NNE Cold Season Thread 2022/2023

[powderfreak]

31 minutes ago, dmcginvt said:

Lost power at 830am so many trees down on Gregg hill rd, so much rain but of course my weather station is down.  Still no power and Verizon sucks I had better luck with Google fi go figure.  I am typing from my wifes hot spot who still has fi.  Man is it snowing hard, eyeballing 3 inches so far since the changeover.  Pleasant surprise as I expected a slight whitening but it is heavenly out there stuck to every tree with no more wind.  That wind was nuts and lived up to the hype.  I won’t have power for few days.  Had to go to Stowe because of course all my servers were down, couldn’t get out the n part of my road so had to go out south end and there were so many trees down on 100, 2of which were still resting on power lines across route 100 I had to drive under that and was a bit freaked out

Gregg Hill has a ton of those massive White Pines too on the north end of the road.

We lost power per my wife around same time of 830-9am and got it back around 5pm.  Luckily we are on Mountain Road and with all the hotels, restaurants, businesses they seem to focus on getting that back first.  However, the Mountain still doesn't have power down through Topnotch.  Not sure what happens tomorrow at the ski area as we are delaying opening indefinitely until we can figure out a plan tomorrow.

The snow really helps.  Closing in on 4" here.  It's caked to everything like you said.  Beautiful.  Fresh white Christmas saved.

[Patriot21]

Looking outside it appears to be somewhere around 2.5". Nice to get this fresh white for Christmas Eve tomorrow. Some of the nicest looking snow you can have for Christmas actually as it appears to be sticking to everything. I didn't lose my pack but I'd guess atleast half of it went bye-bye.

[backedgeapproaching]

The large evergreens are completely caked, just wet snow frozen solid on them. Wind is blowing here and they are barley moving.

[mreaves]

PWS temp graph. Down to 13.4° now. 

[bwt3650]

Gregg Hill has a ton of those massive White Pines too on the north end of the road.
We lost power per my wife around same time of 830-9am and got it back around 5pm.  Luckily we are on Mountain Road and with all the hotels, restaurants, businesses they seem to focus on getting that back first.  However, the Mountain still doesn't have power down through Topnotch.  Not sure what happens tomorrow at the ski area as we are delaying opening indefinitely until we can figure out a plan tomorrow.
The snow really helps.  Closing in on 4" here.  It's caked to everything like you said.  Beautiful.  Fresh white Christmas saved.

This week is going to turn out a lot better than expected ski wise. Even some refreshers throughout the week until we warm toward the new year, but if we can do 30s and overcast or drizzle as opposed to 45 and downpour, the skiing should stay ok.


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[powderfreak]

3 minutes ago, bwt3650 said:

This week is going to turn out a lot better than expected ski wise. Even some refreshers throughout the week until we warm toward the new year, but if we can do 30s and overcast or drizzle as opposed to 45 and downpour, the skiing should stay ok.


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I’m annoyed with no power to the Snow Cam currently, ha. The Lookout Plot isn’t live. I can’t wait to see what’s at the High Rd plot.  But man we are getting spoiled when my biggest power outage grip is I can’t see that live cam at 3,300ft.

Even if it underreports in wind, you start to adjust expectations based on a numerical value.  3” on that cam is a damn fine time.  There’s 4” in my yard.  We are flying blind .  Truly first world problems during a power outage.

[J.Spin]

On Wednesday I went for another solo tour on the Bolton Valley Backcountry Network, and I decided to check out the Gotham City area since I hadn’t been there yet this season.  Prior to that point we’d been pretty spoiled with fresh snow every day since the start of Winter Storm Diaz, so you could detect just the subtlest bit of settling/aging to the powder and snowpack in general.  That’s splitting hairs of course because the powder was still deep and bottomless, and you’d probably only notice if you’d been paying very close attention to the feel of the snowpack over the preceding days.  There were also a few more tracks around since there hadn’t been that fresh dose of powder to cover them up.

Yesterday we decided to do some lift served skiing for a change of pace, and my wife joined my older son and I for some Tele runs in the afternoon.  Bolton has opened a number of additional trails due to all the recent snow, but the main route off the Vista Summit is still Sherman’s Pass, and we started with that since we wanted to warm up with some mellow terrain.  The manmade snow on Sherman’s was pretty typical and firm, but we did venture over toward the lower slopes of Wilderness to check out the natural snow options.  There was plenty of coverage since those lower slopes of Wilderness are only up to moderate angle, and the quality difference in the snow was night and day.  At Wilderness you had nice chalky snow were it was skier packed, and powder off to the edges – it was soft and quiet snow, and unlike the terrain with manmade snow, you could really sink your edges in easily.  That was unquestionably what kept us coming back for more, and if we could have gotten to that terrain more easily by just riding the Mid Mountain Chair instead of the Vista Quad, we certainly would have done it.

Today we had Winter Storm Elliot come through, and it’s going to be interesting to see how the skiing changes with this one.  There was rain during the middle of the system, so we can’t expect that perfect unblemished snowpack that was present before the storm, but this system has likely substantiated the base to a new level.  We’ve already had 7 to 8 inches from the storm down here at the house, and the snowpack in the yard is now deeper than it was before it began.  The snowpack must contain more liquid as well, with almost 2 inches of L.E. from the storm here at our site.  The temperatures we’ve had over the past week or so have been another feather in the cap for this stretch, with highs just getting up to near 30 F to give you comfortable conditions without deteriorating the snow.  Tomorrow’s forecast suggests a change of pace though, with highs only in the teens F.

[Patriot21]

Think it is my first time below 0 this winter, -2

[bwt3650]

That turned around quickly…never would have thought net gain. Probably 6-8 out there.


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[alex]

Definitely a net loss here but at least it's still white. 4" at the stake 

[mreaves]

1 hour ago, bwt3650 said:

That turned around quickly…never would have thought net gain. Probably 6-8 out there.


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I was watching WCAX news this morning and when the weather guy was in you could see the Jay area had persistent snow over it. I was thinking that was the famous Jay cloud. 

[tamarack]

Lost 4" but still have 12, and it's got a lot of meat.  Fortunately, about 3/4 of the 2.84" RA (after 0.41" LE in SN/IP) came with temp 32-35.  CAD was defeated about 1:30 and an hour later it was 46 with RA+ and gusts to 40 - had been light wind prior to 1:30.  The 3.25" total precip is a top 10 for a calendar day here and easily takes Dec record, pushing the 'real' mega-Grinch (12/25/20) into 2nd place.  Power off for just 2 hours, early yesterday morning.  It's chilly today but our low of 12° is 5° milder than at NYC - not often to see that relationship.

[mreaves]

It’s 35.8° colder today that it was at this time yesterday. 

[borderwx]

9F now. Almost to cold to resurface the rink, instant freeze conditions

Looks like the Green Mt snow fence is in operation


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[#NoPoles]

Merry christmas!

[alex]

Merry Christmas! Just started flurrying as we opened presents. How festive! :p

[Patriot21]

Merry Christmas everyone. Had some flurries this morning, other than that a cold and quiet day.

[dmcginvt]

Merry Christmas, got our power back at 9am this morning.  Them guys are heros man!! We had 8 people sitting around the woodstove all night and it was frankly nicer than a regular old christmas but I really wanted to cook today so Im glad it came back and this folks sacrificing Christmas with their families is jsut unreal.  That being said I'd probably work it to for that bonus bucks they better be getting!

[DavisStraight]

33 minutes ago, dmcginvt said:

Merry Christmas, got our power back at 9am this morning.  Them guys are heros man!! We had 8 people sitting around the woodstove all night and it was frankly nicer than a regular old christmas but I reall want to cook today so Im glad it came back and this folks sacrificing Christmas with their families is jsut unreal.  That being said I'd probably work it to for that bonus bucks they better be getting!

My friend worked for the electric company in my area, they get mucho bucks when there's an outage in winter, even more around Holidays.

[bwt3650]

My friend worked for the electric company in my area, they get mucho bucks when there's an outage in winter, even more around Holidays.

Worth every penny!


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[bwt3650]

Nam looking interesting for weds up here.


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[powderfreak]

Jay has looked solid the past couple days for this period.  The WSW flow off Lake Ontario streams moisture north into gentle orographic lift with great snow growth.  Some models are starting to show a more evenly distributed snow through the Monroe Skyline/SB/MRG region... the these type of distribution setups favor Jay as the leading rock on the NW flank of New England, with the flats of the St Lawrence Valley and Champlain Valley meet.  Lake moisture on WSW flow often rides the northern slope of the Adirondacks and SLV, before washing over the Jay range... which also often lays in the better thermal environment for high ratio snow.

[powderfreak]

We've had a net 5" fall at the longer resort plot (High Road) over the 48 hours.  That's a net gain, with settling and recent fluff.  Hasn't been cleared in a minute.  Probably 3" today though.

This spot at 3,014 feet has had 16" in two measurements since Thursday AM.  The snow stacked on top of the pole, just shows how straight down the snow can fall up there.  The moisture is usually there to fluff out some snow on these cold flows from the Great Lakes, it's just a matter of how windy it is.  The calm snow just stacks straight up.

 

[alex]

Finally some decent snow here too. Been flurries for 3 days lol... now big fat flakes

[J.Spin]

I hadn’t been out to the mountain since Winter Storm Elliot finished up, and although it was a mixed system in terms of precipitation, I was encouraged by how it played out for the local snowpack.  The storm brought roughly 8 inches of snow to our place down in the valley, and represented a net gain in both snowpack depth and snowpack liquid equivalent.  Bolton Valley was reporting 12 inches of new snow from the system, so the mountains must have fared at least as well as the valleys.

With some rain during the middle part of the system, I was wondering about the condition of the snow surfaces, so yesterday I decided on a relatively low angle tour on the Bolton Valley Backcountry Network to get a feel for how the new snow had settled in.  I started at the Catamount Trail access point on the Bolton Valley Access Road, which is down around 1,200’, and toured up to around the 1,800’ elevation a bit above Caribou Corner.  Those are relatively low elevations overall, and 1,200’ is below even the Timberline Base, so it would certainly be a challenging stress test to speak to the quality and utility of the snowpack.

At 1,200’ at the parking area I found about 4 to 5 inches of powder above the base snow, and most notably, I couldn’t really find a rain crust.  There was a clear demarcation between the consolidated base and the surface snow, at least around the parking area where the snowpack is a bit more exposed to snow maintenance and sunshine.  The depth of the powder quickly increased as I ascended, and by about 1,500’ I was easily finding 6 to 12 inches of powder.  It became hard to judge the depth of the surface snow though, because I typically couldn’t even find an interface between the new snow and the underlying snowpack; the wetter precipitation from the storm must have either drained well or transitioned smoothly to snow.  I’d say total snowpack depth was probably around 10 to 12 inches at 1,200’ and 12 to 16 inches at 1,800’, but there’s plenty of substance to it, so it’s quite skiable up to moderate angles in maintained areas, and obviously it’s going to be notably deeper up above 2,000’.

In terms of the skiing, the powder was actually too deep for the lowest angle sections on the tour, and I’d have to use existing skin tracks or other skier tracks to maintain or pick up speed.  The next tier of pitches skied great with the snow though.  I typically like that tour up to Caribou Corner when there’s about 4 to 6 inches of powder over a consolidated base, so this really was a bit deeper than that, and I’d say folks should move on up to moderate angle terrain for the best backcountry turns, especially with additional snow falling over the next couple of days.  There was light snow falling during my tour in the form of those big fluffy flakes, and I see that the resort reported an inch of new this morning.

Despite the usual doom and gloom in the main threads (sort of the typical SNE winter situation unless a big storm hits there I guess), the season seems roughly on track in our area as of Christmas.  Snowfall to date on the 25^th was 40.1” vs. a mean of 40.4”, and snowpack depth at 10.5” was a few inches above average.  The SDD for the season were a little behind average pace at 146.5 SDD vs. the 162.2 SDD average.  I can see in the data that the SDD deficiency is largely due to that slow first half of December, because we were still ahead of average SDD as of the end of November, and then the pace started to fall off before picking up again in the second half of the month.

[bwt3650]

Why is the gfs teasing us with a change to snow Sunday after a dryslot? Could this be another break even or net gain up top?




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[borderwx]

Mountain was looking good from up here PF!



Not minding the warm up, it should make bucking the blowdowns out back a little less stressful this weekend


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[alex]

Gotta admit, today felt awesome. Skiers looked stoked, even if the conditions are not perfect. Huge crowd. 

Looking strictly at the GFS, looks like things start looking pretty decent about a week for now - so for the time being, seems like we should enjoy this spring stretch, the real thing is still a ways away!

[#NoPoles]

Time to tap the maples

[J.Spin]

I wasn’t exactly sure where on Bolton’s network today’s backcountry ski tour was going to take me, but my plan was to start with an ascent up to the start of the C Bear Woods, and then go from there.  I haven’t toured in that part of the network yet this season, but the ridgeline there tops out around 2,400’, so starting in the lower Village, it would give me a good sampling of the snowpack in the 2,000’ to 2,400’ elevation range.

For my tour back on Monday on some of the lower sections of the Network I topped out around 1,800’ and generally found 6 to 12 inches of powder, and the tenor of the powder skiing was that something with a bit more pitch would be appropriate for the snow depth.  With continued rounds of accumulations over the past couple of days (and an additional 2 to 3 inches reported in the past 24 hours at Bolton as of this morning’s update), I figured the powder might even be a notch up from where it was.

It was midmorning by the time I arrived at the Village, and temperatures were very comfortable in the lower 30s F.  Being the big holiday week, the resort was really humming, and they were already parking folks in the lower Nordic Center parking lot.  That worked out well for me though, since it’s right on the Broadway Trail that links in nicely with the heart of the Backcountry Network.

Around 2,000’ in the open areas of the Village, the depth of the surface snow was quite variable between the effects of the wind and sun, but in general I found 5 to 6 inches of powder over a consolidated base.  There wasn’t any obvious rain crust, but there was a denser layer below the powder.  That layer generally wasn’t present in the trees, so I assume it was from wind and sun.  Up at 2,400’ I’d say powder depths were about the same as what I found in the 1,500’ to 1,800’ elevation range on Monday, so between additional accumulations and settling, I guess things roughly held pat at that level.  The pitches near the top of the ridge there are up in the black diamond range, and I think the uppermost parts of the ridgeline were a bit windswept because the snowpack wasn’t sufficient for confident turns in that area.  Noticing that, I headed southward to the right of the main C Bear Woods entrance into some other areas of glades to shallow out my overall run.  Intermediate pitches offered nice turns, and the snowpack easily supported that type of skiing.  The best turns of that descent were in the lower slopes among the moderate and lower angle pitches as I got back toward Brook Run.

I’d left the option open to extend my tour up toward some of the Bryant Trail terrain, but it was approaching midday and the powder was already started to get denser and a bit sticky as the temperatures pushed above freezing.  As I headed to the main base area, it was turning into a fantastic day with breaks of sun and temperatures moving into the 30s F.  That’s a pretty nice combination for the holiday visitors to have comfortable temperatures and some decent snowpack, and it will be interesting to see how this holiday week plays out overall for visitation at the local resorts.  It’s been pretty sweet to have some daily refresher snowfalls recently to bolster the snowpack, and the snow reports I’ve seen from the resorts around here have indicated that it’s been allowing them to continue to open new terrain and expand the trail count.  Visitors to the slopes should generally be treated to some comfortable temperatures for the remained of the holiday week, which I think many would take over the subzero spells that can often occur around the start of the new year.  It looks like anyone going out on Sunday might have to dodge a bit of rain though based on the current forecast.

This may be one of the nicer holiday week’s we’ve had recently in terms of the quality of the skiing.  Looking at my notes, I’ve had a half dozen backcountry ski tours in about the past ten days, and that’s pretty decent because sometimes the backcountry doesn’t even get rolling until January or February.  On average, it should get going (at least on low and moderate angle terrain) in mid-December here in the Northern Greens, but the past three seasons haven’t hit 24 inches at the Mt. Mansfield Stake until January.  Technically, the stake only hit the 24-inch mark for the first time this season on Tuesday, but it’s been hovering in the 20-inch range since mid-month when Winter Storm Diaz hit, and the snowpack came together in such a way that those 20-ish inches were sufficient to put a lot of the local backcountry terrain in play for quality turns.