NNE Winter Thread

[J.Spin]

2 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Speaking of the ice, check out this Instagram post.  Truly impressive icing up high on Mansfield in that last event.  With no more grooming operations it's dicey (or icy) up high.  The snowfall definitely has trouble bonding to this glassy surface.  This shot should be from around 2,600ft based on the intersection with PM/Gondolier (known as the tower 18 intersection in Operations).  

A mutual friend of adk and I reported similar conditions this morning...that it was basically impossible to climb above tower 20 on the Gondola due to the ice.  Tilted pond ice.  

Thanks PF, that’s the kind of beta we really like – very useful!  Keep us updated with any first or second hand info as we move on to this next system.

[powderfreak]

Occasional flurries in town today, but I'm taking a few days off so no idea what's going on at the mountain, but radar has had activity over the Spine all day.

Havent been able to see the mountain from town for a while, just a walk of white where Mansfield should be.

Even had some good bursts of snow this morning in town but no accums.  MVL had some 1.5sm -SN, not bad.  

[Hitman]

2 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Occasional flurries in town today, but I'm taking a few days off so no idea what's going on at the mountain, but radar has had activity over the Spine all day.

Havent been able to see the mountain from town for a while, just a walk of white where Mansfield should be.

Even had some good bursts of snow this morning in town but no accums.  MVL had some 1.5sm -SN, not bad.  

2" on the sb summit cam

[powderfreak]

I posted some in the main April thread but there's a nice upslope signal on the models tonight and tomorrow. 

I think the flow looks a bit more northerly than I like but all models except the EURO have some real nice QPF for the spine.

Even if you do the 50% reduction for the BTV WRF 4km, still a decent shot of moisture.

Gotta love how local the weather is around here though... model showing 1.5" QPF for the ski resort and 0.1-0.25" or so in the village center at RT 100/108 intersection.

[powderfreak]

Great AFD as usual from BTV.

.NEAR TERM /THROUGH FRIDAY NIGHT/...
As of 405 PM EDT Thursday...visible satellite shows the
convective nature of the clouds across the region with the lumpy
texture. Radar also shows the scattered nature of the showers,
most of which are in the form of light snow showers, though in
the lowest elevations where temperatures have reached the lower
40s, a mix with some rain drops is possible as well. Given the
convective nature, some grauple is not out of the question. The
snow hasn`t been heavy, and looking at web cams, it`s been
melting on contact with the ground and existing snow is still
melting away. Expecting the convective snow showers to fade in
the next few hours, however as the potent upper level shortwave
responsible for the instability to produce the snow showers
passes by to the east this evening, a deep northwest flow will
set up. Plenty of moisture along with cooling temperatures aloft
will transition the snow showers into a much more orographicaly
locked situation. All the hi-res models show this clearly, and
we`ve got a lot of strong signals for a pretty good upslope snow
event. If this was the middle of winter we would be expecting
some impressive totals. However it`s April and the marginally
cold atmosphere won`t be able to support super high snow-liquid
ratios. That said, cross sections in BUFKIT show a good overlap
of the best omega (upward motion) within the best temperatures
for denditric growth. Tried to figure out what the snow-liquid
ratios will be, and in the end came up with 14-17:1 above 1500
feet and more like 7-10:1 below 1000 feet. Precipitation amounts
will also have a strong orographic signal, with 0.05" or less
in the valleys, and more like 0.6" near the summits of the
northern Greens and western slopes of the Adirondacks by Friday
afternoon. Used a blend of hi-res models to get those values.
Running the SLRs through the QPF, total snow by Friday afternoon
should be 6-9" above 2500ft or so (especially the northern
Greens) with 1/2" or less below 700ft elevation. Some tight
gradients in the snowfall distribution.

Have not raised any winter weather headlines for a couple of
reasons: 1) The more significant snowfall amounts are going to
be at the highest elevations and not impact too many people or
that large of an area and 2) for the most part, there should be
no significant travel impacts. Based on in-house road surface
temperature model guidance, road surfaces in the lower
elevations will only drop to around freezing later tonight, so
it will be hard for snow to accumulate. At the higher
elevations, above 1500ft or so, there could be a minor slushy
accumulation.

It should be noted that we do have a blocked flow situation
overnight, with Froude number around 0.5, especially after
midnight. This should result in the snow backing up more into
the Champlain Valley, with a light accumulation (on grassy
surfaces) even into the Burlington area. I, for one, am not
happy about that prospect, but at least it will melt away by the
afternoon.

[powderfreak]

Snowing in town with much bigger flakes.... today was mostly graupel but now its actually decent snow growth flakes.  Not aggregates.

Looks like activity is increasing on the Spine.

[powderfreak]

It has been crushing up here at the mountain.  Staying at the mountain lodge and just waves of wind whipped snow falling.  It's another world up here.  Maybe 2-3" of new snow at this elevation?

[OceanStWx]

25 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

It has been crushing up here at the mountain.  Staying at the mountain lodge and just waves of wind whipped snow falling.  It's another world up here.  Maybe 2-3" of new snow at this elevation?

A nice -7.2 for MVL so far this month. An average of 40/24 for max/min. That's like a full month behind normal. 

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 1.6” Snow/0.22” L.E.

Details from the 11:00 P.M. Waterbury observations:

New Snow: 1.6 inches

New Liquid: 0.22 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 7.3

Snow Density: 13.8% H2O

Temperature: 33.1 F

Sky: Snow (2-4 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 2.5 inches

[wxmanmitch]

Getting pounded right now by a nice little upslope band. Although heaviest echoes are a little upstream from me over the spine axis, downstream advection of the dendrites means they're falling on my location. I measured about 3" earlier, but it's likely more than that now. As such, my location seems to do best when the Froude # is around 1.

 

 

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 3.3” Snow/0.41” L.E.

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

New Snow: 1.7 inches

New Liquid: 0.19 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 8.9

Snow Density: 11.2% H2O

Temperature: 31.5 F

Sky: Light Snow (1-4 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 3.5 inches

[powderfreak]

Easy 4-6" of dense graupel style snow in the Stowe base area.

[powderfreak]

I was wrong on 4-6"... 7" is the reading from Barnes Camp.

Wow did it crank last night.

The orographic lift came through.  Mountains are a very efficient at creating precipitation.

This is nuts.  Massive snowbanks for April 20th.

 

[powderfreak]

This was last night, nothing like a double IPA and a walk through a raging storm.  

[alex]

3.25" overnight here, bringing our seasonal total to 179", just ahead of last year's 175". Amazing how wintry it still feels, with full snow cover and still a deep pack in sheltered areas. Still flurrying, but the accumulating stuff seems to be done. Maybe done till fall?

[eyewall]

There was 7 inches or so of fresh snow at the Bolton Valley in the base area. I took a drone flight below that to about 1500ft ASL and it still had a solid amount.

Sent from my VS995 using Tapatalk

[powderfreak]

That was some of the best skiing I've done in a while.  Entire mountain empty and covered in a prime 7-8".  Surprisingly not a lot of change with elevation that I saw.  If you said 6-9" I think that would cover it best.  Wind was whipping but snow growth was terrible so the dense snow doesn't scour too bad.  

The snowpack is obscene and we probably just added another .75-1" of frozen QPF into it.  What a crazy month.

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 3.9” Snow/0.47” L.E.

 

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

New Snow: 0.6 inches

New Liquid: 0.06 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 10.0

Snow Density: 10.0% H2O

Temperature: 35.6 F

Sky: Light Snow (1-2 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 3.5 inches

[powderfreak]

42 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

Event totals: 3.9” Snow/0.47” L.E.

 

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

New Snow: 0.6 inches

New Liquid: 0.06 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 10.0

Snow Density: 10.0% H2O

Temperature: 35.6 F

Sky: Light Snow (1-2 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 3.5 inches

Nice to see your spot get around a half an inch of QPF out of this... another real good shot of frozen liquid for the mountains.  It has to start melting sometime, but the more we can put into it, the longer that melt will be, ha.

[J.Spin]

1 hour ago, eyewall said:

There was 7 inches or so of fresh snow at the Bolton Valley in the base area. I took a drone flight below that to about 1500ft ASL and it still had a solid amount.

I was up for a Bolton Valley ski tour in the mid-morning period with my wife and at that point we found new snow accumulations of 5-6” at 2,000’ and 10-11” at 3,000’ – it was still snowing of course, so it sounds like another inch or two has been tacked on at this point.

The turns were fantastic – medium to moderately dense midwinter powder covering everything, temperatures near 30 F, and an almost fully untracked resort to ski.  Wind effects were pretty minimal on much of the mountain so it really was a dense, velvety resurfacing that skied like a dream.  It’s definitely a good time to get out there and enjoy those uncrowded slopes with all this new snow.

[powderfreak]

Better than February.

[J.Spin]

23 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Nice to see your spot get around a half an inch of QPF out of this... another real good shot of frozen liquid for the mountains.  It has to start melting sometime, but the more we can put into it, the longer that melt will be, ha.

Yeah, I was going to comment on your previous post about something up near an inch of liquid going into the mountain snowpack – sounds about right based on close to a half inch of L.E. down at the house.  I’d say there was just about an inch of L.E. up high at Bolton based on the way the snow skied; it was a great resurfacing.  Indeed every inch of L.E. in the snowpack helps to keep the local turns viable for that much longer.

[wxeyeNH]

Congrats to everyone north of me that got snow last night.  Only 1/4" here.  Here's a late afternoon picture of Newfound Lake and Mount Cardigan 3120'.  Tallest peak in my area of Central NH.  Impressive snowcover for 4/20.  This wasn't from last night but from old snow plus the heavy sleet storm this past monday.

Last year ice out was on this date for Newfound Lake.  Still has a ways to go today.

About 25% snowcover in the woods in my area.  Finally spring next week

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 4.2” Snow/0.50” L.E.

 

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

New Snow: 0.3 inches

New Liquid: 0.03 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 10.0

Snow Density: 10.0% H2O

Temperature: 37.4 F

Sky: Flurries

Snow at the stake: 3.0 inches

[MarkO]

1 hour ago, wxeyeNH said:

Congrats to everyone north of me that got snow last night.  Only 1/4" here.  Here's a late afternoon picture of Newfound Lake and Mount Cardigan 3120'.  Tallest peak in my area of Central NH.  Impressive snowcover for 4/20.  This wasn't from last night but from old snow plus the heavy sleet storm this past monday.

Last year ice out was on this date for Newfound Lake.  Still has a ways to go today.

About 25% snowcover in the woods in my area.  Finally spring next week

Damn! That's one hell of a view. Is that from the shore?

[J.Spin]

I saw that there was additional snow in the forecast for tonight, and just noticed that it’s started up again here.  You can see some moisture moving in on the radar:

[borderwx]

4 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Better than February.

I second that PF.  We all felt like we lost some good turns in the feb thaw.  Made that up and then some 

6” overnight where it counts up here

[powderfreak]

Mansfield COOP back up to 100" of depth today, an increase of 9" in the last 24 hours.  That 100" ties the season high on March 16th.  There has been a gain of 17" in the past 6 days, though with the resort closure there's no "snowfall" values but stands to reason more snowfall has landed than the depth increase.  Probably safe to say 18" or more has fallen this week in terms of snowfall once you add in some compaction.

Here's a friend's photo... can see the NWS web cam that they get the readings from and then the stake is the blurry red thing in the trees.  The groomers have started plowing the Toll Road so we can get work vehicles up there at some point... going to be odd, the road will likely melt out while there's still 6 feet on the ground in the woods.

That's a 12 foot tall stake with only like the top 3 feet or so showing.

[J.Spin]

50 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Mansfield COOP back up to 100" of depth today, an increase of 9" in the last 24 hours.  That 100" ties the season high on March 16th.  There has been a gain of 17" in the past 6 days, though with the resort closure there's no "snowfall" values but stands to reason more snowfall has landed than the depth increase.  Probably safe to say 18" or more has fallen this week in terms of snowfall once you add in some compaction.

Awesome stuff PF, I had just grabbed the co-op report when I thought to check, and saw that you’d just posted the depth plot.  What a crazy plot this year with that double 100” hump!

[J.Spin]

7 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Better than February.

Yeah, the turns were great today – I’m passing along a few images from our tour at Bolton Valley.