NNE Warm Season Thread 2021

[mreaves]

2 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Good event.  The snowfall definitely improved at a lower snow level as one moved south and east of up here.

1.0-1.5" snowfall at the height of accumulation based on wife's observations at 750ft.  Was only a half inch of slope on the board when I got home at 4pm, melting all day after the morning burst. Sloppy white.

12" snow depth increase at the Mount Mansfield Stake.  Strong elevational gradient.

Drought concerns are minimized with a heavy QPF event.

It’s an old trope but just think if we had a decent air mass a month ago. Oh well, like you said, big hit to the drought concerns. 

[PhineasC]

My neighbor recorded 13.9”. 

[#NoPoles]

Omg, lol, it's snowing. I really miss the warmer weather.

[jculligan]

Final tally for this event was 6.4" here in Jackson. 

[J.Spin]

Since the snow totals from our latest storm were a bit higher to the south of our area, my wife and I decided to mix things up a little and head down to Pico for some turns today. The accumulating snow levels for this storm in our part of the Winooski Valley were generally around 1,000’ or so, and you could tell that the snow line was a bit lower as you headed south.  The lowest elevations of the White River Valley were still generally devoid of snow though.

Pico certainly got a nice shot of snow from this system.  With temperatures above freezing at around 2,000’ at the base, you could tell that there had been a bit of melting and consolidation down at that elevation.  Settled new snow depths this morning were generally in the 9-12” range.  There were about 40 to 50 cars in the main parking lot this morning, and some were from people in the lodging there at the base, but many were also from folks who were there for some skiing.

The new snow depth increased quite quickly on the bottom half of the mountain, and at times it felt like every 100’ of vertical we’d ascend we’d find another inch of depth.  It wasn’t quite that quick, but by the time we’d hit the 3,000’ elevation range the depth was in the 15-17” range.  The snow depth didn’t increase nearly as quickly on the upper half of the mountain, and it topped out around 18” up around 4,000’.  Here’s the rough snow depth profile with respect to elevation:

2,000’:  9-12”

3,000’:  15-17”

4,000’:  18”

As the elevation profile data suggest, you’re essentially looking at a foot and a half of new snow on the upper half of the mountain there – and this is not fluff.  There’s got to be at least 2 inches of liquid equivalent in that new snow, so you’re talking about a full resurfacing up there (or in places that didn’t have existing snowpack, a full recovering).

Up on the mountain it also snowed during the entire time we were out on our tour from mid-morning onward.  The snowfall was generally light in intensity, but increased with elevation and was borderline moderate at times up near the 4,000’ level.  You could see that the new snow, and/or other recent snow from the later part of the storm was helping to take a bit of the density out of the topmost layer of snow up high.  The best turns were unquestionably up in the 3,500’ to 4,000’ elevation range, where you had a few inches of drier snow atop the rest of what the storm left.  I’d say that may have been where the freezing line was located at that point, so you had dense, but dry powder for the top few to several inches.  Below that, there was an increasing density gradient, but it went pretty quickly to snow that was 10%+ H2O in the vein of typical winter Sierra Cement/Cascade Concrete.  It was still quite skiable though, and you’d certainly sink in several inches, so it wasn’t that super dense stuff that has your just riding on the surface.

All told though, since there’s a foot and a half of that snow, you’ve got a bomber subsurface in place.  We spoke with a guy who told us that the 49er and Pike were the routes with the best snowmaking base before this storm, so they were good options in terms of coverage, but it really didn’t matter.  You could pretty much ski anything you wanted with 2+ inches of liquid equivalent in place.  There were water bars to watch out for the lower you went, but even all the way back down to the base elevations, you could ski just about anything, whether it had existing base or not.  The challenging part was handling the denser/wetter snow down low, and fat skis or a snowboard were unquestionably your tool of choice.  Width was the best bet in general for the most fun riding, but especially down low where temperatures were above freezing and the snow was getting a bit wetter.

For the best quality turns today, laps on the upper half of the mountain would have been a good bet if you had the time, but experienced skiers and riders would be able to handle the lower mountain conditions.  We skied the bottom half of the mountain with a couple of older guys on fat Telemark gear like us, and it was well past manageable, the turns were definitely fun even in that wetter snow.

As I mentioned, it was snowing most of the time above the base elevations, and to further reduce the visibility we were often well up in the clouds on the upper mountain.  This of course made the ski photography a fun challenge up high, but I’ve got some of the images from today below:

[powderfreak]

I've missed this wintry view.  Like an October snowstorm (minus any foliage) when it goes from basically completely snowless to bright white.

[Angus]

Hiked the kinsman ridge yesterday from the south, up the AT. I can report there is still a lot of snow in the woods from about 2,800' and up. I was frankly astounded by the depth. the snow is rotten but we were going down to our hips before slipping on the snowshoes. Estimate 8-10" that fell from this past storm, snowed all day at elevation. Saving grace was the air temperature was moderate and there were not strong winds.

[J.Spin]

On 3/25/2021 at 9:04 PM, powderfreak said:

I won’t lie, I still think we have one in the bank.  It would be very hard to completely miss on a synoptic event from March 1 onward for the mountains.

 

On 4/8/2021 at 11:01 AM, J.Spin said:

PF, did our early April snowstorm count, or is there a higher threshold required to satisfy your prediction?

 

On 4/8/2021 at 11:35 AM, powderfreak said:

Yeah I was thinking a bit bigger. or at least a more intense dump though it was pretty healthy.  I guess in the end it did bring a nice moderate snowfall but I was figuring we had a 12+'er in 24 hours type deal left in the bank.  That was more our classic 7-12" that gets there over a bit of duration.  I'll count it though, ha.

So, are we talking two in the books now?

[powderfreak]

35 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

 

 

So, are we talking two in the books now?

Haha yes this definitely fit. They are always coming at some point in the spring.

[J.Spin]

31 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

They are always coming at some point in the spring.

[wxeyeNH]

It seems every time I look the models tick east for this weeks storm.  If the trend continues NNE may be inline for another wet spring snow

[Angus]

Wow, I just saw the tweet by Gray that ice out was declared on Moosehead on Friday, I didn't think was possible!

https://www.maine.gov/dacf/parks/water_activities/boating/ice_out_dates.shtml

[wxeyeNH]

5 minutes ago, Angus said:

Wow, I just saw the tweet by Gray that ice out was declared on Moosehead on Friday, I didn't think was possible!

https://www.maine.gov/dacf/parks/water_activities/boating/ice_out_dates.shtml

2nd earliest ice out ever.  I guess the first one  1945?  was 2 days earlier

[PhineasC]

38 minutes ago, wxeyeNH said:

It seems every time I look the models tick east for this weeks storm.  If the trend continues NNE may be inline for another wet spring snow

Why could this not happen in Feb and March though?

[mreaves]

1 hour ago, PhineasC said:

Why could this not happen in Feb and March though?

It’s the way we keep the population in check. Just when they think that NNE winters aren’t that bad, we hit them with snow and cold after a string of beautiful weather and it drives them back to where they came from. 

[J.Spin]

1 hour ago, PhineasC said:

Why could this not happen in Feb and March though?

It could, but winter in the mountains of NNE is generally November through April, with October and May as fringe months, so our annual snowfall averages actually represent snowfall spread out over that six to eight-month period.  We’ve had fairly wintry versions of all eight of those months, but I’ve never seen it go wire-to-wire wintry for eight months in a row, or even six months in a row.  Despite the somewhat greater reliability of winter weather up here, there’s still a ton of variability, and there are going to be large swings in temperatures and gaps in winter.

Also, although things do start to slow down toward the end of March at the resorts, April is when you really start to get those deserted ski areas with less and less competition for the powder.  So it’s definitely nice when Mother Nature keeps something in reserve for April.

[#NoPoles]

Omg, this upcoming week looks hideous weatherwise

[powderfreak]

2 hours ago, PhineasC said:

Why could this not happen in Feb and March though?

Because that’s when it snows in Philly, NYC and SNE.  We snow October/November and April/May .

[PhineasC]

57 minutes ago, mreaves said:

It’s the way we keep the population in check. Just when they think that NNE winters aren’t that bad, we hit them with snow and cold after a string of beautiful weather and it drives them back to where they came from. 

Yeah, it's pretty crazy. Ski places shut down and then it starts to snow every week. 

[powderfreak]

6 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

Yeah, it's pretty crazy. Ski places shut down and then it starts to snow every week. 

That's how it works. Remember 2010 down in the mid-Atlantic? If it's epic down south, it's usually not up here. Wasn't that good of a year up north.  Had to wait until late in the season to get our licks.

But lo and behold the largest event of the season came on April 27-28.  Snow cover lasted to May 1st.  I think even BTV had 5.5" in the Banana Valley... a couple days before May.  One of my favorite events, coming at the end of the season once again.

Can see the trees leafing out too. 

 

[Froude]

1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

That's how it works. Remember 2010 down in the mid-Atlantic? If it's epic down south, it's usually not up here. Wasn't that good of a year up north.  Had to wait until late in the season to get our licks.

But lo and behold the largest event of the season came on April 27-28.  Snow cover lasted to May 1st.  I think even BTV had 5.5" in the Banana Valley... a couple days before May.  One of my favorite events, coming at the end of the season once again.

Can see the trees leafing out too. 

That one was nuts! Absolute crusher on the western slopes.

[bch2014]

Call me crazy-But wasn’t there a massive event at the end of February 2010 that dropped 40-50 inches on the mountains?

This was the storm that dumped like 70 inches in the Catskills in five days... But I think VT did pretty well?

[backedgeapproaching]

15 minutes ago, bch2014 said:

Call me crazy-But wasn’t there a massive event at the end of February 2010 that dropped 40-50 inches on the mountains?

This was the storm that dumped like 70 inches in the Catskills in five days... But I think VT did pretty well?

Yea, Woodford VT had 62" from that late FEB storm.  Needed some elevation for the second part of that event, I would assume NVT higher spots did well, not sure about amounts.

[powderfreak]

1 hour ago, bch2014 said:

Call me crazy-But wasn’t there a massive event at the end of February 2010 that dropped 40-50 inches on the mountains?

This was the storm that dumped like 70 inches in the Catskills in five days... But I think VT did pretty well?

We did have a good storm in there but no where near the Whites, SVT, and Catskills. I remember snow front end then a bunch of rain everywhere but the summits up here?  The stake did well.  But at least locally the storm wasn’t enjoyed as much due to 12-18” followed by inches of rain mucking it up.

[bch2014]

7 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

We did have a good storm in there but no where near the Whites, SVT, and Catskills. I remember snow front end then a bunch of rain everywhere but the summits up here?  The stake did well.  But at least locally the storm wasn’t enjoyed as much due to 12-18” followed by inches of rain mucking it up.

Got it. I remember skiing Pico not long after that storm and it was choked with snow. 

But yes-maybe there was something weird with it staying more snow the further south you went.

[Angus]

4 minutes ago, bch2014 said:

Got it. I remember skiing Pico not long after that storm and it was choked with snow. 

Pico is a great mountain, gets great snow and everyone goes to Killington instead. The only problem is my daughter doesn't like it for some reason.

[tamarack]

1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

We did have a good storm in there but no where near the Whites, SVT, and Catskills. I remember snow front end then a bunch of rain everywhere but the summits up here?  The stake did well.  But at least locally the storm wasn’t enjoyed as much due to 12-18” followed by inches of rain mucking it up.

Was the season's biggest snowfall and the ugliest 10"+ event I ever hope to see - 10.7" from 2.67" LE, mashed potatoes that splattered upon landing and wouldn't stay on the branches (fortunately) and it was back and forth with 1.14" of 33-34° RA on NE winds while NYC had its 21" snowicane.  Snowblower was broken and moving that slop with the scoop, with an unfrozen driveway beneath to prevent easy sliding, was far more difficult than the 24.5" that fell about 370 days earlier.  (Of course, if I'd known how warm March would be - 10° AN through 3/21 - would've been smarter to just leave the stuff alone.)

[powderfreak]

Might snow?

The most interesting part of the thing is how the models agree on this narrow stripe of heavy precip early tomorrow morning.

It’s on most models as a dump of 0.5” QPF in a snow sounding. This prelude before the low is very interesting.

Latest HRRR...

[powderfreak]

GFS has the prelude snow over in Phin and Alex/Diane’s area.

 

NAM is more over this way.

[drstuess]

Found this snow depth visualization of Steins run from the groomer pretty cool.

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