NNE Cold Season Thread 2023/2024

[powderfreak]

7 minutes ago, mreaves said:

I don’t think you meant Woodford?  Anyway, I’m at 24” too. We’ve had snow cover since late November and it’s been 3 Mondays in a row that we have gotten birch benders. On the downside, it hasn’t been all that cold so the pack always seems close to ripeness. Water is flowing in the woods and I haven’t used my snowblower because all the snow has been way to waterlogged. 

Nope, you're right, bad typo.  Woodbury, VT.  The Elmore, Wolcott, Woodbury, Cabot zone has done very well.  Friends from the ski area who live out there have gotten dumped on in all of these.

[mreaves]

7 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Nope, you're right, bad typo.  Woodbury, VT.  The Elmore, Wolcott, Woodbury, Cabot zone has done very well.  Friends from the ski area who live out there have gotten dumped on in all of these.

Thats sort of what I thought. Friends in Woodbury have lost power 2 out the 3 Mondays. They were kind of surprised they didn’t lose it today. That area is a pretty reliably snowy area in general. 

[powderfreak]

4 minutes ago, mreaves said:

Thats sort of what I thought. Friends in Woodbury have lost power 2 out the 3 Mondays. They were kind of surprised they didn’t lose it today. That area is a pretty reliably snowy area in general. 

Friend's photo... out that way they had 6-7" of paste last night.  We had half that.  This photo is from Elmore or Wolcott, on the line.

[J.Spin]

As of their 4:00 P.M. update, Bolton was reporting a foot of new snow so far from this current winter storm, and I’m sure they’ve cruised right past that mark with the way it was snowing up there when I left the mountain this afternoon.

The early morning report from Bolton was 6 inches new up top, so my wife and I planned to let a few more inches accumulate and then head up in the afternoon for some lift-served runs. That plan quickly changed around 11:30 A.M. when we noticed that the webcam image was frozen. We checked their website and they’d updated the snow report to indicate that they’d lost power. They were working directly with Green Mountain Power and hoped to get it back up in an hour, but it was very much up in the air.

About an hour later with no change in status, I figured it was time to head up for some ski touring to get out in the new snow, since the potential for lift-served skiing was just too uncertain. When I first arrived up at the mountain, the snowfall was steady but I’d say only moderate in intensity. I did some quick depth checks around the Village to get a sense for how much new snow was there, but it was tough to gauge. In many areas, the new snow is so well blended with the old snow that it was hard to determine where the interface was. Overall, that’s a great sign because it indicates that the snowpack wasn’t hit too hard by the warmer temperatures on the front end of this system. In some spots I could find a thicker layer below the new snow, but even at that point I was often getting surface snow depths of 12 to 14 inches. Whatever the accumulations, there’s plenty of new snow and it’s coming together nicely with the underlying snowpack.

I skinned up to the Wilderness Summit, and touring traffic at that point seemed very light – there were just a couple of tracks down Peggy Dow’s. As I ascended, the intensity of the snowfall increased, and when I was up above 3,000’ on Wilderness it was definitely in the 1-2”/hr. range at times. I know it’s really dumping by how quickly my gear takes on snow accumulations during touring transitions, and this was one of those times where I was constantly having to brush off the snow.

Fat skis were the call again today, and this snow is on the denser side, so you want some pitch for the best turns. In terms of density, at 2,000’ the snow seemed to be a bit above the 10% H2O range, and up at 3,000’ it’s definitely drier; it’s got the feel of something in the 7 to 8% H2O range. The turns are great anywhere at elevation of course; it’s simply bottomless powder everywhere with this storm putting down plenty of liquid equivalent. I was worried about some of the water bars getting blown out with the warmer front end of this storm, but in general they seemed similar to how they were before. The snowfall didn’t actually slow down when I descended back to the Village, so it wasn’t just 3,000’+ that was getting hammered at that point – the intensity of the snowfall had definitely increased in association with the back side of the storm.

The mountain had been running at least the Snowflake Chair when I started out on my tour, so my plan was to swap over to mid-fats and get in a few lift-served laps to finish off the session. Well, when I arrived back at the main base, power was out again everywhere, so that plan was out the window. There was an easy solution to that though; I just slapped the skins back on and kept touring. I was initially thinking a nice little tour up to the Snowflake Summit would be a great way to finish off the session, but when I got to Five Corners I suddenly thought about hitting the Timberline Summit. I haven’t been up to Timberline at all yet this season because the snow depths at the Timberline Base are still a bit lean compared to the stronger snowpack above 2,000’, but that part of the tour gave me a chance to check out Timberline’s higher elevations. There’s been hardly any skier traffic over there, so it’s nearly untracked everywhere.

Heavy snowfall continued to pummel the area right through to the end of my ski tour, and my car had been loaded with snow in just the couple hours that I was out there. It took me probably 10 minutes to clean off the snow.  The temperatures had definitely dropped as I was heading down the access road, and the heavy snowfall didn’t start to abate a bit until I was below 1,500’. We’ve been accumulating better even down in the valley now that the temperatures have dropped below freezing.

[J.Spin]

On 12/10/2023 at 6:21 PM, EMontpelierWhiteout said:

J. Spin, have really appreciated your detailed assessment of the snowpack per elevation this season.  Very informative for planning getting out to ski.   Interesting and encouraging early season.  Seems we will luck out again especially at summits with this one.  Temps never soared today in East Montpelier, have topped out in low 40s. Changeover appears ahead of schedule as already seeing some frozen returns in high peaks of the ADKs.

Happy to help with the snow reports - I'm heading out anyway and I'm always poking around to get a sense for the new snow, base depths, snow density etc., so it only makes sense to pass along the beta as much as possible for others that might want to hit the slopes around here.

[powderfreak]

9 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

 

Love this.  Shows the parking lot vibe.

The black and white shots on these days show what is important.  White is snow, non-white is everything else.

[bwt3650]

About an inch of the fake stuff so far tonight..snowing pretty good right now.


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[J.Spin]

On 12/11/2023 at 8:20 PM, powderfreak said:

Still coming down this evening at the ski area.  Don't dare drop anymore obs in the main thread, lol.  Getting dire outside of our little pocket in VT it seems.

With the addition of that backside snow from last night, I put together the north to south list of Vermont ski areas snow totals I could find for this most recent storm. Similar to what the modeling suggested, the spine of the Northern Greens seemed to do the best with accumulations. As the numbers show, even for a northern area like Burke, the storm total fell off substantially since they are so far east of the spine. Snowfall dropped off rather sharply for the Central Greens as well, and then there was sort of another tier of drop off south of Killington into the Southern Greens.

Jay Peak: 18”

Burke: 8”

Smuggler’s Notch: 17”

Stowe: 14”

Bolton Valley: 18”

Sugarbush: 8”

Pico: 8”

Killington: 8”

Okemo: 2”

Bromley: 4”

Stratton: 4”

Mount Snow: 2”

[bwt3650]

With the addition of that backside snow from last night, I put together the north to south list of Vermont ski areas snow totals I could find for this most recent storm. Similar to what the modeling suggested, the spine of the Northern Greens seemed to do the best with accumulations. As the numbers show, even for a northern area like Burke, the storm total fell off substantially since they are so far east of the spine. Snowfall dropped off rather sharply for the Central Greens as well, and then there was sort of another tier of drop off south of Killington into the Southern Greens.
Jay Peak: 18”
Burke: 8”
Smuggler’s Notch: 17”
Stowe: 14”
Bolton Valley: 18”
Sugarbush: 8”
Pico: 8”
Killington: 8”
Okemo: 2”
Bromley: 4”
Stratton: 4”
Mount Snow: 2”

Might be another 2-3 from tonight if you would include it in the same storm. It was very localized coming up 242 where before the dip (about 3 miles from the base) it was just flurries, to a steady light, sometimes moderate snow here at 1850’.


.

[bwt3650]

Dumping again..




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[powderfreak]

Same here.  Low vis big flake squalls.

[bwt3650]

Just shut off, but going to be another spectacular day…feel bad for all those people seeing pics of all this snow going into holiday week and it’s going to be wiped out Monday. Need another miracle save, but I think we’ve used them up for the season.


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[powderfreak]

27 minutes ago, bwt3650 said:

Just shut off, but going to be another spectacular day…feel bad for all those people seeing pics of all this snow going into holiday week and it’s going to be wiped out Monday. Need another miracle save, but I think we’ve used them up for the season.

Right?  We are closing in on 4” at the Lookout Plot since like 6-7am.  2-3” in the parking lot.

[Ginx snewx]

40 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Right?  We are closing in on 4” at the Lookout Plot since like 6-7am.  2-3” in the parking lot.

Days and days of upslope AWT. So awesome 

[mreaves]

Got dumped on for a bit.

[J.Spin]

With Monday night’s continued snowfall on the back side of the system, Bolton Valley reported 18” for their storm total in the morning. Since I’d missed out on the chance for any lift-served turns on Monday due to the power outages, I popped up to the mountain for some runs yesterday morning since power was fully restored and the lifts were back in action. The resort is still somewhat in early season mode though, and they’re not running all lifts on weekdays, but the Vista Quad was running, which serves the bulk of the main mountain’s terrain. I haven’t been up to Vista at all yet this season, so this was a chance for me to see how the snow was doing up there.

The resort obviously got a boatload of snow from this most recent storm, with another excellent shot of liquid equivalent for the snowpack thanks to all the dense snow that fell on the front end of the storm. Even with all the snow, there was a ton of terrain that was roped off yesterday morning. The snow report indicated that between the warm front end of the storm and winds that came through, there were areas of water bars, melting and scouring that need some work to be safe for skiers. I’m sure ski patrol will be working hard to open as much terrain as they can as they have time to sort it out.

The standard snowmaking/groomed routes off Vista were definitely the main pipeline of open terrain, and the snow report noted that nothing else had been groomed. While so much terrain was roped off, there were some gems that had made the cut, such as Vermont 200 and Glades. I think Vermont 200 is sheltered enough that it holds the snow despite strong winds, and let’s just say, without any grooming, it was a great example of how spicy the terrain is out there. Vermont 200 normally has a lot of contour with plenty of rocks and ledges and stumps and dips and all that, but it feels exaggerated 10-fold with the current snowpack. There is plenty of snow in there though, and it’s a wild ride. Glades was another gem because the Mid Mountain Chair wasn’t running, so getting to the top entry of Glades meant a bit of skating was required across the Mid Mountain Flats, and most people weren’t interested in that. So, the top of Glades had seen very few skiers and held a lot of fresh powder. Lower down, people were coming in from Upper Glades/Moose Run, so the conditions were more tracked, but still excellent.

The snowmakers were out working hard on Spillway, so that seems to be where they’re putting their efforts for additional manmade snow at the moment. Even with all this new natural snow, Spillway still needs that snowmaking base because it’s wide and exposed to the wind so that it’s constantly getting scoured. Additional snow is falling today with the cold front and northwest flow squalls that are coming through, and then it looks quite for the end of the week before a potential larger storm affects the area Sunday night into Monday.  The models still seem to have some sorting out to do with that system though.

[STILL N OF PIKE]

Enjoy before Monday - hope for a storm to slide SE 

[mreaves]

14 minutes ago, STILL N OF PIKE said:

Enjoy before Monday - hope for a storm to slide SE 

Wilbur will. 

[J.Spin]

On 12/11/2023 at 10:57 PM, powderfreak said:

Love this.  Shows the parking lot vibe.

The black and white shots on these days show what is important.  White is snow, non-white is everything else.

Yeah, B&W is especially fantastic for snow photography – if there’s any weird color cast from poor white balance, strange natural lighting, or whatever, you immediately ditch that and it nails the perfect white once you’re done with level adjustments.  The auto balancing in Photoshop is pretty fantastic at nailing the white balance in color photos almost all the time anyway, but going to B&W is basically fool proof in that regard.

Beyond the technical side though, B&W is just perfect for contrasting light and dark, and that’s such a huge part of so many snow photos. Storm days, late days, low light days, and certain parts of the mountain are basically B&W to begin with, so going that route is a natural fit. B&W really just fits so well with the typical snowy, winter vibe of the mountains around here.

[eyewall]

2 hours ago, J.Spin said:

Yeah, B&W is especially fantastic for snow photography – if there’s any weird color cast from poor white balance, strange natural lighting, or whatever, you immediately ditch that and it nails the perfect white once you’re done with level adjustments.  The auto balancing in Photoshop is pretty fantastic at nailing the white balance in color photos almost all the time anyway, but going to B&W is basically fool proof in that regard.

Beyond the technical side though, B&W is just perfect for contrasting light and dark, and that’s such a huge part of so many snow photos. Storm days, late days, low light days, and certain parts of the mountain are basically B&W to begin with, so going that route is a natural fit. B&W really just fits so well with the typical snowy, winter vibe of the mountains around here.

Yeah Lightroom is pretty solid for handling those casts etc. I used that for the recent snow in the NC Mountains:

[mreaves]

Downtown Barre looking festive. 

[Ginx snewx]

10 hours ago, mreaves said:

Downtown Barre looking festive. 

And you complain about my pics...Mr. Eaves

[mreaves]

1 hour ago, Ginx snewx said:

And you complain about my pics...Mr. Eaves

Lol.  I was sitting a t a red light, holding my phone out the car window.

[J.Spin]

I haven’t been up to the mountain since Tuesday, but my younger son was out for some lift-served turns on Wednesday with friends and he said that Bolton’s conditions were fantastic. Similar to what I’d observe on Tuesday, he said there was a still a lot of roped terrain due to various hazards, but he and his group were able to ski lower down on Preacher, and the untracked powder was going strong. That area is well protected from winds, and with the lower traffic due to the current need to traverse in, he said that conditions in there were better than he often sees in midwinter. The resort had also opened up the lower part of Wilderness that can be easily accessed from Vista, and he said the powder there was excellent as well.

Since it hasn’t snowed for a couple of days, I decided that the timing would be good to head out onto Bolton’s Backcountry Network.  This was my first time out on the Network this season, so it was a great opportunity to see where the snowpack stands. In terms of skiing the glades, coverage is quite good, and there are no major issues there. Out in the glades is feels like something that is approaching a midwinter snowpack, but what gives it away that we’re not quite there yet are the water bars on the main access trails. Some water bars are fine, but there are many that seem like they are stuck in early season, probably because they got blown out a bit by the warm start to the last system. I haven’t noticed that issue quite as much on the lift-served terrain, probably because the grooming and greater skier traffic help to pack in the water bars more, but those factors aren’t there to tamp down the snow down on the backcountry terrain. There are a number of spots on the Bryant Trail where people have diverted the skin track around the water bar area instead of trying to bridge it.

Today we toured up the classic route to the Bryant Cabin, and then descended through some of the more popular glades. I was surprised to find that even above 2,000’ the temperature was edging above the freezing mark, so the snow was getting a bit thick in some areas. This effect seemed to diminish with elevation, and thankfully most of the powder skied well and wasn’t sticky, probably because the air is still fairly dry. As we descended below 2,500’, we started to run into areas where the powder became sticky, and I figured it was due to elevation, but we got back into nice powder in lower areas and that makes me think the stickiness was just in areas that had seen the sun. In any event, even with the temperatures being a bit marginal, there’s still plenty of good powder out there at elevation if you avoid areas that got hit by the sun.

It’s not surprising that the backcountry snowpack is getting a midwinter feel, because the snowpack depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake is at 40 inches, and that’s the depth at which people start to feel comfortable skiing most off piste terrain around here. Those water bars in certain areas do seem to give it away that we’re still in early season though. Bolton’s snow report indicates that they are just shy of 100 inches of snow on the season, and I see that Jay Peak is reporting 115 inches on the season, so both resorts seem to have done well with these early season storms we’ve had thus far. We’re within a couple inches of average snowfall to date down at our site in the valley, but I bet those numbers from the resorts are ahead of their average pace due to the substantial elevation-dependence we’ve see with these recent systems. In any event, 100” of snow by mid-December is a solid start to the season, even at elevation in the Northern Greens.

[J.Spin]

On 12/13/2023 at 5:29 PM, eyewall said:

Yeah Lightroom is pretty solid for handling those casts etc. I used that for the recent snow in the NC Mountains:

Indeed, that's certainly what I'd use if I didn't already have Photoshop - Adobe knows their stuff.

[wxeyeNH]

Wow.  Euro now forecasting 4" of rain for Monday.  A Flood Warning has already been issued for the Pemi.  Wonder if a wind advisory is coming too?  Unlike the last storm where CAD ruled the high winds should reach the surface.  

[borderwx]

55F

Feels like 100


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[borderwx]

Quite the morning, 5F in the shade to start. Happy Winter and safe holiday to everyone


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[backedgeapproaching]

Well, this is what we have come to. Don't think I have ever seen BTV publicly post a percent chance of .1" snow map....lol.

 

[Boston Bulldog]

I love this visualization via @OceanStWx

https://x.com/OceanStWx/status/1738405055425102072?s=20

Not every cutter is built the same. Some have entrenched CAD even as the warm sector comes in. Some cut through Minnesota and lose forcing while stalling the warm sector in SNE. Some rip through the Syracuse and bring in a moist NW flow to refresh the N Greens when the sfc low flies north. The worst ones have no redeeming qualities outside of remarkable meteorological accomplishment (far before my time but the Cleveland Superbomb comes to mind)

This most recent storm will rest in the annals across NNE, not just for its quantity of precip, but for how horrendous the preceding airmass was. Combine the awful preceding conditions (feel like most cutters can dam some cold before the sfc low goes west) with a literal Category 5 AR (Ralph, 2019 slide 4 https://cw3e.ucsd.edu/cw3e-event-summary-17-18-december-2023-east-coast-ar/) and we get the worst cutter we've seen since 2020 at a minimum. I've been tracking NNE snowpack for about a decade and I cannot remember such a remarkably horrid event. Rotting snowpack and 98th percentile integrated vapor transport incoming. We had a buzzsaw coming our way with nowhere to hide.

Fundamentally this is a snowy region and the pack will recover. A moose can fart and suddenly Froude numbers indicate that Big Jay should be getting 3-4" overnight. As PF showed, the Mansfield stake is somehow at the mean. This highly anomalous event has the region licking it's wounds, but thank god it happened in December and not February or March. Lotta ballgame left for 2023-24, we won't see a demon like last Monday for a while. More great storms will come, and more storms will cut west a bit less maliciously. Ultimately the anomaly came through. Think snow.