NNE Cold Season Thread 2020-2021

[alex]

Just got back from Harts Location. Got caught in some sort of snownado in Crawford Notch. Scary drive! But another nice snowy night here too

[PhineasC]

Snowing at 5 degrees with the wind whipping is definitely a new experience for me. 

[LaGrangewx]

1 hour ago, alex said:

Just got back from Harts Location. Got caught in some sort of snownado in Crawford Notch. Scary drive! But another nice snowy night here too

Can there be some significant differences in weather/snow up the road at Crawford Notch from Bretton Woods or is it generally fairly similar? I drove through there this summer after hiking Washington and checked out the hotel and then went for a swim at Ammonoosuc Falls. Was a beautiful swimming hole and area. 

[J.Spin]

4 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Snowed all day at the mountain but to the tune of about only about 1.5”.  Mood snows and just enough to need to brush the car off.

We had snow here at the house most of the morning, and it was generally light, but at times it would pick up with a burst of intensity with larger flakes.  Toward the afternoon, the snowfall became a bit more persistent, and we were having longer periods with the large flakes, so it started getting to the point where I was wondering how much the mountains were getting.  As it was snowing more heavily here, I checked out the Bolton Valley Base Area Webcam and saw what looked like really heavy snowfall, so I decided to hit the mountain for a couple of runs.  The radar showed that another push of moisture was right on the doorstep as well:

The radar didn’t look that outrageous, but I got up to Timberline and the snowfall was very heavy, probably 1-2”/hr with visibility of a few hundred feet.   It was hard to tell home much had fallen recently, but I was finding 4-6” in many areas on the trails since the previous grooming.  In any event, it was definitely a mini powder day up there, with that 4-6” easy to find essentially anywhere that hadn’t been skied recently.

Very steep or windblown areas on piste definitely need another synoptic storm or two before they’re in prime shape, but the snow has continued to build up this week in the off piste areas.  In areas that haven’t been skied in the past week or two, you’re essentially looking at 30” of unconsolidated snow down to elevations as low as 2,500’ now.  There is some dense snow in there form the front end of Winter Storm Malcolm, but since we haven’t had any major thaws, there’s no layer in the snowpack that is fully solidified.  My depth checks just went right down through the 30” to what I suspect is the ground, or perhaps a base of a few inches of old snow depending on the location.  You really need at least moderate pitch to ski these areas because you’re sinking too deep for shallow slopes.  I was on midfats today, so fat skis would help, but pitch is still going to be necessary.

I’ve added a couple shots of the snowfall from when I arrived at Timberline today:

[dendrite]

First brutal stupid airmass of the season. 2.9/-7 so it could be worse. -22 on the pile.

[dendrite]

7 hours ago, PhineasC said:

Snowing at 5 degrees with the wind whipping is definitely a new experience for me. 

I assume you’re snowing below 0 now.

[powderfreak]

-15F top of the FourRunner Quad on our snowmaking sensor.

MMNV1 registering a wind chill of -50F right now.

The wind is absolutely honking.  Bet we are seeing 30-35mph at times in the base area.  Fresh drifts everywhere.

[powderfreak]

Just now, dendrite said:

I assume you’re snowing below 0 now.

Snowing here at -6F at 1500ft.

Estimating 1-2” overnight in the lot but wind makes it impossible to know for sure.

[powderfreak]

Easily coldest of the season this morning.  Not a high bar to clear but ECMWF coming in with -26C at 850mb for this morning.

These are some pretty rugged environmental conditions outside at the mountain.  Put some hair on your chest.

[alex]

7 hours ago, LaGrangewx said:

Can there be some significant differences in weather/snow up the road at Crawford Notch from Bretton Woods or is it generally fairly similar? I drove through there this summer after hiking Washington and checked out the hotel and then went for a swim at Ammonoosuc Falls. Was a beautiful swimming hole and area. 

There are definitely differences, usually not significant. The entrance to Crawford Notch - the 1-2 miles of road around the Highland Center is the most prone to upslope, and it’s often more intense there than Bretton Woods proper. Coolest weather phenomenon there though happens occasionally in the summer when moist cool winds funnel up the notch and create clouds that look like are getting “puked” out of the notch. Can be really scenic. 

[alex]

8 hours ago, PhineasC said:

Snowing at 5 degrees with the wind whipping is definitely a new experience for me. 

Enjoy your first subzero snow this morning! I personally don’t care for these temps. Keep in mind, in a normal year subzero morning are pretty much the norm... but we’ve gone through that

[MarkO]

Flurries, -1F

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 3.7” Snow/0.14” L.E.

 

The snow density was notably increased with this latest round of snow, consistent with the smaller flakes that we often see with this type of cold air.

 

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

New Snow: 0.6 inches

New Liquid: 0.05 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 12.0

Snow Density: 8.3% H2O

Temperature: 0.5 F

Sky: Light Snow (1-2 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 14.0 inches

[backedgeapproaching]

-2.5F windy with SNSH.  Heavy, heavy NNE JAN day out there.

[borderwx]

-4 for the AM ski, 1/2” of baby powder snow,

x 2, a classic January day

[#NoPoles]

Cutter showing up in the long range. Im interested to see how it evolves.

[wxeyeNH]

-1.4F  was the low.  Dusting of snow overnight.  Snow cover is only 3 or 4" since I was shafted in the last event.

[bwt3650]

-8...my kids have high expectations for after school today...they know how to dress for this and have solid gear, but I guess they don’t last 3 runs.

[PhineasC]

1 minute ago, bwt3650 said:

-8...my kids have high expectations for after school today...they know how to dress for this and have solid gear, but I guess they don’t last 3 runs.

My kids are stoked to try to ski in this weather. We will see how it goes. 

[bwt3650]

4 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

My kids are stoked to try to ski in this weather. We will see how it goes. 

Yeah, mine are the same...I just don’t think they realize what it’s going to feel like.  As long as they don’t let anything get exposed, they might gut it out for a bit, but I was out last weekend and Sunday was rough.  Being able to ski back to the condo, I’ll let them have at it, but don’t know if I would drive any substantial distance for them to say they’ve had enough after one run.  I’d probably tell them we are not leaving and wait until they look like Audrey from Christmas vacation picking out the Christmas.  

[backedgeapproaching]

55 minutes ago, #NoPoles said:

Cutter showing up in the long range. Im interested to see how it evolves.

Cutter on 00Z Euro definitely got worse than 12Z.  I'm sure Gene and Brian will rot at 33F, but looks pretty warm overall.   GFS and CMC not as bad, plenty of time to slide that thing under us--hopefully. Or at least have CAD hold on longer.

[bwt3650]

9 minutes ago, backedgeapproaching said:

Cutter on 00Z Euro definitely got worse than 12Z.  I'm sure Gene and Brian will rot at 33F, but looks pretty warm overall.   GFS and CMC not as bad, plenty of time to slide that thing under us--hopefully. Or at least have CAD hold on longer.

Gfs looked like elevations would be ok with snow to rain to some backside upslope...didn’t see euro, but heard it was ugly.  Hoping backside snows save us.

[PhineasC]

18 minutes ago, backedgeapproaching said:

Cutter on 00Z Euro definitely got worse than 12Z.  I'm sure Gene and Brian will rot at 33F, but looks pretty warm overall.   GFS and CMC not as bad, plenty of time to slide that thing under us--hopefully. Or at least have CAD hold on longer.

Euro is the worst depiction by far. Still 200+ hours to trend this, and it is starting out looking far better than the Grinch did. 00z v16 is a snowstorm. 

[klw]

31 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

My kids are stoked to try to ski in this weather. We will see how it goes. 

If you have never done the experiment of throwing boiling water up into the air into the subzero air, it is worth the effort. (Just don't throw it so it falls on you or anyone else.)

[PhineasC]

20 minutes ago, bwt3650 said:

Yeah, mine are the same...I just don’t think they realize what it’s going to feel like.  As long as they don’t let anything get exposed, they might gut it out for a bit, but I was out last weekend and Sunday was rough.  Being able to ski back to the condo, I’ll let them have at it, but don’t know if I would drive any substantial distance for them to say they’ve had enough after one run.  I’d probably tell them we are not leaving and wait until they look like Audrey from Christmas vacation picking out the Christmas.  

Two of my kids are big time complainers, and I could see them lasting one run, maybe two. My other two seem to relish this kind of extreme challenge and would want to stay out all day just to prove they did it. They all have their own little quirks. LOL

[backedgeapproaching]

12 minutes ago, bwt3650 said:

Gfs looked like elevations would be ok with snow to rain to some backside upslope...didn’t see euro, but heard it was ugly.  Hoping backside snows save us.

Being where you and Phin are are just going to better in any cutter-you can hold off the warmth alot longer than say down here where I am.  And right, even with cutters there will usually be some backside upslope to restart things.

Like we stated before, that grinch isn't happening again--that was a freak show 50F/49F  with winds and rains for like 24 hours.  I mentioned this a month or two ago, but we had a strong cutter that dumped 3-4" of rain IMBY and the snowpack just soaked it up.  Temps were probably mid-upper 30s.

[jculligan]

Low of 0F here for the coldest morning of the winter to date. Did a sunrise skin up to North Doublehead and measured a temp of -4F on the summit. But we're definitely getting some blocking from the Presidentials, because there isn't much of a breeze out there. And that's perfectly fine by me ha. My ideal winter would be 20s and snow every day; I really don't have much use for the arctic stuff.

[wxeyeNH]

I don't want to look past the Monday/Tuesday event.   Even if we get a cutter it will probably be just a reset of some sorts.  CAD is so good at my place that I usually just stay in the 30's.  This year I just have so little snowcover that it won't take much to melt although most is glaciated and water logged. 

This morning   I was sitting in my sunroom looking out on the pastures and 2 deer ran by and a coyote in hot pursuit.  The Nest Cam caught the chase.  Don't know how it ended.  Deer can run pretty quick through a few inches of snow.  Here is the video.  The deer and coyote come in from the left.  By the way my steep south slope is chewed up because we had 32 turkeys yesterday digging for grass.  This is the place that always has the least snow.

https://video.nest.com/clip/079c432e07fb428d891593d6f0e25432.mp4

[powderfreak]

53 minutes ago, klw said:

If you have never done the experiment of throwing boiling water up into the air into the subzero air, it is worth the effort. (Just don't throw it so it falls on you or anyone else.)

Yeah highly recommend that for you guys from the mid-Atlantic.  The boiling water to vapor experiment... fun stuff for kids.

[powderfreak]

2 minutes ago, wxeyeNH said:

I don't want to look past the Monday/Tuesday event.   Even if we get a cutter it will probably be just a reset of some sorts.  CAD is so good at my place that I usually just stay in the 30's.  This year I just have so little snowcover that it won't take much to melt although most is glaciated and water logged. 

This morning   I was sitting in my sunroom looking out on the pastures and 2 deer ran by and a coyote in hot pursuit.  The Nest Cam caught the chase.  Don't know how it ended.  Deer can run pretty quick through a few inches of snow.  Here is the video.  The deer and coyote come in from the left.  By the way my steep south slope is chewed up because we had 32 turkeys yesterday digging for grass.  This is the place that always has the least snow.

https://video.nest.com/clip/079c432e07fb428d891593d6f0e25432.mp4

That’s awesome Gene.  Nice catch!