DOWN OVER THE CWA SUN NGT...AS CLOSED OFF UPPER LOW BEGINS TO BACK WEST FROM THE CANADIAN MARITIMES. MDLS STILL SHOW CONSISTENCY IN BRINGING THIS SYSTEM INTO SOUTH-CENTRAL QUEBEC...ALTHOUGH LATEST RUNS A BIT MORE NORTH. THIS IS GOING TO PUT WNW FLOW OVER THE CWA UNTIL THURSDAY WHEN SYSTEM PUSHES OFFSHORE AND RIDGE APPROACHES FROM THE WEST PUTTING THE MEAN FLOW MORE NORTHERLY. UNTIL THEN BASED ON WNW FROM MONDAY THRU LATE WEDNESDAY...BROAD CIRCULATION WILL KEEP CWA MCLDY/CLDY W/ LOW SCT QPF CHANCES. BULK APPEARS TO BE DIURNALLY DRIVEN W/ EMPHASIS OVER NORTHERN ZONES/HIR ELEV. CD AIR WRAPPING IN AROUND THIS SYSTEM WILL BRING MAINLY -SW OVERNGT...ESPECIALLY FOR HIR ELEV AND -RW/-SW MIX AT HIR TRRN/-RW VALLEY LOCALES DURING THE DAY. TEMPS THRU THE EXTENDED WILL REMAIN NEAR NORMAL WITH DAYTIME HIGHS IN THE U40S(HIR ELEV) TO L/M 50S(VALLEY LOCALES. OVERNGT LOWS WILL RANGE FROM THE M/U 20S HIR TRRN...TO THE L/M 30S ELSEWHERE.

[Allenson]

Cool & cloudy, rinse and repeat.

Didn't get out of the 30s here yesterday and sitting at 30 this morning.

Nice spring forecast for the foothills. Tomorrow is fine, though with high red flag potential. Then 2 days of mostly cloudy followed by 4 more of cloudy, with precip for every period Sun night thru Thurs (and probably out beyond the 7-day forecast, too.) Maybe some slushy flakes at night. The whole mess shows up as about half an inch qpf on 12z gfs, so a cloudy rainy slushy yucky week might give us about half normal precip. Why am I not surprised?

I'd be thrilled to see 1/2" of qpf. Most definitely need it.

[powderfreak]

Nice call PF; the co-op data for the stake indicate a 4” increase in snow depth, with the snowpack going from 24” to 28”. Of course, that was accomplished with only 2.5” of new snow falling, so apparently it fluffed up upon landing instead of obeying the usual laws of physics and settling:

000
SXUS51 KBTV 052149
HYDBTV
DAILY HYDROMETEOROLOGICAL DATA
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BURLINGTON VT
549 PM EDT THU APR 5 2012

STATION			PRECIP   TEMPERATURE   PRESENT		 SNOW
24 HRS   MAX MIN CUR   WEATHER	 NEW TOTAL SWE
...VERMONT...
MOUNT MANSFIELD
0.26	 27  17  20		  2.5  28

lol J.Spin... "instead of obeying the usual laws of physics"

I think the NWS or the Co-Op should just scrap the "new" and record the change in snow depth as that would likely be more accurate during the course of the winter. Even if the snow settled and you didn't record all the snow, at least you wouldn't be recording 50-75% of snowfall during the course of a winter, haha.

Either way, that even just had the feel of 1-4" even though I was watching from afar. About an inch at 1,500ft but up there at 3,700ft with temps in the low to mid 20s, not hard to imagine 4".

[Ginx snewx]

<p>

lol J.Spin... "instead of obeying the usual laws of physics"

I think the NWS or the Co-Op should just scrap the "new" and record the change in snow depth as that would likely be more accurate during the course of the winter.  Even if the snow settled and you didn't record all the snow, at least you wouldn't be recording 50-75% of snowfall during the course of a winter, haha.

Either way, that even just had the feel of 1-4" even though I was watching from afar.  About an inch at 1,500ft but up there at 3,700ft with temps in the low to mid 20s, not hard to imagine 4".

who looks at the stake?

[tamarack]

lol J.Spin... "instead of obeying the usual laws of physics"

I think the NWS or the Co-Op should just scrap the "new" and record the change in snow depth as that would likely be more accurate during the course of the winter. Even if the snow settled and you didn't record all the snow, at least you wouldn't be recording 50-75% of snowfall during the course of a winter, haha.

That might be less erroneous but still not particularly accurate. I'm convinced, by looking at the data, that's what the Fort Kent water company (the Co-Op there) has always done and they probably record about 80% of the snowfall. In the five full winters I lived down at the same elevation as the Co-Op (the 4 back settlemet years I lived 450' higher), my avg was 126" and theirs was 102" (and CAR had 118", with some events' p-type line between there and FK.) I did end of storm measurements only, except for storms accumulating at my 9 PM obs time - those would have 2 measurements (even 3 for some long-duration events.) No 6-hr sweeps. There should not have been a 2-foot difference, but alot of snow up there falls powder on powder (same as at Mansfield), so it's not just the new snow settling but the old snow being crushed.

[J.Spin]

who looks at the stake?

As far as I know from what Powderfreak has talked about in the past, it’s the engineers that work up on some of the Mt. Mansfield transmission towers, but they could be doing the liquid catching/new snow measurement, and it could be someone else checking the stake. When I’ve been at Stowe toward the end of the day before, I’ve seen guys come from a TV station truck and head up the Mt. Mansfield Toll Road on snowmobiles, and assumed that they would check the depth of the stake on their way up. Powderfreak can probably fill out the rest of the details, but he has said that many of the guys don’t care too much about the data and only do it because they are required to, which is unfortunately not the best recipe for fastidious data collection.

[Lava Rock]

weather next weeks look blah and cold. no thanks.