NNE Cold Season Thread

[J.Spin]

1 hour ago, OceanStWx said:

When BTV had Jay Peak as a coop, they averaged 205", elevation between 1875 and 1840 ft.

Assuming the lat/lon is correct at NCEI that is off one of the trails about halfway up the mountain. 

It’s good that you brought up those data, because actually, since people are typically loath to believe the resort snowfall numbers, the Jay Peak Co-Op numbers are some of the strongest (unbiased?) support for the 300”+ annual snowfall averages near the summits of the Northern Greens.  Note that the ~1,840’ Jay Peak Co-Op site is actually at the base of Jay Peak.  The 3,858’ summit is over 2,000’ higher.  If one uses PF’s numbers from Mt. Mansfield (~200” @ 1,500’ = ~300” @ 3,000’), you get a roughly 16% increase in snowfall for each 500 ft. of elevation gain on the leeward side of the Northern Greens.  So if you use the Co-Op data, you’d estimate 336” for annual snowfall on the leeward side of Jay Peak near the summit, which is not all that different from what they report.  We know that Jay Peak Resort’s snowfall measuring is not considered the most meticulous in the industry, but if you assume the Co-Op numbers are decent, then that certainly puts their summit snowfall numbers in the ballpark.

There’s an extensive discussion involving PF’s numbers here:

http://www.firsttracksonline.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11837

[OceanStWx]

8 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

It’s good that you brought up those data, because actually, since people are typically loath to believe the resort snowfall numbers, the Jay Peak Co-Op numbers are some of the strongest (unbiased?) support for the 300”+ annual snowfall averages near the summits of the Northern Greens.  Note that the ~1,840’ Jay Peak Co-Op site is actually at the base of Jay Peak.  The 3,858’ summit is over 2,000’ higher.  If one uses PF’s numbers from Mt. Mansfield (~200” @ 1,500’ = ~300” @ 3,000’), you get a roughly 16% increase in snowfall for each 500 ft. of elevation gain on the leeward side of the Northern Greens.  So if you use the Co-Op data, you’d estimate 336” for annual snowfall on the leeward side of Jay Peak near the summit, which is not all that different from what they report.  We know that Jay Peak Resort’s snowfall measuring is not considered the most meticulous in the industry, but if you assume the Co-Op numbers are decent, then that certainly puts their summit snowfall numbers in the ballpark.

There’s an extensive discussion involving PF’s numbers here:

http://www.firsttracksonline.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11837

I obviously can't say much about the coop reporting itself, but I have no reason to seriously doubt it.

But if that assumption's true MWN is probably closer to 350+" on average but loses a great deal to estimation/blow off. It actually works nicely if you use the near 200" average at Hermit Lake (only 3 season's worth of data) or Pinkham Notch's 147" average. 

[J.Spin]

1 hour ago, OceanStWx said:

I look at the POR for MWN, and they (full season) range from 140" to 566", Hermit Lake Shelter at the bottom of Tucks has only been providing snow obs for a couple seasons now but that will be fun to compare. In the last three seasons MWN has been at least 100" more than Hermit Lake. 

Jay Peak on the other hand had a (full season) range of 100" to 350". If they are going to have lower low seasons, they have to have higher high seasons to make up the difference. And I just don't see "mid-slope" sites pushing 600" a year. 

Wow, I didn’t know they’d started monitoring snowfall at the Hermit Lake Shelter area.  How on earth are they measuring over 100” less than what the summit is measuring?  That means they’re measuring what 150-175” of snowfall.  That’s not all that different than what I record here at 500’, and just doesn’t seem to make sense for a site at 3,875’ in the Whites unless they’re in some sort of horrible shadow area.

Is that 100” – 350” range you mentioned above for the Jay Peak Co-Op site?  If so, note that they’re numbers from the base elevation, so a 350” number is quite substantial.  That would translate to ~574” at summit elevation based on the typical gradient.  Was that 350” for 2000-2001?  If so, that year the resort reported snowfall of 571”, which would actually be pretty much in line with what you’d expect near the summit.

https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Summary-US-State-Historical-Snowfall-Extremes

[alex]

Not sure about Stowe, but I was personally at Jay when they reported 9”, and it was no more than half of that. We talked for hours about how disgusting it was that they’d do that. Wildcat was pretty bad too. A dusting would be reported as 2” on a pretty routine basis (that was my home base for 2 winters). 

[J.Spin]

15 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

I obviously can't say much about the coop reporting itself, but I have no reason to seriously doubt it.

But if that assumption's true MWN is probably closer to 350+" on average but loses a great deal to estimation/blow off. It actually works nicely if you use the near 200" average at Hermit Lake (only 3 season's worth of data) or Pinkham Notch's 147" average. 

Ahh, OK, if they’re averaging near 200” in the Hermit Lake Shelter area that makes more sense – when you mentioned that it was over 100” less than the summit I figured that meant they were averaging <180”.  And indeed, I think the Mt. Washington summit area could average something like 350” or so, but they just haven’t got a convenient protected, calm, high-elevation spot on the leeward side of the mountain to make the measurements the way they’re done here at the ski resorts (such as with PF’s setup).

[OceanStWx]

3 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

Wow, I didn’t know they’d started monitoring snowfall at the Hermit Lake Shelter area.  How on earth are they measuring over 100” less than what the summit is measuring?  That means they’re measuring what 150-175” of snowfall.  That’s not all that different than what I record here at 500’, and just doesn’t seem to make sense for a site at 3,875’ in the Whites unless they’re in some sort of horrible shadow area.

Is that 100” – 350” range you mentioned above for the Jay Peak Co-Op site?  If so, note that they’re numbers from the base elevation, so a 350” number is quite substantial.  That would translate to ~574” at summit elevation based on the typical gradient.  Was that 350” for 2000-2001?  If so, that year the resort reported snowfall of 571”, which would actually be pretty much in line with what you’d expect near the summit.

https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Summary-US-State-Historical-Snowfall-Extremes

Hermit Lake is not a true coop in that we only get obs when the MWAC is active. So we do miss snow reports in the shoulder seasons sometimes, but they reported between 191 and 205" in the last couple of seasons. I believe they were trying to install some snotel equipment though, which will be great for mapping snowfall in the Whites. 

Jay Peak did have 346" in 2000-2001. That season MWN "only" had 297" 

[J.Spin]

34 minutes ago, alex said:

Not sure about Stowe, but I was personally at Jay when they reported 9”, and it was no more than half of that. We talked for hours about how disgusting it was that they’d do that. Wildcat was pretty bad too. A dusting would be reported as 2” on a pretty routine basis (that was my home base for 2 winters). 

You have to remember, most of the resorts around here are going to make their snowfall measurements near the summits, or typically from mid-mountain up (PF makes his upper mountain measurements at 3,000’, approximately 75% of the way up Stowe’s lift served vertical).  It’s essentially experiences like what you mentioned above that cause people to bitch and moan about the resorts inflating snowfall numbers.  I’ve only been to Wildcat a couple of times, so I can’t speak much about their reporting, but I’ve been to Jay Peak numerous times.  The reality of that day is most likely that in the wee hours of the early morning on the Jay Peak day you mentioned, when a patroller or mountain ops guy made his measurement, there were 9 inches in one of their usual high elevation, protected leeward spots.  There’s probably less in most spots on the mountain, especially with the way snowfall drops off with elevation.  Then you’ve got a few hours of settling before the skiers actually get there and start skiing it, and voila, it looks like there’s half the snow they said there was.

Resorts should, and many do, provide the range of depths from summit to base to correctly inform the public.  They essentially can’t account for the settling unless they literally deflate their numbers, and it’s really hard to blame them for not decreasing their observed snowfall by some amount to somehow account for potential settling.  PF typically tries to go conservative on his numbers when he feels he needs to because he knows these things.

I can tell you that in many hundreds and hundreds of lift-served ski days here in VT, I’ve never been duped by the snow reports.  I follow the snowfall around here extremely closely as most on the forum know, so I’m well aware that they’re reporting early morning depths, from high elevation spots, before settling.  I typically even know the density of the snow that fell, and what sort of settling to expect.  The average skier/rider doesn’t know all this stuff though, so what one ends up with are the typical stories of overinflated totals that you describe.

[J.Spin]

2 hours ago, Ginx snewx said:

Where are the yearly stats showing that for any of the Green ski areas he mentioned? 

Actually, Jay Peak has some of their most recent seasons (since the ’09-’10) listed on their website:

https://jaypeakresort.com/skiing-riding/mountain

You can also use the Co-Op data from the Jay Peak base and correct for summit elevation as I mentioned, either one should provide some decent numbers.

[alex]

Interesting discussion especially with the boring weather. And for the record I do find it “duping” to report from the very top when 99.9% of the trails that a skier can access fall below that. It’s in no way representative of the experience one can expect  

But back to snow data - Where does the Wikipedia data come from? They claim 222” as the seasonal average for Mansfield. 
 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Mansfield

[powderfreak]

15 hours ago, alex said:

I don’t buy that. Official reports (not from a ski resort) I’ve seen for Mansfield day the average is around 220”. I don’t see how Mansfield averages more than Washington given the elevation difference. And Jay Peaks reports are a joke. 

I don’t have time right now but I can show the last 20 years or so of snowfall at Stowe....it’s right around 300”.  

I mean folks can take it or leave it but I measured it for a solid decade now after another dedicated ski area personnel did it prior to that for about the same number of years.  

The Mansfield COOP snowfall is an absolute joke.  It’s collection method is similar to MWN if not worse...the elevated precip can under-catches on the ridge significantly and flakes get pulverized so the COOP ratios were often 10:1 even in huge fluff events.  Often times the can would be in error so they would use the 24 hour snow depth change too.  

If the low elevations at 500ft like JSpin can get 150-200” fairly regularly, it’s not hard to imagine 3-4000ft belt getting 300”+.  

I’m sorry but you don’t get 100” snow depth with rain events and melts and such on the snowfall amounts of the COOP.  The depth to snowfall ratio makes no sense in the longer record given a lot of fluffy snow.  

Once family leaves and holidays are done I can put together a pretty damn good compelling argument with photos and stuff of collection sites and differences.  We measured at 3000ft because it’s a much calmer environment and it can fart 4” of almost air overnight there while the ridge precip can gets 1” of pulverized flakes.  

Measuring snow on a rocky wind swept ridge is an effort in futility.  The rocks are bare all winter long, no wonder the snow amount is low.  Go measure snow on the terrain that builds depths to 6-10 feet where people ski and snow actually falls straight down.  

[powderfreak]

The Mansfield COOP data is no MWN either.  It was a once a day reading of what found its way into an 8-inch diameter precip can.  The worst time possible at 4pm after any day time heating... it drastically under reported early/late season snows sometimes because of that.  There’s also settling.  At the ski area we do ground based snow board in a protected spot and twice a day.  Twice a day vs once a day makes a decent difference even at airports, it does on mtns too.  Also upslope snow seems to come in best at night...not sure if it’s the nocturnal inversion or what, but solar seems to disrupt it.  Morning measurements are maximizing upslope snow vs late afternoon in my experience.

MWN does 4 readings for every 1 that was done on Mansfield in the COOP data.  That plays a decent role.  

Its not all apples to apples.  And I have no doubt if I showed any of you around and the differences, it would become obvious very quickly.  That’s how I gathered trust with BTV...you send them photos of the study plot and snow board set up enough, and they see it too.  

[ORH_wxman]

Tuckermans prob averages over 400" per year while MWN is 260". All about the wind when you're talking near the summits. 

[powderfreak]

1 hour ago, ORH_wxman said:

Tuckermans prob averages over 400" per year while MWN is 260". All about the wind when you're talking near the summits. 

Yup.  Like even Mammoth is wind swept rock up top of the ridge but where they ski and then measure down lower in the trees gets 400-500”.  

I bet MWN averages a LOT more than their reported snowfall, they just can’t collect it. But a lot of flakes fall up there.  Johns Weather in NNH gets almost as much as MWN at times and he’s at what 2kft?  No, MWN gets A LOT more snow to fall they just can’t measure it.

Mansfield COOPs best samples were either heavy wet snow (they would get pretty accurate snow totals in summit blue bombs) or the rare calm snowfall.  As soon as ratios went up or wind went up the snowfall amounts were no where close to what the rest of that upper elevation band would see.

Measuring snow in elevated precip cans on summits will drastically under report, IMO from what I’ve seen.  Whether it all piles up on only one side of the can, or the flakes get shattered hitting the can and trying to fall in, it’s certainly the least accurate way (but only way) to do it in those environments.

It’s like if Scooter put an 8-inch diameter by 2-feet deep narrow bucket on the top of his roof in a blizzard and then compared the flakes that made it into that thing with the snow depth in his yard.  My bet is the can would have about 60% of what his yard has. 

[wxeyeNH]

32!   I have been below freezing since last Saturday except for an hour or so on the 18th when I got up to 33F

Watching 4 bluebirds eating berries on our bush.  I have never seen bluebirds spend the winter before.  Climate change?

[powderfreak]

18 hours ago, alex said:

Once again, though, how do you reasonably justify that Mansfield averages more snow than a mountain that’s subject to very similar weather patterns but 2500 ft taller? 

Measurement locations and method of collection.  I don’t think Mansfield gets more but you’d have to do an equal comparison.  Not all locations are the same.  

I think of summit snow as like measuring snow on your roof vs your yard.  Sometimes the snow stacks on the roof nicely, other times the roof is blown clean. It would certainly be a bit different than the snow in the yard.  

[powderfreak]

18 hours ago, Ginx snewx said:

Stowe still doesn't ave 300. Where are the yearly stats showing that for any of the Green ski areas he mentioned 

On my phone I can only find this one from 2015... but I have another one with the past 3 years in it at work.

The average is down to around 304” I think with 156” in 2015-16 and 375” in 16-17 and 286” in 17-18 and low 300s last winter.  

[Angus]

Daughter, dog and I hiked Welch Dickey (Waterville Valley NH - today - beautiful day to be in mountains. probably only 4" on the ground. 

[J.Spin]

On 12/19/2019 at 10:30 PM, #NoPoles said:

I'm wondering how calm the weather will be for the next week? Or maybe tiny ripple of energy in the northern flow will cause light snows here and there?

 

On 12/20/2019 at 10:57 AM, J.Spin said:

It’s funny that you ask that, because it was sort of on my mind as well as I’ve looked at the models over the past couple of days.  It’s rather unusual to even be asking that question around here, especially in December.  It’s our snowiest month with respect to # of storms – we’re averaging between 11 and 12 accumulating storms for December over the course of my data set.  That means we’re typically looking at some sort of storm or event every 2 to 3 days.

Some of the models do suggest the possibility of something midweek, but there’s certainly not consensus on it.  The good thing is, up here in the mountains of NNE we’re in just about the best spot possible for stuff to pop up out of nowhere, or for little things to turn into something more.

Well, it was likely that things would pop up at some point, and it looks like tonight is the first one of those.  It’s obviously tenuous because it’s not even indicated on every model, but it’s there on the CMC, ICON,  ECMWF, NAM 3km, WRF-ARW, WRF-ARW2, WRF-NMM, RGEM, etc.  The thoughts as of this afternoon from the BTV NWS indicate that it’s fairly minimal and likely at elevation, but at least a bit of accumulation is a possibility here in the northern mountains:

.NEAR TERM /THROUGH TUESDAY NIGHT/...

As of 315 PM EST Monday...Mainly a persistence forecast over the next 42 hours with new NBM/blended data incorporated into existing datasets. A cold front remains on track to cross the area through the early to mid evening hours with winds shifting from south/southwesterly to northwesterly in the 6 to 10 pm time frame. Little sensible weather is expected along the boundary other than a trend toward cloudier conditions and some spotty sprinkles/flurries across elevated northern terrain where spot accumulations of a dusting to perhaps a half inch will be possible above 1500 feet.

It looks like we might be moving beyond this bit of a snowfall lull though, with the models suggesting a potential system for Thursday/Friday and then another on Sunday.

[#NoPoles]

12 hours ago, J.Spin said:

 

Well, it was likely that things would pop up at some point, and it looks like tonight is the first one of those.  It’s obviously tenuous because it’s not even indicated on every model, but it’s there on the CMC, ICON,  ECMWF, NAM 3km, WRF-ARW, WRF-ARW2, WRF-NMM, RGEM, etc.  The thoughts as of this afternoon from the BTV NWS indicate that it’s fairly minimal and likely at elevation, but at least a bit of accumulation is a possibility here in the northern mountains:

.NEAR TERM /THROUGH TUESDAY NIGHT/...

As of 315 PM EST Monday...Mainly a persistence forecast over the next 42 hours with new NBM/blended data incorporated into existing datasets. A cold front remains on track to cross the area through the early to mid evening hours with winds shifting from south/southwesterly to northwesterly in the 6 to 10 pm time frame. Little sensible weather is expected along the boundary other than a trend toward cloudier conditions and some spotty sprinkles/flurries across elevated northern terrain where spot accumulations of a dusting to perhaps a half inch will be possible above 1500 feet.

It looks like we might be moving beyond this bit of a snowfall lull though, with the models suggesting a potential system for Thursday/Friday and then another on Sunday.

We were in the upper 30s, 40ish yesterday and full sun! I was outside without a jacket! Now we are in the upper teens. I really think I like the temp range 35-40. We had 3 days of sunshine in a row. Good skiing weather. But the quiet calm weather is so abnormal, it's weird

[tamarack]

On ‎12‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 8:32 PM, J.Spin said:

Wow, I didn’t know they’d started monitoring snowfall at the Hermit Lake Shelter area.  How on earth are they measuring over 100” less than what the summit is measuring?  That means they’re measuring what 150-175” of snowfall.  That’s not all that different than what I record here at 500’, and just doesn’t seem to make sense for a site at 3,875’ in the Whites unless they’re in some sort of horrible shadow area.

Is that 100” – 350” range you mentioned above for the Jay Peak Co-Op site?  If so, note that they’re numbers from the base elevation, so a 350” number is quite substantial.  That would translate to ~574” at summit elevation based on the typical gradient.  Was that 350” for 2000-2001?  If so, that year the resort reported snowfall of 571”, which would actually be pretty much in line with what you’d expect near the summit.

https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Summary-US-State-Historical-Snowfall-Extremes

Great link.  Noted that Chimney Pond had taken the Maine depth record with 94" in Feb. 2017.  Before, I'd not seen anything above Farmington's 84" in Feb. 1969.  Fitting that the state record should be near Katahdin at about 3,000' instead of at 420' next to Route 27.

Last evening's temp had the biggest pre-CF-mixing boost I can recall - was 26-27 at 6:30 and a windy 39 by 9, where it stayed for nearly 2 hr before starting to slide down back toward this morning's mid-upper 20s.

[wxeyeNH]

Merry Christmas everyone,  Happy  Hanukkah to me.    I don't know if I qualify for a White Christmas?.  Last year we had snowpack from early November through till spring except like this year we had a few days of grass showing through right around Christmas.

 

 

[backedgeapproaching]

1 hour ago, wxeyeNH said:

Merry Christmas everyone,  Happy  Hanukkah to me.    I don't know if I qualify for a White Christmas?.  Last year we had snowpack from early November through till spring except like this year we had a few days of grass showing through right around Christmas.

 

 

Hmmm, that would be close to offically verifying a white xmas. I think its 1" averaged throughout your yard. 

[wxeyeNH]

22 minutes ago, backedgeapproaching said:

Hmmm, that would be close to offically verifying a white xmas. I think its 1" averaged throughout your yard. 

My yard is deceptive because of the south facing slope.  Just about everyplace around has a  (thin)  2-4" snowcover.  Birds and deer are really enjoying the grass and bare ground on the property

[dryslot]

Need full coverage, White Christmas *CANCEL*

[dendrite]

We white.

[backedgeapproaching]

1 hour ago, dryslot said:

Need full coverage, White Christmas *CANCEL*

Ha..well just going by the *official* guidelines, which I'm pretty sure is 1". 

If Gene wants to call that a white Christmas, sounds good to me..or got a patch under a spruce..sure why not.

[wxeyeNH]

27 minutes ago, backedgeapproaching said:

Ha..well just going by the *official* guidelines, which I'm pretty sure is 1". 

If Gene wants to call that a white Christmas, sounds good to me..or got a patch under a spruce..sure why not.

Heck,  I'm Jewish so I'm not going to sweat it out either way.   Merry Christmas to all of you.

[OceanStWx]

1 hour ago, backedgeapproaching said:

Ha..well just going by the *official* guidelines, which I'm pretty sure is 1". 

If Gene wants to call that a white Christmas, sounds good to me..or got a patch under a spruce..sure why not.

The official gov't sanctioned () white Christmas is indeed 1" snow depth at 12z 12/25. 

[backedgeapproaching]

90% of valley here in SVT pretty much wiped clean...quite a furnace yesterday..most spots were 50Fish most of day into the evening.

Took a few pics when I was out earlier...can't even do an *unofficial* white xmas in most spots around here..

 

 

 

[OceanStWx]

I didn't measure and I really don't have to, the last couple of days vaporized my meager pack and I can see the lawn again out front and thin cover out back.