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NNE Winter Thread


powderfreak

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I’ve got a few snow updates from around the area today.  We were skiing at Stowe this afternoon and we encountered various periods of snow.  The first was when we driving to the resort during the noontime hour.  We could see snow moving in to our north as we headed through Waterbury, and it finally hit us as were rising up to the Waterbury/Stowe line near Chutesville Hill.  Some fairly intense graupel was a big feature of the precipitation at that point.  There were on and off periods of snow throughout the afternoon at the mountain, but the last hour before closing featured some of the heaviest stuff.  I’m sure rates were an inch per hour or more at that point, and the photography was difficult during the heavy stuff, but we still fired away.  Images during intense snowfall are always fun anyway:

 

29JAN17A.jpg

 

In general I’d say we found about a foot of powder around the mountain in untracked areas, and the skiing was great.  The quality of the powder was very high.  There has certainly been plenty of visitation to the mountain based on some of the areas I saw with tracks in them.  You typically don’t find too many people spending much time in the trees around the Toll House Lift, since the terrain is very low angle and the return to the rest of the resort exceedingly long on the slow double.  I’ve never seen as many tracks in there as I did today though, and we’re not talking a week after a storm, we’re talking a day or two after a storm.  It was unusual, but hopefully a lot of beginners got their chance to check out the awesome powder in the trees!

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8 hours ago, eyewall said:

The models look like crap for the next 10 days. Looks like we will reach that 2 year futility mark.

 

7 hours ago, powderfreak said:

lol they don't look like crap per se.  I saw your post and thought we were in for a torch.  Looks pretty cold overall.  Just boring.

 

5 hours ago, adk said:

That said, it does look cold and boring. And by cold I mean "normal"

 

I don’t know, complaining about the look over the next week or so seems pretty picky to me – there’s the current snow that’s still finishing up, then the GFS shows a low coming through the area during the midweek period, then snow from LES/westerly flow to start off the weekend, and then another system potentially affecting the area the following Monday.  Of course these may not all play out exactly that way the farther into the forecast one goes, but it certainly seems like an active, wintry forecast.  The BTV NWS forecast discussion certainly doesn’t suggest an absence of snowfall over the next few days:

 

Area Forecast Discussion

National Weather Service Burlington VT

1025 PM EST Sun Jan 29 2017

 

.SYNOPSIS...

An upper level trough and associated weak disturbance in the winds aloft will combine with a surface cold front to produce scattered snow showers through tonight. A dusting to several inches of accumulation is possible. Weak high pressure returns Monday with nearly cooler temperatures. The next organized system will be a clipper low that tracks to our south producing widespread light snowfall by midweek.

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I don’t know, complaining about the look over the next week or so seems pretty picky to me – there’s the current snow that’s still finishing up, then the GFS shows a low coming through the area during the midweek period, then snow from LES/westerly flow to start off the weekend, and then another system potentially affecting the area the following Monday.  Of course these may not all play out exactly that way the farther into the forecast one goes, but it certainly seems like an active, wintry forecast.  The BTV NWS forecast discussion certainly doesn’t suggest an absence of snowfall over the next few days:

 

Area Forecast Discussion

National Weather Service Burlington VT

1025 PM EST Sun Jan 29 2017

 

.SYNOPSIS...

An upper level trough and associated weak disturbance in the winds aloft will combine with a surface cold front to produce scattered snow showers through tonight. A dusting to several inches of accumulation is possible. Weak high pressure returns Monday with nearly cooler temperatures. The next organized system will be a clipper low that tracks to our south producing widespread light snowfall by midweek.



Aside from the clipper which might drop an inch or so here it is all in the terrain for the most part (which don't get me wrong is what I want to see for skiing, but doesn't do much imby). Beyond Wed it looks mainly dry and cold.

Sent from my VS987 using Tapatalk

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2 hours ago, LongBeachSurfFreak said:

The glacier pack in the southern greens right now is pretty epic. 12" and has to be 3 or 4" of water in it. You can easily walk right on top of it without sinking in. If this years been good for one thing this year it's sleet 

Yeah, I've got about a 15-16" (14-18" range) average on my property in the Southern Greens a bit to the SE of Woodford. I'm guessing it has about 6-7" of water in it. You can jump on it and not sink in.

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Well the Euro picked up on the GFS signal and is now bullish on a warning level event at the end of the run. Of course it is way too far off to have a lot of confidence but the possibility is there right around that 2 year mark. It is snowing lightly here as we speak as a side note.

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9 hours ago, wxmanmitch said:

Yeah, I've got about a 15-16" (14-18" range) average on my property in the Southern Greens a bit to the SE of Woodford. I'm guessing it has about 6-7" of water in it. You can jump on it and not sink in.

Wow what's your elevation? My buddy's house where I stay often is at about 1400' on the east side of Manchester. You can visibly see the pack increase and decrease allot with elevation up and down from there. I would say  it looked to be about what your reporting at about 2,000' in the Stratton and Bromely area.

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Event totals: 4.0” Snow/0.37” L.E.

 

There were only a couple of fluffy tenths of an inch of snow on the snowboards this morning at observations time, but it had just started snowing again while I was outside and there was a fresh half inch down by the point when I left the house. 

 

I can see it snowing on the J&E Productions Live Web Cam and the radar shows another push of moisture just coming into the area:

 

30JAN17A.gif

 

…so we’ll see what the next analysis says this evening.

 

I also cored the snowpack today for Total SWE Monday, and it contained 1.72” of liquid.

 

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

 

New Snow: 0.2 inches

New Liquid: Trace

Temperature: 23.9 F

Sky: Light Snow (3-10 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 5.0 inches

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9 minutes ago, LongBeachSurfFreak said:

Wow what's your elevation? My buddy's house where I stay often is at about 1400' on the east side of Manchester. You can visibly see the pack increase and decrease allot with elevation up and down from there. I would say  it looked to be about what your reporting at about 2,000' in the Stratton and Bromely area.

He's over 2K down there.

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On ‎1‎/‎29‎/‎2017 at 9:40 AM, powderfreak said:

The only other higher Coop I can think of is Walden, VT...I think that's in the similar 2,200-2,400ft range.

Maine's co-ops don't come close to that - highest I've noted is 1,530' in Rangeley.

Edit:
Yeah, I've got about a 15-16" (14-18" range) average on my property in the Southern Greens a bit to the SE of Woodford. I'm guessing it has about 6-7" of water in it. You can jump on it and not sink in.

Since continuous snow cover began on Dec. 5, I've had 7.90" precip, about 7" frozen with nearly all the rest absorbed by the pack - have seen essentially no runoff from underneath, either during the current mild spell or from earlier modest rains, though I'm sure some has been lost to sublimation.  I'm guessing my 18" has about 7" LE, but the crust is so hard - deer stay atop amidst the trees, and I can walk on it in the open (would probably punch thru in the woods) - so taking a core with the plastic rain gauge would be hazardous to its health.  There's already duct tape on the bottom (outside) from a crack caused by my pushing too hard thru a much lesser crust. 

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I'll be doing a liquid analysis on Wednesday on Mansfield... stuff like this makes it worth it. 

From BTV's hydrologist..."I just finished a conference call with our national snowpack modeling center and they commented on the use of your snow survey data last week. Between your observations and the photos you sent the first week of the deep snow they had confidence to adjust their model to your observations. Appreciate the calibration help!"

Here's a shot of the snowpack at 1,500ft from yesterday...easily can see the layering. 

This is a stout snowpack, storm snow from the upslope cycle on top of the rock hard base layer from the freezing rain and earlier seasonal snow.

Localized deep, deep winter on Mansfield's east side, haha.

16463326_10102845645754960_1830833890470

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19 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

I'll be doing a liquid analysis on Wednesday on Mansfield... stuff like this makes it worth it. 

From BTV's hydrologist..."I just finished a conference call with our national snowpack modeling center and they commented on the use of your snow survey data last week. Between your observations and the photos you sent the first week of the deep snow they had confidence to adjust their model to your observations. Appreciate the calibration help!"

Here's a shot of the snowpack at 1,500ft from yesterday...easily can see the layering. 

This is a stout snowpack, storm snow from the upslope cycle on top of the rock hard base layer from the freezing rain and earlier seasonal snow.

Localized deep, deep winter on Mansfield's east side, haha.

16463326_10102845645754960_1830833890470

Still strange to see open water at elevation though.  I noticed it again while riding in Groton.  Maybe this cool down will firm things up.

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24 minutes ago, mreaves said:

Still strange to see open water at elevation though.  I noticed it again while riding in Groton.  Maybe this cool down will firm things up.

Yeah though this creek in the photo here never freezes...its the one that runs down the side of RT 108 in the Notch out of Big Spring. 

But yes, its really the only backcountry hazard right now for skiing is that you'll be skiing along and come to a drainage with a 3-6 foot hole down to running water and it definitely takes some route finding to get across them at times. 

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Some bonus flakes here today - goes from flurries to light snow. Not adding up but nice for mood. 

Question; still trying to understand the "science" of upslope a little. Looks like yesterday with had NW surface wind, and 850 wind from the West. Got 2-3", but it came down very nicely even though I thought our best upslope should come with N-NW winds rather than W. I'd like to start understanding what to look for to have a sense of whether we are going to do well in upslope or not (and maybe I shouldn't even try lol!). Is there any good read on how you "predict" upslope that's not too complicated? Eg, what's the level of wind direction that matters? Is it 850? 

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44 minutes ago, alex said:

Some bonus flakes here today - goes from flurries to light snow. Not adding up but nice for mood. 

Question; still trying to understand the "science" of upslope a little. Looks like yesterday with had NW surface wind, and 850 wind from the West. Got 2-3", but it came down very nicely even though I thought our best upslope should come with N-NW winds rather than W. I'd like to start understanding what to look for to have a sense of whether we are going to do well in upslope or not (and maybe I shouldn't even try lol!). Is there any good read on how you "predict" upslope that's not too complicated? Eg, what's the level of wind direction that matters? Is it 850? 

Check out page 36 in this thread regarding froude numbers. https://www.americanwx.com/bb/topic/49347-nne-winter-thread/?page=36

I'd assume the BTV values for the Greens is somewhat similar to your area. I think they're running a little under 1.0 today which puts the best upslope right on the upwind side of the crest.

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1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

I'm off but coworker has 4" now at 3000ft since yesterday afternoon.  19" there since this westerly flow pattern started late last week.

Looks like MRG did well with 5-6" last night into today.

27 inches at Whiteface past 7 days, not bad for a place that isn't known for its upslope snow.

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6 hours ago, LongBeachSurfFreak said:

Wow what's your elevation? My buddy's house where I stay often is at about 1400' on the east side of Manchester. You can visibly see the pack increase and decrease allot with elevation up and down from there. I would say  it looked to be about what your reporting at about 2,000' in the Stratton and Bromely area.

I'm just above 2,200' pretty close to the crest of the mountains, which has individual peaks that top out a little above 3,000' a couple miles to the west and northeast of my location. 

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1 hour ago, qg_omega said:

27 inches at Whiteface past 7 days, not bad for a place that isn't known for its upslope snow.

Yeah good shot for them...though didn't they get half of that in the synoptic event?  

If including the sleet event we are at 23" in 7 days. 

Jay Peak reporting 41" in 7 days.

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