NNE Spring Thread

[ApacheTrout]

Tip of the hat to Bill Hanley, Senior Meteorologist at NWS BTV.  He announced in BTV's AFD that today is his last shift, as he's retiring on May 1 after 37 years of working.  Job well done, sir. 

[powderfreak]

Nice day to be out skiing in shorts.

All natural snow Cliff Trail here still buried. 

[alex]

It's sleeting. WTF

[powderfreak]

6 hours ago, alex said:

It's sleeting. WTF

Yeah had some sleet here in Stowe too late morning...evaporational cooling had the initial band of showers fall as IP, bouncing off everything.

Up at the mountain I saw even some flakes above 3,000ft on my hike but mostly a sleety or graupel-like light rain mix.

High of 43F and a low of 28F today at MVL and all afternoon spent at 41-42F.  Brrr.  Pissed my heat kicked on.

Looks like even some upper 30s scattered in the Adirondacks and NE Kingdom.

[adk]

14 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Yeah had some sleet here in Stowe too late morning...evaporational cooling had the initial band of showers fall as IP, bouncing off everything.

Up at the mountain I saw even some flakes above 3,000ft on my hike but mostly a sleety or graupel-like light rain mix.

High of 43F and a low of 28F today at MVL and all afternoon spent at 41-42F.  Brrr.  Pissed my heat kicked on.

Looks like even some upper 30s scattered in the Adirondacks and NE Kingdom.

This is why I hate spring. Going from Winter to summer would be fine with me.

 

[J.Spin]

On ‎4‎/‎29‎/‎2017 at 5:27 PM, powderfreak said:

Nice day to be out skiing in shorts.

All natural snow Cliff Trail here still buried. 

 

I hit Bolton for a tour on Saturday as well.  Based on the first image I took when I was down lower near Mid Mountain, you can see that I wasn’t really expecting there to be a ton of coverage on Spillway, but once I got up there I found there was plenty of snow, as the subsequent images show.

 

Based on the forecast, I’d say there might be some turns left there even for next weekend.  The Eye on the Sky crew doesn’t generally forecast too far out in time in their on-air segments, but when I heard the forecast this morning, they definitely commented on how the next three weeks would be on the cool side, with high certainly for this week.  I guess they spoke about it yesterday, but they have the text on their website:

 

“Yesterday offered a preview of this May – cool and unsettled. That doesn’t mean we won’t see some delightful weather – but the weather pattern appears to favor a cooler, wetter than normal month here, especially for the first three weeks, and we can be quite confident about this week.”

 

Anyway, that could be a real plus for snow preservation over the next few weeks; hopefully there are some appropriate days to get out and enjoy the turns as well.

 

 

 

[mreaves]

Line just rolled through here. Heavy rain for a few minutes with some thunder and lightning. Nothing major but always enjoyable. 

[J.Spin]

On ‎5‎/‎1‎/‎2017 at 9:20 AM, adk said:

This is why I hate spring. Going from Winter to summer would be fine with me.

 

All in all, I’d say we’re pretty lucky on that front up here in NNE relative to many places – we can typically keep skiing right through May, and then BAM… Memorial Day/start of June hits, and you can flip the switch to summer activities.  That’s when the trees really have their leaves, and the hiking, biking, swimming etc. get going anyway.

[ApacheTrout]

0.92 inches overnight.  Intense burst of rain at 9:30 pm, followed by thunder and lightning.  It''s always fun to fall asleep with blinkin boomers.

 

[J.Spin]

We’re into May now, so I’ve got the April and snowfall season precipitation totals for our site below:

 

April totals:  8.6” snow/6.37” L.E.

Snowfall season totals:  186.5” snow/26.03” L.E.

 

April snowfall was pretty typical, but total liquid was actually quite substantial.  I really didn’t have any clue until I grabbed the monthly liquid sum from CoCoRaHS, but we got quite a shot of liquid last month.  Mean April liquid in my data is 4.46”, and while this month wasn’t outside the ±1 S.D. range, it was certainly up there at +0.93 S.D.

 

I hadn’t really noticed, but now that I’ve looked at my data, it turns out that all four months so far this year have been above average with respect to liquid.  January was just a couple of tenths of an inch above average and really didn’t seem to help with snowfall, but getting plenty of liquid in those other months certainly aided in getting the snowfall numbers up above average.

 

That’s where things stand for now, I guess we’ll see if we get any May snow to close out the snowfall season.

[mreaves]

Our BTV guys sure have a sense of humor

.LONG TERM /FRIDAY NIGHT THROUGH TUESDAY/...
As of 418 AM EDT Wednesday...No real change at all to the long
term period discussion that we seen for the last few days.
Deepening upper low slowly moves into western portion of our CWA
by Saturday evening. The low closes off over the Northeast US
by the end of the weekend and remains over the area well past
then end of the long term period. Expect quite a bit of clouds
and precipitation off and on throughout the period and beyond.
If you`ve ever wondered what it`s like weather wise in the
Seattle area, it looks like you might get your chance to find
out next week. The clouds and precipitation will limit
temperatures from falling significantly and thus looking at
temperatures generally at or slightly below seasonal normals.

[J.Spin]

2 hours ago, mreaves said:

Our BTV guys sure have a sense of humor

If you`ve ever wondered what it`s like weather wise in the Seattle area, it looks like you might get your chance to find out next week.

 

Let’s see if that statement evolves to include what it’s like having the nearby Cascades weather as well – there seems to be more snow appearing in the models for our area as we get to the end of the weekend and into the beginning of next week, so that should be something to watch.

[powderfreak]

Wet snow falling on Mansfield top of the Quad and Gondi.  No accumulations except for a slushy coating is the report (I haven't been up there).

[eyewall]

Wet snow falling on Mansfield top of the Quad and Gondi.  No accumulations except for a slushy coating is the report (I haven't been up there).

Bolton also reporting some snow.

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[eyewall]

My dad reported Graupel at the Burlington Intervale with a convective shower earlier.

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[J.Spin]

2 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Wet snow falling on Mansfield top of the Quad and Gondi.  No accumulations except for a slushy coating is the report (I haven't been up there).

 

Yeah, I’m actually watching it crash out along the west slopes of the spine from my office – there’s a batch right now on Mansfield, another one on the Dewey/Clark area, and another in the Camel’s Hump/Ethan Allen/Ira Allen area.  I was surprised to see that it was snow and not rain, but apparently it’s that sort of weather pattern.

[powderfreak]

47 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

 

Yeah, I’m actually watching it crash out along the west slopes of the spine from my office – there’s a batch right now on Mansfield, another one on the Dewey/Clark area, and another in the Camel’s Hump/Ethan Allen/Ira Allen area.  I was surprised to see that it was snow and not rain, but apparently it’s that sort of weather pattern.

I'm sitting in the Spruce patrol shack at the top of Sensation and it's snowing with blowing snow off the roof.  Maybe an inch of snow on the old snow surface and a coating on the ground above 2,800ft.  Started seeing traces of snow on like the north facing sides of trees at 2,500ft but 3000ft+ it's widespread.

Graupel in the base area turns to pure flakes at 2,500ft.  

[wxeyeNH]

Even down here in the tropics of Central NH its darn cold for May 3rd.  Sun, clouds, shower rinse and repeat.  Only 45.4F at 245pm is impressive considering we have had a bit of sun between showers. 

Awaiting first dandelions and black flies.  None yet.  Think tomorrow's the day for the first lawn cut.  Soil is really wet so have to be careful that the tractor ride on doesn't make ruts in the low spots.  Figure its only going to get wetter.   Nice to see my pond staying full.

Turkeys are gobbling like crazy in the fields.  Deer have left.  Porcupine meandered by a few days ago and ground hogs are eating away.  No bear sightings yet. Several neighbors have seen bobcats in the past few weeks.  Lots of bluebirds making nests in our birdhouses.   Never had seen a bluebird till we moved up here.  We have so many since we put up boxes a few years ago.  Wonder if they come back to the same spot year after year....

[powderfreak]

Man down to 40F at MVL at 750ft in the middle of the afternoon in early May.

Snow level getting awfully close to the low elevations in these pulse showers.

My wife said there was ice hitting her windshield at Topnotch Resort and Spa (950ft$ which I'm assuming was graupel.

[tamarack]

Got well into the 50s here with some early sun (PC, actually) and only one brief shower so far.  Most turkey action I've ever seen in the field NE from the house.  Almost none last spring, but one to three groups - each with a gobbler or three - almost every day.  I've seen the big boys in full strut as late as 6 PM.  Had a kamikaze partridge try to visit us in our living room a few days back.  We'd replaced nearly all our windows 18 months ago, and I'm glad because we're pretty sure the bird would've taken out the old one.  In this case, he only took out himself.

[powderfreak]

Some video of one of the numerous snow squalls that moved over the mountain today.  This one was from something around or just above 3,000ft where it was pure snowflakes. 

Nice wind and snow combo on my hike.  Not much accumulation (about 1" on the old snow surface and a coating on some areas of the ground), though the warm ground in a lot of spots hurt.

 

The dog enjoyed it.

 

Just a coating...not out of the ordinary for early May.  Still a novelty though.

Snow shower rolling out east towards Stowe Village.

[adk]

Looks even snowier early next week. This winter just doesn't want to give it up. 

 

[eekuasepinniW]

Looks like we've reached that time of the year when we scroll past powderfreaks posts as quickly as possible.

[eyewall]

Hahah well just remember this happened on May 16th of last year after the horror show that was 2015-2016:

[J.Spin]

18 minutes ago, eyewall said:

Hahah well just remember this happened on May 16th of last year after the horror show that was 2015-2016:

 

Don’t forget Memorial Day Weekend in 2013; that was another great time to get out for turns:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not that there’s really any doubt with the available data, but we’re still well within the snow season around here.  I haven’t run through all my reports to check, but May snow really isn’t that infrequent.

[eyewall]

No snow today just Spring Foliage Season:

[powderfreak]

Today was the first day I could get the work truck up to the top...thanks to the snowcats plowing the Toll Road and the continued melt.  Definitely a fun drive in a jacked up Chevy Silverado.

 

Also, the snowcats are working to clear some trails of snow for summer prep.  This is Lower Tyro which is at the base of the mountain and has 3-6 feet of snow on it the cats were finding.  You can see one of the ladders for the summer adventure high ropes course on the far left side of the photo.  Our first group is 3 weeks out and we need this trail clear of snow. 

But this is why when someone in the main treads often uses the phrase "close 'em down" with regards to ski resorts from a couple mild days in January, we laugh.  Snowmaking snow is ridiculously tenacious.

[eyewall]

[Met1985]

23 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Some video of one of the numerous snow squalls that moved over the mountain today.  This one was from something around or just above 3,000ft where it was pure snowflakes. 

Nice wind and snow combo on my hike.  Not much accumulation (about 1" on the old snow surface and a coating on some areas of the ground), though the warm ground in a lot of spots hurt.

 

The dog enjoyed it.

 

Just a coating...not out of the ordinary for early May.  Still a novelty though.

Snow shower rolling out east towards Stowe Village.

Beautiful PF. How did you get the video to post on here? Did you post it to Facebook first then copy it over?

[adk]

That memorial day 2013 storm was awesome. Just insane how much it snowed that late into May. One of my favorite storms ever.  I suspect we're going to get a decent may event this year. This upper level cold pool is just too strong in my mind to not link up with a little moisture and make a decent 6-12" snowfall.