NNE Cold Season Thread

[Angus]

It's weird about your location and retention, are you higher than Farmington or get more snow. I'm always disappointed with the snow in Farmington late season in my infrequent drives to Saddleback or Sugarloaf.

[tamarack]

12 hours ago, Angus said:

It's weird about your location and retention, are you higher than Farmington or get more snow. I'm always disappointed with the snow in Farmington late season in my infrequent drives to Saddleback or Sugarloaf.

I'm about 30' lower than the Farmington co-op, but we're in the woods.  Our "lawn" covers perhaps 1/20 acre with 50-70' trees to the SE and SW, though most are deciduous.  Cold air drains down from the SW-facing field across the road and stops at our place, other than what can filter into the woods.  It's about perfect for retention, given the modest elevation.  Only 3" left this morning as nearly 2" RA took most away.

If you reach Farmington via Route 27 from Augusta, the real snow catcher is Mile Hill - road gets a bit over 800' along the "plateau", which is on gently east facing slope.  The town/county sign is about 2/3 of the way up the south side of the hill.  (It's named for the length of the north-facing hill, which drops about 300' in that mile.)  If you check out cocorahs, look for the obs from Temple, especially in borderline snow events.  That observer is at 1,224', which can result in some interesting reports.  In the late Feb mashed potato mess of 2010, the Farmington co-op had 8.8" and Temple 26.4", only about 6 miles away.  (And 800' higher)

Edit:  Yesterday morning I reported 7" to cocorahs.  The Temple observer had 18" - not surprising.

 

[wxeyeNH]

Hum,   snowy day Wednesday?   4 days out and it's April,  lots could go wrong...

Edit.   No response from yesterday's post and it's 24 hours later.   Wednesday doesn't seem like a big deal anymore and may go south but wow for Thursday.  Bombing out low to our east.  

 

[J.Spin]

On 4/3/2020 at 2:01 PM, J.Spin said:

Now that we’re on to April, the yard snowpack is dwindling and I suspect the last vestiges will be gone within a few days.  It will likely disappear earlier than average (4/15), but it already looks like it’s going to persist longer than some of the very early seasons like ‘09-‘10 (4/3).  This season had a very early snowpack start though (11/8), so the duration of the continuous winter snowpack here in the yard is already at 148 days and beyond the average duration.

When I checked yesterday at observations time, the last of the snow had disappeared in the yard, so April 6^th marked the final day of the seasonal snowpack.  The numbers here indicate that mean melt out is April 15^th, ± 11 days, so this year was early, but within 1 S.D. of the mean.  Duration of the continuous snowpack this season ended up being 151 days, which was longer than average because of the early start, but also within 1 S.D. of the mean.  Despite being behind average snowfall pace right now by over 20 inches, this season wound up being quite respectable in that snowpack duration category, ranking in 4^th place out of the 14 seasons in my records.

[J.Spin]

1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

lol

I do think Jay Peak gets destroyed on the upslope.  Might be able to sneak it far enough south to Mansfield too.

It’s definitely becoming potent in some of the modeling, and the BTV NWS is starting to talk about it in their discussions:

 

Area Forecast Discussion

National Weather Service Burlington VT

1030 AM EDT Wed Apr 8 2020

.SHORT TERM /THURSDAY NIGHT THROUGH FRIDAY/...

...setup is looking increasingly favorable for some snow accumulations in higher terrain as upper- level low stall and pivots over the forecast area. Storm total snow through Friday will be in the 2 to 5 inch range for much of the Northeast Kingdom and portions of the northern Adirondacks. Higher peaks (generally 1500 ft and above) of the NEK and northern Greens have the potential for 6+ inches.  Winter Weather Advisories may be needed for portions of northern Vermont, but given that the heavier accumulations will be restricted to 1500 ft and above, have elected to hold off any headlines at this point.

[J.Spin]

2 hours ago, powderfreak said:

I do think Jay Peak gets destroyed on the upslope.  Might be able to sneak it far enough south to Mansfield too.

The BTV NWS has a headline going for the event on their home page, and I’ve pasted their most recent projected accumulations map below.  The shading in the current iteration of the map suggests a general 8-12” along the spine for the Northern Greens, and it looks like it’s just getting into that 12-18” shading up near Jay Peak.

[J.Spin]

2 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Winter Storm Watch issued here. 

That 12z Euro was a pretty substantial upslope event.  Probably 1-2” slop at home and 9” in the parking lot at 1500ft lol.

Yeah, I saw that winter alerts had gone up in the latest updates.  Our point forecast here calls for something in the 3-6” range, which seems to jive with what they’ve got in the projected accumulations map.  If we’ve got the potential for accumulations down at 500’, then you know the mountains have the potential to do well, as the latest Mansfield point forecast would suggest:

 

Thursday

Snow showers, mainly before noon, then snow after noon. High near 36. Very windy, with a south wind 25 to 35 mph increasing to 40 to 50 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New snow accumulation of 4 to 8 inches possible.

Thursday Night

Snow likely. Cloudy, with a low around 21. Wind chill values as low as -1. Very windy, with a west wind 45 to 49 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New snow accumulation of 3 to 7 inches possible.

Friday

Snow. High near 25. Wind chill values as low as zero. Windy, with a northwest wind 30 to 34 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New snow accumulation of 3 to 7 inches possible.

Friday Night

Snow showers likely, mainly before 9pm. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 17. Windy, with a northwest wind 26 to 33 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches possible.

Saturday

A 30 percent chance of snow showers before 2pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 31. Blustery, with a northwest wind 20 to 25 mph.

 

The latest BTV NWS alerts and accumulations maps are below, with some of that 12-18” shading along the spine in the Bolton-Mansfield stretch:

[J.Spin]

I see on Bolton’s webcams that the precipitation is all snow up at Vista Peak at 3,150’ and even down at 2,100’ at the main base.  Since this is expected to be the warmer part or the storm, that’s a good sign with respect to getting some decent accumulations out of this event to support turns.  I haven’t seen any flakes down here at 500’ yet, but we’re still fairly warm in the valley.

[powderfreak]

Snow mixing in down in Stowe Village.  

Took a drive up to 1500ft and while snowing, not much accum besides a slushy whitening.

[J.Spin]

14 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Snow mixing in down in Stowe Village.  

Took a drive up to 1500ft and while snowing, not much accum besides a slushy whitening.

Yeah, we hadn’t really seen any snow with this system yet down here at 500’ in the Winooski Valley, but we did start getting some flakes and accumulation this morning at some point in the 8:00 A.M. to 8:30 A.M. range.

[powderfreak]

1 hour ago, J.Spin said:

Yeah, we hadn’t really seen any snow with this system yet down here at 500’ in the Winooski Valley, but we did start getting some flakes and accumulation this morning at some point in the 8:00 A.M. to 8:30 A.M. range.

Interesting, yeah there was about an inch when I woke up and it's still been snowing but I don't think the depth is increasing that much.  I'll probably check again at noon.

[bch2014]

How much snow at the high elevations on Mt. Mansfield?

[powderfreak]

30 minutes ago, bch2014 said:

How much snow at the high elevations on Mt. Mansfield?

Don't know but it didn't really happen on the hill.  Heaviest was definitely north.

1,500ft only had 2-3". 

Meanwhile two towns north in Hyde Park, VT had 5.5" at a lower elevation.

There must've been a very sharp gradient last night. 

[J.Spin]

3 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Interesting, yeah there was about an inch when I woke up and it's still been snowing but I don't think the depth is increasing that much.  I'll probably check again at noon.

We’ve had light snow pretty continuously all morning, but we’ve only had 0.2” of accumulation through noon here, so just a coating on some surfaces.  I don’t think we’ll accumulate much during the day down here at our elevation base on what I’m seeing out there now.  If the moisture is still going I could imagine some additional accumulation as temperatures come down tonight.

[J.Spin]

2 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Don't know but it didn't really happen on the hill.  Heaviest was definitely north.

1,500ft only had 2-3". 

Meanwhile two towns north in Hyde Park, VT had 5.5" at a lower elevation.

There must've been a very sharp gradient last night. 

Checking on the Bolton Valley live webcams I’d say there’s an inch or two at 2,100’.  The temperatures have definitely helped so far today up there relative to yesterday.  For yesterday’s snow you could see the accumulations down at the main base kind of accumulate and melt back to expose areas of old snow, but most of those grungy areas of snow are pretty well covered up at base elevation right now.  Via the Vista Peak cam, it looks like there have been at least a few inches of snow up there at 3,150’, but it’s hard to say with the wind (I actually just saw a skier head down Alta Vista, but couldn’t tell too much from their turns).  If I head up I’ll certainly pass along a report, as it’s definitely snowing and accumulating up there right now.

[J.Spin]

6 hours ago, J.Spin said:

 If I head up I’ll certainly pass along a report, as it’s definitely snowing and accumulating up there right now.

I popped up to the mountain for a tour this afternoon, so here’s the snow accumulation profile starting from the bottom of the Bolton Valley Access Road:

340’: 0”

900’: T

1,000’: ½-1”

1,500’: 2”

2,000’: 4-5”

2,500’: 7”

3,000’: 8-9”

I put the 900’ measurement in there because that’s right where you could see the first accumulations, and they quickly jumped up by the time you hit the Bolton Valley Welcome Sign at ~1,000’.

The snow wasn’t really wet at all (at least where I was touring in the 2,000’+ range).  It was reasonably dense and offered plenty of bottomless turns, but certainly not unlimited bottomless turns on all the steepest pitches.  We’ve had roughly 1.25” of liquid equivalent from this event down here at the house, so there’s certainly a decent amount of L.E. in that snow at elevation.

It was interesting up on the mountain today because a bit of sunshine appeared near the start of the tour, but by the time I was finishing up it was pounding heavy snow composed of big flakes.  It was in the 20s F and snowing so hard in the Village at that point that it felt like it had to be accumulating down in the valley, but it was an impressive gradient as I headed back down the mountain and the snow still wasn’t really accumulating much below the 1,000’ level.

[powderfreak]

Best Radar look so far.  Must be crushing at the ski area with constant 30-35dbz.

Snowing furiously at home right now.  Big fat upslope flakes.  

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 0.7” Snow/1.47” L.E.

 

The snow is beginning to accumulate again here in the valley now that evening has set in and temperatures have come back down.

 

Details from the 12:00 A.M. Waterbury observations:

New Snow: 0.5 inches

New Liquid: 0.11 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 4.5

Snow Density: 22.0% H2O

Temperature: 33.4 F

Sky:  Snow (5 to 20 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 0.5 inches

[powderfreak]

Measuring table with 1.75” this morning... bet the mountain picked up a good half a foot.  

Had temps been below freezing that was probably 3” last night... but alas mostly fell at 33-34F.

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 1.3” Snow/1.54” L.E.

 

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

New Snow: 0.6 inches

New Liquid: 0.07 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 8.6

Snow Density: 11.7% H2O

Temperature: 31.1 F

Sky:  Cloudy

Snow at the stake: 0.5 inches

[J.Spin]

The snow has been picking up again here as I see we’ve got another push of moisture coming in from the northwest:

[alex]

Another 1.2” overnight, just some light snow now

[STILL N OF PIKE]

13 hours ago, J.Spin said:

I popped up to the mountain for a tour this afternoon, so here’s the snow accumulation profile starting from the bottom of the Bolton Valley Access Road:

340’: 0”

900’: T

1,000’: ½-1”

1,500’: 2”

2,000’: 4-5”

2,500’: 7”

3,000’: 8-9”

I put the 900’ measurement in there because that’s right where you could see the first accumulations, and they quickly jumped up by the time you hit the Bolton Valley Welcome Sign at ~1,000’.

 

If those measurements were taken over 18 hours ago , there is gonna be some very high totals over 2k

[wxeyeNH]

Another wonderful April day in NNE.

34.5F at noon with occ. flurries and a gusty wind.  Third day in a row of snow in the air.

Most of the snow has melted below 1500 feet.  

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 1.5” Snow/1.54” L.E.

 

We picked up some additional snow this morning after 6:00 A.M.; the flakes were quite fluffy with just a trace of additional liquid.

 

Details from the 1:00 P.M. Waterbury observations:

New Snow: 0.2 inches

New Liquid: Trace

Temperature: 38.5 F

Sky:  Partly Cloudy

Snow at the stake: Trace

[J.Spin]

2 hours ago, STILL N OF PIKE said:

If those measurements were taken over 18 hours ago , there is gonna be some very high totals over 2k

Yeah, it definitely snowed more overnight on the mountain.  We went for a tour this morning, and with whatever settling occurred since my measurements from yesterday, we general found 3-4” additional snow at elevations above 1,500’.  The snow line had dropped to around 600’ on the access road, and accumulations at 2,000’ were around 8”.  We topped out at roughly 2,800’ on today’s tour, but accumulations are a foot plus from there on up.  I’ve updated the elevation profile from yesterday’s tour with today’s total accumulation numbers, which are in bold below:

 

340’: 0” --> 0”

600’: -----> T

900’: T --> ½”

1,000’: ½-1” --> ½-1”

1,500’: 2” --> 5”

2,000’: 4-5” --> 8”

2,500’: 7” --> 9-10”

2,800’: 12”

3,000’: 8-9” --> 12”+

 

There was more snow falling while we were up there as well:

[powderfreak]

JSpin, is Bolton still allowing uphill?  I had heard they closed it.  Of course that means different things at different mountains... here it was heavily influenced by Stowe PD and the town to keep people out of town from coming in to skin.  Police have been making the rounds up there, so skinning just isn’t worth the looking over your shoulder mentality.

Im sure Bolton doesn’t have that issue with no local bored police force ha.

[J.Spin]

1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

JSpin, is Bolton still allowing uphill?  I had heard they closed it.  Of course that means different things at different mountains... here it was heavily influenced by Stowe PD and the town to keep people out of town from coming in to skin.  Police have been making the rounds up there, so skinning just isn’t worth the looking over your shoulder mentality.

Im sure Bolton doesn’t have that issue with no local bored police force ha.

I hadn’t actually heard anything about it, and from everything I’ve seen on my outings, the locals are doing their thing, social distancing isn’t an issue at all, and there aren’t any signs indicating “no trespassing”, “do not enter due COVID-19 pandemic”, etc.  The resort seemed to be in its usual “closed” status, which always seemed to be “use at your own risk” vs. “no trespassing”.  Nobody I’ve seen out there seemed to perceive it any differently.

I’ve been to the resort homepage and hadn’t seen anything, and even if you click on the conditions report, there’s no indication of a special closure.  However, digging a little deeper, I see that if I click on the detailed snow report link, they do have this:

“Bolton Valley is closed for the winter season. This includes resort wide operations, services and our designated uphill routes and backcountry terrain - it is all closed at this time due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. We can't wait to see you all around the mountain again soon, but for now, are following the guidance of state and local health officials who do recommend you continue to get outside and exercise, but do so as close to your homes as possible. Thank you for your understanding and support.”

I hadn’t clicked on the detailed report before because there typically aren’t updates to that once the resort is closed.  Now that I see it, that’s sort of tough one for the folks in all the houses right on the trails and in the Village though, where the ski trails are literally their back yard.  What are they supposed to do, only leave the front side of their property and walk on the street? (where they are far more likely to be close to someone vs. the thousands of acres of undeveloped terrain out their back door)

State officials have indeed left exercise as one of the viable reasons for leaving the house, since they realize that it’s important to everyone’s health and wellbeing, and it can easily be done while keeping social distancing protocols intact.  Hiking, ski touring, and similar activities seem like some of the best options out there with respect to keeping distance (how many exercise activities are there where you can go for hours and not see a single other person?)

I can see that it’s a balancing act of course, because you don’t want hundreds of people congregating at a resort and essentially ruining the social distancing that they’re supposed to be practicing.

If I go to Stowe’s site, they indeed have closure information on the homepage, one link to the fact that the resort is closed altogether, which links to a general Vail Resorts page.  Then, down below, they’ve got the note about uphill access being closed:

“Uphill access is currently CLOSED on all portions of Stowe Mountain Resort until further notice. Without ski patrol & terrain maintenance, it is unsafe for skiers & riders, those sledding, and first responders. Thanks for respecting all posted closures. These closures mitigate the risk to our first responders and protect our local resources. Your safety and the safety of our community is our top priority.”

Isn’t uphill access at the resort essentially always closed now out of season?  I thought that was the policy since Vail took over.  Do they have a special statement in regard to the COVID-19 outbreak that indicates things are different that the standard closure?

[powderfreak]

That Stowe policy is the COVID-19 policy.  Uphill was fair game for 3 weeks until the huge crowds caused the Dept of Public Safety in the town of Stowe pressured the resort to close access.  The parking lots are gated and locked now with Stowe Police electronic sign warning you by Stowe Mountain Lodge as you come up 108.  

We lost uphill access the same Saturday that Bolton closed theirs due to high traffic (I think they announced it on social media).  Smuggs followed shortly after that and then MRG and Sugarbush issued a joint closure of all uphill due to parking lot crowding.  

In Stowe, that final March weekend it was sunny and Stowe Police documented several hundred cars there (it was busier than most April days the resort is open, lol) along with tailgate parties.  Apparently it put them in an uncomfortable position as the State was advising law enforcement to disperse any gathering of cars not at essential businesses.  

Recreation apparently is supposed to be from your house or at the most within 10 miles of your home and they were seeing like 30-40% seemed to be from out of state.

This is the normal Stowe policy and there were signs out stating this before it got too much attention from the town... which this is how uphill should be: your decision and you own all risk if you go up.  We enjoyed 3 weeks of it before getting shut down.

[J.Spin]

15 hours ago, powderfreak said:

That Stowe policy is the COVID-19 policy.  Uphill was fair game for 3 weeks until the huge crowds caused the Dept of Public Safety in the town of Stowe pressured the resort to close access.  The parking lots are gated and locked now with Stowe Police electronic sign warning you by Stowe Mountain Lodge as you come up 108.  

We lost uphill access the same Saturday that Bolton closed theirs due to high traffic (I think they announced it on social media).  Smuggs followed shortly after that and then MRG and Sugarbush issued a joint closure of all uphill due to parking lot crowding.  

In Stowe, that final March weekend it was sunny and Stowe Police documented several hundred cars there (it was busier than most April days the resort is open, lol) along with tailgate parties.  Apparently it put them in an uncomfortable position as the State was advising law enforcement to disperse any gathering of cars not at essential businesses.  

Recreation apparently is supposed to be from your house or at the most within 10 miles of your home and they were seeing like 30-40% seemed to be from out of state.

This is the normal Stowe policy and there were signs out stating this before it got too much attention from the town... which this is how uphill should be: your decision and you own all risk if you go up.  We enjoyed 3 weeks of it before getting shut down.

Thanks for the updates PF, I can see where the confusion came from.  It looks like this is a development that has arisen in the past week?  I’m guessing last weekend (April 4^th) was about the time this went into effect?  We’d actually heard about Stowe and Smugg’s closing all access at some point because of too many people congregating and potentially ruining social distancing measures, but I had no idea it was so extreme.  My wife and I were talking about the several hundred cars you mentioned, and if you start thinking about the average number of people per vehicle and doing the math, the numbers get large quite quickly.  Knowing the typical scene in the Stowe parking lot on big spring weekends, I can absolutely understand the concern.

As you can imagine, we haven’t seen anything like that up at Bolton.  I checked back in my reports from roughly the past month, and I did note a couple dozen cars when we were out during Winter Storm Quincy back on the 24^th.  That’s not really atypical (and some of the cars in the upper lot are from people who live in the village), so I didn’t give it much thought.  I don’t really follow social media like Facebook or Twitter, but taking a look now, there’s nothing new on the Bolton Valley Twitter since March 27^th, and I don’t see anything on their Facebook page (not that one can find anything on Facebook anyway since every page I look at there seems to be such an organizational disaster).

It’s interesting, because aside from you bringing this up, I’m not sure where I would have learned about this update to the actual policy.  On the Bolton Valley website, there’s the initial announcement of the suspension of winter operations on March 15^th, and then if you click down all the way into the detailed snow report you get the information: “Bolton Valley is closed for the winter season. This includes resort wide operations, services and our designated uphill routes and backcountry terrain - it is all closed at this time due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.”, which is from March 25^th.  Indeed, they indicate that the resort is closed, but to us it read just like the typical statement letting you know that all the resort facilities are officially closed, so there’s no ski patrol, services, use at your own risk etc.

It’s too bad, because ski touring is obviously a great way to get needed exercise and stay well away from others in the interest of social distancing, but if indeed people congregating is the issue that they’re seeing, then we should honor that goal.  We’re obviously well within any 10-mile limit for recreation (we’re just a few miles as the crow flies or by road).  It’s just a bit weird that it’s OK to say, ride my bike, from my house, up to the resort, on the road, but to then hop on my skis and spread out further onto thousands of acres of their backcountry terrain is discouraged.