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NNE Winter Part 3


mreaves

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Snow rollers at Stowe.  Looked like a valley full of cinnamon rolls

 

attachicon.gifroller1.JPG

 

Nice!  Where'd you find those? 

 

Looks like we were tenth for tenth on this event too with 1.8".  Still can't figure out how I got 2" more than you a couple events ago, seeing as the other 3 of the last 4 events we've been dead on to the tenth.

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Bolton yesterday- did the BC network and one lift run.  Backcountry coverage up top was ok- tread lightly kinda snow.  Still rocks on the runout.  The lift-served served up what was, perhaps, the single iciest trail I've ever skied- hundreds of yards of glare ice interspersed with random moguls. Looks like they sent the groomer out after one of the soakers.  

 

Smuggs skied surprisingly well today- much better base/coverage plus the fresh snow.  Probably 4-5", more wet down below, and just dense up top as others observed.  A little crust showed on the snow down below by afternoon (super minimal).  With the density, it skied quite nicely overall.  2 more storms like last night would probably be the ticket to getting the woods to really open up.  At least the mountains are back to looking like winter top-to-bottom.  

 

Last night's 4-5" helped out more than 8" of fluff would've as far as conditions and base goes.  That really gave the natural snow trails quite the boost.  This is why now its more about QPF in snowfall than pure snowfall numbers I think.

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Event totals: 1.2” Snow/0.12” L.E.

 

I didn’t get a chance to send out my update this morning because we were headed off to Stowe early to check out the snow, but there was an additional crusty tenth of an inch of accumulation overnight on the snowboard – it certainly had some sleet in it based on the look and density (20% H20).

 

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

 

New Snow: 0.1 inches

New Liquid: 0.02 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 5.0

Snow Density: 20.0% H2O

Temperature: 33.6 F

Sky: Cloudy

Snow at the stake: 5.0 inches

 

I’ve added the storm totals for the Vermont ski areas for this event below, listed north to south:

 

Jay Peak: 6”

Burke: 4”

Smuggler’s Notch: 4”

Stowe: 5”

Bolton Valley: 3”

Mad River Glen: 3”

Sugarbush: 2”

Middlebury: 2”

Suicide Six: 0”

Pico: 1”

Killington: 1”

Okemo: T”

Bromley: 1”

Magic Mountain: 1”

Stratton: 1”

Mount Snow: 1”

 

As one would expect with this storm, there’s a notable gradient from north to south in the Greens, with the Northern Vermont resorts up near the half foot mark, and the Southern Vermont Ski Areas down in the T-1” range.  There was some great snow at Stowe today – driest up high with increasing density in the lowest elevations, but there were plenty of powder turns to be had, and the snow all had plenty of meat to it to provide a decent resurfacing of the slopes.  We definitely hit some trees – there are a number of spots that are ready with this little extra boost today, especially the usual early season suspects, but plenty of areas that aren’t quite there yet.  With the Mt. Mansfield Stake at 38” of depth as of this evening’s report, that’s just about what you’d expect.

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Nice!  Where'd you find those? 

 

Looks like we were tenth for tenth on this event too with 1.8".  Still can't figure out how I got 2" more than you a couple events ago, seeing as the other 3 of the last 4 events we've been dead on to the tenth.

 

They were under Sunny Spruce.  Probably will still be there tomorrow.  There were hundreds under Alpine first thing but they got skied up before I got back to take pictures.

 

Was just thinking I should have taken more pictures.

 

That two inch difference was legit.  I'm in the perfect spot for the shovel to ski ratio.  I think we get blocked a little bit by the mountain.

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Event totals: 1.4” Snow/0.12” L.E.

 

We’ve had a couple of fluffy tenths of an inch this morning with light snow/flurries – the BTV NWS forecast discussion says that this is leftover moisture associated with the exiting frontal boundary.

 

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

 

New Snow: 0.2 inches

New Liquid: Trace

Snow/Water Ratio: 5.0

Sky: Light Snow/Flurries (3-6 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 5.0 inches

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Picked up about an even 5" at the 3,000ft snow plot last night... so on the mountain our totals are 4-5" from this event, with 1.8" in town.  Elevation dependent up to say 1,300ft and then pretty even from there on up with just the little extra mountain QPF giving another inch up higher.  Its always interesting to me how the upper elevations (say 1,500ft above the base area, but like just over a half mile away by line of sight) can pick up a decent bit more liquid from any given event. 

 

I'd say this was 10:1 snow (its just really dense, but not wet) or around there, but with an extra inch falling 1,500ft higher up, there's probably another tenth of an inch or so of liquid tha fell up there too.  Its funny how some storms (especially fluffy or upslope fluff) will have a wider range in snowfall from top-to-bottom as that extra QPF gets multiplied by better ratios.

 

attachicon.gifuntitled.JPG

 

Anyway, skiing to the snow stake didn't suck too bad.  I hope SNE's hearts are bleeding for us 60% of normal snowfall folks  :lol:

 

attachicon.gifuntitled2.JPG

 

Around 5" my way of measuring with the board and attached stake, and 2.7" at the Co-Op measuring can.  Just another example of how one snowfall total can be so much higher than the other.  That's almost a 50% difference. 

 

DAILY HYDROMETEOROLOGICAL DATA

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BURLINGTON VT

552 PM EST SUN FEB 2 2014

STATION            PRECIP   TEMPERATURE   PRESENT         SNOW

                   24 HRS   MAX MIN CUR   WEATHER     NEW TOTAL SWE

...VERMONT...

MOUNT MANSFIELD     0.34    25  19  22                2.7  38

 

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Pfreak those that have been paying attention know the CO-OP is a J O K E , you have posted about it for years.

If this was a BOS or ORH Co-Op there measuring technique would be the laughing stock of the sne board . Truth. Imagine storm after storm where Revere Mass gets 15" and BOS puts 8" in books...the uproar would be deafening. I think its more people find it difficult to pathom how much it snows at 3k on spine of n greens. 230 co-op already seems incredibly snowy to those that get 1/4'th or less.

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Back on the right coast and bringing some major weather juju, at least I hope. Is it inappropriate to discuss snow conditions in BC?

How was it? One if our photographers is out there now and said Whistler doesn't have much snow; they skied some dust on crust and said they have no idea how to groom snow out there.

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How was it? One if our photographers is out there now and said Whistler doesn't have much snow; they skied some dust on crust and said they have no idea how to groom snow out there.

We should all be in Cortina, Italy -- snow report

 

Feb 3       8"

Feb 2     12"

Feb 1     31"

Jan 31    55"

 

 

Hopefully, by early next week NNE will be looking like this:  http://www.belledolomiti.it/res/webcam/original/cortinasocrepes.jpg

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A little side note- I'm moving to Waterbury, VT this week to a place with a  backyard- so will setup a snowboard for observations. Nice thing about the place is it sits right at 1300' in the shadow of Hunger Mountain/Worcester Range- so it'll be interesting to see what actually falls there on a regular basis in relation to other spots in the area- not really sure what to expect from this locale.  

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How was it? One if our photographers is out there now and said Whistler doesn't have much snow; they skied some dust on crust and said they have no idea how to groom snow out there.

Thank you, I didnt want to seem like I was overstepping any boundaries, but I think my tale is instructive and inspiring given our snow drought.

 

so we got out there last saturday 1/25.  It hadnt snowed at all in over 2 weeks with temps hovering around freezing (that's 0c in canadia, ay).  plan was to ski whitewater for 2 days then do 3 days cat skiing.  conditions at whitewater were challenging at best.  Great terrain but anything the sun hit was unskiable frozen crud.  everything in the shade was packed chalky snow which was edgeable but a challenge on the steeps.

There was no snow in the forecast and the cat operator advised us to cancel and he would refund our money.  We cancelled the first day but decided to give it a go for wednesday as the forecast was for a few centimeters.  Alas it started snowing early wednesday and didnt stop until thursday night.  Got about 6" to ski the first day, then another 6-8" the next.  then a bluebird day.  best 3 days of skiing of my life.  absolutely spectacular.  and fwiw they are dry out there again this week.

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
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A little side note- I'm moving to Waterbury, VT this week to a place with a  backyard- so will setup a snowboard for observations. Nice thing about the place is it sits right at 1300' in the shadow of Hunger Mountain/Worcester Range- so it'll be interesting to see what actually falls there on a regular basis in relation to other spots in the area- not really sure what to expect from this locale.  

That's a nice area.  I've known some people who have lived in that around there, up past the fancy, too expensive for me to even look at, golf course.

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Lol, looks eerily similar to this time last year. What a kick in the balls if SNE racks up 2+ feet and BTV sees like 6" combined haha

 

To be expected.  As I've been saying, its winter 2013-2014.  It just doesn't want to snow this winter.  Its funny as many posters down south has been fighting us over it for the past 6 weeks and I'm not sure why they want to convince us that its been a good winter up here, haha.  Saying we are going to punt ourselves to average snow or big snows or whine our way to 10", etc...it just hasn't wanted to happen this year and its sort of an overall feeling you get that not much has changed.

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First call for Wednesday:

Southern VT/NH 8-12"

RUT-LEB-PYM 6-8"

MPV-1V4-IZG 4-6"

BTV-BML 2-4"

Nothing impressive by NNE standards. Weekend looks south too as of now.

Sent from my iPhone

 

That's a good call...I see you've seem to have gone even lower up here than I think what you were thinking a day or two ago.  The 12z GFS might struggle to get 1/4" of liquid equiv up this way, so 2-4" looks good.  I just think we'll be north of the best fronto forcing and north of those bands there's usually some pretty good downward motion with the sharp cut-off. 

 

It looks like something that turns into about 6-8 hours of 1.5-4sm light snow at like 1/4" per hour up this way in general weak WAA lift.  I really like the LEB-RUT-GFL axis for banding potential.  Killington could rack up a sneaky foot or something out of 0.5" QPF as the ratios seem to go up in those bands as the enhanced lift punches the snow growth zone better, and you could extend that over towards Dendrite and far southern ME too. 

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12z gfs now under 0.30" qpf for AUG/RUM/WVL for midweek.  Still time for movement but the trend is toward WWA, at best.  The late weekend storm is also undergoing qpf reduction run by run.  Nice run for my old NNJ homeland, though - 3 events for 25-30" verbatim (including the one in progress there.)  lol

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The GFS will underdo the mid-level fronto QPF to some extent.

 

Yeah, I guess the question then is how far north does that make it and where is the cut-off.  There should be subsidence north of that in a pretty sharp gradient.  We'll probably see the snow totals under played for someone but then likewise north of that band will be over-played. 

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Going to sound like a broken record, but we've had the best part of winter already. Keep hearing feb is going to be great. I know it just started, but weds looks like just under wsw, probably punt this wknd's storm, then we head toward middle of the month already. Feb goes by so fast. I'm tired of looking at bare spots in my backyard.

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