NNE Cold Season Thread 2021/2022

[wxeyeNH]

1215pm.  Temperature still only 10.8F and seems like it is rising very slowly.  Point and click has our high at 25F.  Don't think that will work out, especially with solid overcast.

[#NoPoles]

41 degrees feels like spring! So much better than yesterday

[wxmanmitch]

20° F and overcast. I think I see a tiny little under the radar snowflake from time to time too. 

I had a minimum temperature of -7° F yesterday, which was the coldest since last winter. I had a cheap midnight high of 7° F though since the arctic boundary didn't reach my location until around 2 AM. The daytime high was -3° F despite full sunshine. 

I had 3.4" of lake effect snow with 0.2" LE Sunday night through Monday night. Total snow depth is 6". While it's not much, it's a full on Currier and Ives winter scene out there with snow and ice on the trees. So much better than that garbage pattern we had December into the first week of this month with rain, freezing rain, fog, and mud.

Saturday's arctic shot is the real deal, and I fully expect double digit negatives here Saturday AM for the first time since MLK Day 2019. It doesn't look like there will be a cheap above zero midnight highs either as this boundary comes in late Friday. 

The Sunday night and Monday storm appears be our first significant synoptic snowstorm. While it may take a track over or west of us, the storm could occlude off to the SW of us, which in essence cuts off the warm air from the low center. Although a track like this would usually be the kiss of death, not this time. Worse case scenario it could be a good front end dump followed by a dryslot with some light snow or mix. Also, an occluded storm to the SW of us could result in a nice firehouse LLJ from the E or ESE, plastering the Greens and their eastern slope with a solid 12"+ storm while the western slopes get shadowed with strong downslope winds.

All of this assumes and early capture by the 500 mb low as much of the guidance currently depicts, but if that doesn't happen, the storm will probably take a more traditional coastal storm track along or just off of the shoreline. This could put us in the midlevel deformation zone with a storm that hopefully doesn't occlude as fast. Either way, there's finally some legit hope for us snow lovers in what has been a lean winter so far in NNE.

[MRVexpat]

21 minutes ago, wxmanmitch said:

20° F and overcast. I think I see a tiny little under the radar snowflake from time to time too. 

I had a minimum temperature of -7° F yesterday, which was the coldest since last winter. I had a cheap midnight high of 7° F though since the arctic boundary didn't reach my location until around 2 AM. The daytime high was -3° F despite full sunshine. 

I had 3.4" of lake effect snow with 0.2" LE Sunday night through Monday night. Total snow depth is 6". While it's not much, it's a full on Currier and Ives winter scene out there with snow and ice on the trees. So much better than that garbage pattern we had December into the first week of this month with rain, freezing rain, fog, and mud.

Saturday's arctic shot is the real deal, and I fully expect double digit negatives here Saturday AM for the first time since MLK Day 2019. It doesn't look like there will be a cheap above zero midnight highs either as this boundary comes in late Friday. 

The Sunday night and Monday storm appears be our first significant synoptic snowstorm. While it may take a track over or west of us, the storm could occlude off to the SW of us, which in essence cuts off the warm air from the low center. Although a track like this would usually be the kiss of death, not this time. Worse case scenario it could be a good front end dump followed by a dryslot with some light snow or mix. Also, an occluded storm to the SW of us could result in a nice firehouse LLJ from the E or ESE, plastering the Greens and their eastern slope with a solid 12"+ storm while the western slopes get shadowed with strong downslope winds.

All of this assumes and early capture by the 500 mb low as much of the guidance currently depicts, but if that doesn't happen, the storm will probably take a more traditional coastal storm track along or just off of the shoreline. This could put us in the midlevel deformation zone with a storm that hopefully doesn't occlude as fast. Either way, there's finally some legit hope for us snow lovers in what has been a lean winter so far in NNE.

Sure friggin hope so! Out of curiosity, what is your snowfall YTD? Friends of ours just got a place nearby. 

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 0.1” Snow/Trace L.E.

 

There was the occasional flake falling around midday today when I was outside, but they became a bit more consistent as the afternoon wore on, and I found a tenth of an inch of accumulation at 6:00 P.M. observations time.  Reading the BTV NWS forecast discussion, there are a lot of factors mentioned that are currently at play in producing the weather the area is getting, including a stationary boundary dropping south, a weak elongated vorticity lobe in the 700 to 500 mb layer, Lake Ontario/low level moisture, an upper level trough, and embedded shortwaves.  Some of those components might be responsible more for what’s taking place off to the north and west of us, so for here I’m going with the descriptor of “Shortwave in upper-level trough with low level/Lake Ontario moisture”.  There’s technically a different shortwave associated with tomorrow’s snow potential, and then a cold front tomorrow night, so I’ll have to see if we get anything associated with those and if there are any obvious break points to distinguish them as separate events.

 

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

New Snow: 0.1 inches

New Liquid: Trace

Temperature: 23.5 F

Sky: Light Snow (1-3 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 5.0 inches

[jculligan]

Cold air hung tough in my location today. Our daytime high was only 18F after a low of -8F this morning, then it briefly slipped back down to 16F around sunset before rising back to the current daily high of 21F. Big difference between here and southern parts of the state today.

Starting to feel the increasingly possibility of an eastern slope special with the upcoming MLK event. Still a few days to shift one way or another, but the models have a pretty robust easterly LLJ which often cranks out very efficient precip rates in this location. We'll see.

[wxmanmitch]

6 hours ago, MRVexpat said:

Sure friggin hope so! Out of curiosity, what is your snowfall YTD? Friends of ours just got a place nearby. 

39.8"

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 0.2” Snow/Trace L.E.

 

We picked up another tenth of an inch of snow overnight, which I’m attributing to the same event as yesterday.  We’ll see what happens over the course of today and tomorrow, but anything in this upcoming period will likely go into a different event/storm.

 

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

New Snow: 0.1 inches

New Liquid: Trace

Temperature: 25.5 F

Sky: Cloudy

Snow at the stake: 5.0 inches

 

[wxeyeNH]

The ice we had on Sunday is still covering driveways, walkways etc.  CAD is so strong here even when we mix after a fropa we don't get much above freezing..anyhow 1/4" quick  snowshower just now  has covered up my icy driveway.  Really hope we can get a bit of sun and over 32F today or tomorrow.  I am not counting on it.  Then the arctic blast and storm.

Newfound Lake finally skimmed over.  That is about on track, a little late.

[jculligan]

Quite a winter weekend shaping up between the arctic blast late tomorrow into Saturday, and the winter storm on Monday. Projected wind chills by Saturday morning are downright scary. I got out for some morning laps in the sub-zero temps this week, but I think these wind chills will be enough to keep me indoors Saturday morning lol.

[tamarack]

Each of the past 4 days has had the max at/near my 9 PM obs time - 10th was at 10 PM.  9th-12th at the end of the obs day and 10-11 at the beginning.  11-12 each had a mean of -0.5. (8/-9 and 14/-15)  With today's 0.1" dusting were at 16.3", only 50.3% of average ytd.  Still early but I've not had 2 ratters in a row here, yet.

[PhineasC]

1 hour ago, jculligan said:

Quite a winter weekend shaping up between the arctic blast late tomorrow into Saturday, and the winter storm on Monday. Projected wind chills by Saturday morning are downright scary. I got out for some morning laps in the sub-zero temps this week, but I think these wind chills will be enough to keep me indoors Saturday morning lol.

Definitely an east flow special showing up on all models. That's a max out scenario for us. The ski places in the Eastern Whites REALLY need a foot+ of dense snow to get the season back on track.

[J.Spin]

We’ve got a bit of snow starting to fall here at our site, and it may be coming from the WSW flow of moisture that seems to have been building on the local radar.

[qg_omega]

Classic east flow storm showing up now on the models. 

[jculligan]

2 hours ago, PhineasC said:

Definitely an east flow special showing up on all models. That's a max out scenario for us. The ski places in the Eastern Whites REALLY need a foot+ of dense snow to get the season back on track.

This morning's gfs is quite robust for my area. I think my location will have the perfect juxtaposition of sub-freezing temperatures and upslope flow. Down on the valley floor, low level temps could get a bit marginal for efficient snowfall accumulations by mid to late Monday afternoon (though most of the QPF could be done by then anyway)...but here at 1500' I don't see much chance of going above freezing, and these east/southeast LLJ scenarios often result in a QPF maximum somewhere between my location and Pinkham Notch. Thinking Black Mountain could end up being the snowfall jackpot for this one, at least locally. And I would argue there isn't any mountain in New England that needs it more.

It's obviously way too early to get super specific with localized minima/maxima but I have noticed Wildcat can sometimes get less if there is even the slightest southerly component to the LLJ. It happened during the 1/16 event last year when I managed 8" in my location, then noticed an immediate reduction in snowfall amounts as soon as I drove past Pinkham Notch and lost just the slightest bit of elevation on the other side. It'll be interesting to see how the models resolve the low level wind trajectories as we get closer to the event.

 

[PhineasC]

5 minutes ago, jculligan said:

This morning's gfs is quite robust for my area. I think my location will have the perfect juxtaposition of sub-freezing temperatures and upslope flow. Down on the valley floor, low level temps could get a bit marginal for efficient snowfall accumulations by mid to late Monday afternoon (though most of the QPF could be done by then anyway)...but here at 1500' I don't see much chance of going above freezing, and these east/southeast LLJ scenarios often result in a QPF maximum somewhere between my location and Pinkham Notch. Thinking Black Mountain could end up being the snowfall jackpot for this one, at least locally. And I would argue there isn't any mountain in New England that needs it more.

It's obviously way too early to get super specific with localized minima/maxima but I have noticed Wildcat can sometimes get less if there is even the slightest southerly component to the LLJ. It happened during the 1/16 event last year when I managed 8" in my location, then noticed an immediate reduction in snowfall amounts as soon as I drove past Pinkham Notch and lost just the slightest bit of elevation on the other side. It'll be interesting to see how the models resolve the low level wind trajectories as we get closer to the event.

 

Yeah, these events are usually great here because I can get the east flow and then the NW flow after the storm passes. Thinking 8-10 here right now. The storm is moving pretty fast so there is an upper limit. Excited to see what this does in meso range. Should be some bonkers NAM runs as it tries to jam the tropical moisture into the Whites.

I will be in MD until Wed so will need to live vicariously through my cams and everyone's obs until I get up there.

Looks like they will get 4-5 down here so not a total loss.

[PhineasC]

On 1/10/2022 at 6:46 PM, PhineasC said:

Headed back to MD for 7 days so a big storm is probably on the way.

Yep.

[powderfreak]

1 hour ago, PhineasC said:

Yeah, these events are usually great here because I can get the east flow and then the NW flow after the storm passes. Thinking 8-10 here right now. The storm is moving pretty fast so there is an upper limit. Excited to see what this does in meso range. Should be some bonkers NAM runs as it tries to jam the tropical moisture into the Whites.

I will be in MD until Wed so will need to live vicariously through my cams and everyone's obs until I get up there.

Looks like they will get 4-5 down here so not a total loss.

Yeah I'd be shocked to be honest if you didn't get double digits.  8-10" is a good starting point but I bet you can pull 12-15" at least based on the former CoCoRAHS observers measurements and this type of event with strong low level flow.  Duration will be the limiting factor but should be some high precip rates for a good 8-10 hours.

[PhineasC]

4 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Yeah I'd be shocked to be honest if you didn't get double digits.  8-10" is a good starting point but I bet you can pull 12-15" at least based on the former CoCoRAHS observers measurements and this type of event with strong low level flow.  Duration will be the limiting factor but should be some high precip rates for a good 8-10 hours.

Yeah, if the mesos come onboard 12"+ could be in the cards. Should be a heavy dense snow which is what we need right now to build up the pack.

[tamarack]

GYX afternoon discussion hinted at a warm nose possibly as far inland as here on Monday, though it also said that Mts/foothills would be mostly snow.  Plenty of time for the track to move in either direction.

Ice circle has formed in Westbrook on the Presumscot River, same place as the oft-photographed one in 2018.

[bwt3650]

33 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Yeah I'd be shocked to be honest if you didn't get double digits.  8-10" is a good starting point but I bet you can pull 12-15" at least based on the former CoCoRAHS observers measurements and this type of event with strong low level flow.  Duration will be the limiting factor but should be some high precip rates for a good 8-10 hours.

Enough snow to get us in the woods here!

[alex]

Expecting the usual downsloping/shadowing for the first part of the storm, then the fun stuff. Hopefully it won’t disappoint like most things this year! Headed to Stowe next week so it’d be good to have good conditions there. Wasn’t Great last time and the family is like - why are we skiing here again??? Need to change their mind, but they’re spoiled 

[powderfreak]

29 minutes ago, alex said:

Expecting the usual downsloping/shadowing for the first part of the storm, then the fun stuff. Hopefully it won’t disappoint like most things this year! Headed to Stowe next week so it’d be good to have good conditions there. Wasn’t Great last time and the family is like - why are we skiing here again??? Need to change their mind, but they’re spoiled 

Mansfield isn't a great hill without good snow to be honest.  It's steep, gets skied off quickly by traffic edging hard and high lift capacity.  It honestly took me a couple seasons in college to "get it" and understand the hill.  There really aren't a ton of trails, it's what happens when between those trails is skiable and/or there's good natural snow.  Otherwise it can be a hard, dark, cold icy hill.  Sees a good deal of wind too... but I think it's the pitch that generally does it.  There's a sweet spot of intermediate pitches that excel in less than optimal snow conditions.  Places like Okemo (wide, intermediate trails), Stratton, etc and I would imagine Bretton Woods falls into that too.  Perry Merrill has been skiing the best of any trail at Stowe lately and I think it's because it's wide open and more mellow sustained pitch.  Traffic doesn't "scrape" as much on the turns.  Narrower and steeper pitches around the ski area (like say parts of North Slope, Lord, top turns of Nosedive, etc) can get very icy without a refresh from constant scraping.

There's some interesting theory around it in Mountain Ops worlds that trail design/width/pitch factors a lot into surface conditions.

[J.Spin]

6 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Mansfield isn't a great hill without good snow to be honest.  It's steep, gets skied off quickly by traffic edging hard and high lift capacity.

It’s really interesting to hear it put this way.  I sort of disagree with the first part, insofar as I find just about any mountain that combines relatively steep pitches, high-capacity lifts/skier traffic, and manmade snow, to be a recipe for horrible on-piste conditions.  It’s not just Stowe that behaves that way, any high-capacity resort (eastern or western U.S.) suffers on that type of heavily-traveled snowmaking terrain unless it’s refreshed.  The tough conditions can definitely be alleviated by natural snow, which makes a dramatic difference between places like Whiteface and Stowe – both of these are mountains with plenty of great, steep terrain, but Stowe getting roughly twice the amount of annual snowfall makes a big difference.

The absolute diametrical opposite from the situation above would be Bolton’s Wilderness area, that I just described for jculligan the other day.  There you’ve got lower-angle terrain, low capacity lifts or human-powered ascents, and zero snowmaking.  That’s a recipe for great conditions, with Wilderness having the added bonus of being entirely above 2,000’, and having some of its lower slopes being very well protected from the wind.

Your other point about Stowe being different when the off-piste opens up is appropriate though – that creates an entirely different world.  I’ve done the calculations on Stowe’s actual acreage when you can ski everything, and the in-bounds terrain alone is roughly 2,600 acres.  With the Hazelton Zone it goes to almost 2,800 acres, and then when the sidecountry (both sides of Mansfield, notch side of Spruce, etc.) is added you’re looking at something in the realm of 3,000 to 4,000 acres of lift-served skiing.  They never advertise those numbers of course, but everyone who skis the mountain when the snow/base is good knows how massive/expansive the terrain is, even if they don’t know the exact numbers.

[NW_of_GYX]

3 hours ago, tamarack said:

GYX afternoon discussion hinted at a warm nose possibly as far inland as here on Monday, though it also said that Mts/foothills would be mostly snow.  Plenty of time for the track to move in either direction.

Ice circle has formed in Westbrook on the Presumscot River, same place as the oft-photographed one in 2018.

Agreed that things can change but unless this shifts significantly west I’m selling that warm nose for my area up to you and buying the strength of the antecedent cold. There’s some very cold air in place when this starts that will not give up without a fight. 

[jculligan]

15 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

The absolute diametrical opposite from the situation above would be Bolton’s Wilderness area, that I just described for jculligan the other day.  There you’ve got lower-angle terrain, low capacity lifts or human-powered ascents, and zero snowmaking.  That’s a recipe for great conditions, with Wilderness having the added bonus of being entirely above 2,000’, and having some of its lower slopes being very well protected from the wind.

My girlfriend and I have decided to check out the Wilderness area this coming Sunday. It's a bit of a long trek from Jackson, especially for one day...but we're itching to get into the woods for some off piste skiing, and that won't be happening in NH until after Monday's event (hopefully). It sounds like the Wilderness area is already skiing well, so we're going for it. I'm really looking forward to it!

[NW_of_GYX]

57 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

There's some interesting theory around it in Mountain Ops worlds that trail design/width/pitch factors a lot into surface conditions.

I have no doubt about this but as you mentioned skier traffic plays a huge role. I ski the River and love it early and late season and then avoid it almost entirely during Jan. and Feb. when the skier traffic pick ups. Even on weekdays there’s usually better skiing to be had elsewhere. I also think the hills with less trail acreage can generally put out a better product if they have a skilled crew because they simply have fewer miles to cover. 

[powderfreak]

15 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

It’s really interesting to hear it put this way.  I sort of disagree with the first part, insofar as I find just about any mountain that combines relatively steep pitches, high-capacity lifts/skier traffic, and manmade snow, to be a recipe for horrible on-piste conditions.  It’s not just Stowe that behaves that way, any high-capacity resort (eastern or western U.S.) suffers on that type of heavily-traveled snowmaking terrain unless it’s refreshed.  The tough conditions can definitely be alleviated by natural snow, which makes a dramatic difference between places like Whiteface and Stowe – both of these are mountains with plenty of great, steep terrain, but Stowe getting roughly twice the amount of annual snowfall makes a big difference.

The absolute diametrical opposite from the situation above would be Bolton’s Wilderness area, that I just described for jculligan the other day.  There you’ve got lower-angle terrain, low capacity lifts or human-powered ascents, and zero snowmaking.  That’s a recipe for great conditions, with Wilderness having the added bonus of being entirely above 2,000’, and having some of its lower slopes being very well protected from the wind.

Your other point about Stowe being different when the off-piste opens up is appropriate though – that creates an entirely different world.  I’ve done the calculations on Stowe’s actual acreage when you can ski everything, and the in-bounds terrain alone is roughly 2,600 acres.  With the Hazelton Zone it goes to almost 2,800 acres, and then when the sidecountry (both sides of Mansfield, notch side of Spruce, etc.) is added you’re looking at something in the realm of 3,000 to 4,000 acres of lift-served skiing.  They never advertise those numbers of course, but everyone who skis the mountain when the snow/base is good knows how massive/expansive the terrain is, even if they don’t know the exact numbers.

Appreciate your viewpoint Jay.  You are right, that was my biggest revelation after skiing Mansfield a few times.  Spruce too, once Over Easy opened up.  My first years in college you had to ride like a green prison bus from side to side.  It was an effort and not appealing to ride over to Spruce.  But there is a lot of terrain accessed over there too...into the Notch.  A lot of acres.  Now we just take a couple minute Gondola ride across the road/river (that drains the Notch) to Spruce and can go from there.  Low snow years and lack of refreshes makes piste skiing get boring after a while.  It's been 6-8 weeks of basically the same skiing, groomed snowmaking trails, at the northeast ski areas.  We are all itching at getting on something more interesting.

Having the natural snowpack to wander and "choose your adventure" here is what makes Mansfield the most appealing.  This photo today was just off Chin Cip (which opened a few days ago) and we did see 13" at the snow plots this past week or so.  So things are improving in the means.

[bch2014]

22 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Appreciate your viewpoint Jay.  You are right, that was my biggest revelation after skiing Mansfield a few times.  Spruce too, once Over Easy opened up.  My first years in college you had to ride like a green prison bus from side to side.  It was an effort and not appealing to ride over to Spruce.  But there is a lot of terrain accessed over there too...into the Notch.  A lot of acres.  Now we just take a couple minute Gondola ride across the road/river (that drains the Notch) to Spruce and can go from there.  Low snow years and lack of refreshes makes piste skiing get boring after a while.  It's been 6-8 weeks of basically the same skiing, groomed snowmaking trails, at the northeast ski areas.  We are all itching at getting on something more interesting.

Having the natural snowpack to wander and "choose your adventure" here is what makes Mansfield the most appealing.  This photo today was just off Chin Cip (which opened a few days ago) and we did see 13" at the snow plots this past week or so.  So things are improving in the means.

Is there no longer any racing on Hayride? I know you mentioned that it's the only remaining trail that hasn't seen snow guns, which surprised me, since I thought it often hosts races. I like that trail quite a bit, especially in the spring. What's the rationale on blowing, say, Gulch (a relatively obscure bump run) over a wide trail like Hayride?

[alex]

@powderfreakare there any decent beginner/intermediate glades in Stowe? My kids comfortably do all the glades here (well some better than others), but of course it’s a mellow mountain although they seem to handle the steeper ones better than I do. One cool thing here is that they are marked as blue/black/double black so you know what you’re getting into. Any intermediate glades in Stowe that would be good to try?