J.Spin Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 2 hours ago, borderwx said: Heaviest dusting of the week! 1” overnight Cleaned 2” off the rink which is the weeks accumulation It sounds like you guys definitely got into the moisture up there. This snow certainly wasn’t expected around my area today, and we’ve got a much steadier light snow out there now. This type of snow is often something that doesn’t show up on the radar because it’s low level and not caught by the beam, but there is a visible pulse coming in from the NNW: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 And this is what's happening above the snow this morning. Just chillin' at the picnic tables in the sunshine. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoastalWx Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 5 minutes ago, powderfreak said: And this is what's happening above the snow this morning. Just chillin' at the picnic tables in the sunshine. That's dam cool. Wow at the flakes in that tiny layer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 17 minutes ago, CoastalWx said: That's dam cool. Wow at the flakes in that tiny layer. It's real shallow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.Spin Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 49 minutes ago, alex said: It's funny that this period of no weather whatsoever is turning out cloudy with daily flurries. We've managed to see no sun in a week lol I’d been feeling like we’ve had quite a run of days with snow, but your comment made me check on my CoCoRaHS data. Indeed, the last day in which we didn’t have at least a trace of new snow at our site was all way back on Christmas, so that’s 14 days in a row. And today’s snow will actually add a 15th day to this run. Some of the least snowy periods around here are when we get under that cold, dry, arctic air with clear skies. The air is just so cold that it can’t hold much moisture at that point. You can still get accumulations from that arctic diamond dust during those periods, but that doesn’t produce the type of flakes we’re seeing today. This weekend it looks like it might actually clear out to a degree that would end the streak of snowy days, but the models suggest we’ll be back into some potential systems next week. Some models have snow signaled as early as Monday night/Tuesday, but most have something by midweek, and the chances just seem to increase as the week progresses. PF actually did a great job making the point about the models not catching all the potential snow in a post that he made back on (coincidentally) Christmas Day. The projected snow map showed a maximum of 1-6” of snow along the spine through the 16-day period ending on January 10th. Reinforcing the point, the top end of that snowfall projection was esentially surpassed the very next day. Now we’re almost at the end of that period, and we’ve had six distinct storms/events, three times the maximum projected snowfall down here in the valley, and I’m sure even more at elevation. The models just can’t catch all the multitude of systems that are going to affect these types of mountain climates, especially at those long lead times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bwt3650 Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 48 minutes ago, powderfreak said: And this is what's happening above the snow this morning. Just chillin' at the picnic tables in the sunshine. How are the trails holding up at the top there? The little bits we’ve gotten and cold temps have helped here, but we could use a refresh. Having some natural snow mixed in has at least prevented it from turning into that worn, ground up ice. I bet southern vt. snow is a bit more beat right now. Want to try and get over to your spot next week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mreaves Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 It's right on the edge of being wintry. If we had 12"-18" on the ground rather than 6"-8", this would be a much more usable stretch of weather and I'd be happy about not chugging through heating oil. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhineasC Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 12 minutes ago, mreaves said: It's right on the edge of being wintry. If we had 12"-18" on the ground rather than 6"-8", this would be a much more usable stretch of weather and I'd be happy about not chugging through heating oil. Yep, totally agree. Basically if the grinch storm had never happened I’d have 15-20 OTG right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bwt3650 Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 6-12 more on the ground would make such a difference at the ski resorts up here. That little bit is the difference between glades and no glades right now. It does appear that lots of upslope opportunities will be showing up once through mid next week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.Spin Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 Event totals: 0.3” Snow/Trace L.E. Details from the 12:00 P.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 0.2 inches New Liquid: Trace Temperature: 23.5 F Sky: Light Snow (2-6 mm flakes) Snow at the stake: 7.0 inches Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
backedgeapproaching Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 Since its kind of a snoozer weather wise thought I would just sneak this in. Local paper did a write up on March 1888 this week---think in response to the Mid DEC storm. First time I have seen any pictures or anything written about 1888 in this area (other than then the Kocin snow total map) They put a bunch of pics in the paper too. Dissimilar to the DEC storm where 36" was stacked up perfectly on roof tops, most roofs are bare in the pics---super wind blown powder I would guess. Interesting to think about back then they really had minimal knowledge/warning about impending storms--weenies weren't staying up for 00Z Euro and late night NAM runs.. Equinox Hotel if anybody is familiar with the area: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoastalWx Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 9 hours ago, backedgeapproaching said: Since its kind of a snoozer weather wise thought I would just sneak this in. Local paper did a write up on March 1888 this week---think in response to the Mid DEC storm. First time I have seen any pictures or anything written about 1888 in this area (other than then the Kocin snow total map) They put a bunch of pics in the paper too. Dissimilar to the DEC storm where 36" was stacked up perfectly on roof tops, most roofs are bare in the pics---super wind blown powder I would guess. Interesting to think about back then they really had minimal knowledge/warning about impending storms--weenies weren't staying up for 00Z Euro and late night NAM runs.. Equinox Hotel if anybody is familiar with the area: You had a lot of NW flow in that storm with basically an inv trough feature into SNE. No downsloping there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
backedgeapproaching Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 4 minutes ago, CoastalWx said: You had a low of NW flow in that storm with basically an inv trough feature into SNE. No downsloping there. Yea, makes sense--Bennington isn't getting 48" on a strong SE flow. Surface maps are pretty wild from that storm with the north/south frontal zone dissecting through New England Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klw Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 On 1/7/2021 at 12:37 PM, powderfreak said: Rare Kelvin-helmholtz clouds, series of waves traversing the ridge line. Checking all the boxes these past few days with awesome clouds. For some reason the curls remind me of the Grinch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wxeyeNH Posted January 8, 2021 Author Share Posted January 8, 2021 3 hours ago, powderfreak said: Been sunny all week up high lol. MWN with 100+ mile visibility. Skiing this morning was wild, sunny up top and beautiful, freezing fog in the mid-slope and then snowing in the base area. So what exactly is it like skiing from clear skies to the base with legit flakage? If you ski and stop every 1000 feet or so does the small fog crystals just get larger and larger as you go down? Must be really interesting to be able to do this. Greens must get so much more undercast days than the Whites with more low level moisture available. Beautiful day here. Cirrus easily visible 100 miles to my south Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alex Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 Finally clearing out 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 2 hours ago, bwt3650 said: How are the trails holding up at the top there? The little bits we’ve gotten and cold temps have helped here, but we could use a refresh. Having some natural snow mixed in has at least prevented it from turning into that worn, ground up ice. I bet southern vt. snow is a bit more beat right now. Want to try and get over to your spot next week. They are good in the morning and skied off in the afternoon. Pretty classic evolution right now. There's still snow though for the groomers to put down each night, this morning had some great runs... legit packed powder IMO. Afternoon scratchy. Need more snow for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 2 minutes ago, alex said: Finally clearing out That's awesome, the rime has been ridiculous under the cloud layer here too... seems like up to a couple inches of pure rime on the trees. That view of MWN is sick though... you can see the narrow moisture zone and you can also see the lack of rime up top on MWN. A mid-slope rime where trees look darker/non-white higher up. How high is Bretton Woods at the top? Wasn't poking out? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bch2014 Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 3 minutes ago, alex said: Finally clearing out Where at Bretton Woods is this photo taken from? MWN seems "far" from BW compared to reality... Maybe it's just the angle though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alex Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 14 minutes ago, powderfreak said: That's awesome, the rime has been ridiculous under the cloud layer here too... seems like up to a couple inches of pure rime on the trees. That view of MWN is sick though... you can see the narrow moisture zone and you can also see the lack of rime up top on MWN. A mid-slope rime where trees look darker/non-white higher up. How high is Bretton Woods at the top? Wasn't poking out? No it looks like it's always been in the clouds. There's a good 3-4" of rime Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alex Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 14 minutes ago, bch2014 said: Where at Bretton Woods is this photo taken from? MWN seems "far" from BW compared to reality... Maybe it's just the angle though. It's from the top of the gondola! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 56 minutes ago, wxeyeNH said: So what exactly is it like skiing from clear skies to the base with legit flakage? If you ski and stop every 1000 feet or so does the small fog crystals just get larger and larger as you go down? Must be really interesting to be able to do this. Greens must get so much more undercast days than the Whites with more low level moisture available. Beautiful day here. Cirrus easily visible 100 miles to my south Gene, the crystals are actually pretty decently sized even above the cloud and at the top of the cloud. It literally is like a science project floating through a snow producing cloud, ha. There’s ice crystals of varying sizes on the top and above the cloud... the sparkling stuff with very little moisture. I’d imagine then once in the cloud the crystals are gaining weight and moisture because once on the lower end of the cloud the crystals are actually falling...vs just being suspended and floating around on the top of the cloud. Here’s a friend’s shot entering the cloud today. You can see the sparkling ice crystals suspended. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.Spin Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 2 hours ago, bwt3650 said: 6-12 more on the ground would make such a difference at the ski resorts up here. That little bit is the difference between glades and no glades right now. It does appear that lots of upslope opportunities will be showing up once through mid next week. I was just talking about that very topic with a colleague at work yesterday, and suspect those are the sentiments of a lot of folks around here. I actually expressed similar thoughts in my Bolton Valley report from Sunday: “…folks aren’t yet using all the acreage of tree skiing; the trees were generally untouched because people know that it’s still just a bit too thin in there for the skiing to be practical. I saw an occasional track of people who had headed into the trees, but you could tell they weren’t quite ready. If we get one more good snowstorm with an inch of liquid, then the low-angle trees will be in play.” “We still need a solid synoptic storm with an inch of liquid equivalent (or something similar from a series of smaller systems) to really get the base depths to more respectable levels, but Winter Storm John was a godsend to at least get a bit of base down and have some snow to see us through the next week.” Based on years of observations around here in the Northern Greens, I typically use the point of reaching 24” at the Mt. Mansfield Stake as a rough marker of when initial tree skiing starts in the local mountains. This would be for those lower-angle, well-manicured glades such as the Sunrise Glades and Birch Glades in the Mountain Chapel area at Stowe, or Wilderness Woods at Bolton Valley, etc. Obviously the depth at which tree skiing becomes practical can vary based on the density of the snow making up that 24” depth at the stake, and the snowpack depth will typically be a bit lower down at elevations of 2,000’ or 3,000’, but the 24” number seems to work pretty well, and it certainly works for a comparative benchmark. With the stake snowpack currently at 15”, we really are just about one large storm, or a few smaller ones, away from hitting that point. People may not remember it, but it’s interesting to note that last year was actually a relatively late start to getting the trees going based on the 24” assessment. Although we had a very early start to the continuous winter snowpack around here in the mountain valleys (November 8th), it wasn’t until January 2nd, that the Mt. Mansfield Stake finally hit that 24” mark. I’d certainly forgotten it was that late, and that’s actually more than 1 S.D. (actually 1.06 σ) behind the mean date of Dec 13th. Here’s the updated plot of the date for reaching the 24” depth using all the Mt. Mansfield stake date since 1954. You can see last season’s date of reaching 24” indicated by the red star, sitting just to the right of the 1 S.D. line in the plot. As PF has noted for this season, we are getting out into relatively rarefied territory with respect to the Mt. Mansfield snowpack depth at this point. If you look to the far right of the plot above, you’ll see that there are just a handful of seasons where the 24” depth has been achieved this late. Next week certainly has some potential for snow, but as of today, we’re already sitting at 1.37 σ) behind that mean date of Dec 13th, so we’re into the bottom 10% of seasons. It’s funny that both in terms of snowfall and snowpack depth, we’re really close to average here in the mountain valleys, but this has been one of those seasons thus far where the mountains are seeing much larger deviations, certainly when it comes to snowpack depth. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhineasC Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 Even these above normal temps here are plenty cold enough for snow. Just need precip... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MBRI Posted January 9, 2021 Share Posted January 9, 2021 Jackman is getting some http://72.65.119.134/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
backedgeapproaching Posted January 9, 2021 Share Posted January 9, 2021 Pretty pathetic parking lot piles for Jackman on 1/8. Damn subtropical cutter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
backedgeapproaching Posted January 9, 2021 Share Posted January 9, 2021 Found some snow in Austria---from a few days ago. And Spain second pic.. Spain- 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qg_omega Posted January 9, 2021 Share Posted January 9, 2021 SSW and Neg NAO delivering for Europe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted January 9, 2021 Share Posted January 9, 2021 2 hours ago, PhineasC said: Even these above normal temps here are plenty cold enough for snow. Just need precip... That's been our mantra all along... you are getting a first hand look at why precipitation is always the worry over temps. Even despite the absolute blowtorch we've been in this winter. It's crazy to me that the normal low is 6F right now... at least half of the days should be getting to that level or below. This year it seems like days like today are an arctic air mass when it gets into the teens, lol. A balmy +10.1 so far for January at MVL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qg_omega Posted January 9, 2021 Share Posted January 9, 2021 First cold night here in weeks, decently cold day today was the high of 28, 16 now Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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