NNE Winter Thread

[powderfreak]

Almost worth moving the clipper thread to the NNE thread at this point.  

I've got a pretty widespread 3-6" for the higher terrain and could see localized higher amounts summit.  

BTV tickling up... 

.NEAR TERM /THROUGH THURSDAY NIGHT/... As of 625 PM EST Wednesday...No big changes to the forecast this evening but did update QPF/Snowfall up a little bit based on upstream observations, radar and newest suite of high resolution guidance. That being said, it still looks like most places below 2000 ft will see 2-4 inches of snowfall with summits receiving 5-7 inches.

[Hitman]

Gotta luv the clippers.  Wish it would start already.

[Hitman]

2” of fluff here.

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 4.9” Snow/0.22” L.E.

 

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

New Snow: 4.9 inches

New Liquid: 0.22 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 22.3

Snow Density: 4.5% H2O

Temperature: 25.0 F

Sky:  Light Snow (1 to 2 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 13.0 inches

[CoastalWx]

18 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

Event totals: 4.9” Snow/0.22” L.E.

 

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

New Snow: 4.9 inches

New Liquid: 0.22 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 22.3

Snow Density: 4.5% H2O

Temperature: 25.0 F

Sky:  Light Snow (1 to 2 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 13.0 inches

Didn’t you have 7” at the stake yesterday? 

[CoastalWx]

Nice event for you guys. 

[powderfreak]

1 hour ago, CoastalWx said:

Didn’t you have 7” at the stake yesterday? 

Looks like it from his Cocorahs reports. 

7+5=13"?  His 7" is likely bulletproof like everyone else's haha, now with 5" of fluff on top.  

[CoastalWx]

Just now, powderfreak said:

Looks like it from his Cocorahs reports. 

7+5=13"?  His 7" is likely bulletproof like everyone else's haha, now with 5" of fluff on top.  

Yeah maybe he got 6” lol. Nice fluff job. 

[powderfreak]

3 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Yeah maybe he got 6” lol. Nice fluff job. 

Could be a typo, not something we are used to from J.  

The models were right with .20-.33" QPF... just 20:1 ratios.  

Stowe CoCoRAHS reported 6.1" on 0.24"  which was surprising as he usually has a little less than me for whatever reason...but I'm convinced he's just doing once a day measurements.  This event was perfect for those who do the one-a-day at 7am.

But we take after December.  Town looked real nice again.  

[dryslot]

May have to stay huddled up in here over the next 10 days or so......................

[mreaves]

Just now, dryslot said:

May have to stay huddled up in here over the next 10 days or so......................

We will be forced to with this epic revenge winter we have been having.  

[dryslot]

1 minute ago, mreaves said:

We will be forced to with this epic revenge winter we have been having.  

Yeah outside of the elevations, Been far from epic for us flatlanders.

[mreaves]

000
NOUS41 KBTV 031426
PNSBTV
NYZ026>031-034-035-087-VTZ001>012-016>019-040226-

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
SPOTTER REPORTS
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BURLINGTON VT
926 AM EST THU JAN 03 2019

THE FOLLOWING ARE UNOFFICIAL OBSERVATIONS TAKEN DURING THE PAST 25
HOURS FOR THE STORM THAT HAS BEEN AFFECTING OUR REGION. APPRECIATION
IS EXTENDED TO HIGHWAY DEPARTMENTS, COOPERATIVE OBSERVERS, SKYWARN
SPOTTERS, AND MEDIA PARTNERS FOR THESE REPORTS. THIS SUMMARY IS ALSO
AVAILABLE ON OUR HOME PAGE AT WWW.WEATHER.GOV/BURLINGTON.

********************STORM TOTAL SNOWFALL********************

LOCATION          STORM TOTAL     TIME/DATE   COMMENTS                   
                     SNOWFALL           OF 
                     /INCHES/   MEASUREMENT

NEW YORK

...CLINTON COUNTY...
   DANNEMORA              3.5   554 AM  1/03  BROADCAST MEDIA         
   PLATTSBURGH            2.7   604 AM  1/03  PUBLIC                  

...FRANKLIN COUNTY...
   DICKINSON              3.5   607 AM  1/03  PUBLIC                  

VERMONT

...CALEDONIA COUNTY...
   3 ESE EAST LYNDON      6.0   815 AM  1/03  BROADCAST MEDIA         
   HARDWICK               6.0   913 AM  1/03  BROADCAST MEDIA         

...CHITTENDEN COUNTY...
   WESTFORD               4.0   817 AM  1/03  BROADCAST MEDIA         
   2 NW BURLINGTON        2.0   640 AM  1/03  NWS EMPLOYEE            
   1 NE SOUTH BURLINGTO   1.8   644 AM  1/03  NWS OFFICE              

...FRANKLIN COUNTY...
   HIGHGATE SPRINGS       4.0   552 AM  1/03  BROADCAST MEDIA         

...LAMOILLE COUNTY...
   MORRISVILLE            6.0   751 AM  1/03  PUBLIC                  
   STOWE                  6.0   731 AM  1/03  TRAINED SPOTTER         
   EDEN                   4.0   556 AM  1/03  BROADCAST MEDIA         

...ORANGE COUNTY...
   WILLIAMSTOWN           3.8   820 AM  1/03  PUBLIC                  

...ORLEANS COUNTY...
   LOWELL                 3.0   616 AM  1/03  BROADCAST MEDIA         

...WASHINGTON COUNTY...
   WOODBURY               6.5   804 AM  1/03  PUBLIC                  
   CALAIS                 6.0   739 AM  1/03  TRAINED SPOTTER         
   WATERBURY CENTER       5.0   639 AM  1/03  TRAINED SPOTTER         
   MARSHFIELD             4.5   805 AM  1/03  PUBLIC                  
   WORCESTER              4.0   559 AM  1/03  BROADCAST MEDIA         
   MIDDLESEX              4.0   602 AM  1/03  BROADCAST MEDIA         
   EAST MONTPELIER        3.0   601 AM  1/03  BROADCAST MEDIA         

...WINDSOR COUNTY...
   SPRINGFIELD            4.0   814 AM  1/03  BROADCAST MEDIA         
   WOODSTOCK              2.5   826 AM  1/03  PUBLIC                  

[dryslot]

Nice little event all around.

[J.Spin]

4 hours ago, CoastalWx said:

Didn’t you have 7” at the stake yesterday? 

LOL, well I guess we can’t argue that you’re not paying attention, but I’m surprised that a guy from driftville like you would even give an apparent disparity like that a second glance.  Based on years of recording snowfall and snowpack observations, even in a sheltered location like mine, I’ve found that differences plus or minus an inch or two between snowfall and anticipated snowpack depth changes simply aren’t worth worrying about.

The correlation between snowfall and snowpack depth changes is already quite tenuous, and with the incredibly fluffy snow we get around here it’s sometimes barely existent.  Often, the snowpack increases I see here are less than the snowfall measured due to compaction of the underlying snow, but seeing discrepancies in the other direction isn’t uncommon either.  In this case though, PF’s point about the consistency of the base is certainly in play – the underlying base snow is rock hard, so there’s no compaction going on at all.  And, even in a sheltered location like mine, we still get small eddies of variant snow deposition around fixed objects (like my snow stake that is ~6 inches wide).  Also remember, snowpack is only reported to the nearest half inch per the CoCoRaHS guidelines, so when I report 7.0 inches of snowpack depth, that’s certainly 7.0-ish inches, and the same is true for 13.0 inches.

Being as meticulous as I am though, I actually did give the depth at the stake a second look this morning.  My first check on the stake was up close when I was emptying the new snow from my rain gauge outer cylinder, but I have to sort of look at the stake from the side there to avoid disrupting the local snowpack.  I called it roughly 12.5”, but then did a second check directly in line with the depth scale using binoculars from the house, and the visible snow at the stake was hitting the 13.0” mark, so that was the call.

Indeed one can go the route of saying, “Well, I only got 4.9 on the boards today, so that 13.0 inches I see at the stake really should be 12.0 inches, I guess I’ll call it that”.  The problem with that is though, is that really a more accurate report, and how long does that go on?  When it’s settled back a couple of inches later today, do I still subtract another inch?  What about for tomorrow’s stake reading?  Unless there’s a clear issue influencing a measurement, it’s really easiest to simply call what’s there and not try to overcomplicate it – especially when there’s already decent rounding in the process.

In my experience, the snowfall/snowpack correlation thing definitely falls under the “don’t sweat the small stuff” category unless you’ve got really poor collection or siting issues like the Mansfield ridgeline co-op snow collection/Mt. Mansfield Stake depth issue.  If there aren’t any major siting issues with the equipment though, just report what’s there and it all averages out in the end.

It’s still snowing out there, but not to the degree that it would outpace the settling I’d expect to see in the pack, so we’ll have to see what’s at the stake later today.

[J.Spin]

Below is the north to south listing of available overnight/24-hour snowfall totals from the Vermont ski areas for this latest storm.  Consistent with the storm accumulations map from the BTV NWS, the zenith for snowfall looked to be about a half foot in the Stowe area with totals falling off a bit north and south of there.

 

Jay Peak: 3”

Burke: 5”

Smuggler’s Notch: 6”

Stowe: 6”

Bolton Valley: 5”

Mad River Glen: 3”

Sugarbush: 2”

Suicide Six: 4”

Pico: 3”

Killington: 3”

Okemo: 2”

Bromley: 3”

Magic Mountain: 1.5”

Stratton: 3”

Mount Snow: 3”

[MaineJayhawk]

"driftville" ...

[mreaves]

41 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

LOL, well I guess we can’t argue that you’re not paying attention, but I’m surprised that a guy from driftville like you would even give an apparent disparity like that a second glance.  Based on years of recording snowfall and snowpack observations, even in a sheltered location like mine, I’ve found that differences plus or minus an inch or two between snowfall and anticipated snowpack depth changes simply aren’t worth worrying about.

The correlation between snowfall and snowpack depth changes is already quite tenuous, and with the incredibly fluffy snow we get around here it’s sometimes barely existent.  Often, the snowpack increases I see here are less than the snowfall measured due to compaction of the underlying snow, but seeing discrepancies in the other direction isn’t uncommon either.  In this case though, PF’s point about the consistency of the base is certainly in play – the underlying base snow is rock hard, so there’s no compaction going on at all.  And, even in a sheltered location like mine, we still get small eddies of variant snow deposition around fixed objects (like my snow stake that is ~6 inches wide).  Also remember, snowpack is only reported to the nearest half inch per the CoCoRaHS guidelines, so when I report 7.0 inches of snowpack depth, that’s certainly 7.0-ish inches, and the same is true for 13.0 inches.

Being as meticulous as I am though, I actually did give the depth at the stake a second look this morning.  My first check on the stake was up close when I was emptying the new snow from my rain gauge outer cylinder, but I have to sort of look at the stake from the side there to avoid disrupting the local snowpack.  I called it roughly 12.5”, but then did a second check directly in line with the depth scale using binoculars from the house, and the visible snow at the stake was hitting the 13.0” mark, so that was the call.

Indeed one can go the route of saying, “Well, I only got 4.9 on the boards today, so that 13.0 inches I see at the stake really should be 12.0 inches, I guess I’ll call it that”.  The problem with that is though, is that really a more accurate report, and how long does that go on?  When it’s settled back a couple of inches later today, do I still subtract another inch?  What about for tomorrow’s stake reading?  Unless there’s a clear issue influencing a measurement, it’s really easiest to simply call what’s there and not try to overcomplicate it – especially when there’s already decent rounding in the process.

In my experience, the snowfall/snowpack correlation thing definitely falls under the “don’t sweat the small stuff” category unless you’ve got really poor collection or siting issues like the Mansfield ridgeline co-op snow collection/Mt. Mansfield Stake depth issue.  If there aren’t any major siting issues with the equipment though, just report what’s there and it all averages out in the end.

It’s still snowing out there, but not to the degree that it would outpace the settling I’d expect to see in the pack, so we’ll have to see what’s at the stake later today.

 

10 minutes ago, MaineJayhawk said:

"driftville" ...

J.Spin getting salty! 

[MaineJayhawk]

It's been so long since Scoot has seen snow, maybe he's just forgotten about the vagaries of measurement?

[J.Spin]

5 minutes ago, mreaves said:

J.Spin getting salty! 

LOL, from what I’ve seen on the forum those guys down there apparently love their big storms with big winds, but I also hear them griping about the issues with snowfall measurement, so I was just trying to think of a word to describe that environment.

[Ginx snewx]

10 new summit of Stowe

https://twitter.com/TimNBCBoston/status/1080860683544203265

[wxeyeNH]

Just checking in.   

2" of fluff last night and 2.75" of snow/sleet a few nights ago puts me at   36" for the season.   Weekend storm looks to skirt by to the south but just a bit further northward adjustment might get me into precip?  Early next week looks interesting.

The deer have been out scratching through the 4-5" of snow.  The 3" of snow/sleet under the fluff is making them work a bit to get grass. The deer come out in mass at night.  Caught all these bad boys on this cam timelapse from a few nights ago. https://video.nest.com/clip/f48ac4b0395e418db8d8858863380bdf.mp4

Boy did my apple trees take a beating from the 13" birch bender earlier in the season.  Hired a couple of people to come Saturday and chainsaw some of these down limbs and haul them away.  Only 7 or 8 old apple trees left from the 1907 planting of them.  Lots of 2-3 year old apple saplings are planted to take over.  It's a race against time before I lose the old trees and the saplings start producing apples.  Speaking of trees planted several chestnut tree saplings around the property too.  They have deer netting to protect them from the deer.

Happy 2019.  Goal is 100" of snow.  Was off to a great time in November but lost ground in the snow race to the guys further north with their upslope snow this past month.

[tamarack]

4 minutes ago, wxeyeNH said:

Just checking in.   

2" of fluff last night and 2.75" of snow/sleet a few nights ago puts me at   36" for the season.   Weekend storm looks to skirt by to the south but just a bit further northward adjustment might get me into precip?  Early next week looks interesting.

The deer have been out scratching through the 4-5" of snow.  The 3" of snow/sleet under the fluff is making them work a bit to get grass. The deer come out in mass at night.  Caught all these bad boys on this cam timelapse from a few nights ago. https://video.nest.com/clip/f48ac4b0395e418db8d8858863380bdf.mp4

Boy did my apple trees take a beating from the 13" birch bender earlier in the season.  Hired a couple of people to come Saturday and chainsaw some of these down limbs and haul them away.  Only 7 or 8 old apple trees left from the 1907 planting of them.  Lots of 2-3 year old apple saplings are planted to take over.  It's a race against time before I lose the old trees and the saplings start producing apples.  Speaking of trees planted several chestnut tree saplings around the property too.  They have deer netting to protect them from the deer.

Happy 2019.  Goal is 100" of snow.  Was off to a great time in November but lost ground in the snow race to the guys further north with their upslope snow this past month.

Depends upon the variety.  Of my 3, the Ultramac and Haralred began bearing 5-6 years after planting the 4' whips, while the Empire - nicest looking and fastest growing - took a dozen or more.  Go figure.

Great that you've planted chestnuts.  Do you know the lineage, meaning the generations of crossing American with Chinese?  The Chestnut Foundation people are looking to make a 1/16 Chinese with its resistance and the American size and form.  You're probably a long way from any natural origin chestnuts; however, I've read that oaks can harbor the pathogen without themselves being harmed.  And distance may or may not suffice.  One of our foresters found several chestnuts on a state lot about 20 miles north of BGR 15 years ago, many miles farther north than I'd realized they grew.  He made some small patchcuts just south of several trees, and a couple years ago the largest died of blight (though it left behind several seedlings, which was the goal of those patchcuts.)

[wxeyeNH]

3 minutes ago, tamarack said:

Depends upon the variety.  Of my 3, the Ultramac and Haralred began bearing 5-6 years after planting the 4' whips, while the Empire - nicest looking and fastest growing - took a dozen or more.  Go figure.

Great that you've planted chestnuts.  Do you know the lineage, meaning the generations of crossing American with Chinese?  The Chestnut Foundation people are looking to make a 1/16 Chinese with its resistance and the American size and form.  You're probably a long way from any natural origin chestnuts; however, I've read that oaks can harbor the pathogen without themselves being harmed.  And distance may or may not suffice.  One of our foresters found several chestnuts on a state lot about 20 miles north of BGR 15 years ago, many miles farther north than I'd realized they grew.  He made some small patchcuts just south of several trees, and a couple years ago the largest died of blight (though it left behind several seedlings, which was the goal of those patchcuts.)

Thanks for the response Tamarack...   I can't remember the varieties we planted.  Stupidly I threw away the tags that came with the trees before making a note of what they were.   I just counted and I have 18 saplings growing.  Some planted 4 to 5 years ago and this summer will be year number 3 for the newest ones.  I like Mac's so I know a bunch are them.  

This past summer Brian found a guy in PA that was selling American Chestnut 18" seedlings.  I ordered a few and so did Brian.  I spoke to the grower who spent a lot of time telling me stuff I didn't quite understand about how his seedlings were from old American Chestnuts that survived the blight and cross breeding etc. etc.  

[Hitman]

I hiked the ridge line from Lincoln to castle rock this afternoon and eyeballed 4-6”.  Sure skied liked that.  ‘‘Twas quite nice.

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 5.5” Snow/0.25” L.E.

 

Details from the 5:00 P.M. Waterbury observations:

New Snow: 0.6 inches

New Liquid: 0.03 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 20.0

Snow Density: 5.0% H2O

Temperature: 30.0 F

Sky:  Light Snow (2 to 10 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 12.0 inches

[J.Spin]

I headed up to Bolton Valley for a quick ski tour this morning, so I can pass along some snow observations and a few pictures.  With roughly 5 inches of new snow found at the house this morning, and the resort reporting the same, it didn’t seem like there was a huge elevation dependence with this event.  Plus, now that the bullwheel replacement on the Timberline Quad and associated operations are finally done, Timberline is back open for ski touring, so I figured I’d get to check out the conditions there for the first time in a while.

Temperatures were in the mid to upper 20s F with light snow falling and zero wind, so we’re talking super friendly conditions to be out on the hill.  Since wind was pretty minimal during this event, I found a very even coating of about 5 inches of new snow at the Timberline Base (1,500’) and roughly 5 to 6 inches up at the Timberline Summit (2,500’).

The new snow was excellent dry powder in the 20 to 1 range for snow to water ratio, and there’s generally plenty of base, but the consistency of the base is horrible.  It’s rock hard, and in a few exposed places that had presumably seen flowing water, there was simply clear ice as the top layer of base.  There was a nice established skin track in place on the Twice as Nice ascent route, but the ascent was definitely the most challenging part of the tour.  Slightly steeper spots with just powder on ice provided little grip, and you could see that in those areas some people had to diverge out from the main skin track and take shallower routes due to lack of grip with their skins.  Fortunately there were only a handful of spots like that, but navigating them was a definite challenge.  It’s good that there wasn’t much wind with this event because scoured areas would be a nightmare.

After seeing the conditions on my ascent, it was obvious that the best bet for a descent was going to be something that had previously groomed, and had a fairly shallow angle.  So, I headed down Villager from the Timberline Summit, and that was an appropriate pitch.  I still had to hit a couple of blue/black pitches on Sure Shot on my route, and there was no way to avoid touching the hard subsurface there, even on 115 mm boards.

The Lower Turnpike area with its nice mellow pitch would probably have offered up the most consistent bottomless turns today, but it was nice to get a chance to get out on Timberline again.  I can’t imagine there was any point to skiing ungroomed terrain before this latest storm, and this snow isn’t going to be able to hold up to much traffic, but there are definitely some nice powder turns to be had on terrain of the appropriate pitch.  Some pictures from today’s tour:

[powderfreak]

Looks like we added another 0.75" during the day today of fluffy snow after I shoveled early this morning.

6.75" storm total for this weak clipper?  Not too shabby and I'm still pretty shocked at how wintry town looks again, it doesn't take much to go from the "thaw look" to "midwinter".

Adding a few photos I put in the main storm thread earlier just for posterity...

[alex]

Love the wintry feel today with the fresh snow and on and off light snow falling

[powderfreak]

The fresh snow vibe is back.  Finally something that didn't end in rain.  The little clipper that could.  There wasn't much wind, but enough to not let it pile up on the tree branches.  The light breezes definitely moved the snow off the trees and into the open areas... leading to deep turns.