NNE Winter Thread

[powderfreak]

This run in S.VT has been impressive...they have to be the best relative to normal in NNE this winter with regards to snowfall.  That is a very snowy area if you can live above 1,500ft and especially 2,000ft.... one of the tops in all of New England, it's glad to see them raking it in this season.  I mean you live at 2,000ft anywhere in New England it'll probably work to your advantage if you like snow, but that area has a lot of roads that exceed 2,000ft elevation.  East flow, west flow, precipitation will be maximized... doesn't matter which way the wind blows in a select few spots up and down the Green Mtns.

[LongBeachSurfFreak]

1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

This run in S.VT has been impressive...they have to be the best relative to normal in NNE this winter with regards to snowfall.  That is a very snowy area if you can live above 1,500ft and especially 2,000ft.... one of the tops in all of New England, it's glad to see them raking it in this season.  I mean you live at 2,000ft anywhere in New England it'll probably work to your advantage if you like snow, but that area has a lot of roads that exceed 2,000ft elevation.  East flow, west flow, precipitation will be maximized... doesn't matter which way the wind blows in a select few spots up and down the Green Mtns.

I hiked to the top of snow valley resort (closed in the 80s) after Stratton closed today and was shocked how much snow there was. There are feet of snow in the woods. Completely untouched. Amazing what you can do with a little hiking. 

[J.Spin]

15 hours ago, powderfreak said:

We ended up with 3" on the upper half of the mountain, but kept 2" on the report because 1) its April and 2) was too late checking the High Road stake.  I was tied up with something else and by the time Andre got there that ship had sailed.  2.25" roughly at the parking lot level.  3" at 3,000ft about two-thirds up the mountain.  A quick few hour period of snow to dust the mountain, nothing overly exciting but nice to see.  Occasional flakes in the air today too, mixed with sunshine.  If its going to be cold there should be flakes in the air.

Thanks for the update, the 3” is similar to what Bolton Valley reported up around 3,000’ as well.  It would have been nice to get at least 6”, or maybe even 3” that settled in more like 6”, but it was pretty light and airy stuff didn’t do a ton to really keep you above the subsurface off piste.  It was definitely midwinter dry though, and enough to get us up to Bolton for a few runs.  We had at least some notable turns in those areas where the snow collected in deeper ways.  I’ve added a couple of images from yesterday below, and additional images and details are in yesterday’s full Bolton Valley trip report.

[eyewall]

Burlington snowfall is at 86.2 inches on the year. That is just over the seasonal norm. Not too bad.

[borderwx]

Mid winter skiing at Burke today, not sure what we were expecting , 14 degrees this morning, snow showers on and off this afternoon conflicting with the feel of April sun when it poked out. 

[alex]

The difference between exposed areas and sheltered/shady areas this time of the year is very cool. These are 2 spots in my yard within 100 ft of each other. Spotty cover in the exposed part, and about 1.5-2 feet in the other

[J.Spin]

We had some flurries earlier today, but we’ve got some accumulation now from a much steadier light snow that has recently moved into the area.  The BTV NWS says its due to an upper level shortwave trough.

[eyewall]

We had a couple of good squalls here in Winooski. The ground is fully white.

Sent from my VS995 using Tapatalk

[powderfreak]

This is nuts.  Best squalls of the season.

[borderwx]

Squalls blowing over the range, Just like summer, only 24 degrees

 

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 0.5” Snow/0.01” L.E.

 

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

New Snow: 0.5 inches

New Liquid: 0.01 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 50.0

Snow Density: 2.0% H2O

Temperature: 20.7 F

Sky: Mostly Clear

Snow at the stake: 0.5 inches

[Sugarloaf1989]

Reluctant to start the day here at Cannon. Currently 15F at the base and 4F at the summit.

[powderfreak]

On 4/8/2018 at 6:14 PM, alex said:

The difference between exposed areas and sheltered/shady areas this time of the year is very cool. These are 2 spots in my yard within 100 ft of each other. Spotty cover in the exposed part, and about 1.5-2 feet in the other

 

Its fascinating watching melt patterns for some reason, ha.  No idea how you actually give a snow cover value this time of year, especially as most here locally have large areas of melt out but also decent snow cover in other areas.

Like this from the road today, the open areas and more sun exposed have zero snow left here in the valley (obviously Mansfield in the distance is buried with 88" at 3,900ft on the ridgeline).  So large areas of grass where exposed to sun, while in this photo the areas that have snow depths rise up to probably 10-12" in the shaded areas near this driveway.  The other funny thing is there's no like 1-3" coverage... its either 0" or 4" and rising from there.  Even in my yard it's mostly grass in the open but the spots that have snow are like 6-10" deep.  No real middle ground, like a large area covered in 1-3".  It just goes from grass to 4"+, almost like a curb.

Just curious for the knowledgeable observers out there... what do you record here?  My gut says split the difference and it's somewhere like 4-5"?

[eyewall]

A nice April day out there today:

[J.Spin]

15 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Its fascinating watching melt patterns for some reason, ha.  No idea how you actually give a snow cover value this time of year, especially as most here locally have large areas of melt out but also decent snow cover in other areas.

Like this from the road today, the open areas and more sun exposed have zero snow left here in the valley (obviously Mansfield in the distance is buried with 88" at 3,900ft on the ridgeline).  So large areas of grass where exposed to sun, while in this photo the areas that have snow depths rise up to probably 10-12" in the shaded areas near this driveway.  The other funny thing is there's no like 1-3" coverage... its either 0" or 4" and rising from there.  Even in my yard it's mostly grass in the open but the spots that have snow are like 6-10" deep.  No real middle ground, like a large area covered in 1-3".  It just goes from grass to 4"+, almost like a curb.

Just curious for the knowledgeable observers out there... what do you record here?  My gut says split the difference and it's somewhere like 4-5"?

From what I can see in your image, it looks like the area still has more than 50% coverage, so according to the CoCoRaHS Measuring Snow 2.1 Document you’d want to try to get an average depth of all the covered and bare areas.

Below I’ve added in a few of the slides from the CoCoRaHS Measuring Snow 2.1 Document that relate to measuring snow depth on the ground, so you can read those, and I’ll also tell you what I do at my site.  I generally follow the guidelines there, but I make it a bit simpler.

For my daily CoCoRaHS reporting, what I’ve done is place the snow stake in my yard in a spot that is fairly representative of the average depth, so I don’t really have to go around to several locations on the property trying to get an average every day (as you can see is mentioned as the way to go in the second slide below).  As you know from your own experience in a place that’s typically got continuous snow cover from November through April, doing that every day could be a lot of work.  I just report my daily snow depth at my representative stake site to the nearest half inch as the instructions indicate, and consider that good enough.

When it comes to spring as the snowpack starts to come discontinuous (i.e. partial coverage), I just continue to report the depth at the stake, which remains fairly representative of the average depth (this is instead of trying to average the depth of the covered and non-covered areas as noted in the top half of the fourth slide below).  Once the snow has melted out in the proximity of the stake itself and I can’t really use it for measurement anymore, the yard has pretty much reached that “half coverage” point anyway, and I move on to reporting a trace as instructed in the bottom half of the fourth slide below.

So at my site, I generally try to follow those CoCoRaHS instructions to the best of my ability without having to walk around and actually getting measurements at several sites to take an average.  I’ll occasionally pull out a ruler and check some spots to confirm that my stake is representative if I’m concerned due to patters of accumulation and melt, but that’s only when I’m suspicious that things might be off.

[J.Spin]

Area Forecast Discussion

National Weather Service Burlington VT

1038 AM EDT Wed Apr 11 2018

.LONG TERM /FRIDAY THROUGH TUESDAY/...

As of 458 AM EDT Wednesday...

Finally by Monday night into Tuesday the surface front moves through the region, but with the parent low moving overhead precipitation looks to persist, to but changes to a mix of rain and snow.

 

It’s still out there a bit, but there’s an intriguing look on the GFS after that weekend low pulls through.  It’s been there on various runs, but it still seems to be mostly a GFS solution so we’ll have to see if any other models start suggesting anything similar.

[wxeyeNH]

Took the drone up for a spin yesterday as the snow showers ended.  Still a far amount of snow around, especially above 1250 feet.

 

 

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 0.1” Snow/0.01” L.E.

There was a fresh coating of snow on the ground at observations time this morning – based on the BTV NWS forecast discussion it looks like it was in association with the upper level trough that came through.

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

New Snow: 0.1 inches

New Liquid: 0.01 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 10.0

Snow Density: 10.0% H2O

Temperature: 31.6 F

Sky: Mostly Cloudy

Snow at the stake: Trace

[Angus]

ice on newfound looks pretty consistent. I've been monitoring the ice retreat on Winnisquam via the marina and steele hill webcams. Looks like ice out will be average - week or two away.

[wxeyeNH]

36 minutes ago, Angus said:

ice on newfound looks pretty consistent. I've been monitoring the ice retreat on Winnisquam via the marina and steele hill webcams. Looks like ice out will be average - week or two away.

I just took a look at the Winnipesaukee ice out page and it looks like April 20-24th is average ice out.  Newfound usually goes out around the same time..  The ice is still quite thick and with lots of clouds, cold weather this weekend and below normal temps next week I think ice out might be later than normal.  Will shortly know for sure.

[tamarack]

Ice on Long Pond (Belgrades) is still looking white and solid, though pulling away from the shoreline a bit.  That may change depending on the character/intensity of the Sun-Mon event, and whether we see any real warmth soon after.  That pond generally goes out in mid April.

[adk]

The golf course just pushed their opening back to April 27th. I have serious doubts that will even happen....this is def. the most sustained cold "spring" I've experienced here in VT.  It will be the third week in April AT LEAST before we get that "nice" day where everybody is on church street hanging in T-shirts.  Might even be May given the look of the GFS.  -10c 850s all over the place! 

Meanwhile, NYC is gonna hit the mid 70s this weekend. 

 

[adk]

Meanwhile, at my parents house in Philly this weekend: 

[backedgeapproaching]

6 minutes ago, adk said:

Meanwhile, at my parents house in Philly this weekend: 

My wife always complains about missing April when we moved from down there to VT(But she was the one who wanted to, so she has to suck it up..ha)  Its really the only month I would swap out for up here weather wise I think.

[mreaves]

2 hours ago, backedgeapproaching said:

My wife always complains about missing April when we moved from down there to VT(But she was the one who wanted to, so she has to suck it up..ha)  Its really the only month I would swap out for up here weather wise I think.

If I ever go south for part of the year when I retire, it will be something like March 15-May 15.  Just to miss mud season. 

[alex]

Elevation snow tonight. Some mangled flakes here, but it was wet snow in Franconia Notch. 

[adk]

12 hours ago, backedgeapproaching said:

My wife always complains about missing April when we moved from down there to VT(But she was the one who wanted to, so she has to suck it up..ha)  Its really the only month I would swap out for up here weather wise I think.

Could not agree more. I feel like April is the most divergent month between VT and the rest of the US. It's just winter here and everywhere else it's summer basically. 

 

[J.Spin]

I got a text alert that we were under a Winter Weather Advisory for this next system, which has earned the name Winter Storm Xanto.  The advisory and projected snowfall maps from the BTV NWS are below.  Based on where the frontal boundary is expected to set up, snow amounts generally increase the father north you go, with some areas of 6-8” or even 8-12” indicated on the projected snowfall maps, although there is some tapering of the accumulations along the international border due to increased distance from the front or perhaps some terrain influences.  Here at our site the point forecast for sleet and snow sums in the 3-5” range through Sunday.

[tamarack]

Could not agree more. I feel like April is the most divergent month between VT NNE and the rest of the US. It's just winter here and everywhere else it's summer basically. 

FTFY (And some folks in E.MA would like to join.)

[J.Spin]

3 hours ago, adk said:

Could not agree more. I feel like April is the most divergent month between VT and the rest of the US. It's just winter here and everywhere else it's summer basically. 

I couldn’t agree more (and absolutely agree with Tamarack that we’re talking NNE in general).  But that’s why we like it isn’t it?

In April we typically have plenty of great snowpack in the higher elevations and get to keep skiing (with occasional elevation snow to boot) while places farther south get stuck in some sort of quasi-transitionary seasonal back-doored whatever with no snow.  Personally, I don’t even plan on any non-snow outdoor stuff (yard work, biking, hiking, kayaking, whatever) until around Memorial Day.  The lawn doesn’t really need to be cut until then, the trees aren’t really fully leafed out until then, and you can’t really count on warm weather until then (we do know how even June has gone occasionally of course).

A perfect case in point was yesterday afternoon – I was at my son’s track meet at MMU, and it was brutal.  Pouring, wind-whipped rain with temperatures dropping into the 30s F, people huddling under into/under any little covering or structure they could find.  I can’t believe they still held the meet, but I guess conditions were OK at the start before I arrived.  To me it’s a great example of what not to be doing this time of year, but I guess they have to start the season at some point before June… unfortunately.