NNE Winter Thread

[backedgeapproaching]

.....annnnnd back to reality today. 46F OVC and Windy at midday. 

[wxeyeNH]

4 hours ago, CoastalWx said:

Ice out on my Winni. Only 2 days earlier than last year despite the warmer April. 

Emerson Aviation calls ice out on Lake Winni and West Shore Marine calls it for Newfound.  Normally they go out within a few days of each other.  This morning Emerson called Lake Winni out at 524am and West Shore Marine called Newfound out at 525am.   Guess someone got up  a bit earlier at daybreak than the other.

Cold feeling and cloudy day up here.  Per usual after systems pass with my south horizon view I see sunny skies as downslope clouds dissipate over the flatlands.  

First forsythia opened today!

[tamarack]

Some brief brightening around lunchtime, now back into a thicker overcast.

[J.Spin]

4 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Visible fresh white above 3,000ft.

It looks like the next potential shot of snow is Saturday night:

.SHORT TERM /SATURDAY THROUGH SUNDAY/...

As of 315 PM EDT Thursday...Deep occluded low pressure system (982mb) departs slowly enewd across srn Quebec on Saturday. With cold pool in place aloft, looking at cloudy and cool conditions areawide, with westerly winds 10-20 mph with gusts up to 30 mph possible. Lingering precipitation will be showery in nature, and generally becoming increasingly orographic through the day. Thermal profiles support snow showers across the higher terrain (above 1500` ft in nrn NY, and above 2000` in VT), with scattered rain showers for valley locations. The shower activity in west/northwesterly flow gradually winds down Saturday night with snow showers increasingly confined to the northern Greens into northeastern VT. Snow accumulations at summit level Saturday into Saturday night should range from 1-3", especially across the nrn Adirondacks and nrn Greens.

[bwt3650]

did one last day at jay peak today to close out the season.  Fog was crazy thick at the summit but snow and trail count was decent for late April. Crazy how some trails that were listed as open just 7 days ago are now completely bare with dirt and rocks.  It’s disappearing quickly. 

[backedgeapproaching]

Mitch approved 

[STILL N OF PIKE]

Heading up north manana . Checking out some falls and some rivahs 

[powderfreak]

Been snowing in the Stowe base area for the past 30-60 minutes.  No accums yet, but high winds too.  Stormy out there.

[alex]

https://thebalsamsresort.com/senate-passes-balsams-bill/#more-4554

Beautiful spot, it would be great to see it reopen

[J.Spin]

7 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Snowing steadily now at the base of Stowe.  Doing some Saturday office work watching it snow.

Decent flakes at times too.

I checked the Sugarbush 3,900’ web cam, and it looks like it switched over to snow this morning around 5:00 A.M.  There’s 2 to 3 inches of new snow up there now, and temperatures don’t really look like they’re going above freezing at elevation, so it should be pretty much snow from here on out.

[wxeyeNH]

39.3F  Light rain.  Looking at the ridgetops looks like its snowing above 2000 feet but can't be sure

[J.Spin]

I haven’t seen any snow down here at our place yet, but we’re down into the 30s F and the snow is certainly failing well down below the 2,000’ level.  You can definitely see snowfall and fresh accumulations on the Bolton Valley Web cam at around 2,100’.

[Arnold214]

Euro stil looking like somewhat of a redux of 4/26/16 on May 2nd this year. I’m all for it.

[J.Spin]

After watching it snow all morning on the Bolton Valley Web cam, I decided to head up for a ski tour around midday, so I can pass along some snow observations.  There’s obviously no snow at the base of the road, but climbing up the road, I encountered residual winter snowpack starting at ~1,400’.  The rain changed over to snowfall right after that, around the Timberline Base at 1,500’.  Here’s the new snow depth profile with respect to elevation based on my observations from today’s tour:

340’:  0”

1,000’:  0”

1,500’:  T-1”

2,000’:  2”

2,500’:  3”

3,000’:  4-6”

I noticed a bit of a jump in depths when I hit the 2,600’ to 2,700’ range, so that seemed to be a threshold of sorts.  The temperature up top in the 3,000’ range was roughly 30 to 31 F.

On the ascent I was a bit worried that the snow was going to be sticky with respect to turns, but I only found that to be an issue during the final couple hundred feet of descent to the main base area at 2,100’.  Not surprisingly, the snow was dense, so there were actually plenty of nice bottomless turns available out there.

The models and forecasts suggest that after a lull this afternoon, there’s a chance for more snow tonight into tomorrow as the back side of the system comes through.

[powderfreak]

I went for a skin on Mansfield and found amounts similar to what JSpin had.  There seemed to be two accumulation jumps...First around 2,000-2,300ft, then another bump around 3,000ft.  Wind was honking so it was more like 3-6" above 3kft.  Hard to get a good even blanket to make a true determination but I felt like it was closer to say 4" then 6".

On another note, I skinned and skied Chin Clip, a fully natural snow trail and was able to go top to bottom on that on April 27th...not bad to ski natural snow to the Midway parking lots this time of year.

[wxeyeNH]

1 hour ago, Arnold214 said:

Euro stil looking like somewhat of a redux of 4/26/16 on May 2nd this year. I’m all for it.

I saw that.  Sure no real spring weather over the next week.  Forest canopy is still bare around here and will probably remain so on the first of May.

[J.Spin]

A few shots from today’s tour at Bolton Valley:

[alex]

4 hours ago, Arnold214 said:

Euro stil looking like somewhat of a redux of 4/26/16 on May 2nd this year. I’m all for it.

Oh great. Let’s start building next winters snowpack 

[J.Spin]

3 hours ago, powderfreak said:

I went for a skin on Mansfield and found amounts similar to what JSpin had.  There seemed to be two accumulation jumps...First around 2,000-2,300ft, then another bump around 3,000ft.  Wind was honking so it was more like 3-6" above 3kft.  Hard to get a good even blanket to make a true determination but I felt like it was closer to say 4" then 6".

On another note, I skinned and skied Chin Clip, a fully natural snow trail and was able to go top to bottom on that on April 27th...not bad to ski natural snow to the Midway parking lots this time of year.

I agree, 4” was a more consistent call for what I saw at Bolton as well, but my measurements were hitting 6” enough that it felt like a reasonable upper number to go with.

We’re actually up here at Spruce at the Lodge this evening, and since the afternoon lull, snowfall has definitely picked up this evening.  It’s been gusty at times, making it look like a blizzard with all that snow blowing around.  You can see that things have shifted around to a more westerly/northwesterly flow now on the radar, so hopefully we’ll have a bit more to tack on to the accumulations overnight:

[mreaves]

Spitting snow here a little while ago. 

[powderfreak]

There were some good turns to be had.  Very gusty winds throughout the day.

[STILL N OF PIKE]

Winter thread...does this go to Memorial Day lol

dodged flooding pretty well

[mreaves]

14 minutes ago, STILL N OF PIKE said:

Winter thread...does this go to Memorial Day lol

dodged flooding pretty well

I was thinking May 1st for the Spring/Summer thread being as there was a light dusting of snow on my grill cover last night. 

[backedgeapproaching]

Wondered why my bird feeder was empty. Wasn't knocked over, still standing, but not a seed left after being totally full. I guess bad time of year to leave bird feeders out over night. 

https://video.nest.com/clip/15d2d9016002408c8726087e2b4c1412.mp4

 

 

 

[powderfreak]

2 minutes ago, backedgeapproaching said:

Wondered why my bird feeder was empty. Wasn't knocked over, still standing, but not a seed left after being totally full. I guess bad time of year to leave bird feeders out over night. 

https://video.nest.com/clip/15d2d9016002408c8726087e2b4c1412.mp4

 

Nice!  That guy was strutting for the camera.

[powderfreak]

1 hour ago, STILL N OF PIKE said:

Winter thread...does this go to Memorial Day lol

dodged flooding pretty well

Two seasons, warm and cold.  Had several hours of light snow at home last evening so doesn't feel like it's completely past winter.

May 1st to October 1st is probably good for warm season thread. 

[wxeyeNH]

29 minutes ago, backedgeapproaching said:

Wondered why my bird feeder was empty. Wasn't knocked over, still standing, but not a seed left after being totally full. I guess bad time of year to leave bird feeders out over night. 

https://video.nest.com/clip/15d2d9016002408c8726087e2b4c1412.mp4

 

 

 

Well,  feel good you fed the bear.  Not much for them to eat right now until green up.  The bears need the food more than the birds,  just head back out and buy a couple of 50lb sacks of food.

[alex]

My crocus are flowering! Just crocus but hey, it’s a sign of spring. Forstythias don’t flower here - I have one but all you get is a few flowers on the very bottom

[powderfreak]

There's still some snow out there... this was 3-4 foot depths throughout the area at 3,000ft.  It definitely is decreasing, it's that time of year, but with minor set-backs every now and again.

[J.Spin]

On ‎4‎/‎27‎/‎2019 at 10:47 PM, powderfreak said:

There were some good turns to be had.  Very gusty winds throughout the day.

Lookin’ good PF, that definitely seems similar to what I found on my Bolton tour on Saturday.

I actually headed out for a Mansfield tour yesterday, and there was some additional snow from the Saturday night snowfall, but the only substantial additions to depth seemed to generally be above 3,000’.  We were at Spruce at the Lodge on Saturday night, and we certainly saw some snowfall in the evening and into the overnight, but temperatures were pretty marginal and it really only resulted in a trace or so down there at ~1,500’ when we woke up Sunday morning.

For my tour, I skinned up in the Gondola area, and additional accumulations seemed rather minimal below about 2,500’ – there was a windswept inch or two that was really scattered around atop the old base, and much of that was probably there from Saturday’s snow.  The new snow had collected in pockets here and there, but I didn’t really see any substantial consistency until I started getting into the upper half of the terrain.  Getting up around the 3,000’ mark I started getting some solid 6 to 7 inch depths or reasonably dense, dry snow along the climber’s right of Perry Merrill.

Being underwhelmed by the accumulations I’d seen on my ascent of the main Gondi terrain, I headed toward Cliff Trail for my descent.  The deepest accumulations I found were up around 3,500’ along the skier’s right of Perry Merrill, where 7 to 9 inches was pretty typical in undisturbed areas.  That was really nice, and while the depth gradually decreased as I headed down Cliff Trail, the skiing there was quite good throughout.  There were a few tracks on the trail, but only a few skiers had been down at that point.  I’d say that the junction with Nosedive at around 2,700’ was right about where the best snow petered out.  The elevation was part of it, but the change to Nosedive with its more open nature and higher levels of skier traffic made for a very obvious break in the availability of the new snow.  That would have been an excellent spot to stop a descent if one was looking to lap the best snow up high.

I saw some folks continue on up above the Gondola into the alpine via Cliff Trail Gully, but I was a bit leery of what coverage would be like with the new snow over previous melting.  If the new snow depths continued to grow above the 3,600’ range then it could have been nice.

A few shots from Sunday’s outing: