NNE Winter Thread

[eyewall]

4 hours ago, J.Spin said:

 

Thanks for the update eyewall - I just checked in to update with the same information from here in Burlington in case anyone hadn’t.  The flakes are nice – I’m seeing some up to 10-15 mm in diameter, but as you said, no sticking with the current temperatures.  I just checked our web cam at the house in Waterbury and don’t see any flakes falling at this point, although the moisture still appears to be pushing into the area:

 

Yeah it is rain now but some squalls are on the table once the front goes through.

[wxeyeNH]

I was just looking at the GFS and Euro for the begining part of next week.  Sure looks cold for the end of March.  Lots of days in the 30's with light precipitation chances especially in Central areas like me.  If you add everything up on the Euro actually some decent snow in my hood.  Wonder if its way over done?  

[powderfreak]

Some decent snow showers rolling through.  Light precip is essentially like white rain (flakes but small and very wet melting on contact) while the heavier bursts go to huge aggregates.

[adk]

Radar looks really impressive this morning, though maybe a little blocked. Could be snowing pretty hard on the west side of the spine. 

[powderfreak]

3-3.5" at home when I left and 4.5" at base of Mansfield but very wind blown.  

Nice overnight surprise.  JSpin might've done a 6-spot.

[jbenedet]

Great run on the 6z GFS. Looks like several snow chances through hr 180, with a general 12+ throughout NNE, excluding far northern ME.

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 3.8” Snow/0.28” L.E.

 

As of observations time we’d picked up 3.8” of snow from the arctic cold front coming into the area.  Also of note was that there was an additional 0.02” of liquid from yesterday’s upper-level trough activity that produced rain/snow.  I’m keeping that as its own event, and there wasn’t any accumulation associated with it other than a trace.

 

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

 

New Snow: 3.8 inches

New Liquid: 0.28 inches

Snow/Liquid Ratio: 13.6

Snow Density: 7.4% H2O

Temperature: 17.8 F

Sky: Light Snow (1-5 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 9.0 inches

[Ginx snewx]

Squalls here at Sunday River 

[J.Spin]

35 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

3-3.5" at home when I left and 4.5" at base of Mansfield but very wind blown.  

Nice overnight surprise.  JSpin might've done a 6-spot.

 

Not quite up to that level, but we had 3.8” at observations time with what looks like another half inch down now that the snow has picked up a bit, so certainly a decent frontal passage.

[CoastalWx]

38 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

 

Not quite up to that level, but we had 3.8” at observations time with what looks like another half inch down now that the snow has picked up a bit, so certainly a decent frontal passage.

You dropped to 6" at the stake prior to this snow? Holy cow. 

[J.Spin]

16 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

You dropped to 6" at the stake prior to this snow? Holy cow. 

 

I didn’t re-check the depth last night as the cold front approached, but as of 6:00 A.M. CoCoRaHS observations yesterday morning the depth at the stake was at 7.0 inches.  So with some warmth and mixed precipitation yesterday, something in the half foot range at the start of this event seems quite reasonable.  Checking yesterday morning’s CoCoRaHS snow depth map in the area shows that aside from a couple of deeper spots, that was within an inch or two of what sites were reporting around here, so it doesn’t seem out of the ordinary:

 

[CoastalWx]

46 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

 

I didn’t re-check the depth last night as the cold front approached, but as of 6:00 A.M. CoCoRaHS observations yesterday morning the depth at the stake was at 7.0 inches.  So with some warmth and mixed precipitation yesterday, something in the half foot range at the start of this event seems quite reasonable.  Checking yesterday morning’s CoCoRaHS snow depth map in the area shows that aside from a couple of deeper spots, that was within an inch or two of what sites were reporting around here, so it doesn’t seem out of the ordinary:

 

I guess I am just surprised how quick the depth dropped from last week. I know you had more of a fluffier snow...but it just surprised me. Do you get sun in that area? For instance the sunny areas near me are grass, but anything protected still has 3-4" of glacier.

[adk]

Classic arctic front squeezing out all the moisture from low level warm air ....I'd say 4-8" at Stowe this am with easily more on the west side. 

89 at 5:15 this am was top 5 worst 89 drives I've ever had. Easily worse than last week during Stella. Pounding snow, untreated, black ice, white ice and unplowed/drifted snow 6" deep. Also whiteout conditions at times with blowing snow.  Just terrifying. Better by 8:45...but damn...it was horrible early. 

[backedgeapproaching]

45 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

I guess I am just surprised how quick the depth dropped from last week. I know you had more of a fluffier snow...but it just surprised me. Do you get sun in that area? For instance the sunny areas near me are grass, but anything protected still has 3-4" of glacier.

A Cocorahs spot near me in SVT dropped form 37" to 10" in 5 days.  And that spot is at 1800ft.

[tamarack]

Was under a modest flurry/squall for much of my commute this morning.  I doubt if anyone between home and Augusta got more than 1/2" or that wind gusted over 20, but it did whiten the roads and piles a bit.  Snowpack at 27", more settling than melting despite two days reaching 44.

[Lava Rock]

4 hours ago, Ginx snewx said:

Squalls here at Sunday River 

how's the skiing? thinking of coming up this wknd, but may have to wait a week.

[J.Spin]

23 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

I guess I am just surprised how quick the depth dropped from last week. I know you had more of a fluffier snow...but it just surprised me. Do you get sun in that area? For instance the sunny areas near me are grass, but anything protected still has 3-4" of glacier.

 

Yeah, that area gets sun.  It’s partial sun, but as we get father and farther into the spring and the sun angle gets higher, it’s certainly less and less protected.  For the stake in the yard I’ve tried to pick a spot that is fairly middle of the road with respect to protected/open areas of the property, and this spot seems representative of the average depth most of the time, but this time of year it does behave a bit more like a sunnier area.  Shaded areas certainly have a lot more snow right now, but looking around at the other CoCoRaHS snow depths in my area, I think the stake is doing a decent job of representing what’s going on with the snowpack.

[CoastalWx]

7 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

 

Yeah, that area gets sun.  It’s partial sun, but as we get father and farther into the spring and the sun angle gets higher, it’s certainly less and less protected.  For the stake in the yard I’ve tried to pick a spot that is fairly middle of the road with respect to protected/open areas of the property, and this spot seems representative of the average depth most of the time, but this time of year it does behave a bit more like a sunnier area.  Shaded areas certainly have a lot more snow right now, but looking around at the other CoCoRaHS snow depths in my area, I think the stake is doing a decent job of representing what’s going on with the snowpack.

I think that's very reasonable that you have a spot that is probably more representative vs something with 100% shade or sun.  Usually if the snowpack gets patchy I'll take an estimation based on how deep existing stuff is and go from there.  You take good obs so appreciate what you bring to the table. I wish I had the diligence you do.

[bobbutts]

Tick season underway here despite the partial snowpack.  Picked one off the dog yesterday. 

[dendrite]

Man you guys in VT lose that upslope as fast as it comes. I still have 10" here away from the receding torch spots, but of course I had over 16" of snow at like 9:1 ratios. I probably had more SWE than you guys that got 24-36"+.

[Ginx snewx]

5 hours ago, Lava Rock said:

how's the skiing? thinking of coming up this wknd, but may have to wait a week.

Wind holds for the first half of the morning, then North Peak opened right in front of us, first tracks for hours , most had gone in due to the cold.  We had run after run of 4 to 6 of blown in powder.  Fast and furious all day wind and skiing. Snownados every where. Tons of snow to enjoy

 

 

[powderfreak]

Man what a full-on Ginxy style winter day in late March.

As adk and I were talking about yesterday there was plenty of low level moisture left over for the arctic front and NW flow to act on overnight and dropped a wind-blown Advisory level snow last night of 3-5" in the towns all around the Mansfield-Bolton stretch of the Greens.  The jackpots were the higher terrain of the ski resorts with Bolton/Stowe/Smuggs seeing 7" overnight.

Funny how sometimes I'd track something that drops 3-5" for days on the models, then there are the times when it comes with very little fanfare.  CoCoRAHS showing 0.2-0.33" type liquid with this snow so while powder it wasn't pure fluff.  Looks and feels like a clipper snows.

Along with the fresh snow comes the wind and pure wintry appeal today.

I drove to Morrisville for some errands and RT 100 was mostly covered with blowing snow to the point that they were still plowing the road at 4pm with the sun shining.

I've never seen so many BLSN obs out of MVL ASOS but Ginxy style appeal out there with low visibility blowing snow and ground blizzard type conditions at times.

 

Might be one of the last days of the season that really feels like this.  Cold temps with afternoon readings between 8F and 12F on the valley floor...blowing snow....fresh powder...all good stuff.

[powderfreak]

2 hours ago, dendrite said:

Man you guys in VT lose that upslope as fast as it comes. I still have 10" here away from the receding torch spots, but of course I had over 16" of snow at like 9:1 ratios. I probably had more SWE than you guys that got 24-36"+.

I've got about 11" on the ground today, though I only got 21.5" in the big storm.

What did you have for liquid?

I saw J.Spin had 2.03" QPF...Underhill 2.48"...looking through CoCoRAHS most were 1.75"+ from that storm, quite a few west slope locations were solidly over 2".  Which probably broke down to the first half of the storm at like 10-15:1 and then the second half of the storm at like 30:1, ha.

Here was this morning's depths.  The Adirondacks have the most consistent snow depths of 12"+ but they are mostly above 1,500ft and even there they've lost significant snow and they had like 40" even without upslope, lol.

 

[powderfreak]

I love the big storms as much as anyone...but the days like today on the mountain are so much more fun.  When you expect 1-2" and get over a half a foot and there's absolutely no one out there skiing it...and I mean no one.  Even the locals were caught with their pants down thinking today was going to be a day to punt with the cold temps...but they didn't consider fresh powder.

This winter is definitely one of my favorites on the mountain...we've had so many powder days.  Probably more this year than the past three seasons combined.

 

 

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 4.8” Snow/0.32” L.E.

 

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

 

New Snow: 1.0 inches

New Liquid: 0.04 inches

Snow/Liquid Ratio: 25.0

Snow Density: 4.0% H2O

Temperature: 14.2 F

Sky: Partly Cloudy

Snow at the stake: 9.0 inches

[Lava Rock]

Cold out there. 13f with stiff wind

[dendrite]

1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

I've got about 11" on the ground today, though I only got 21.5" in the big storm.

What did you have for liquid?

I saw J.Spin had 2.03" QPF...Underhill 2.48"...looking through CoCoRAHS most were 1.75"+ from that storm, quite a few west slope locations were solidly over 2".  Which probably broke down to the first half of the storm at like 10-15:1 and then the second half of the storm at like 30:1, ha.

Here was this morning's depths.  The Adirondacks have the most consistent snow depths of 12"+ but they are mostly above 1,500ft and even there they've lost significant snow and they had like 40" even without upslope, lol.

 

1.84" but there's probably a +/- error of 0.25" there from the wind. 

[dryslot]

We had spring on the first day of it, Now back to winter with more snow for NNE next week.

[J.Spin]

The first forecast I heard this morning was from Roger Hill at his ~6:15 A.M. update on WDEV, and he suggested advisory-level snows (3-5” with the possibility of a Winter Weather Advisory) tomorrow for areas north of the Barre-Montpelier area.  He expected things to taper off on Saturday as the front pushed south, and then snow and mixed precipitation would return on Sunday as the front moved back to the north.  Checking on the BTV NWS forecast discussion, they’re thinking 1-3” of snow tomorrow with sleet mixing in.  Their discussion is from the wee hours this morning, so I’m not sure if Roger infused any more recent data into his forecast, but either way it sounds like our next round of snow is a possibility tomorrow.

[tamarack]

GYX bearish for tomorrow's little event, with nobody outside of the mts getting even 1".  (Farmington was top non-mountain spot, with 10% chance of 1".)   GFS remains quite moist for Mon-Wed, also quite marginal for temps/thicknesses.  Signif snow not out of the question.  Neither is a bunch of 33-35 RA.