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NNE Cold Season Thread 2021/2022


PhineasC
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17 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Ha I mean it makes the most sense.  Maximize the cold shot, make all the snow you can before the mild day on Thursday.  Push it all out on Thur/Thur night and open Friday.

Also bonus of employees get Thanksgiving with family for the most part.

PRob going to be getting good upslope snows on Friday too...even over at BW. This looks like a pretty robust event because there's a lot of deeper level synoptic moisture associated with it.

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1 hour ago, mreaves said:

I just mentioned the Winooski Valley streamer in the main November discussion thread.  Just a few flakes at my house but could see the hills by 89 shrouded in snow.  Sure enough, it was snowing decently as I got to exit 6 and was like that all the way to Montpelier.  The image above illustrates that perfectly.

Funny you said that.  I had to run to Berlin for something and the snowiest spots were Exit 9 and then again up near the Berlin Mall.  Didn’t matter elevation or location, it was just like you could tell where stringer snow showers had passed through.  It would change by the mile on 89.

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6 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Funny you said that.  I had to run to Berlin for something and the snowiest spots were Exit 9 and then again up near the Berlin Mall.  Didn’t matter elevation or location, it was just like you could tell where stringer snow showers had passed through.  It would change by the mile on 89.

It's like a garden hose flopping around.  It shoots through the gap in the mountains and wavers back and forth.  Three Mile Hill between exits 8 and 7 provides lift so when you get to the top at exit 7 driving conditions are often much worse than at exit 8.  From 7 all the way to exit 4 consistently has the worst driving conditions.  Of course the elevation gets up to 1800' so that contributes too.

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2 hours ago, J.Spin said:

I was able to get the latest BTV NWS AFD that discusses all the snow that’s around today.  It appears that the snow is associated with an upper-level trough moving slowly across the area with weak forcing and low-level moisture.  They could certainly update the discussion though, because the snowfall around here is more robust than that text would suggest.  It was on and off snow showers earlier this morning with even some occasional breaks of blue sky, but now it’s wall-to-wall snow, with reduced visibility at times.  I was just back in the center of town and it’s the same thing there.  The precipitation is still light, fluffy snow, so I don’t expect they’ll have to worry about road conditions, but with the radar showing that there’s more moisture upstream, these conditions will probably continue for a bit. 

 

1 hour ago, mreaves said:

I just mentioned the Winooski Valley streamer in the main November discussion thread.  Just a few flakes at my house but could see the hills by 89 shrouded in snow.  Sure enough, it was snowing decently as I got to exit 6 and was like that all the way to Montpelier.  The image above illustrates that perfectly.

 

21 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Funny you said that.  I had to run to Berlin for something and the snowiest spots were Exit 9 and then again up near the Berlin Mall.  Didn’t matter elevation or location, it was just like you could tell where stringer snow showers had passed through.  It would change by the mile on 89.

 

The BTV NWS did make an update to their discussion to better reflect today’s conditions:

 Area Forecast Discussion

National Weather Service Burlington VT

100 PM EST Tue Nov 23 2021

NEAR TERM /THROUGH WEDNESDAY/...

As of 100 PM EST Tuesday...Flurries have become more of a snow shower with a powdery dusting seen in parts of northern and central Vermont during the late morning into early afternoon. Have added mention of snow showers into much of this area, but little impact is expected with negligible liquid equivalent and modest wind and visibility restrictions.

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Event totals: 0.9” Snow/0.02” L.E.

 

We had continued snow in the afternoon here at our site to about the same tune as the morning.  I headed to Burlington in the afternoon on some errands, and snow accumulations really dropped off pretty quickly west of the pass here – Bolton Flats had just an isolated dusting in areas where the snow had collected.  There really wasn’t much accumulation to note in the Champlain Valley, but the views were great.  You could see areas off to the south and east with some breaks in the clouds, the greater Burlington area was cloudy with occasional flakes and light snow showers, and then off to the east the mountains were socked in with snow.  In town it definitely felt like one of those November holiday types of days with the snow and people ramping up for Thanksgiving.

 

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

New Snow: 0.4 inches

New Liquid: 0.01 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 40.0

Snow Density: 2.5% H2O

Temperature: 25.0 F

Sky: Light Snow (2-5 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 0.5 inches

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33 minutes ago, backedgeapproaching said:

:lol: Where is that moisture even coming from? Definition of a NVT moose fart snower..lol.

It actually was sort of a mystery at first, and it probably wouldn’t have been too big a deal if it hadn’t been quite as widespread and persistent.  Once the BTV NWS AFD links started working, they did talk about it in a couple of spots:

 

NEAR TERM /THROUGH WEDNESDAY/...

As of 944 AM EST Tuesday...With the cold air mass now in place, flurries are being squeezed out of a shallow cloud layer in portions of the Adirondack region and northern Vermont.

SHORT TERM /THURSDAY NIGHT THROUGH SATURDAY NIGHT/...

As of 322 PM EST Tuesday...heading into Friday evening/night as the upper low shifts east and phases with offshore shortwave energy (which coincidentally is what`s causing snow showers today), it`s blocked by a 1040mb high parked in the northern Atlantic.

 

But watching that stuff just plow into the spine all day, it does leave one scratching the head a bit with the inclination to still just chalk it up to…

MountainMagic.jpg.1e4a1852739ba924f8233f00d2c10065.jpg

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28 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

It actually was sort of a mystery at first, and it probably wouldn’t have been too big a deal if it hadn’t been quite as widespread and persistent.  Once the BTV NWS AFD links started working, they did talk about it in a couple of spots:

 

NEAR TERM /THROUGH WEDNESDAY/...

As of 944 AM EST Tuesday...With the cold air mass now in place, flurries are being squeezed out of a shallow cloud layer in portions of the Adirondack region and northern Vermont.

SHORT TERM /THURSDAY NIGHT THROUGH SATURDAY NIGHT/...

As of 322 PM EST Tuesday...heading into Friday evening/night as the upper low shifts east and phases with offshore shortwave energy (which coincidentally is what`s causing snow showers today), it`s blocked by a 1040mb high parked in the northern Atlantic.

 

But watching that stuff just plow into the spine all day, it does leave one scratching the head a bit with the inclination to still just chalk it up to…

MountainMagic.jpg.1e4a1852739ba924f8233f00d2c10065.jpg

The first real cold air mass helps a lot.  850mb temps of -12C to -15C is right in the sweet spot for fantastic snow growth from orographic snows.  I love seeing -12C at H85 as that's the key dendritic growth zone lining up just above the peaks.

Hasn't been a lot of snow (up to a couple inches for the high terrain) but the flakes have been big and fluffy all day.  You can tell snow growth is pretty much maxed out for the very light amount of water.  The 2" at 1,500ft probably had 50:1 ratios, ha.

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Regarding the weekend, the 18z EURO still shows some decent snows.  It's definitely not as robust as it was yesterday or Sunday but the set-up is still very good.

1) Temperatures at 850mb look like the snow growth zone will be perfect right above the peaks with -12C at 850mb on Friday night.

2) Cold air advection.  CAA on cyclonic flow is a main ingredient.  Check.

3) The upper level lows are in a climo favored area per local research papers (northern ME near FVE).  The only downfall is the lows don't go vertically stacked and the surface low tries to escape east, likely preventing a high-end event.  But still a good solid period of upslope looks likely, 6-12" early guess for the ski areas?

Some images... 90 hour ECMWF.

700mb winds showing cyclonic NW flow around a low that is situated right over FVE.  This is fairly textbook location of H7 feature for NVT.

ecmwf-deterministic-neng-z700_speed-8014400.thumb.png.b07343bb1f50cde305faa55d257d0c4c.png

Surface precip and 850mb temps... surface low is a bit east of where I'd like it but the upper level support should help with cyclonic moisture flow.

ecmwf-deterministic-neng-t850_mslp_prcp6hr-8014400.thumb.png.2527ac19bbd2b0632cecf1419d674a1f.png

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42 minutes ago, mreaves said:

Oh, they’ll call it fake but they’re all jealous. 

LOL, yea, that’s apparently been the latest weenie attempt at a pejorative for the mountain climates.  The whole effort is obvious, but whatever helps entertain them through the drudgery I guess.

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11 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Regarding the weekend, the 18z EURO still shows some decent snows.  It's definitely not as robust as it was yesterday or Sunday but the set-up is still very good.

1) Temperatures at 850mb look like the snow growth zone will be perfect right above the peaks with -12C at 850mb on Friday night.

2) Cold air advection.  CAA on cyclonic flow is a main ingredient.  Check.

3) The upper level lows are in a climo favored area per local research papers (northern ME near FVE).  The only downfall is the lows don't go vertically stacked and the surface low tries to escape east, likely preventing a high-end event.  But still a good solid period of upslope looks likely, 6-12" early guess for the ski areas?

Some images... 90 hour ECMWF.

700mb winds showing cyclonic NW flow around a low that is situated right over FVE.  This is fairly textbook location of H7 feature for NVT.

ecmwf-deterministic-neng-z700_speed-8014400.thumb.png.b07343bb1f50cde305faa55d257d0c4c.png

Surface precip and 850mb temps... surface low is a bit east of where I'd like it but the upper level support should help with cyclonic moisture flow.

ecmwf-deterministic-neng-t850_mslp_prcp6hr-8014400.thumb.png.2527ac19bbd2b0632cecf1419d674a1f.png


 

Let’s hope some future runs improve those totals some but I will take what it’s showing now. Will be interesting to see the next day or two of runs especially the hi res models 

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3 hours ago, backedgeapproaching said:

:lol: Where is that moisture even coming from? Definition of a NVT moose fart snower..lol.

Hard to say.  It's definitely still going as we have fun fluffy snow here.  Transient for me, but for other areas it's been steady snowfall.

Looks like it's switched more towards the Camels Hump are and south of I-89/Winooski Valley for best pulse.  Those yellows are likely brief 1"/hr or higher type flakes, but residence time will be a limiting factor.

Nov_23_1030pm.gif.7d963e4c5b94a480e35cd35af2554540.gif

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31 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Hard to say.  It's definitely still going as we have fun fluffy snow here.  Transient for me, but for other areas it's been steady snowfall.

Looks like it's switched more towards the Camels Hump are and south of I-89/Winooski Valley for best pulse.  Those yellows are likely brief 1"/hr or higher type flakes, but residence time will be a limiting factor.

Nov_23_1030pm.gif.7d963e4c5b94a480e35cd35af2554540.gif

Lake Champlain? St Johns?

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31 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Hard to say.  It's definitely still going as we have fun fluffy snow here.  Transient for me, but for other areas it's been steady snowfall.

Looks like it's switched more towards the Camels Hump are and south of I-89/Winooski Valley for best pulse.  Those yellows are likely brief 1"/hr or higher type flakes, but residence time will be a limiting factor.

Nov_23_1030pm.gif.7d963e4c5b94a480e35cd35af2554540.gif

It’s been pretty steady here, not inch per hour stuff, but probably ½“/hr. stuff.  This evening has definitely been the most productive period of the day though, both in terms of snow and L.E.  The next analysis for our site would be at midnight, so we’ll see where things stand, but I think we’re at about 3” for the storm thus far.  We’re used to mountain magic, but this is a bit more potent than the forecasts would suggest - these bonus snows for the mountains and valleys are great when there’s not actually a “storm” around.  The streamers are certainly laying down some accumulations where they’re hitting:

23NOV21C.gif.4c2bbf03b024dafd9963863921a2f261.gif

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