NNE Fall Thread

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 1.4” Snow/1.26” L.E.

 

The overnight period was definitely the best here with regard to precipitation, basically 4 to 5 times the amount of both liquid and snow fell relative to the evening period.  I figured the mountains must have been lit up, and PFs 16” storm total at Stowe as of this morning will certainly attest to that.  It should be fun to see what’s been going on up high as the other resort reports come in.  The forecast suggests that there’s the potential for additional snow into tomorrow morning, so there could still be some snow to add to the totals.  Reports from down here in the valley are below:

 

Details from the 12:00 A.M. Waterbury observations:

 

New Snow: 0.2 inches

New Liquid: 0.05 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 4.0

Snow Density: 25.0% H2O

Temperature: 33.4 F

Sky: Light Snow (1-3 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: Trace

 

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

 

New Snow: 1.0 inches

New Liquid: 0.20 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 5.0

Snow Density: 20.0% H2O

Temperature: 33.3 F

Sky: Light Snow (1-3 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 1.0

[J.Spin]

Some resorts have reported in already this morning with updates, so the north to south listing of available storm totals is below:

 

Jay Peak: 20”

Stowe: 16”

Sugarbush: 13”

Killington: 3.5”

Okemo: T?

Bromley: 0”

Stratton: 1”

Mount Snow: 1”

[Lava Rock]

Some resorts have reported in already this morning with updates, so the north to south listing of available storm totals is below:

 

Jay Peak: 20”

Stowe: 16”

Sugarbush: 13”

Killington: 3.5”

Okemo: T?

Bromley: 0”

Stratton: 1”

Mount Snow: 1”

Jay leading the pack as usual

[backedgeapproaching]

31 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

Some resorts have reported in already this morning with updates, so the north to south listing of available storm totals is below:

 

Jay Peak: 20”

Stowe: 16”

Sugarbush: 13”

Killington: 3.5”

Okemo: T?

Bromley: 0”

Stratton: 1”

Mount Snow: 1”

Need to get the synoptic train rolling for the banana belt resorts.

[powderfreak]

Holy crap.  This is the most perfect snow you could imagine for right now.  Another 1-2" since 6am. 

Its pure synoptic nor'easter density (still snowing hard, blowing, small flakes) and its freaking deep.  I'm getting 14-18" settled depths on top of the rain crust from 2-3 days ago above 3,000ft.  There's a foot down to like 2,000ft.

Everything is filling in and this nor'easter type snow of 8:1 or 10:1 ratio isn't drifting or going anywhere.  Just soft and smooth.  Not wet, just dense.  What a freak storm (pun intended ;). 

 

 

[CoastalWx]

Man snow FTW.

[dryslot]

Still waiting to get the brown grass covered here

[powderfreak]

7 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Man snow FTW.

Yeah this doesn't settle...it just keeps rising.

Every time it lightens up, another push of moisture comes over the mountain and it just ramps back up again.  

 

[tamarack]

Just a sprinkle last evening, still brown ground here.  Thurs-Fri look interesting, but still over 100 hr.

[CoastalWx]

31 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Yeah this doesn't settle...it just keeps rising.

Every time it lightens up, another push of moisture comes over the mountain and it just ramps back up again.  

 

Good base stuff. The fluff should come later today or tomorrow I would guess. 

[eyewall]

Snowing nicely at Smuggs. Steady cover begins at Jericho

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[Ginx snewx]

I didn't pay much attention to this at first but the more you looked at it  the more it was lining up to be a NGreens special. Rotting primary in Quebec rotating down the spine. Very impressive and guarantees a long ongoing  deep pack with the upcoming pattern.

[powderfreak]

9 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

I didn't pay much attention to this at first but the more you looked at it  the more it was lining up to be a NGreens special. Rotting primary in Quebec rotating down the spine. Very impressive and guarantees a long ongoing  deep pack with the upcoming pattern.

This is the stuff my dreams are made of...

Just 30dbz ripping over the Mansfield ridgeline on the county line.  Flake size has gotten much bigger too.

[mreaves]

Not spine level but persistent light snow continues here too. Not deep but the ground is covered. Sets the mood for the snowmobile safety course I'm teaching today. 

[klw]

0.4 overnight.  Most has now melted with the sun out but mood flakes in the air.

[wxeyeNH]

Flurries all day so far.   GFS says time to breakout the snowgear.  Wintry appeal next week if that low pops midweek.   We will see what the Euro has to say.  

[dendrite]

14 hours ago, OceanStWx said:

Hmm. I don't have more than a tenth for you this 6 hours. So that's all you're getting.

It was apparently in and out of here fast. I posted from the Wally parking lot after we walked out...I was a little surprised to see it snowing that hard. 

FYI...something happened awhile back to that Canterbury temp sensor. They run about 3F too warm across the board now. It's probably some kind of calibration issue. Sanbornton seems to be 1-2F too low too. 

Getting some off and on flurries now. Pretty breezy and 38F.

[eyewall]

The snow at top of the notch


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[adk]

By pole measurement (I have tape) I got 14-18" generally between 2500 and 3000ft, above 3000 there was much more wind effected snow so there was some very deep collected pockets of wind deposited snow (24-36") and patches of wind scour. 

Still coming down too...awesome. And the GFS next week looks a lot colder. We'll pass last years season total in two weeks. 

[Ginx snewx]

56 minutes ago, adk said:

By pole measurement (I have tape) I got 14-18" generally between 2500 and 3000ft, above 3000 there was much more wind effected snow so there was some very deep collected pockets of wind deposited snow (24-36") and patches of wind scour. 

Still coming down too...awesome. And the GFS next week looks a lot colder. We'll pass last years season total in two weeks. 

Awesome 

[dendrite]

It must be nice when your climatological prevailing winds are upslope.

Just occasional -SHSN here.

[powderfreak]

Just left work...storm total is around 20" up top and 9" at the base.  Walked up to the COOP Stake and it looked to be around 27" of depth (though it varies from 24-30" around the Stake but your supposed to average the high and low).  That would be an increase in snow depth of 19" since it started 48 hours ago.

Now at home it looks like 2.5" and it's very wet.  Didn't even stick to the driveway.  A couple degrees colder we probably could've done 6" at home.  

[eyewall]

Just left work...storm total is around 20" up top and 9" at the base.  Walked up to the COOP Stake and it looked to be around 27" of depth (though it varies from 24-30" around the Stake but your supposed to average the high and low).  That would be an increase in snow depth of 19" since it started 48 hours ago.

Now at home it looks like 2.5" and it's very wet.  Didn't even stick to the driveway.  A couple degrees colder we probably could've done 6" at home.  

Very nice! I noticed coming home from smuggs that it was just above valley floors where it was sticking. In some cases the trees had a few inches with nothing on the grass.

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[J.Spin]

Event totals: 2.7” Snow/1.45” L.E.

 

We were able to accumulate snow down here in the valley to a much greater extent once the temperature dropped a couple more degrees overnight, and although there was a little warming today, that trend continued, providing the lowest-density accumulations yet from this event.

 

I headed off to Stowe for a ski tour today, so I can provide some overall observations from the outing.  Temperatures were a degree or two above the freezing mark around here in the lower mountain valleys at mid-morning when I was heading out, and the precipitation was all snow, but accumulations were quite variable with the borderline freezing temperatures.  We had about an inch on the ground here at the house on the Waterbury/Bolton line, and that tapered off to much more patchy accumulations in Waterbury and Waterbury Center.  The accumulations picked back up again once I was into the Stowe Village area, fairly similar to what we had at the house.  At The Matterhorn around the 1,000’ mark I’d say the snow depth was roughly 2 inches.

 

Just making that jump up to ~1,500’ at the base of the resort resulted in a huge increase in accumulations.  My depth checks revealed ~10” of new snow at the base of the Gondola, and that measurement was fairly easy, since the old base had generally melted out down at that elevation.  Above that point I did my best to try to measure on top of the old base snow/crust, and here’s the summary of my best estimates for settled accumulations from this event from the valley and up into the Gondi area below The Chin:

 

1,000’: 2”

1,500’: 10”

2,000’: 14”

2,500’: 17”

3,000’: 20”

3,600’: 20”+

 

That last number there from the Cliff House is just an estimate because as is often the case, the wind made it really tough to find a representative spot for measurement.  I actually only headed above the 3,000’ mark for the exercise and to see what was up at that elevation, because I knew the skiing was going to be much better below that point.  The winds were howling on that last section of Upper Gondolier, and pounding snow from the storm combined with snow guns every 50 feet or so blasting out their little ice particles made it a virtual whiteout.  It was absolutely miserable.  If you’ve ever wondered why people are willing to pay a premium for really high quality alpine/backcountry/ski outerwear, there’s an example.  It’s not as if it was even midwinter cold (somewhere in the 20s F), but with the snow guns added in, there was just so much liquid being blasted at you on the strong winds.  Gear was thoroughly put to the test.  The skin track from the guy who was just a few minutes in front of me had absolutely vanished in that short amount of time.  All I could think as I struggled up that final pitch was that if I was ever going to Tweet something at that point it would have been #itsbrutaloutthere.  It was a major relief to be able to get out of the wind, snow, and the roar of the guns under the deck of the Cliff House.

 

Anyway, as much as that last, wind-exposed stretch of Upper Gondolier was brutal on the ascent, the skiing was actually fine.  But, just below that on Chin Clip was heavenly.  The air was calm, the noise of the snow guns was gone, the plentiful flakes falling form the sky were friendly… and then there was that snow.  There’s so… much… snow.  Oh man, talk about a thorough resurfacing.  I actually felt bad on the ascent for anyone that wasn’t skinning up because if you were trying to boot pack through this storm’s bounty, you were doing a lot of work.  There’s no walking though airy dendrites out there right now, this is hard-workin’, blue-collar stuff that’s just been put down.  I’d chatted with another guy near the bottom on Chin Clip Runout who was just coming down, and he said he never touched a thing below the snow… and he wasn’t kidding.  On 115 mm boards I’d say I was sinking in about 8 to 10 inches on hard pressured turns on steep terrain.  So you can imagine up high where there’s 20 inches of new stuff plus an old base below that, you aren’t touching anything.  Even back down near the base elevations though, where the snowpack was dropping below a foot, there were no issues.  The turns certainly weren’t bubbly champagne of course, but they were like being out in one of those freshly-fallen Sierra storms without any excess moisture in the snow, where the flakes are just small and the accumulations are dense, but the powder is great.  I actually found a bit of upside-down snow at times on my descent, no doubt due to some changing densities throughout the storm, but even for Tele turns it wasn’t too notable within the scope of the overall snow that was available.

 

On the way back down into the valley, I’d say that in general a bit more snow had accumulated during the morning/midday, but you could tell that the snow was struggling to accumulate too quickly with temperatures right around or slightly above the freezing mark.  Surprisingly, back in Waterbury Center and Waterbury, there were very sparse accumulations if any, but then accumulations picked back up again once I head toward the house and into the mountains.  I found 1.3” of snow on the snowboards comprised of 0.19” of liquid, and I could tell that there had been some melting based on the slush on the bottom of the stack.  We’ve had on and off periods with some big flakes this afternoon that have put down some additional accumulation though.

 

I’ll put together some images from the outing when I get a chance.

 

Details from the 2:00 P.M. Waterbury observations:

 

New Snow: 1.3 inches

New Liquid: 0.19 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 6.8

Snow Density: 14.6% H2O

Temperature: 34.0 F

Sky: Light Snow (1-3 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: Trace

[wxeyeNH]

4 hours ago, dendrite said:

It was apparently in and out of here fast. I posted from the Wally parking lot after we walked out...I was a little surprised to see it snowing that hard. 

Getting some off and on flurries now. Pretty breezy and 38F.

Got 1/2" last evening.  Temp went from 38 to 32 very fast.  Took the 2 minute ride down my hill this morning and nothing below.  It constantly amazes me how a 500 foot difference in elevation can make such a difference.  I wonder if anyone knows how much each 1000 foot increase in elevation adds to seasonal snowfall  in New England  if all other things were considered equal?

[powderfreak]

58 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

Just making that jump up to ~1,500’ at the base of the resort resulted in a huge increase in accumulations.  My depth checks revealed ~10” of new snow at the base of the Gondola, and that measurement was fairly easy, since the old base had generally melted out down at that elevation.  Above that point I did my best to try to measure on top of the old base snow/crust, and here’s the summary of my best estimates for settled accumulations from this event from the valley and up into the Gondi area below The Chin:

 

1,000’: 2”

1,500’: 10”

2,000’: 14”

2,500’: 17”

3,000’: 20”

3,600’: 20”+

 

That last number there from the Cliff House is just an estimate because as is often the case, the wind made it really tough to find a representative spot for measurement.  I actually only headed above the 3,000’ mark for the exercise and to see what was up at that elevation, because I knew the skiing was going to be much better below that point.  The winds were howling on that last section of Upper Gondolier, and pounding snow from the storm combined with snow guns every 50 feet or so blasting out their little ice particles made it a virtual whiteout.  It was absolutely miserable.  If you’ve ever wondered why people are willing to pay a premium for really high quality alpine/backcountry/ski outerwear, there’s an example.  It’s not as if it was even midwinter cold (somewhere in the 20s F), but with the snow guns added in, there was just so much liquid being blasted at you on the strong winds.  Gear was thoroughly put to the test.  The skin track from the guy who was just a few minutes in front of me had absolutely vanished in that short amount of time.  All I could think as I struggled up that final pitch was that if I was ever going to Tweet something at that point it would have been #itsbrutaloutthere.  It was a major relief to be able to get out of the wind, snow, and the roar of the guns under the deck of the Cliff House.

 

Anyway, as much as that last, wind-exposed stretch of Upper Gondolier was brutal on the ascent, the skiing was actually fine.  But, just below that on Chin Clip was heavenly.  The air was calm, the noise of the snow guns was gone, the plentiful flakes falling form the sky were friendly… and then there was that snow.  There’s so… much… snow.  Oh man, talk about a thorough resurfacing.  I actually felt bad on the ascent for anyone that wasn’t skinning up because if you were trying to boot pack through this storm’s bounty, you were doing a lot of work.  There’s no walking though airy dendrites out there right now, this is hard-workin’, blue-collar stuff that’s just been put down.  I’d chatted with another guy near the bottom on Chin Clip Runout who was just coming down, and he said he never touched a thing below the snow… and he wasn’t kidding.  On 115 mm boards I’d say I was sinking in about 8 to 10 inches on hard pressured turns on steep terrain.  So you can imagine up high where there’s 20 inches of new stuff plus an old base below that, you aren’t touching anything.  Even back down near the base elevations though, where the snowpack was dropping below a foot, there were no issues.  The turns certainly weren’t bubbly champagne of course, but they were like being out in one of those freshly-fallen Sierra storms without any excess moisture in the snow, where the flakes are just small and the accumulations are dense, but the powder is great.  I actually found a bit of upside-down snow at times on my descent, no doubt due to some changing densities throughout the storm, but even for Tele turns it wasn’t too notable within the scope of the overall snow that was available.

 

 

Awesome report, J.Spin!  Glad you were finding similar depths to me...I have a temporary stake area up off Upper Lord but tomorrow it all gets moved to its season-long spot off Perry Merrill/High Road.  I just don't have a feel for how well or accurate the early season spot is but it seems to be working. 

Regarding the bolded...really couldn't have asked for a better early season storm.  This is laying down the base now for the season I think as I've gotta imagine its 20" on over 2" of liquid.  Lots of graupel and rimed flakes in there today.  But this stuff isn't settling at all.  There's a 48-hour storm total of 20" and there's 20" on the ground, lol.  Its not like a fluff event when we get 20" and the snow depth is 12" after the two days. 

We essentially just got a 2" QPF nor'easter but an incredibly localized one haha.

[powderfreak]

Like the energizer bunny it just keeps going.  Been about 48 hours of steady precipitation in the upslope region. 

Daytime accumulation on my car was 3-4".

[eyewall]

Aerials after skiing smuggs between Jeffersonville and the resort.

[mreaves]

It's a bit of hyperbole but I feel like I've already had as much wintry weather so far this year as all of last winter. 

[eyewall]

It's a bit of hyperbole but I feel like I've already had as much wintry weather so far this year as all of last winter. 

You are not far off. I can't wait to end the streak of no warning events for Burlington since Feb 2015.

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