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NNE Winter 2012-13 Thread IV


klw

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From BTV

 

BOTH THE GFS AND ECMWF NOW OFFER A SUBSTANTIAL STORM SYSTEM FORMONDAY NIGHT INTO TUESDAY. THERE IS STILL SEVERAL DAYS TO SORT OUTMORE SPECIFIC DETAILS...BUT ASSUMING FORECAST HOLDS THERE IS POTENTIALFOR SEVERAL IMPACTS INCLUDING PRECIPITATION TYPE CHANGES AND GUSTYSOUTH/SOUTHEAST WINDS. HAVE SHOWN CHANCE TO HIGH CHANCEPRECIPITATION PROBABILITIES FOR EARLY NEXT WEEK.
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OK, how about some pics from this past glorious Saturday?

 

Took a ski tour on a beautiful piece of conserved land in Topsham, VT.  It consists of two wide open hilltops at around 1900' with some great snowfields for backcountry skiing:

 

8554190421_6be593ce9c_z.jpg

 

And on clear days, as it was on Saturday, the Franconia and Presidental Ranges are visible:

 

8555299308_48db33989a_z.jpg

 

Not too shabby:

 

8554192161_b4d0ece11e_c.jpg

 

Looking NW toward Groton State Forest:

 

8554194981_68e3cf2a28_z.jpg

 

Franconias:

 

8555306538_bb19df21df_z.jpg

 

Nice view of Moosilauke too:

 

8554195645_eed2f99c47_z.jpg

 

The big view:

 

8555301940_dfeb1207e4_z.jpg

 

And Signal Mountain, mreaves on the other side somewhere:

 

8555305098_3df5904804_z.jpg

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We've been seeing occasional flurries in town but looks a lot more "milky white" over the Spine and radar shows some weak moisture moving into the area.  More moisture upstream over the northern Adirondacks, so hopefully the ski areas can pick up some accumulation this evening and tonight with a weak upslope event.

 

march13.gif

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OK, how about some pics from this past glorious Saturday?

 

Took a ski tour on a beautiful piece of conserved land in Topsham, VT.  It consists of two wide open hilltops at around 1900' with some great snowfields for backcountry skiing:

 

8554190421_6be593ce9c_z.jpg

 

And on clear days, as it was on Saturday, the Franconia and Presidental Ranges are visible:

 

8555299308_48db33989a_z.jpg

 

Not too shabby:

 

8554192161_b4d0ece11e_c.jpg

 

 

Wow!  Awesome photos.  That looks like great touring terrain.  I'm very intrigued... some fish scaled touring skis and just lap those meadows.

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Wow!  Awesome photos.  That looks like great touring terrain.  I'm very intrigued... some fish scaled touring skis and just lap those meadows.

 

Yeah, it's a great place--one of my favorite spots to visit, anytime, anywhere.

 

I have alpine skis mounted up with cable tele bindings and I use the shorty kicker-skins when going up hill. Didn't even need the skins or kick-wax that day. Plenty of grip but plenty of glide too. It was a nice combo.

 

And yeah, I tour around and do a few laps up and down the hills. There are four nice pitches for the downhills. Drop that knee! ;)

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There was an occasional flake falling in Burlington when I left around 4:00 P.M., but just a few miles east the snowfall was quite intense.  Off the pavement, it looked like there was already a half inch to an inch of accumulation in the higher elevation areas of I-89 in Williston, and visibility was down to ¼ mile at times.  Accumulations disappeared and the snow intensity let up right down in Richmond at I-89 Exit 11, but reappeared immediately to the east of there and the intensity ramped up again.  Right now we’re heading toward Bolton Flats and the visibility had got to be down to 1/8 of a mile at times with huge flakes falling.

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This was bare ground like 60-90 minutes ago on the west side of the spine.

attachicon.gifimage.jpg

Starting to get some minor whitening here in Stowe now.

 

It's a decent trough swinging through. Looks like we could see this squally type snow into tomorrow. There is enough instability to support these brief whiteout type deals.

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It's a decent trough swinging through. Looks like we could see this squally type snow into tomorrow. There is enough instability to support these brief whiteout type deals.

What are you thinking on the Tuesday storm? Looks like the storm will cut but hoping that the NAO being negative forces a secondary to pop soon enough to keep it a snow solution in northern New England

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What are you thinking on the Tuesday storm? Looks like the storm will cut but hoping that the NAO being negative forces a secondary to pop soon enough to keep it a snow solution in northern New England

 

It's starting to take the look of the classic front end thump with the warm front, then over to DZ/ZL as the dry slot works through. A pretty fresh supply of cold air gets dumped into the area late in the weekend, so I think the mid level warming should hold off long enough to make ptype a non factor during the bulk of the QPF. Always nice to have the latitude in these events.

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It's starting to take the look of the classic front end thump with the warm front, then over to DZ/ZL as the dry slot works through. A pretty fresh supply of cold air gets dumped into the area late in the weekend, so I think the mid level warming should hold off long enough to make ptype a non factor during the bulk of the QPF. Always nice to have the latitude in these events.

Was a little surprised that the pm AFD seemed to discount/dismiss frozen chances for the coast, citing marine influence and warm ground -- the latter of which could obviously limit accumulation with marginal temps and rates this time of year, but wouldn't seem to have any bearing on p-type. In any event, we will have had some cold days and nights at that point so it's not like this will be right on the heels of a big torch. Maybe I misunderstood?
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Was a little surprised that the pm AFD seemed to discount/dismiss frozen chances for the coast, citing marine influence and warm ground -- the latter of which could obviously limit accumulation with marginal temps and rates this time of year, but wouldn't seem to have any bearing on p-type. In any event, we will have had some cold days and nights at that point so it's not like this will be right on the heels of a big torch. Maybe I misunderstood?

 

Obviously there is plenty of room for change here. As things stand guidance is pretty far apart on the handling. ECMWF prefers a weaker, farther west primary, which allows a stronger coastal reflection to develop. As such cold air supply is not a problem. The GFS has a stronger primary that rides very close to the international border. This prevents any strong secondary reflection from forming, and the low levels torch. In this scenario bufkit sounding have rain all the way to HIE.

 

Even in the case of the ECMWF it is close. The mid levels are crashing hard, and do it just fast enough to save coastal Maine from the significant changeover. A few hours delay and the low levels would torch there too. Too early to dismiss either camp right now.

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ripping snow here, ground quickly whiten. Just finished picking up about 30 to 40 pounds of dog poo.

LOL...I've got the same duty (doody) to do soon. Still have a couple inches of filthy snow in the yard so can't quite get to the poo, but once that melts I've got like 5 months of poo from a 90lb black lab that certainly doesn't skimp on the bowel movements haha.

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Lost 2" snowpack to 0.73" RA, then another inch to a mild humid day, now 11" at the stake.  Hope the 18z gfs is nuts concerning the Tues event, as it's mainly rain at AUG and mix-to-rain at RUM.  March temp avg +8.4 so far; 2010 and 2012 finished just above +6.

 

Kind of interesting that we're doing it in a different way than 2012. That March was driven by anomalous high temps, this March is being driven by the warm overnight temps.

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Event totals: 0.7” Snow/0.05” L.E.

 

The snowboard had accumulated 0.7” of snow as of 5:00 P.M. due to that intense snowfall.  Another 0.5” accumulated after that, but I’ll be rolling that into the morning report.

 

I haven’t passed along a report from the previous event since no snow fell, but there was 1.48” of liquid from it.  Based on the surrounding numbers I’m seeing on CoCoRaHS, it looks like the mountains were doing their usual things with enhancement here along the spine, but this time of year it would be better for the snowpack if they were doing it with snow instead of rain.

 

Today’s snow was the first in eight days, and if there was any question about how poor the snowfall has been in this area this season, I’ve got a salient statistic using the data for this location.  I think just about everyone is familiar with how poor snowfall was in 2011-2012; it was certainly the lowest I’d recorded in our six seasons here.  However, as of three days ago, 2012-2013 actually fell behind 2011-2012 in terms of snowfall.  The pattern going forward has much more potential this season than last, but I still found it to be a striking statistic.

 

Details from the 5:00 P.M. Waterbury observations are below:

 

New Snow: 0.7 inches

New Liquid: 0.05 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 14.0

Snow Density: 7.1% H2O

Temperature: 35.4 F

Sky: Heavy Snow (10-25 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 0.5 inches

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It's starting to take the look of the classic front end thump with the warm front, then over to DZ/ZL as the dry slot works through. A pretty fresh supply of cold air gets dumped into the area late in the weekend, so I think the mid level warming should hold off long enough to make ptype a non factor during the bulk of the QPF. Always nice to have the latitude in these events.

Thanks for the thoughts, that's what it looked like at a quick glance. Hopefully that idea holds, as my ski trip is pretty much hinging on the system being snow, because I'm guessing conditions will still be pretty sketch on Monday due to the thaw/freeze cycle. 

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Thanks for the thoughts, that's what it looked like at a quick glance. Hopefully that idea holds, as my ski trip is pretty much hinging on the system being snow, because I'm guessing conditions will still be pretty sketch on Monday due to the thaw/freeze cycle. 

 

The mountains should hang on just fine, with highs only in the mid 30s. It's the lower elevations that are really taking a beating right now.

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Event totals: 1.6” Snow/0.07” L.E.

 

After the initial burst of snow dropped 0.7” yesterday afternoon through 5:00 P.M., another 0.5” fell with the completion of that pulse of snow.  Those flakes were huge, with some up to an inch or more in diameter, so despite the marginal temperatures, the snow still accumulated with quite a bit of loft.  Since temperatures were still a bit above freezing at that point though, that snow generally melted down on the snowboard once the precipitation stopped.  Another 0.4” fell overnight, and that’s what was found on the snowboard this morning.  Since the 6:00 A.M. clearing, there’s been another 0.2” of snow, and that will get incorporated into the next round of observations later today.

 

North to south listing of snow totals for the Vermont ski areas with this event are below; 2-3” fell up at the northern and north-central areas, with totals falling off from Central Vermont southward.:

 

Jay Peak: 3”

Burke: T

Smuggler’s Notch: 1”

Stowe: 3”

Bolton Valley: 2”

Mad River Glen: 3”

Sugarbush: 2”

Pico: 0”

Killington: 0”

Okemo: 0”

Bromley: T

Stratton: 0”

Mount Snow: 0”

 

I’ve also put together a north to south list of reported season snowfall to date for the Vermont ski areas; it’s nice to see that almost all of them appear to be providing this data now – especially Smugg’s, which was the only one of the Northern Vermont resorts that hadn’t been doing that:

 

Jay Peak: 283”

Burke: 125”

Smuggler’s Notch: 217”

Stowe: 223”

Bolton Valley: 200”

Mad River Glen: 164”

Sugarbush: 221”

Pico: 166”

Killington: 166”

Bromley: 107”

Magic Mountain: 95”

Stratton: 114”

Mount Snow: 136”

 

One point of local note on season snowfall is that Bolton Valley is just hitting the 200” now, which is well behind average pace for an average snowfall that is over 300”.  An image of this morning’s snow report is added below, and the dearth of recent snowfall is quite obvious when one sees that the 24-hr, 48-hr, 72-hr, and even the 7-day snow totals are all the same value.  Also in the report is some text about how the snow has been handled subsequent to the rain earlier this week.

 

14MAR13A.jpg

 

Details from the recent Waterbury observations are below:

 

11:00 P.M.

 

New Snow: 0.5 inches

New Liquid: 0.01 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 50.0

Snow Density: 2.0% H2O

Temperature: N/A

Sky: Mostly Clear

Snow at the stake: 0.5 inches

 

6:00 A.M.

 

New Snow: 0.4 inches

New Liquid: 0.01 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 40.0

Snow Density: 2.5% H2O

Temperature: 27.7

Sky: Light Snow (1-3 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 0.5 inches

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looks like its dumping on the webcam for lincoln peak.  radar seems healthy.

 

Despite the meager totals on the models verbatim I still think it looks decent for orographic snow Friday night and Saturday with the strong WNW winds aloft and mid-level moisture present.  Hard to predict exactly where a streamer might set up shop but I'm optimistic for another couple fresh on Saturday morning and winter conditions.  Will you be there this weekend?

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J.Spin touched on how low the snowfall totals have been this season, especially recently, and we were doing ok in February only to see that completely crap the bed so far in March. 

 

What I've really noticed is that the Green Mountain upslope machine has largely been collecting dust in the corner of the garage this season.  We had that one larger event and then nothing has happened since.  We've really missed a lot of the 2-6" type snowfalls this winter that really punctuate a good winter.  Where every single time a trough moves overhead it farts 3-6 inches of fluff type stuff.

 

Even this light event along the Spine is one of the more few upslope driven "events" we've seen over like the last month...and this is still pretty much at a the noise level of what the Spine seems to do some winters. 

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