NNE Cold Season Thread

[#NoPoles]

My hunch is, at least where I am located, the warm air that easily flows up the CT River Valley, spreads out in tendrils of warmth directed by the terrain.  I live in an area that provides no protection from warm air funneling north up the valley, but on the flipside, with all the higher terrain surrounding me, the cold air takes a while to work its way back in. It is actually quite flat and open where I am, and the terrain narrows in as you east on 302 toward Alex, the ski area, and crawford notch. It is quite fascinating, but yet Frustrating when Alex texts me about these huge wonderful dendrites and aggregates parachuting down, and all I open my door to is rain. We had a burst of upslope last night around 3am. I was driving back to my place from further East on 302 and probably about 200 yards east from my driveway, the intensity dropped off and the flake style changed. Usually the that threshold is a bit further east on 302. There is a noticeable and abrupt point where you gain elevation driving east on 302 from the intersection with RT3. Then it plateaus out but the rt 302 corridor narrows a bit. It is a pretty noticeable a plateau until you enter Crawford Notch, and then bam, you just lose elevation abruptly. So fascinating up here.

I have decided the only thing left to do is to set up camp on Alex's property so I can be in the Upslope Zone.

[alex]

31 minutes ago, #NoPoles said:

My hunch is, at least where I am located, the warm air that easily flows up the CT River Valley, spreads out in tendrils of warmth directed by the terrain.  I live in an area that provides no protection from warm air funneling north up the valley, but on the flipside, with all the higher terrain surrounding me, the cold air takes a while to work its way back in. It is actually quite flat and open where I am, and the terrain narrows in as you east on 302 toward Alex, the ski area, and crawford notch. It is quite fascinating, but yet Frustrating when Alex texts me about these huge wonderful dendrites and aggregates parachuting down, and all I open my door to is rain. We had a burst of upslope last night around 3am. I was driving back to my place from further East on 302 and probably about 200 yards east from my driveway, the intensity dropped off and the flake style changed. Usually the that threshold is a bit further east on 302. There is a noticeable and abrupt point where you gain elevation driving east on 302 from the intersection with RT3. Then it plateaus out but the rt 302 corridor narrows a bit. It is a pretty noticeable a plateau until you enter Crawford Notch, and then bam, you just lose elevation abruptly. So fascinating up here.

I have decided the only thing left to do is to set up camp on Alex's property so I can be in the Upslope Zone.

Even better, let's take over the Cog Rail. We can move into the station at 2000+ feet and ride the train up to 6000+. Now, that's a true weenie plan

[powderfreak]

Just getting crushed.  

High Road Stake showing 13” storm total.  

Another 4” fell today.  Low ratio graupel and small flakes.  What a QPF dump on the mountain.  Skis very deep.

[alex]

Took a few pictures highlighting the difference in the area - but it's hard to capture because it's hard to get a sense of snowfall rate. This is on Rt302 from Littleton to Bretton Woods. Flurries in Littleton, light wet snow in Bethlehem, light snow in Twin with no accumulation, 0.7" at my house. 

 

 

[#NoPoles]

1 hour ago, alex said:

Even better, let's take over the Cog Rail. We can move into the station at 2000+ feet and ride the train up to 6000+. Now, that's a true weenie plan

Fook yeah, let's  get onto that!

[HIPPYVALLEY]

5 hours ago, alex said:

Yep, it's pretty pathetic! There's probably more if you went into the woods and took cores, but I go by my stake and either way, it's not great. 80" of snow to date, and 6" on the ground on January 27th.  Our torches have been brutal!

I'll be up there for that 3rd week of February and really hoping your area can cash in on some good snows before then.  We were scheduled to be there last week but we pushed back our trip hoping mid to late February would have more snow!

[#NoPoles]

18 minutes ago, HIPPYVALLEY said:

I'll be up there for that 3rd week of February and really hoping your area can cash in on some good snows before then.  We were scheduled to be there last week but we pushed back our trip hoping mid to late February would have more snow!

So, where ya staying? I have a great rental company I can recommend;)

[alex]

1 hour ago, #NoPoles said:

So, where ya staying? I have a great rental company I can recommend;)

Nicely played Diane

[powderfreak]

Man, its like the energizer bunny.  Still ripping snow at the ski area (boxed area).

Roads are white down in town again but nothing like what's happening up at 1,500ft there.

[powderfreak]

And this was at noon today... added a real nice thick blanket to the mountain.  Best day of skiing this season for me.

Who knew this storm would continue to produce so much.

 

The skiing from this storm is insane up high.

Just knee deep trenches.  Thick snow though, perfect with lots of small little flakes packing in tight.

[ChasingFlakes]

Awesome day at Jay.  Felt nice and deep but pretty dense stuff.  I'll post some pics videos when I get the chance. Was still dumping as I left.  

[HIPPYVALLEY]

5 hours ago, #NoPoles said:

So, where ya staying? I have a great rental company I can recommend;)

Ha, old friend in Bartlett NH.  5 minutes to Attitash, 10 to Cranmore and 25 to Wildcat.  We try to get up there a few times a year.  Ideally twice winter,  once summer but sometimes it's only one and one or two winter.   I love that area!  We will surley get up to Crawford Notch that week so I'll PM you and Alex.

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 1.7” Snow/0.60” L.E.

 

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

New Snow: 0.3 inches

New Liquid: 0.04 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 7.5

Snow Density: 13.3% H2O

Temperature: 33.3 F

Sky: Light Snow (2 to 12 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 7.0 inches

[alex]

0.6 overnight, 8" at the stake. Started snowing nicely again this morning. 

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 2.3” Snow/0.72” L.E.

 

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

New Snow: 0.6 inches

New Liquid: 0.08 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 7.5

Snow Density: 13.3% H2O

Temperature: 30.0 F

Sky: Light Snow (1 to 2 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 7.0 inches

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 2.5” Snow/0.73” L.E.

 

Well this is one of those storms that PF might associate with the “Energizer Bunny” term, due to the way it keeps going and going.  This is the fourth day of observations for this event at our site, and indeed we’ll probably have at least one more round since it’s snowing right now.

 

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

New Snow: 0.2 inches

New Liquid: 0.01 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 20.0

Snow Density: 5.0% H2O

Temperature: 27.3 F

Sky: Light Snow (1 to 2 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 7.0 inches

[powderfreak]

1 hour ago, J.Spin said:

Event totals: 2.5” Snow/0.73” L.E.

 

Well this is one of those storms that PF might associate with the “Energizer Bunny” term, due to the way it keeps going and going.  This is the fourth day of observations for this event at our site, and indeed we’ll probably have at least one more round since it’s snowing right now.

 

Ha!  Used that earlier out on the hill.  Just constant refreshes and finally the frozen QPF shot the mountain needed, including the base area.  The base area at 1,500ft was around 7-8" total...3,000ft was twice that over the past few days. 

[J.Spin]

On 1/27/2020 at 6:56 PM, powderfreak said:

And this was at noon today... added a real nice thick blanket to the mountain.  Best day of skiing this season for me.

Who knew this storm would continue to produce so much.

I was curious about how this storm has been playing out at the resorts up and down the spine, so I did the usual assembling of the north to south snow reports for an idea of the storm totals.  It seems like the biggest drop off was south of Killington/Pico.  The most notable buck in the trend was Bromley reporting 7” for their 72-hour total, when their very immediate neighbors Stratton and Magic are both reporting 1”:

Jay Peak: 12”

Smuggler’s Notch: 11”

Stowe: 13”

Bolton Valley: 12”

Mad River Glen: 9”

Sugarbush: 9”

Pico: 7”

Killington: 7”

Okemo: 2”

Bromley: 7”

Magic Mountain: 1”

Stratton: 1”

Mount Snow: 1”

 

It’s still snowing here at the house under the current northwest flow, so it’s possible that the resorts are picking up a bit more as well:

[alex]

Another 0.4 today in the never ending flurries

[mreaves]

Much less here away from the spine but pretty consistent flurry/light snow action over the last day or two. All snow is good snow, until April at least. By then I’m jonesing for some golf. 

[powderfreak]

Had a few lingering flurries at 5am at the mountain that cleared out rapidly from 6-7am here.  

Clear skis now and that’s the official end to 4-days of persistent snow that brought 15” of dense snow to the upper half of the mountain.

[dendrite]

Another morning way warmer than MOS. 

[mreaves]

41 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Had a few lingering flurries at 5am at the mountain that cleared out rapidly from 6-7am here.  

Clear skis now and that’s the official end to 4-days of persistent snow that brought 15” of dense snow to the upper half of the mountain.

You can really see the elevation impact on accumulation.  I drive I-89 everyday and coming down the hill from Berlin to Montpelier and get a great view of the Worcester Range and bits of the Spine.  The upper 1000' are almost completely white.  It's like a line was drawn on the mountainsides.

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 2.6” Snow/0.73” L.E.

 

There are actually a few flurries still around this morning, but this should be the last set of observations for this storm, and the above totals should be the final numbers of for the event.

 

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

New Snow: 0.1 inches

New Liquid: Trace

Temperature: 19.3 F

Sky: Partly Cloudy

Snow at the stake: 7.0 inches

[J.Spin]

1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

Had a few lingering flurries at 5am at the mountain that cleared out rapidly from 6-7am here.  

Clear skies now and that’s the official end to 4-days of persistent snow that brought 15” of dense snow to the upper half of the mountain.

As I did back on Saturday, I cored the snowpack at our site this morning as part of my CoCoRaHS observations to see how the snowpack changed after this most recent storm cycle.  With the numbers now in, we can see that the SWE in the pack went from 1.69” before the system to 2.08” now.  Snowpack depth didn’t really increase, but the SWE certainly did.  Down here we picked roughly ¾” of liquid from the storm, and not all of it went into bolstering the pack since our valley temperatures were a bit marginal, but the mountains likely picked up more than an inch of liquid, and it all should have gone into enhancing the snowpack.  I see that the latest report from the Mt. Mansfield Stake indicates that it’s at 48”, which is still a bit below average, but that’s a very solid addition.  I think it was at about 40” before this storm?  Even if that’s not a huge gain in depth, we know from being out there on the mountain and skiing it over the past few days that it was a hefty addition to the pack and a solid resurfacing up high.

[wxeyeNH]

Just checking in.

3-4" of hard packed snow at the house.  Just did a 120 miles of driving, Newfound Lake to Dartmouth to Concord.  Very thin snow cover the whole way.  Bare ground in just about all places except on my hill.  Well less than 50% coverage in Concord.

Very quiet weather pattern which for personal reasons makes me very happy.  

[powderfreak]

1 hour ago, J.Spin said:

As I did back on Saturday, I cored the snowpack at our site this morning as part of my CoCoRaHS observations to see how the snowpack changed after this most recent storm cycle.  With the numbers now in, we can see that the SWE in the pack went from 1.69” before the system to 2.08” now.  Snowpack depth didn’t really increase, but the SWE certainly did.  Down here we picked roughly ¾” of liquid from the storm, and not all of it went into bolstering the pack since our valley temperatures were a bit marginal, but the mountains likely picked up more than an inch of liquid, and it all should have gone into enhancing the snowpack.  I see that the latest report from the Mt. Mansfield Stake indicates that it’s at 48”, which is still a bit below average, but that’s a very solid addition.  I think it was at about 40” before this storm?  Even if that’s not a huge gain in depth, we know from being out there on the mountain and skiing it over the past few days that it was a hefty addition to the pack and a solid resurfacing up high.

I believe we had it at 37” prior to the event after those mild couple days last Friday/Saturday.   

We’ve been supplying the NWS with daily photos of the Stake since their camera battery died (I think they are trying to replace it today or tomorrow).   I thought 37” was the lowest I saw documented before the storm.

Getting back towards normal now.  Feels like it, this stuff was dense and the positive impact on skiing this moist upslope event had cannot be understated. Yesterday skied Upper Goat for first time this season with no ice.  Just nice dense powder.  

[eyewall]

Well I have to live vicariously through you guys. We are running out of time down here and the daffodils are in bloom 2 months early.

[mreaves]

22 minutes ago, eyewall said:

Well I have to live vicariously through you guys. We are running out of time down here and the daffodils are in bloom 2 months early.

Good luck with temps like this posted on BTV's page this morning!

[J.Spin]

10 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Maybe NNE can salvage a light 1-3” refresh from the northern stream?  Decent little streak across the north.  

 

7 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Still a nice light snow look on the 6z EURO for the interior from that northern stream energy.

LOL PF, you are brave to even post that sort of stuff in that storm thread.  But yeah, it looks like our next potential snow events are that Friday/Saturday period, and then on Monday.  They’re not super strong signals at this point on all models, but worth watching because those refreshers can really bump up the surface conditions that extra notch for an outing.