NNE Winter Thread

[powderfreak]

1 minute ago, mreaves said:

Just came back from Williston, you can hardly tell it snowed last night and this morning. The sun today vaporized anything that didn’t fall on a snowy surface. 

Ha, same here.  Didn't clean the wife's car off this morning, and the 3.5" was just gone this afternoon.  The car wasn't even wet.  North facing spots and shaded areas are cold, dry powder...but out in the open and darker surfaces, there was no indication it ever happened.  The sun is strong this time of year.

[J.Spin]

Here are the north to south listing of available snowfall totals from the Vermont ski areas over the past 48 hours, which should represent approximate storm totals for Winter Storm Taylor:

 

Jay Peak: 21”

Burke: 9”

Smuggler’s Notch: 12”

Stowe: 13”

Bolton Valley: 7”

Mad River Glen: 9”

Sugarbush: 8”

Pico: 10”

Killington: 10”

Okemo: 2”

Bromley: 7”

Magic Mountain: 5”

Stratton: 6”

Mount Snow: 6”

[J.Spin]

16 hours ago, powderfreak said:

The orographic lift came through last night.  That's for sure.

 

10 hours ago, powderfreak said:

This morning was my best morning on the hill.  Place was empty ghost town for 8" overnight.  Love these upslope events that don't bring the crowds... no named Noreaster, no media hype with TWC posting snow maps...just lots of pow for those that sort-of pay attention.

We sure love it when the Greens do their thing.  I was planning to head to Bolton this morning, but when I saw the apparent snowfall differential from the reports, I switched my plans to Stowe and decided to do a few lift-served runs there.  It was snowing nice fat flakes all morning, and the increases in snowfall intensity were often quite notable as you headed up in elevation.  It typically wasn’t an intense pounding snow, but often nice and steady, and sometimes you’d have that fairly decent snowfall with sunshine at the same time.  There were a couple of times with the perfect simultaneous combinations of flakes and sun that I had to stand there in awe and soak in the mountain scene.  And it was all gorgeous upslope flakes – my analysis from this morning indicated about 5% H₂O, so that’s probably about what we had where the snow wasn’t affected by any wind.  It was simply great snow quality with some good right-side-up nature to it as you noted.

I had a bit of interesting serendipity on this morning’s outing.  I parked in the upper Gondi lot, planning to do most of my skiing there, but I had a pass issue that required me to head over to Spruce.  I decided to catch some runs while I was over there and noticed something surprising – Sensation was running, but Sunny Spruce was down.  The reverse is common if there are wind issues, but not that combination (it turns out it was a wind issue, it was mechanical I guess).  Anyway, with Sunny Spruce down, it was pretty much country club powder skiing on that terrain for the few folks that felt like accessing it.

Most off piste (and even some on piste) terrain I encountered was definitely delivering that 48-hour total of 13” that I saw on the website.  My first check of the day was in the Meadows East Glades, and my measurement came right in at 12 inches.  I checked in spots off Upper Sterling and was typically getting 12-14”.  I eventually got back over to the Gondola terrain and was really impressed with the skiing in the Bench Woods.  It was skiing much deeper than a foot at times, and doing some checks I was getting powder depths of 22-24”.  I did push through some sort of slightly thicker layer in those measurements, but it must not have been too sturdy because I was definitely skiing a lot of lines where the snow had that “up to the thighs” feeling.  That’s typically in the two-foot realm vs. the one-foot realm.

Anyway, temperatures were cold enough to keep things light and dry, but certainly not January frigid, so it was an all-around great morning.  It was another world once I got back down into the valley – it was mostly sunny while it was still snowing away at the mountain.

Some pictures from today’s outing:

[ChasingFlakes]

Jay was prime yesterday, I've never gone that fast for that long in that much powder.  Yeah I've ridden twice as deep blower before but being able to keep speed through the deep powder and lay out turns in the more open and steep trees just felt unreal.  I definitely needed some windshield wipers or something.  

 

This picture does a good job showing the depth in some places on the mountain from the recent snowfall.  It was scraped down to the icier base from earlier in the week here, exposing the recent snowpack. 

 

[tamarack]

14 hours ago, Lava Rock said:

Damn, that's like nearly 3x what we got. I know they're farther nw and that area usually does well, but it's not Stowe or some other mountain. The gradient this year north to south was very sharp. Just north of here only about 20mi by road, bridgton seemed to define the gradient where they did well and obviously points north of there.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk
 

Partly sharp gradient, but also merely climo asserting itself.  Long term average at 1st CT Lake is about 160", so while they're AN, it's not at record level - they measured 261" in 1970-71.  I'm 0.2" shy of 100 (have not added the Monday evening half inch to my sig) which is 20+ above you and Jeff.  The Farmington co-op's long term average is 90, LEW closer to 70.  For the 8 full years we've been on Kev W's snow table (starting 2010-11 and not counting this winter), my average has been 94", a bit AN.  Jeff's has been 93.6".  When climo points to a 20" difference but recent years show almost none, it's inevitable that the averages will bite back.

[Lava Rock]

26 minutes ago, tamarack said:

Partly sharp gradient, but also merely climo asserting itself.  Long term average at 1st CT Lake is about 160", so while they're AN, it's not at record level - they measured 261" in 1970-71.  I'm 0.2" shy of 100 (have not added the Monday evening half inch to my sig) which is 20+ above you and Jeff.  The Farmington co-op's long term average is 90, LEW closer to 70.  For the 8 full years we've been on Kev W's snow table (starting 2010-11 and not counting this winter), my average has been 94", a bit AN.  Jeff's has been 93.6".  When climo points to a 20" difference but recent years show almost none, it's inevitable that the averages will bite back.

If we get no more snow this season, my avg over the same period would be 84.29". Not too bad and certainly AN.

[J.Spin]

I’ve been putting it off because I’ve known the task was going to be a bit of a bear, but I finally had time to core the snowpack here at our site to get total SWE.  The liquid came in at 9.84”, which is just about what our NOHRSC plot indicates:

I haven’t actually cored the snowpack and input any real data since back before Christmas, at which point there were just a couple inches of liquid in the pack.  Anyway, I’d say that’s fairly impressive modeling to be so close to the actual water content in the snowpack after all this time.

The modeling suggests we’ll see another small bump in the snowpack’s water content soon, which I guess must be in association with tonight’s system.

[J.Spin]

This isn’t supposed to be an especially large system coming through tonight, but we’ve got some hefty precipitation going on.  The flakes right now are up to 30 m in diameter and the snowfall rate is probably an inch per hour or more.

[mreaves]

3 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

This isn’t supposed to be an especially large system coming through tonight, but we’ve got some hefty precipitation going on.  The flakes right now are up to 30 m in diameter and the snowfall rate is probably an inch per hour or more.

On the eve of the torch that may signal the beginning of the end of winter. It’s the winter that just wants to snow. 

[J.Spin]

19 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Sh*ts getting real... wife is a passenger driving back from BTV with a friend on I-89 and it's getting rough.

Well, we did just pick up 2.5” of snow in the past hour here, so I bet driving was pretty tough in that.

[EMontpelierWhiteout]

Seems like this is a week where winter is overperforming.  Dumping snow right now in East Montpelier.  Totally unexpected based on Eye on the Sky forecast I heard a few hours ago.  

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 2.5” Snow/0.18” L.E.

 

This system is a shortwave moving along north of the US/CA border, but it’s going to have enough precipitation in it to push the snowpack here past 10 inches of liquid.

 

Details from the 9:00 P.M. Waterbury observations:

New Snow: 2.5 inches

New Liquid: 0.18 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 13.9

Snow Density: 7.2% H2O

Temperature: 34.5 F

Sky:  Snow (2 to 15 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 31.5 inches

[powderfreak]

23 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

Well, we did just pick up 2.5” of snow in the past hour here, so I bet driving was pretty tough in that.

BTV ASOS had 0.25" liquid in 2 hours with the snow obs... that's some decent SWE in short duration.

[EMontpelierWhiteout]

For awhile there it was snowing harder than I have seen all winter.  Great little quick burst.  I love these little events that surprise. 

[powderfreak]

2.5-3" range here and still snowing.

.NEAR TERM /UNTIL 6 PM THURSDAY EVENING/...
As of 958 PM EDT Wednesday...Well, that was interesting.
Shortwave moving west to east across southern Ontario/Quebec
sure overproduced as a band of moderate to heavy snow exploded
in the Champlain Valley between 8PM and now with several reports
coming in across Chittenden County in the 2-4" range, most of
which fell in about an hour. Current radar returns show the bulk
of precip is shifting southeastward out of the CWA with some
stubborn activity still ongoing in Chittenden county. 

[mreaves]

Over 1” here on the deck rail. Light snow now. 

[Ginx snewx]

53 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

Event totals: 2.5” Snow/0.18” L.E.

 

This system is a shortwave moving along north of the US/CA border, but it’s going to have enough precipitation in it to push the snowpack here past 10 inches of liquid.

 

Details from the 9:00 P.M. Waterbury observations:

New Snow: 2.5 inches

New Liquid: 0.18 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 13.9

Snow Density: 7.2% H2O

Temperature: 34.5 F

Sky:  Snow (2 to 15 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 31.5 inches

Your sig says 2017 2018 snowfalls

[MarkO]

Snow stake closing in (or already at) 120". Only gotten that deep a few times. 

[J.Spin]

1 hour ago, Ginx snewx said:

Your sig says 2017 2018 snowfalls

Thanks for catching that, I fixed it and updated the events list as well.

[dendrite]

Add another tenth to the annual snow total after last night's epic snow shower.

[Lava Rock]

Picked up 0.5" last night.

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 3.2” Snow/0.21” L.E.

 

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

New Snow: 0.7 inches

New Liquid: 0.03 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 23.3

Snow Density: 4.3% H2O

Temperature: 34.2 F

Sky:  Cloudy

Snow at the stake: 31.5 inches

Total liquid in snowpack: 10.05 inches

[eyewall]

Two years ago:

[wxeyeNH]

2 hours ago, dendrite said:

Add another tenth to the annual snow total after last night's epic snow shower.

1" for me. Really nice on the trees. In the car now heading to Baltimore to see the folks. I've forgotten what bare ground looks like. 70f going to feel hot. 

[borderwx]

Pinwheel season begins

 

 

[Fozz]

I'm planning to head up to Northern New England this weekend into early next week, and will most likely be at Wildcat and Mt Snow.

There's some very nice upslope on the latest 3k NAM, with up to 20" on Mt. Washington. But I have a question... in these upslope events, how much can I expect at Wildcat, which seems to be in the shadow of it?

[tamarack]

18 minutes ago, borderwx said:

Pinwheel season begins

 

 

Snow rollers.  I've only seen them twice, the most abundant being thousands, some 2' or more in diameter, on the snow-covered Kennebec south of Augusta.  Needs light but sticky snow and moderately strong winds.

[wxmanmitch]

5 hours ago, Fozz said:

I'm planning to head up to Northern New England this weekend into early next week, and will most likely be at Wildcat and Mt Snow.

There's some very nice upslope on the latest 3k NAM, with up to 20" on Mt. Washington. But I have a question... in these upslope events, how much can I expect at Wildcat, which seems to be in the shadow of it?

Most of the snow you see on the 3 km NAM is bogus. If it were real, I'd be up around 350-400" for the season, lol. I'm where those dark blues are in eastern Bennington County.

Maybe the mountains up north including Mt. Washington see some snow showers with a few inches, but I don't think this will be a significant upslope weekend. Wildcat tends to get that NW flow upslope too, so a few inches (but not 20"+) is possible.

Edit: I see you'll be at Mt. Snow too. We don't normally get as much upslope as Wildcat down here, but there could be some light snow showers here too. Not expecting much, if any, accumulation though.

 

[powderfreak]

3 hours ago, wxmanmitch said:

Most of the snow you see on the 3 km NAM is bogus. If it were real, I'd be up around 350-400" for the season, lol. I'm where those dark blues are in eastern Bennington County.

Maybe the mountains up north including Mt. Washington see some snow showers with a few inches, but I don't think this will be a significant upslope weekend. Wildcat tends to get that NW flow upslope too, so a few inches (but not 20"+) is possible.

Edit: I see you'll be at Mt. Snow too. We don't normally get as much upslope as Wildcat down here, but there could be some light snow showers here too. Not expecting much, if any, accumulation though.

 

Yeah, those little dots of QPF you see on every panel over every topographic area above 2,500ft are false.  I think we've discussed in on the forums as the model interprets the upslope clouds or rime as snow/precip?  It mistakes it somehow...because even in upslope events you'll see it has those unreal bullseyes of like 2.0" QPF when it should be 1.0" (still a lot of QPF but not what it shows).  The 3km NAM/WRF is really the only model that does it like that too.  The HRRR, RGEM, HRDPS, 13km NAM, and other meso-models don't have that flaw of printing ridiculous QPF right over the literal summits.

[Fozz]

4 hours ago, wxmanmitch said:

Most of the snow you see on the 3 km NAM is bogus. If it were real, I'd be up around 350-400" for the season, lol. I'm where those dark blues are in eastern Bennington County.

Maybe the mountains up north including Mt. Washington see some snow showers with a few inches, but I don't think this will be a significant upslope weekend. Wildcat tends to get that NW flow upslope too, so a few inches (but not 20"+) is possible.

Edit: I see you'll be at Mt. Snow too. We don't normally get as much upslope as Wildcat down here, but there could be some light snow showers here too. Not expecting much, if any, accumulation though.

 

Thanks, that’s very good to know. I like the 3k NAM a lot, but those super high numbers on the summits look fishy. Still looking forward to some good skiing on Saturday.