NNE Fall Thread

[alex]

1 hour ago, OceanStWx said:

Just curious, in those rocks is that stake with pegs set up for snow depth? Like are those pegs every foot or 6"? 

Correct! The pegs are the foot mark; there is a white line drawn on the stake that shows the 6" mark, but (oops, design flaw) looks like snow sticks quite nicely to the stake, so it's the half-foot mark is not very useful. But each side peg is 12" - the bottom right is 1' depth, next up on the left 2', next up on the right 3', and so forth (5' total). 

Hope that makes sense... couldn't think of anything better!

[OceanStWx]

2 minutes ago, alex said:

Correct! The pegs are the foot mark; there is a white line drawn on the stake that shows the 6" mark, but (oops, design flaw) looks like snow sticks quite nicely to the stake, so it's the half-foot mark is not very useful. But each side peg is 12" - the bottom right is 1' depth, next up on the left 2', next up on the right 3', and so forth (5' total). 

Hope that makes sense... couldn't think of anything better!

No it makes total sense, I just wanted to know for sure so I can gauge rough amounts of snowfall off the cam.

[alex]

Just now, OceanStWx said:

No it makes total sense, I just wanted to know for sure so I can gauge rough amounts of snowfall off the cam.

I'll also make a "finer" version with inch marks and put it on the deck. I'll try and get that done tomorrow! Won't be very accurate when there is wind, but we generally don't get a whole lot of wind so it will at least give an idea.

[mreaves]

7 minutes ago, alex said:

Correct! The pegs are the foot mark; there is a white line drawn on the stake that shows the 6" mark, but (oops, design flaw) looks like snow sticks quite nicely to the stake, so it's the half-foot mark is not very useful. But each side peg is 12" - the bottom right is 1' depth, next up on the left 2', next up on the right 3', and so forth (5' total). 

Hope that makes sense... couldn't think of anything better!

Does the driveway loop around those rocks?  Is there a danger that snow gets plowed/snowblown into that area?

[mreaves]

Question for the drone guys.  My 12 year old son is talking about wanting a drone for Christmas.  I obviously don't want to spend several hundred dollars for something he may not end up taking too.  Any advice you can give me would be great.  Thanks in advance.

[alex]

4 minutes ago, mreaves said:

Does the driveway loop around those rocks?  Is there a danger that snow gets plowed/snowblown into that area?

The paved driveway ends at the opposite side of the house. There's a gravel extension to the driveway that goes around the circle but in the winter we only plow the other side of the house, where it's asphalt. The gravel gets messy otherwise (and it's un-necessary. The driveway is long enough as it is (1/4 mile), I don't need to add to it!). So this side will stay unplowed. 

[qg_omega]

Saturday looking interesting, GFS dumps loads of QPF.  Temps are tricky but could be a blue bomb for the dacks and greens?

[alex]

Light to moderate snow again. Overperformer! 

[powderfreak]

A friend making turns in the backyard in Stowe.  He's up near Trapps and said they had a solid foot there.  

[alex]

Nice! Looks like about 8" for us. This upslope stuff is light and gets compacted down quite easily, so it's not adding up too much

[eyewall]

I went up Bolton to see the results and it was almost knee deep at 1500 or so. The 20 inches higher up us very believable looking at areas more sheltered from the wind as there was significant drifting. I will post some pics in a bit.

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[J.Spin]

I’ve updated the north to south listing of storm totals from the Vermont ski areas for Winter Storm Argos using the numbers from this morning’s reports for areas that posted them.  Bolton Valley is still reporting the highest accumulations, tacking on another 5” since yesterday’s report.  I didn’t head to Bolton Valley’s main mountain this morning, but I did stop in for a tour at the Timberline area and generally found 15” of settled snow depth in the 1,500’ to 2,000’ elevation band in locations sheltered from drifting.  Updated storm totals list:

 

Jay Peak: 16”

Burke: 5”

Smuggler’s Notch: 16”

Bolton Valley: 25”

Mad River Glen: 14”

Sugarbush: 14”

Killington: 15.5”

Okemo: 10”

Stratton: 9”

Mount Snow: 12”

[eyewall]

I’ve updated the north to south listing of storm totals from the Vermont ski areas for Winter Storm Argos using the numbers from this morning’s reports for areas that posted them.  Bolton Valley is still reporting the highest accumulations, tacking on another 5” since yesterday’s report.  I didn’t head to Bolton Valley’s main mountain this morning, but I did stop in for a tour at the Timberline area and generally found 15” of settled snow depth in the 1,500’ to 2,000’ elevation band in locations sheltered from drifting.  Updated storm totals list:

 

Jay Peak: 16”

Burke: 5”

Bolton Valley: 25”

Mad River Glen: 14”

Sugarbush: 14”

Killington: 15.5”

Okemo: 10”

Stratton: 9”

Mount Snow: 12”

Yeah that makes sense at timberline. I was figuring close to 15 or 16.



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[tamarack]

2 hours ago, alex said:

Correct! The pegs are the foot mark; there is a white line drawn on the stake that shows the 6" mark, but (oops, design flaw) looks like snow sticks quite nicely to the stake, so it's the half-foot mark is not very useful. But each side peg is 12" - the bottom right is 1' depth, next up on the left 2', next up on the right 3', and so forth (5' total). 

Hope that makes sense... couldn't think of anything better!

If it works, it's good.  Mine is a white-painted 2-by-4 with black markings (due for a touchup), which measures up to 61" - max here is 49 but in March of 1984 the pack reached 65".  Fortunately, I'd added an extension a few weeks beforehand when an 18" dump reached the top.  The black markings are exactly 1" wide, with a full-width stripe at each foot and half-width stripes at 3", 6", and 9", justified left, center, right, respectively.  Even with my eyesight becoming less acute, I've no trouble discerning to the nearest inch from inside the house about 60' from where the stake is placed in my garden.

[adk]

30 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

I’ve updated the north to south listing of storm totals from the Vermont ski areas for Winter Storm Argos using the numbers from this morning’s reports for areas that posted them.  Bolton Valley is still reporting the highest accumulations, tacking on another 5” since yesterday’s report.  I didn’t head to Bolton Valley’s main mountain this morning, but I did stop in for a tour at the Timberline area and generally found 15” of settled snow depth in the 1,500’ to 2,000’ elevation band in locations sheltered from drifting.  Updated storm totals list:

 

Jay Peak: 16”

Burke: 5”

Bolton Valley: 25”

Mad River Glen: 14”

Sugarbush: 14”

Killington: 15.5”

Okemo: 10”

Stratton: 9”

Mount Snow: 12”

Waiting for PF's confirmation but based on what I saw yesterday AM and this AM, about 8" -9" new fell at stowe for a storm total there in the 14-15" range. Sounds about right given where Jay is. If anything it should be 1-2" above SB and MRG as there was def. less radar activity down that way overnight. 

BV's 10" extra seems about right given how blocked the flow was at times. 

 

[LaGrangewx]

1 hour ago, J.Spin said:

I’ve updated the north to south listing of storm totals from the Vermont ski areas for Winter Storm Argos using the numbers from this morning’s reports for areas that posted them.  Bolton Valley is still reporting the highest accumulations, tacking on another 5” since yesterday’s report.  I didn’t head to Bolton Valley’s main mountain this morning, but I did stop in for a tour at the Timberline area and generally found 15” of settled snow depth in the 1,500’ to 2,000’ elevation band in locations sheltered from drifting.  Updated storm totals list:

 

Jay Peak: 16”

Burke: 5”

Bolton Valley: 25”

Mad River Glen: 14”

Sugarbush: 14”

Killington: 15.5”

Okemo: 10”

Stratton: 9”

Mount Snow: 12”

What'd smugglers notch end up with? They reported a foot yesterday morning think they got to 24?

[eyewall]

Before (1500ft):

After (1500ft):

2100ft:

At the start of the storm:

Sheltered vs. exposed to winds:

 

[J.Spin]

12 minutes ago, LaGrangewx said:

What'd smugglers notch end up with? They reported a foot yesterday morning think they got to 24?

 

I didn’t include Smugg’s because they hadn’t updated today, but I just checked and they updated at 1:17 P.M.!  Anyway, it looks like they’re indicating a 16” storm total. I'll try to edit my post to get that in there.

[LaGrangewx]

38 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

 

I didn’t include Smugg’s because they hadn’t updated today, but I just checked and they updated at 1:17 P.M.!  Anyway, it looks like they’re indicating a 16” storm total. I'll try to edit my post to get that in there.

Wow that's surprising they only got 4" since 9am yesterday. Bolton got about a foot in the same time

[eyewall]

Some aerials from today near Bolton, VT:

[powderfreak]

4 hours ago, adk said:

Waiting for PF's confirmation but based on what I saw yesterday AM and this AM, about 8" -9" new fell at stowe for a storm total there in the 14-15" range. Sounds about right given where Jay is. If anything it should be 1-2" above SB and MRG as there was def. less radar activity down that way overnight. 

BV's 10" extra seems about right given how blocked the flow was at times. 

 

Yeah after taking a run off the Quad and wandering around, the best I could come up with was a storm total of 14" at the summit.  Given the COOP was 11" last evening at 4-5pm, I feel good about 14" even with all the blowing and drifting.  It was truly impossible.  Base area had 5.5" in the sheltered Barnes Camp location but even that was wind packed and a little slabby.

Given that places in town had 7-12" depending on location yesterday, the mountain got plenty of precip just the wind makes that fluffy snow impossible to stack up like it can on the west side, especially in a blocked flow.

 

[powderfreak]

16 minutes ago, eyewall said:

Some aerials from today near Bolton, VT:

 

 

 

Awesome!  You can tell which way is the windward side and which one is the lee side haha.  Lee side is calm and buried from all the snow on the wind side, haha. 

[eyewall]

Awesome!  You can tell which way is the windward side and which one is the lee side haha.  Lee side is calm and buried from all the snow on the wind side, haha. 

Yeah that was my motivation to fly it was pretty cool to see that.

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[powderfreak]

2 hours ago, LaGrangewx said:

Wow that's surprising they only got 4" since 9am yesterday. Bolton got about a foot in the same time

This time of year the snow reports aren't as rigorous either... and this fluffy stuff settles fast at some point.  They could've gotten another 8-10" but snow depth increased only 4" or something?  Who knows.

Like at Stowe for this event with the wind it wasn't as much a running total as much as just this is what I can find for average depths as best as possible.  Bolton was in the sweet spot though with the westerly flow and the blocked flow seems to benefit them better than anywhere.

[powderfreak]

A photo from off the mountain today... finally looks like winter should.  November 22nd and already a bigger event in the lower elevations than last season haha.

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 11.4” Snow/0.97” L.E.

 

Today’s snowfall accumulated to 0.4” as of 5:00 P.M. – plenty of graupel in there as in the previous round of accumulation and the overall density was very similar.

 

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

 

New Snow: 0.4 inches

New Liquid: 0.03 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 13.3

Snow Density: 7.5% H2O

Temperature: 30.0 F

Sky: Light Snow/Graupel (1-2 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 5.5”

[J.Spin]

3 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Yeah after taking a run off the Quad and wandering around, the best I could come up with was a storm total of 14" at the summit.  Given the COOP was 11" last evening at 4-5pm, I feel good about 14" even with all the blowing and drifting.  It was truly impossible.  Base area had 5.5" in the sheltered Barnes Camp location but even that was wind packed and a little slabby.

Given that places in town had 7-12" depending on location yesterday, the mountain got plenty of precip just the wind makes that fluffy snow impossible to stack up like it can on the west side, especially in a blocked flow.

 

Thanks for the details PF – I’ve updated the Vermont ski areas snowfall list below using the latest reports I could find.  It’s still snowing here at the house, so I guess there could be some additions tomorrow.

 

Jay Peak: 16”

Burke: 5”

Smuggler’s Notch: 16”

Stowe: 14”

Bolton Valley: 26”

Mad River Glen: 14”

Sugarbush: 14”

Killington: 15.5”

Okemo: 10”

Bromley: 10”

Stratton: 9”

Mount Snow: 12”

[CoastalWx]

That's crazy. 11.4" and snow depth 5.5".  Boy if you did the once a day method, you're snow average probably would be significantly less. 

[powderfreak]

4 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

That's crazy. 11.4" and snow depth 5.5".  Boy if you did the once a day method, you're snow average probably would be significantly less. 

It would depend on when you did the once a day method.  Last night if you took the highest depth, it was pretty close.  I mean a lot of other snow falls too density wise, but yeah in any situation a firm once a day measurement would be  decently less than measuring highest snow depth every 24 hours to every 6 hours.  Everyonr had high ratio snow once 850s hit -8C or less it seemed.

[J.Spin]

7 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

That's crazy. 11.4" and snow depth 5.5".  Boy if you did the once a day method, you're snow average probably would be significantly less. 

 

Yeah, when snow falls at ratios of 30 to 1, the settling is substantial.  Of course the snowfall average here would likely be even higher if I was able to hit the clearing and analysis every six hours, but, that’s the nature of this kind of snow.  Even with a once-a-day type of reading, aren’t people still supposed to catch the snow and report it at its max depth before it settles?  If that’s the case, I don’t think the difference would actually be that large.  The main problem there is that you have to constantly monitor the snowfall to know when it stops so that you can catch it at the maximum depth.  A challenge with that kind of method in this type of climate though, is actually having the snowfall stop.  When the Northern Greens are in their groove it just doesn’t.  Case in point, it’s basically been snowing since Sunday, and it’s still accumulating out there now - and that’s not uncommon here in a typical winter.

 

I would never have realized it prior to getting heavily into snow measurement, but one big downside I see in doing a method where you just check the snow once a day in this type of environment is that you’d generally be unable to document those ratios of the freshly-fallen snow – like yesterday’s 5.7” of 33.5 to 1 champagne that fell between the 6:00 A.M. and 5:00 P.M. clearings, with most of it coming in the afternoon.  Waiting until 6:00 A.M. the next morning to measure the depth would likely mean substantial settling that would mask the true nature of the snow that fell.  To powder skiers, the density of the snow is a big part of its quintessence and its utility, so I’m a lot more interested in documenting that than most observers would probably be.

 

Of course, we also get plenty of synoptic snows in the 10 to 1 range here, where the settling isn’t much of a factor, and that makes up a big portion of the annual snowfall as well.  Whatever the case, the liquid content is the great equalizer, so I make a point of always reporting that (and you can’t get the ratios without it anyway.)