NNE Cold Season Thread 2022/2023

[LaGrangewx]

4 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

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.

Yea it’s a fun mountain with some great runs like Rumor and Lies and also some sweet trees. They do well with coastals but miss out on the upslope that Vermont and even Whiteface can get. 

[NW_of_GYX]

Answered my own question. By Thursday looks ok as modeled




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[powderfreak]

Nice day despite some gusty winds.  Bluebird, chalky packed powder, some wind scour and some drifted dense between bumps in spots.

But generally, just nice chalky packed powder.

[bwt3650]

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. 
 

The top of the railing on my deck is about 4 feet off the ground. I would expect the depth to pass it by Thursday. It’s pretty good right now. You probably know this, but as long as they hold on to the bonnie, a short walk will get you all those fresh lines on jfk, spuds and everglade. Sometimes it’s better when the flyer is down if you’re cool with a little walking.




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[J.Spin]

After a couple of great outings in the new snow on Friday and Saturday, I wasn’t really sure if I was going to ski yesterday.  I figured the snow would be settling or warming, at least in the lower mountain elevations, and combined with skier traffic, that would bring the conditions down a notch.  My older son was still at the house for the weekend though, and when he was eager to get out for some turns, that easily tipped the balance and we decided to head up to Bolton.

It was late morning by the time we hit the mountain, and they were already running out of parking spots at Timberline, so people were clearly eager to get out.  Once we hit the hill, it was easy to see why.  Winter Storm Quest had departed, the weather was pleasant, and the quality of the snow seemed like it hadn’t changed at all.  There had been some additional snow on the back side of the storm cycle, but even the earlier snow seemed like it was in great shape.  Amazingly, it almost felt like it had dried out a bit more and the powder seemed a bit less dense.

We had planned on a mellow day on the Telemark skis enjoying the groomed and packed runs, but that plan fell by the wayside a bit when we found that there was still plenty of untracked powder around, and it was of such good quality.  We had a great time touring around the mountain and managed a big loop that hit every lift at the resort and concluded with a big long run down from the Vista Summit to the Timberline Base.  Temperatures were very wintry and chilly up above 3,000’, and remarkably pleasant down around 1,500’, but still cold enough to continue preserving the snow.

We were most impressed by the durability of the recent snow.  The surfaces just continued to hold up with incredibly soft snow and no signs of ice, even in high traffic areas.  I know that we’re really skiing on snow from more storms than just Winter Storm Quest, but even the packed runs were just so enjoyable because every turn you took, you could rely on encountering only soft, yielding snow.  We’ve reached a point where the quality of the snow is so good that it’s really dropped the difficulty of every trail down a solid notch.  Skiing advanced runs feels like skiing intermediate runs, and you can really enjoy the steeps without having to dodge patches of hard snow.  I noticed this aspect of the skiing prominently on the steepest pitch going into Maria’s, where tight, high-angle, moguled terrain just seemed to flow because you never had to avoid ice or other obstacles.  It was a great day for my son to push himself with his Telemark skiing on challenging terrain, so I’m definitely happy he tipped the scales and got us out for those turns.

[Boston Bulldog]

Looks like some solid upslope for the Northern Greens with 4" at the Stowe stake, and Jay reporting 3-4" by noon. They haven't updated since, does anyone know what they finished with today?

[NW_of_GYX]

Jay was great mid winter skiing today, glad we made the trip over.




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[dmcginvt]

On 3/6/2023 at 8:50 PM, powderfreak said:

Nice day despite some gusty winds.  Bluebird, chalky packed powder, some wind scour and some drifted dense between bumps in spots.

But generally, just nice chalky packed powder.

headwall of national looks like nothing these days. Where's the ice!!

[powderfreak]

What a day on the hill, but especially this morning.  The best packed powder you'll ever find.  For whatever reason, the wind was calm and the groomers did their thing... but it was pure velvet and dry snow this morning.  So smooth.  These are the mornings we live for.

[dmcginvt]

looks like blowing ass on gondolier and hayride always good times.  Miss my old 210 gs skis used to blow ass with the best of them on those trails. BTW I knew Jake, his son Timmy was in the same grade as mine and played hockey with him.  What a bonus it was during the winter carnival hockey tourney that I was running when they gave us 5 snow boards to raffle off.  Never got the invite to the annual party though, i would have loved the 50th with Trey.  

  

[Lava Rock]

What a day on the hill, but especially this morning.  The best packed powder you'll ever find.  For whatever reason, the wind was calm and the groomers did their thing... but it was pure velvet and dry snow this morning.  So smooth.  These are the mornings we live for.

Was at SR yesterday. Top 10 day. Absolutely spectacular

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[tamarack]

Gorgeous near-calm day on the Flying Pond ice, though the breakable crust made for tough walking until the sun softened it late morning.  Not many strikes but took home an 18" bass & 13" brookie.  Then a fave birthday supper, meatloaf, baked spuds, and my wife even bought me some broccoli.         (She hates broccoli.)

[powderfreak]

9 hours ago, tamarack said:

Gorgeous near-calm day on the Flying Pond ice, though the breakable crust made for tough walking until the sun softened it late morning.  Not many strikes but took home an 18" bass & 13" brookie.  Then a fave birthday supper, meatloaf, baked spuds, and my wife even bought me some broccoli.         (She hates broccoli.)

Happy Belated Birthday Tamarack!

[NW_of_GYX]

12 hours ago, Lava Rock said:

Was at SR yesterday. Top 10 day. Absolutely spectacular

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Lol that’s my old UPS guy Jacques, hope he’s doing well 

[Lava Rock]

Lol that’s my old UPS guy Jacques, hope he’s doing well 

Ha! He knows everyone.

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[borderwx]

A little better than decent out today. Feels like the sap should be running.

100 mile views



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[dmcginvt]

I'm a classic wishcaster.  Im no george001.  But I am terrible.  I think we are getting more snow then let's on.  There's been a north push after a huge south push to almost nothing.  I'm guessing 4-6 is realistic.  With some bonus upslope after for the northern greens to a foot for them

[J.Spin]

With no obvious fresh snow in the past few days for the Northern Greens, there wasn’t a huge extra incentive to head out for turns this weekend, but as PF noted with his report on the conditions at Stowe, the quality of the snow that is out there on piste is tremendously high.  We’ve had a few decent resurfacing events this season, but this most recent series of winter storms including that low pressure from the Ontario/Quebec border passing southeast across the region on the 26^th, Winter Storm Piper on the 28^th, that quick moving system that came across from the Great Lakes on the 1^st, and then Winter Storm Quest on the 4^th, has probably been the best.  We picked up roughly 30 inches of snow in the span of that week at our site in the valley, and of course the mountains did substantially better than that.  Moreover, being the late February/early March period, all that snow came in with a strong snowpack in place, more so than any of the previous resurfacing events.  The snowpack at our house currently has 5 inches of liquid equivalent in it, so the mountain snowpack must be absolutely loaded.  Suffice it to say, the past couple of weeks has been a setup for great ski conditions.

My wife and I found ourselves with some time yesterday afternoon, and the skies were clear with temperatures in the 30s F, so we headed up to Bolton Valley for some on piste Telemark runs at Timberline.  The first thing we noticed was that Timberline was a very popular place for a Sunday afternoon, and that was because the third annual Blauvelt’s Banks competition was taking place there.  My younger son had mentioned that he’d seen them building the course there earlier in the week, and that was an interesting change of pace because they’ve held it up at the main mountain in the past.  This year, the course was on the lower part of Showtime, with an excellent view for those riding the Timberline Quad, and the course looked great.  The placement of the course did mean that access to Showtime and Twice as Nice was restricted though.

In terms of our ski session, we hit just about everything else that was available off the Timberline Quad.  Even after a number of days without fresh snow, the quality of the ski surfaces continues to be fantastic.  The snowpack can certainly take a beating as we get farther into spring with those seasonal temperature fluctuations, but even with temperatures edging a bit above freezing, the snow just seems to stay beautifully consistent.  Most terrain has soft, winter snow, and even in areas at lower elevations in the sun where the snow was transitioning to a more spring-like surface, it continues to retain that winter-like consistency and softness.  You can just lay into every turn and get a beautiful, smooth, quiet carve out of it.  We stuck to on piste terrain on this outing, but I did check the snow off piste, and it still seemed quite light and powdery, even down near 1,500’ elevation.  It looks like yet another system, Winter Storm Sage, has the potential to affect the area in the next couple of days, and the ski conditions will hopefully continue to be strong because any snow it brings should be going down atop the current quality snowpack.

[EMontpelierWhiteout]

I am thinking NWS needs to expand Winter Storm Warnings northward based on latest model guidance spinning this thing a little north of Provincetown.  With that evolution, can’t see how better dynamics don’t get thrown back further north and west.  Anyway, not a lot of NNE chatter, but maybe we should get some going on this. 

[J.Spin]

CoCoRaHS likes us to get the liquid equivalent in the snowpack on Mondays, but I only do it occasionally because it’s a substantial amount of extra time to add to the daily routine.  That’s especially the case as we get farther into winter with the way the snowpack typically builds around here.  I had time for the coring and melting this morning though, and the analysis revealed that there’s currently 5.02” of liquid in the snowpack here at our site.  I haven’t run a liquid analysis in over a month, since back in early February when there were only about 3 inches of liquid in the snowpack, but the NOHRSC modeling for our site was absolutely spot on with the numbers as today’s data point and the modeling line show in the plot.  The numbers are that tight despite almost a dozen additional winter storms during that period, so kudos to the modelers as usual.  As the plot projection shows, the snowpack also seems poised to take on another good shot of liquid equivalent in the coming days.  While there was some discussion about it a couple of months ago, I highly doubt that January is going to represent the peak of the snowpack around here this winter.

[sankaty]

I'll be reporting from Reading, VT, and Killington. Seems like a decent spot for this storm.

[tamarack]

Took the season's first core last Monday": 9.31" from a 30" pack.  Depth was down to 7" after the upper 40s New Year's Day but even that had about 3" LE.  From then thru 3/6 we had about 8" precip (62" SN) with the depth peaking at 36" on 3/4, and even with the much AN temps there was more settling than melting.

[tunafish]

I'm not a huge skier - usually get out 2-3x a season.  Was at Mount Abram this past Friday and as @powderfreak and @Lava Rock describe, conditions were incredible.

First 2 hours of the day was corduroy packed powder under deep blue skies.  No lift lines made for lap runs the entire day.

[J.Spin]

3 hours ago, EMontpelierWhiteout said:

I am thinking NWS needs to expand Winter Storm Warnings northward based on latest model guidance spinning this thing a little north of Provincetown.  With that evolution, can’t see how better dynamics don’t get thrown back further north and west.  Anyway, not a lot of NNE chatter, but maybe we should get some going on this. 

Your thoughts were prescient, because Alexa just alerted me that we’ve been put under a Winter Storm Warning here in Waterbury, and indeed the warnings have move north a bit.  Our BTV NWS point forecast currently suggests 6-14” of snow accumulation through Wednesday, with additional snow on Wednesday night, so we’ll see how that goes.  I haven’t seen a recent update to the Event Total Snowfall map, but they’ll probably make some adjustments if they are substantial enough.

[#NoPoles]

Winter Weather Advisory Bretton Woods, Winter Storm Warning North Conway

[mreaves]

5 hours ago, J.Spin said:

Your thoughts were prescient, because Alexa just alerted me that we’ve been put under a Winter Storm Warning here in Waterbury, and indeed the warnings have move north a bit.  Our BTV NWS point forecast currently suggests 6-14” of snow accumulation through Wednesday, with additional snow on Wednesday night, so we’ll see how that goes.  I haven’t seen a recent update to the Event Total Snowfall map, but they’ll probably make some adjustments if they are substantial enough.

Yep. Made the call to grab a hotel room in near UVMMC for my 9:00 am appointment. Didn’t want to risk crappy roads and an early drive. 

[MRVexpat]

8" at the summit of Lincoln Peak already this AM. Over performer en route for the C/N Greens?

[borderwx]

4.5” at the house. 31F. Heavy snow.

Hope everyone waxed the skis, there is no lack of wet in the pack


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[alex]

4” overnight; better than the 1-3” that was forecasted. Steep drop to our NW though, only an inch or so in Littleton 

[dmcginvt]

5 inches so far.  This band going through right now is 1.5"/hr