NNE Warm Season Thread 2021

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 2.1” Snow/0.58” L.E.

 

We picked up a final tenth of an inch of accumulation today, and I assume the above totals are the final numbers for this storm at our site since it seems like we’re clearing out.

 

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

New Snow: 0.1 inches

New Liquid: Trace

Temperature: 27.0 F

Sky: Mostly Clear

Snow at the stake: Trace

[J.Spin]

15 hours ago, powderfreak said:

It's wildly variable over here.  Spruce Peak actually did really well with snowfall, but I think it was because it seemed a lot less windy.  Mansfield was a wind-hammered half foot or so with zero loft to the flakes.  Top of Sunny Spruce had stacked fluff heading into Side Street and I saw pics from tracks up on Sensation (closed now) that looked like trenches.

It’s interesting to hear that about Mansfield – when I was out today at Bolton I saw that the front face trails on Vista had been absolutely hammered by the wind, which is not surprising with the way they face west, but apparently even areas of the east side got hit pretty hard as well.  Timberline is usually a nice place to go to get away from the wind, but it’s not open right now because coverage just isn’t great down that low, but lower Wilderness is another good option for sheltered terrain, and that was serving up some great powder.

I headed up not too long after opening today, and it was really dumping when I arrived thanks to that push of moisture that hit in the morning.  The old base is just so consolidated and hard after a couple weeks of spring weather and no new snow, that I didn’t really find any of the steep groomed terrain that had really improved.  Either the wind had blown everything away, or it was exposed enough to the wind that the groomers couldn’t do much with it.  Low and moderate angle groomers on the bottom half of the mountain seemed to have incorporated the snow nicely though – turns were nice and quiet, so the new snow must have stayed put and been churned in by the groomers.

Low and moderate angle powder terrain was the way to go though.  I’d thrown both fats and midfats on the car today, and ended up using the midfats and found they had plenty of float.  There’s was definitely enough L.E. in the snow to set up everything below black diamond pitch.

A few shots from today’s outing in the Village and on the mountain:

[Zeppy]

[J.Spin]

March Totals

Days with new snow:  15

Accumulating Storms:  7

Snowfall:  14.1”

Liquid Equivalent: 1.98”

SDD:  275.5

 

I’ve put together my numbers for March, and it was certainly on the lean side with snowfall running about half of our average.  It’s interesting to note that we still had more snow than last March, and three other Marches in my data set as well, so it’s certainly at least a tier above the basement in terms of snowfall.

Liquid equivalent was also about half our average as well, and it’s not too surprising that snowfall and L.E. would run somewhat in sync. 

The other parameters are reasonably below average too, due to the greater than average amount of benign weather days.  Number of storms and days with snow are probably not as far off the mark, but I’d have to run the averages on those parameters to know.

[tamarack]

9 hours ago, Zeppy said:

Potential ice jams.

[Fozz]

I had a great time at Stowe yesterday.

https://imgur.com/32gQLIk

[powderfreak]

1 hour ago, Fozz said:

I had a great time at Stowe yesterday.

https://imgur.com/32gQLIk

Nice.  Was a beautiful morning today.

[Ginx snewx]

1 hour ago, Fozz said:

I had a great time at Stowe yesterday.

https://imgur.com/32gQLIk

Sweet

[powderfreak]

Beautiful Saturday up north... still a bit chilly though surprisingly despite the sun.  The super dry air mass is keeping the snow cold mid-winter... a bit too icy now that the recent snow has been skied and blown around.

Need about 10-15F warmer for a true top 10 day.

[bwt3650]

12 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Beautiful Saturday up north... still a bit chilly though surprisingly despite the sun.  The super dry air mass is keeping the snow cold mid-winter... a bit too icy now that the recent snow has been skied and blown around.

Need about 10-15F warmer for a true top 10 day.

The areas in between bumps is a "super fun challenge" today.  Dry and 40s-50s all week should set up for some nice afternoons.  We were about 2-3 weeks ahead of schedule last week.  This week should be right about where it should be, conditions wise, for this time of year.  

[powderfreak]

2 minutes ago, bwt3650 said:

The areas in between bumps is a "super fun challenge" today.  Dry and 40s-50s all week should set up for some nice afternoons.  We were about 2-3 weeks ahead of schedule last week.  This week should be right about where it should be, conditions wise, for this time of year.  

Ha right... “offers a fun challenge”... that ice later from the rain prior to the snow is pretty damn slick block ice .

[alex]

Amazing what a few inches of snow can do. Today was just about perfect. The snow was soft but dry, not a patch of ice to be found, and decent coverage with great scenery and perfect temperature. 

[J.Spin]

7 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Was a beautiful morning today.

After finding such nice conditions yesterday, my wife and I headed up for another session at Bolton this morning.  Based on the forecasts I saw, those temperatures and humidity should have preserved everything – and they definitely did.  The powder was just as good as yesterday – it seemed to have settled a touch, but the L.E. was all still there, so it skied just as nicely.

The groomed terrain on the upper mountain that had been blasted by the wind yesterday was much improved today, I guess due to another round of the groomers pulverizing it with the new snow mixed in, and this time without the winds scouring it away.

We were talking about how the resort’s essentially come full circle on the season as it often does, and we’re back to the way it can be in November and early December when the focus is on the main mountain, but the other pods that aren’t open have enough snow to ski.  All you have to do is traverse out to the powder.

We both remarked at what a fantastic late winter day it was, with the powder, the Colorado blue skies, and humidity to match.  We were just starting to find a few spots in the direct sun where the powder was starting to get sun-affected around midday when we were leaving, but it really was holding up quite well with these humidity levels.

A few shots from today:

[powderfreak]

Happy Easter all.  Last push of the season this morning on Spruce Peak at Stowe.  Starting tomorrow only the Mansfield side is open.

[J.Spin]

As of this morning’s CoCoRaHS report, there’s no snow left on our property, so April 4^th was the last day with continuous winter snowpack here for this season.

This year’s snowpack start date was on December 6^th, which is 4 days later than the mean, and it ran continuously through yesterday, which was 10 days ahead of the mean.  So the overall run was 120 days, which is about two weeks less than normal due to the slightly late start and early finish. 

This season was on the lower end, but there are three seasons in my data set with shorter snowpack durations: ‘09-‘10 with 119 days, ’15-‘16 with 103 days, and ’11-‘12 with 90 days.

[alex]

Just started snowing 

[NW_of_GYX]

Saddleback reporting 5" -- nice surprise pow day for the 3 people who are there I bet!

[powderfreak]

14 minutes ago, NW_of_GYX said:

Saddleback reporting 5" -- nice surprise pow day for the 3 people who are there I bet!

Meanwhile sunny spring corn over here in NVT, haha.

[powderfreak]

Phin's area must've had a sharp gradient... don't see any snow on the cam there but his neighbor up the hill reported 2.3" with 3.0" fresh depth this morning.  This time of year you can get those sharper rain/snow lines over even 200-300 feet.

[PhineasC]

8 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Phin's area must've had a sharp gradient... don't see any snow on the cam there but his neighbor up the hill reported 2.3" with 3.0" fresh depth this morning.  This time of year you can get those sharper rain/snow lines over even 200-300 feet.

3” of depth sounds kinda suspect, but I am not there to verify so it could be real. Agree that this is the time of the season I would expect to see major deltas with my neighbor. I saw some early in the season as well. It was melting as it was falling at my place most of the day yesterday. It was all snow but just stopped accumulating once the sun was up high. I need to get a cam set up by my barn, that’s my best retention spot. 

[PhineasC]

His latest ob says 8” at the “stake.” 

That has to be in a drift pile at this point. LOL 

There was very little snow there when I left on Friday. Just piles. 

I still have piles I could put a ruler in and measure 8”. 

[dendrite]

2 hours ago, PhineasC said:

His latest ob says 8” at the “stake.” 

That has to be in a drift pile at this point. LOL 

There was very little snow there when I left on Friday. Just piles. 

I still have piles I could put a ruler in and measure 8”. 

Does he have a weenie backyard sheltered by trees or something?

[PhineasC]

Just now, dendrite said:

Does he have a weenie backyard sheltered by trees or something?

Yes, super weenie zone.

The ground up there is flat, or even slopes down towards the north a little by the Ice Gulch trailhead which is where he is AFAIK. It clearly gets much less solar exposure than my lot. Also heavily wooded around. It's a great spot for retention, for sure.

But his reports in late March and April have been kinda suspect, IMO. Zero reason to doubt him up to this point. But the reports of nearly full coverage from a couple weeks ago and 8" at the stake now are not really representative of the general area at all. Maybe in some small zone behind his barn in the woods.

 

[dendrite]

10 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

Yes, super weenie zone.

The ground up there is flat, or even slopes down towards the north a little by the Ice Gulch trailhead which is where he is AFAIK. It clearly gets much less solar exposure than my lot. Also heavily wooded around. It's a great spot for retention, for sure.

But his reports in late March and April have been kinda suspect, IMO. Zero reason to doubt him up to this point. But the reports of nearly full coverage from a couple weeks ago and 8" at the stake now are not really representative of the general area at all. Maybe in some small zone behind his barn in the woods.

 

Yeah there's a Northfield cocorahs guy a little to my north that was reporting 8" depth when I only had piles remaining in the backyard (front was bare). Some people like to report unrepresentative weenie obs. I could measure on the north side of my spruce tree wall if I wanted too, but I prefer being scientific versus trying to impress the cocorahs ladies with an inflated pack.

[OceanStWx]

3 hours ago, dendrite said:

Yeah there's a Northfield cocorahs guy a little to my north that was reporting 8" depth when I only had piles remaining in the backyard (front was bare). Some people like to report unrepresentative weenie obs. I could measure on the north side of my spruce tree wall if I wanted too, but I prefer being scientific versus trying to impress the cocorahs ladies with an inflated pack.

We have a battle almost every year about end of season depth. We measure in the woods west of our parking lot to prevent drifting, but that means that it retains more snow than the surrounding area as we melt out. So we always have bare ground to PWM and some people want to report more than a T because that's what is physically at the snow board. 

I prefer to be a little more subjective about depth and not tied to the stake.

[OceanStWx]

Just looking at the not quite final GYX snow numbers for the season and it looks like we'll come in roughly 9" below the previously worst ever season (41.7" to 50.4"). For only the 3rd time ever this winter will feature no month with 20"+ snowfall.

[powderfreak]

31 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

Just looking at the not quite final GYX snow numbers for the season and it looks like we'll come in roughly 9" below the previously worst ever season (41.7" to 50.4"). For only the 3rd time ever this winter will feature no month with 20"+ snowfall.

Yikes.  What’s the POR?

[OceanStWx]

Just now, powderfreak said:

Yikes.  What’s the POR?

1993-1994 was the first full season here.

[powderfreak]

10 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

1993-1994 was the first full season here.

Ahh ok so not *that* long ago.  But long enough.  Sort of like setting temp records at the MVL ASOS, ha.

[tamarack]

35 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

Just looking at the not quite final GYX snow numbers for the season and it looks like we'll come in roughly 9" below the previously worst ever season (41.7" to 50.4"). For only the 3rd time ever this winter will feature no month with 20"+ snowfall.

We cracked 20" this past February though it was still below our average - 1st 20"+ month since Feb '19 (most recent "snow month" [DJFM] with AN snowfall.)  Our current 51.0" is 2nd only to 15-16 (48.2") for low snow and dragged our average down to 88.9" from 90.6".  3rd worst was 05-06 with 52.8" (and 11" max pack, lowest of any winter) followed by 64.8" in 09-10.  Doesn't look good or any additional snow thins month though surprises can happen.  If the skunk prevails we'll have recorded 0.2" for March-April.  Previous low was 21 times higher (4.2") in 09-10.