NNE Cold Season Thread 2022/2023

[wxeyeNH]

73" of snow this year.  Looks like Lava, Tamarack and me are in a 3 way race for 3rd place this season. Tomorrow's storm will bring me above normal for the season

[Lava Rock]

8 minutes ago, wxeyeNH said:

73" of snow this year.  Looks like Lava, Tamarack and me are in a 3 way race for 3rd place this season. Tomorrow's storm will bring me above normal for the season

Wish I were home this next event. Will have to rely on my wife to measure. We'll certainly be above avg after this event, but not the way to run a winter. I'd still say it was pretty bad.

[tamarack]

Odd little 2.7" storm yesterday, but nicer than the forecast 2 days earlier - snow-to-rain and 40°.   Snow became light bout 11 AM, beginning a 6-hour period of continuous snow with no accumulation, including 2 hours of lovely nickel-dime feathers 12:30-2:30.  Had the temp during those hours been 20s rather than 32-33 (and if it was January not March), we'd have gotten about 2" more.  Towns just to our west - Farmington and Temple - had 4-6" but maybe not as pretty as here.

[klw]

4 hours ago, wxeyeNH said:

73" of snow this year.  Looks like Lava, Tamarack and me are in a 3 way race for 3rd place this season. Tomorrow's storm will bring me above normal for the season

I am at 77.7" for the season.

[Lava Rock]

I am at 77.7" for the season.

Are you on the snow total board?

Sent from my SM-G981U1 using Tapatalk

[klw]

2 hours ago, Lava Rock said:

Are you on the snow total board?

Sent from my SM-G981U1 using Tapatalk
 

not this season

[J.Spin]

We’ve recently come into a snowier stretch here in the Northern Greens; we’ve picked up accumulating snow at our house every day for the past ten days, and over two feet of new snow has fallen in the valley during that period.  The skiing has been great, but I haven’t been up to the hill since I was out on Sunday with the boys because I’ve just been a bit too busy.  Things were a little lighter today though, and with a modest system affecting the area over the past couple of days, I headed up to Timberline for a quick tour on my way in to Burlington.

Bolton was reporting 3-4” of new snow in the past 24 hours, so I was eager to see how the powder was looking with that addition.  On my ascent, I was generally finding 4-6” of surface snow in areas that hadn’t recent been groomed, and that seemed to increase a couple more inches by the time I got up around the 2,300’ mark at the Timberline Mid Station.  I descended on Twice as Nice, where they’d groomed a strip down the middle, but left the sides untouched for powder skiing.  The powder skiing was excellent, and generally bottomless – even on mid-fat skis I only contacted the base a couple of times.  Although the lift had started right around when I began my ascent, I was actually the first one down the trail for the day, so even when I encountered the groomed snow it was pristine, deep, and skiing really well.

As I approached the bottom ¼ of the trail I saw that there wasn’t much for powder strips on the sided of the trail with the way they’d groomed, so I cut left into Doug’s Woods to check out the snow there.  I think even the ungroomed areas I’d been skiing had been previously groomed, because off piste the surface snow was a solid foot everywhere I checked.  That skied really well.  Moreover, those conditions were all the way down at 1,500’ on western facing slopes, so I’m sure things are even better up around 3,000’.  We’ll have to see how Winter Storm Quest plays out over the next day or two, but the fact that it’s going down atop a snowpack that already has such good surface snow is a recipe for some really good conditions.

[J.Spin]

With the latest round of BTV NWS maps, Winter Storm Warnings have expanded all the way to the international border, and the 12-18” shading has made its way up into part of the Northern Greens, so the modeling has obviously suggested some potential in this area.  Our point forecast here at the house is in the 8-16” range for accumulations through Saturday, with a bit more after that.  There doesn’t appear to be much of an upslope signature on the back side of this storm cycle though, so I wouldn’t expect a ton of extra accumulation.  The BTV NWS forecast discussion doesn’t really suggest quite that accumulation range around here, but the modeling presumably picks up the effects of the spine and goes with that.  It’s often correct with respect to the orographic boost, but it depends on the system, and we’ll see how this one goes.  We’re sort of on the edge of the potent banding around here on some global models, but many of the mesoscale models send that heavy snow right up to the border, so we’ll see how that plays out.

[J.Spin]

On 2/28/2023 at 11:04 PM, powderfreak said:

Just added it up, within an inch of 80" for the season.  J.Spin appears to have cruised past 100".  Averages for a season are like 115" and 140" respectfully?  It would take a healthy run to get to average, but even a slightly below average total this winter would be a win given the temperature departures. 

The season snowfall average seems to be around 160” here according to the data, although it’s a few inches shy of that with the highly anomalous ’15-‘16 season in the small data set.  That’s gradually getting diluted though.

Here’s the snowfall progression plot for the season thus far at our site:

 

This certainly hasn’t been a standout season on the high side of average, and it’s of course been running behind average pace for snowfall, but it’s certainly been OK.  In just my small data set of 16 seasons, there are five seasons that had less snowfall to date than this one.  We’re only about a foot behind average snowfall pace, and with a decent storm in the forecast, we’ll probably make up some ground toward average.  We’ve had 45 accumulating storms thus far, the snowpack has been in place continuously since early December, and the snowpack depth is at 17”, which is right around average for the date at this site.

There were certainly a couple of slow stretches in the first half of January and the first half of February as the plot shows, but the snowpack was in, and there was skiing through all of that (even if the skiing was sub-par).  It would take a healthy run to get to average, but the data say we’re well out of the basement seasons at this point.

[dmcginvt]

wow, way to saturate that column, KMVL

 

[LaGrangewx]

Back on the east coast. Been an awesome winter out in Colorado so far but timed a yearly trip to Gore perfectly. Currently in Thurman near Gore and got absolutely dumped on over night. Eyeballing what looks like 15” out there right now. Should be a great ski day 

[borderwx]

5.5”, 26F

Pouring snow. Should be a sporty drive to Burke


.

[Patriot21]

This is around 8am this morning, been snowing pretty good since then. I noticed a lull around 6- 7 or so. 

[tombo82685]

6.2 here so far, season total up to 177”

[dmcginvt]

Im at 9 so far.  Not really doing much right now despite what radar shows.  

[mreaves]

On 3/3/2023 at 9:18 AM, wxeyeNH said:

73" of snow this year.  Looks like Lava, Tamarack and me are in a 3 way race for 3rd place this season. Tomorrow's storm will bring me above normal for the season

I don’t know how much I got this week. I just got out of a week’s stay in the ICU. I had developed sepsis from a kidney abscess. I was pumped full of antibiotics and have to continue an oral course. They said I was pretty sick. I feel a lot better but am still week. I know I got 4”-5” last weekend and about the same mid week. I think 12” with this one. I missed an inch or two while in Maine. My seasonal tally is not that accurate this year 

[powderfreak]

58 minutes ago, mreaves said:

I don’t know how much I got this week. I just got out of a week’s stay in the ICU. I had developed sepsis from a kidney abscess. I was pumped full of antibiotics and have to continue an oral course. They said I was pretty sick. I feel a lot better but am still week. I know I got 4”-5” last weekend and about the same mid week. I think 12” with this one. I missed an inch or two while in Maine. My seasonal tally is not that accurate this year 

Glad you are ok dude.  Hope all goes smoothly with the recovery.

[wxeyeNH]

1 hour ago, mreaves said:

I don’t know how much I got this week. I just got out of a week’s stay in the ICU. I had developed sepsis from a kidney abscess. I was pumped full of antibiotics and have to continue an oral course. They said I was pretty sick. I feel a lot better but am still week. I know I got 4”-5” last weekend and about the same mid week. I think 12” with this one. I missed an inch or two while in Maine. My seasonal tally is not that accurate this year 

Glad your feeling better.  That is much more important than snow totals.  Looks like my final will be 9.75" with this one.

[borderwx]

I don’t know how much I got this week. I just got out of a week’s stay in the ICU. I had developed sepsis from a kidney abscess. I was pumped full of antibiotics and have to continue an oral course. They said I was pretty sick. I feel a lot better but am still week. I know I got 4”-5” last weekend and about the same mid week. I think 12” with this one. I missed an inch or two while in Maine. My seasonal tally is not that accurate this year 

Oh man that sounds serious. Heal up mreaves

Another 6” during the day, 11.5.

Nice to see a hard snow, even better to slide down hills in it


.

[Ginx snewx]

4 hours ago, mreaves said:

I don’t know how much I got this week. I just got out of a week’s stay in the ICU. I had developed sepsis from a kidney abscess. I was pumped full of antibiotics and have to continue an oral course. They said I was pretty sick. I feel a lot better but am still week. I know I got 4”-5” last weekend and about the same mid week. I think 12” with this one. I missed an inch or two while in Maine. My seasonal tally is not that accurate this year 

Dude…

[klw]

• 12.1" 
   

27.3 in the past week,  34.8 for the past ten days, 89.8 for the season

 

MREAVES good luck on the recovery.  I had to have two antibiotic hits after hospital spells 2 and 4 years ago.  The MD told me a good rule of thumb is for each week on antibiotics to expect a month until you feel recovered.  My second foot infection lead to 5 days on an IV antibiotic and a PICC line for 7 weeks.  It took me a year to feel recovered.  Cut yourself slack as you heal.

I got lucky with snowfall tallys during the first hospital spell as it was February but it didn't snow for the whole time I was in.  

[Boston Bulldog]

Looks like Bread and Butter with a side of wind is on the menu for the northern greens later this week

[Redmorninglight]

Great storm Friday-Saturday. About 18” both at camp and Gore. Glad I drove there early as that mountain was packed. I heard 45 minute waits to get up access road. Got about 5 untracked powder runs before things got tracked up. Snow was kinda heavy so legs were feeling it. Spent this morning doing about 10 laps down a 100’ vertical run I made on the hill at my camp.


.

[J.Spin]

I’m not sure exactly when the snow from Winter Storm Quest started up around here, but it was well into Friday night, and I’m not even sure if I saw any accumulation before midnight.  So, waking up in the morning to find over 8 inches on the boards for 6:00 A.M. CoCoRaHS observations meant that the snow must have been coming down in the 1 to 2 inch per hour range.  There were plenty of large flakes falling at that point, and the morning’s liquid analysis revealed that the water content in the snow was 8.5%, or a snow to liquid ratio of approximately 11 or 12 to 1.

My older son and I got up to the hill just about the time of the opening of the Timberline Quad, and had a great bunch of runs while we waited for my younger son and one of his friends to join us.  During those morning runs, it was quickly obvious that the new snow that had fallen had laid in a massive resurfacing of the slopes.  The snow was actually on the dense side due to fairly small flakes, and I’d say it was running a bit above 10% H₂O up there.  The snow was dense enough that you wanted terrain on the steeper side to really have a good flow on the descent, and that was fine, because in terms of coverage quality, it didn’t matter how steep the terrain was.  On piste, off piste, it didn’t matter; just pick the steepest lines you could find, ski as aggressively as you wanted, and you weren’t hitting the subsurface.  We tested many of the steepest lines available on Timberline like the Spell Binder headwall and the Tattle Tale Headwall, and they skied beautifully.  We hit steep off piste lines that I don’t usually find to be that great because their pitch is often too much for the quality of the snow or achieving bottomless skiing, and it just didn’t matter.

In terms of surface snow depths, our checks in the 1,500’ to 2,500’ elevation range were about 15 inches if we had to pick a best estimate, but it was really hard to tell exactly how much snow came from just this storm.  The new snow was sitting atop snow from other recent storms, and it all just continues to stack and set up excellent surfaces.  It continued to snow all morning, so that kept piling on new snow to the accumulations as well.  Total snowpack depth is 40 inches or more above 2,500’, and the snowpack depth at the Mt. Mansfield stake being over 60 inches speaks to that.

Later in the morning we met up with my younger son and his friend, and we just went around hitting some of our favorite steepest off piste lines all over the mountain.  Timberline had no lift queue for essentially the whole morning, but after about midday, the temperature at those lowest elevations seemed to creep up toward freezing and the snow became even a bit denser.  It was somewhat subtle, but you could tell when you skied a run that the powder in the lowest elevations was a bit thicker than it was above 2,000’.  After most of the morning at Timberline, we focused on the main mountain for the early afternoon where everything was above 2,000’, just in case Timberline continued to warm and the powder got wet.

We joined up with another one of my son’s friends and his dad for a final run on the main mountain before making a big long run all the way down from the Vista Summit to the Timberline Base.  Temperatures clearly hadn’t gotten too high to really ruin the powder because it was still fine all the way to the Timberline Base at 1,500’.

It continued to snow most of the day, and after a bit of a lull around midday, the snowfall picked right back in the afternoon to the level it had been in the morning, so we knew there was definitely more accumulation on the way.  Back down at the house at 500’ that afternoon we could see that temperatures had definitely gone above freezing because some of the new snow had settled, but the mountain elevations seemed to fare quite well with respect to any melting or settling.

[klw]

Yesterday, I was able to work my way up to the only flat area of the yard where I know the dogs haven't trampled.  28" on the ground there.  I also dug out a path to the shed where I keep all my seed starting trays.

[NW_of_GYX]

Healthy upslope signal for northern green tues-thursday. I’ve read wind could be an issue but not seeing it modeled? What am I missing? Thinking about chasing to Jay on Thursday as long as wind is not an issue. 

 

[borderwx]

Healthy upslope signal for northern green tues-thursday. I’ve read wind could be an issue but not seeing it modeled? What am I missing? Thinking about chasing to Jay on Thursday as long as wind is not an issue. 
 

Skins FTW.

Funky wind today, rare to have it blowing up the hill, only had Bonnie running.

Plan for the worst.

The skiing is top shelf right now


.

[LaGrangewx]

Back in Colorado now but here are a couple pics from the weekend near Gore Mountain. The Adirondacks are awesome and nothing beats being there with a big snowstorm. Gore reported 17” at the base. Skiing was great. Crowded on the hill but minimal lift lines. Kind of the opposite of what happens out here in CO.

 

[powderfreak]

2 hours ago, borderwx said:

Skins FTW.

Funky wind today, rare to have it blowing up the hill, only had Bonnie running.

Plan for the worst.

The skiing is top shelf right now


.

Today was surprisingly very windy. Spruce had a wind hold, other lifts running on reduced speed most of the day.  FourRunner Quad eventually succumbed to wind at like 2pm. It was rocking pretty good on the chairs when I went out at 10am… but running it slow kept it operating.

[powderfreak]

8 minutes ago, LaGrangewx said:

Back in Colorado now but here are a couple pics from the weekend near Gore Mountain. The Adirondacks are awesome and nothing beats being there with a big snowstorm. Gore reported 17” at the base. Skiing was great. Crowded on the hill but minimal lift lines. Kind of the opposite of what happens out here in CO. 

Grew up at Gore, always have a special spot in my heart.  It’s a good Mtn on its own too.  They get crushed in SE flow.