NNE Warm Season Thread 2021

[wxeyeNH]

A few trees down around the area.  Power has flickered a few times.  Those settlers that built our house in 1795 were sure smart in siting it.  Rising terrain on our northwest fields and a line of tall oaks keeps the wind down.  Even with my tall anemometer well over roof line my highest gust has been 33mph.

[tamarack]

37 minutes ago, wxeyeNH said:

A few trees down around the area.  Power has flickered a few times.  Those settlers that built our house in 1795 were sure smart in siting it.  Rising terrain on our northwest fields and a line of tall oaks keeps the wind down.  Even with my tall anemometer well over roof line my highest gust has been 33mph.

Heard a tree go down on the lot across the road while I was getting the mail.  I could see what looked like an upper part of a fir on the ground, but it was mostly screened by other (upright) trees, and no way was I venturing in to look with this wind thrashing things.  Power has blinked several times here, messing with both my work and personal computers. 

[powderfreak]

Interesting needle threading event possible Thursday...

The big 3 models... GFS is by far the furthest east with accumulations.  Need a tick eastward from EURO and the GGEM is close.

12z GGEM

12z EURO

12z GFS

[bwt3650]

18 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Interesting needle threading event possible Thursday...

The big 3 models... GFS is by far the furthest east with accumulations.  Need a tick eastward from EURO and the GGEM is close.

12z GGEM

12z EURO

12z GFS

I’m going to guess a fairly dense snow and temps stays seasonal too so could make for a decent ski weekend after the garbage we have had the last week.  Too little, too late tho, for all but sugarbush north through jay I would think.  We might get back in the trees tho up here.

[powderfreak]

Good old New England in late March.... snowy morning with several hours of light to moderate snow down at MVL in the valley and several hours of moderate to heavy snow at the ski area.  Now the sun is out and it's getting warm and torching away the fresh few inches.  The plaza heaters aren't on but as soon as the sun came out in full that 3" just torched away in under two hours and now the pavers are just dry.  No trace that it was a plowable snowfall except for the piles, ha.

[PhineasC]

The 2" of chalky snow that BW received helped make the conditions passable today. Was extremely icy, but areas that had some fresh snow were decent.

Only one lift was running due to wind holds, however, which meant that there were only like three trails available. We had the mountain to ourselves, basically.

[jculligan]

21 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

The 2" of chalky snow that BW received helped make the conditions passable today. Was extremely icy, but areas that had some fresh snow were decent.

Only one lift was running due to wind holds, however, which meant that there were only like three trails available. We had the mountain to ourselves, basically.

I skinned at Bretton Woods today! Very interesting mix of wet snow and fast ice. But I did enjoy the lack of crowds, and skinning allowed me to access the summit. Probably the only person to ski from the summit today haha.

[PhineasC]

21 minutes ago, jculligan said:

I skinned at Bretton Woods today! Very interesting mix of wet snow and fast ice. But I did enjoy the lack of crowds, and skinning allowed me to access the summit. Probably the only person to ski from the summit today haha.

Shit was that you? I saw a dude around 2:30 or so coming down off the summit with the lifts closed and was wondering how the hell he got up there. LOL

[powderfreak]

18z NAM with rain to a prolonged period of sleet then snow... big snow in NNY.

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 1.3” Snow/0.53” L.E.

 

We’ve mostly cleared out now, so it looks like the totals above are the final numbers for this storm at our site.

 

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

New Snow: 0.8 inches

New Liquid: 0.05 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 16.0

Snow Density: 6.3% H2O

Temperature: 38.5 F

Sky: Mostly Clear

Snow at the stake: Trace

[bwt3650]

36 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

18z NAM with rain to a prolonged period of sleet then snow... big snow in NNY.

Sleet with a dense 6-8 on top would fill in the gaps on some trails that weren't completely washed out, no?  Just hoping for one last good weekend before we are relegated to the token 5-10  snow making trails that we limp to the end with.  

[powderfreak]

7 minutes ago, bwt3650 said:

Sleet with a dense 6-8 on top would fill in the gaps on some trails that weren't completely washed out, no?  Just hoping for one last good weekend before we are relegated to the token 5-10  snow making trails that we limp to the end with.  

Yeah I think we could do something with that.  But yeah unless we get a couple biggies, this spring will be the “how long do snowmaking runs last?” type of spring.  Last year would’ve been skiing glades into early May.

[J.Spin]

1 hour ago, bwt3650 said:

Sleet with a dense 6-8 on top would fill in the gaps on some trails that weren't completely washed out, no?  Just hoping for one last good weekend before we are relegated to the token 5-10  snow making trails that we limp to the end with.  

 

1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

Yeah I think we could do something with that.  But yeah unless we get a couple biggies, this spring will be the “how long do snowmaking runs last?” type of spring.  Last year would’ve been skiing glades into early May.

Regarding bwt’s inquiry, I guess it all depends on anticipated frozen L.E. with this system.  That’s really what will dictate the additional terrain/turn options that will be available.   Something in the 0.50” frozen L.E. range would get low angle terrain into the mix, even if it had fully melted out, as long as the new stuff is dense (which I don’t think should be a problem).  I’d say you’d want at least 1.00 frozen L.E. to get mid-angle terrain going, and then up near 2.00” frozen L.E. to get the steep stuff going.  For terrain with existing snowpack, you can obviously get by on less than those numbers.

On the 12Z GFS I’m seeing total liquid through Saturday of ~1.25” – 2.00” in the Northern Greens from south to north, with the 2.00” L.E. up by Jay Peak.  The CMC looks similar, and the ICON is in that range as well, but with the highest L.E. in the Central Greens.  The ECMWF seems little lower in the 1.0 – 1.5” total L.E. range, and the UKMET seems to like the western slopes with ~2.0” L.E.

I guess it will come down to how much of that L.E. is frozen, but even if you get 75% of those numbers in solid form, with that typical heftiness of the base from the rain to snow transition, you’d have a lot in play up by Jay Peak.  Even 50% of those numbers as frozen would make for fine turns.  There’s also a follow up system with some potential additional precipitation on Saturday night into Sunday on some of the models.

[Hitman]

43 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

 

Regarding bwt’s inquiry, I guess it all depends on anticipated frozen L.E. with this system.  That’s really what will dictate the additional terrain/turn options that will be available.   Something in the 0.50” frozen L.E. range would get low angle terrain into the mix, even if it had fully melted out, as long as the new stuff is dense (which I don’t think should be a problem).  I’d say you’d want at least 1.00 frozen L.E. to get mid-angle terrain going, and then up near 2.00” frozen L.E. to get the steep stuff going.  For terrain with existing snowpack, you can obviously get by on less than those numbers.

On the 12Z GFS I’m seeing total liquid through Saturday of ~1.25” – 2.00” in the Northern Greens from south to north, with the 2.00” L.E. up by Jay Peak.  The CMC looks similar, and the ICON is in that range as well, but with the highest L.E. in the Central Greens.  The ECMWF seems little lower in the 1.0 – 1.5” total L.E. range, and the UKMET seems to like the western slopes with ~2.0” L.E.

I guess it will come down to how much of that L.E. is frozen, but even if you get 75% of those numbers in solid form, with that typical heftiness of the base from the rain to snow transition, you’d have a lot in play up by Jay Peak.  Even 50% of those numbers as frozen would make for fine turns.  There’s also a follow up system with some potential additional precipitation on Saturday night into Sunday on some of the models.

Game on.  

[J.Spin]

15 minutes ago, Hitman said:

Game on.  

Yeah, we’re still ~48 hours out from the onset of precipitation, so we’ll have to see how everything shifts around, but it’s hard to think the storm is just going to go “poof” into nothing with all those various models suggesting something is afoot.  It’s the mountains of NNE, so it’s hard to imagine those elevations can’t pull at least some snow out of this system.  Along with PF’s input, we’ll start to get a sense for whatever potential there might be as the BTV NWS experts begin to digest it and weigh in – the ‘dacks and Northern Greens are literally right in their wheelhouse.

[powderfreak]

8 hours ago, PhineasC said:

 PF was shocked to learn that Wildcat only recorded 96" of snow this season, a rather pathetic total.

I mean, I don't know how they measure their snow but even still.... I had the same number of inches on my board/table at 750ft in a valley bottom as they have at 2,000+ feet.  Normally ski area snowfall is an upper elevation reading/number as well that reflects the skiing experience.  Wildcat and Pinkham Notch can get some monster storms.  Not so far this winter it seems.

[PhineasC]

7 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

I mean, I don't know how they measure their snow but even still.... I had the same number of inches on my board/table at 750ft in a valley bottom as they have at 2,000+ feet.  Normally ski area snowfall is an upper elevation reading/number as well that reflects the skiing experience.  Wildcat and Pinkham Notch can get some monster storms.  Not so far this winter it seems.

I go down there all the time. I can verify they didn't have any monster storms. Randolph beat them handily. Wildcat had rain at the summit in the mid-Jan storm I believe, which is just nuts to me. The early December storm was destroyed by Grinch, so that didn't help much with building a base. They did about as well as I did in the early Feb storm. Those three are literally it for notable synoptic events this winter. They seem to do OK with upslope sometimes at least which helped them get to 96".

[STILL N OF PIKE]

1 hour ago, PhineasC said:

I go down there all the time. I can verify they didn't have any monster storms. Randolph beat them handily. Wildcat had rain at the summit in the mid-Jan storm I believe, which is just nuts to me. The early December storm was destroyed by Grinch, so that didn't help much with building a base. They did about as well as I did in the early Feb storm. Those three are literally it for notable synoptic events this winter. They seem to do OK with upslope sometimes at least which helped them get to 96".

96" is pitiful for Wildcat.  What a total lack of synoptic events there. 

[jculligan]

Just now, STILL N OF PIKE said:

96" is pitiful for Wildcat.  What a total lack of synoptic events there.

This was a rough year in the Eastern Whites. Here at 1500' in Jackson, I Iogged exactly five events of 6" or greater...the most recent of which occurred back on February 2nd. My total snowfall for the month of March will end up at 1.3 inches. My seasonal total of 61" is probably close to 50% of what should be expected for this location. Maybe not quite at 2016 levels...but close. Looking forward to next year.

[tamarack]

19 hours ago, tamarack said:

Heard a tree go down on the lot across the road while I was getting the mail.  I could see what looked like an upper part of a fir on the ground, but it was mostly screened by other (upright) trees, and no way was I venturing in to look with this wind thrashing things.  Power has blinked several times here, messing with both my work and personal computers. 

Just read (dailybulldog.com) that a woman driving a secondary road in Farmington yesterday was killed when a large limb/fork from a white pine landed on the roof of her car.  Pics show that what came down was about 12-14" diameter and 40-50 feet long.  A similar limb/fork broke out of one of our 100-foot-tall pines but was well off the road.  Also saw a large fir (bigger than the lightning-struck one) uprooted and several others tipped or broken, and that's just what I can see from the road.  Likely there was more damage farther in.

[#NoPoles]

Casualty in Townsend, MA. A tree landed on a 1yr old who was being carried by his father. Father survived but the baby didn't. Very sad. We had some strong gusts in BW. The Rt 3 corridor from Franconia Notch to BW was hit hard. Owner of the building I work in drives a big and heavy SUV and was blown into the opposite lane while driving, and they counted over 10 trees down on RT3 on the way to BW. I think if there had been leaves, there would have been widespread power outtages

[J.Spin]

17 hours ago, bwt3650 said:

Sleet with a dense 6-8 on top would fill in the gaps on some trails that weren't completely washed out, no?

 

14 hours ago, J.Spin said:

Along with PF’s input, we’ll start to get a sense for whatever potential there might be as the BTV NWS experts begin to digest it and weigh in – the ‘dacks and Northern Greens are literally right in their wheelhouse.

I heard on VPR this morning that there was a Winter Storm Watch up in the Adirondacks, so it was clear that there was something going on with respect to this upcoming storm.  I’ve added the current BTV NWS maps below – it looks like over here in the Northern Greens they’ve got things topping out in the 6-8” range at the summits, which is right in line with what you had mentioned above.

[GCWarrior]

GFS liking dacks over into NVT still.  Getting close to go time. 

[PhineasC]

Hoping the low verifies a little east of progged right now. I am not far off from getting into the good snows. 

[alex]

Is it just me or has NWS P&C been down for a while? 

[Hitman]

1 hour ago, alex said:

Is it just me or has NWS P&C been down for a while? 

not you.

[SJonesWX]

1 hour ago, alex said:

Is it just me or has NWS P&C been down for a while? 

they posted on their FB page that they are having technical difficulties, seems to be multiple WFOs

[PhineasC]

For better or worse, a lot of masks off at BW this week. They aren’t saying a word about it. 

[J.Spin]

3 hours ago, GCWarrior said:

GFS liking dacks over into NVT still.  Getting close to go time. 

I just stopped in at the BTV NWS site and saw that the Winter Storm Watches have been extended into NVT, and projected accumulations have been bumped, presumably based on what they’ve seen from the midday guidance.  Elevations along the spine of the Northern Greens have been bumped up from the 6-8” tier into the 8-12" tier.  Updated maps are below:

[PhineasC]

Good luck to NVT. Looks like mostly rain and a possible death knell for ski places in NH. I’m headed back south this week. Just mud around here now.