NNE Cold Season Thread 2024-2025

[klw]

snow level here is about 1300' (based on my obs on drive home).  It was accumulating on 89 between miles 35 and 45, wet otherwise

[alex]

It’s sticking here but barely, and it’s very very light. At this rate we’d be lucky to get an inch

[powderfreak]

1.5” at 1500ft and white rain at 750ft.

1000-1300ft seems to be the magic line right now here like @klw said.

[J.Spin]

10 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

1.5” at 1500ft and white rain at 750ft.

1000-1300ft seems to be the magic line right now here like @klw said.

We've been mixing for a while as well down here at 500 feet, and there's a bit of slushy accumulation on the elevated snowboard. The temperature is falling faster now around here, so more snow is mixing in and the snow line is definitely coming down.

[powderfreak]

32 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

We've been mixing for a while as well down here at 500 feet, and there's a bit of slushy accumulation on the elevated snowboard. The temperature is falling faster now around here, so more snow is mixing in and the snow line is definitely coming down.

Yeah the slushy windshield accumulation… it’s a funny dichotomy to just up hill from us.  I saw a truck go by that was plastered with 1-2” of snow on all four sides on Mtn Road coming down from the resort.  It’s snowy up high.

[MarkO]

It flipped a couple hours ago, looks like 2" new on the deck.

[tamarack]

Had 0.06" cold RA 7-9 PM, a pause in precip, then lgt SN after 10.  Total 1.1" from 0.17" LE, the start of which melted as it landed.

[J.Spin]

Per the discussion in the NNE Winter Thread last night, our most recent winter storm system started up yesterday afternoon. Snow levels were up above 1,000’ to start, but they gradually came down in elevation, and the valleys were reporting a mix of rain and snow in the evening. By 7:00 P.M. we started getting initial slushy accumulations on elevated surfaces down here at the 500-foot elevation, and it took a bit more time for the temperatures to drop below freezing, but within a couple of hours they’d fallen enough that the accumulations really started to take hold. Although we only had an inch or two of snow accumulation here at our site, we picked up 0.40 inches of liquid equivalent from the system, so the snow for the local mountains probably had at least a half inch of liquid in it. That’s definitely enough to get into the realm of a modest resurfacing.

When I saw Bolton Valley’s initial early morning report of 3 to 4 inches of snow, I decided that mid-fats were the practical play for today’s skis. My younger son had the day off from work, and I’d planned to get him up if the morning snowfall numbers were substantial enough, but 3-4” was modest enough that I decided to let him sleep in and I headed up by myself to sample what the storm had brought us. Heading up the Bolton Valley Access Road, the elevation dependence of the snowfall was stark: I had ascended above 1,000’ before there was really more than a trace of new accumulation in that area. And even after that, accumulations were slow to increase; it wasn’t until I hit the Bolton Valley Village at 2,000’ that I really felt the accumulation were substantial enough that they were going to make a big impact in the skiing.

I did find 3 to 4 inches of new snow at 2,000’ when I did some checks around the Village, so that was encouraging – if the main base had that much new accumulation at that point, it was likely going to be more in the higher elevations. The Wilderness Double Chair was scheduled to start running at 10:00 A.M., so my plan was to kick off the day’s ski session with some touring before Wilderness lift access was available. I ascended up to ~2,700’ to one of my usual transition points by the time lift-service was underway, so my initial descent was from there. My descent was via a combination of Cougar and Lower Turnpike, and the powder turns were excellent. On low-angle terrain, the new snow was substantial enough that it easily provided 100% bottomless powder turns, and on medium-angle terrain I’d say it was in the range of ~80% bottomless turns. The new snow was medium weight powder in probably the 8% H2O range, and just dry enough that you could keep moving fine on even low-angle terrain.

When I’d descended to the base of the Wilderness Chair it was one wind hold, and they suspected it would be about 30 minutes before it would be back up, so I checked out the other lift offerings. The Snowflake Chair offered some great turns with a few inches of powder over a groomed base on Sprig O’ Pine, and off the Mid Mountain Chair, Beech Seal had excellent natural accumulations that had resurfaced even the manmade snow on the skier’s left to a good degree. Off the Vista Quad Chair, Sherman’s Pass is finally open, so I used it to make my way back over toward the Wilderness terrain, which delivered great natural snow turns as usual. Riding the Vista Quad, I found that the winds were howling above 3,000’, and temperatures were dropping well into the 20s F. It was getting bitter up there.

In terms of snowfall and accumulations, there was at least light to moderate snowfall during my entire ski session, and it was pounding 1-2”/hour snowfall for a while just as I was starting the initial ascent of my ski tour. With continued snowfall and rates like that, it wasn’t surprising that accumulations had jumped up a bit from the initial morning report. Here’s the approximate snow accumulations profile I found from this event as of about midday when I was leaving the mountain:

340’: T

500’: T”

1,000’: T-1”

1,200’: 0.5-1”

1,500’: 1-2”

2,000’: 3-4”

2,500’: 5-6”

3,000’: 6-7”

It was really windy up at the Vista Summit, and I couldn’t get access to the usual protected spots I like to use to gauge depth, so what I’ve put down is my best estimate. Overall though, isolating depths for the snow from this most recent storm was relatively easy because we had some warmth earlier this week that consolidated the top of the snowpack. Like with the last storm though, it’s not a rock-hard subsurface – it’s a spongy interface and the new snow has bonded well to it, so that’s great for the skiing. For the elevations below 1,500’, those depths reported above are actually more than what was there when I initially ascended the access road in the morning, because the heavy snowfall during the morning had added accumulations there that hadn’t been present earlier. I was surprised that the base of Timberline at 1,500’ only had an inch or two of new snow, so even being where the precipitation fell as all snow wasn’t quite enough to get solid accumulations that would dramatically affect the resurfacing of the slopes; you really needed another 500 feet or so to get into the best stuff.

The continued snowfall today was definitely having an effect though, as evidenced by some of the midday updates to the Bolton Valley Snow Report:

10:30am Update: How's about a couple of rope drops? Glades, Swing, Fanny and more have joined the ranks since we opened this morning, and the snow is still coming down.

12:15pm Update: The ropes keep dropping - we're adding Bolton Outlaw, Peggy Dow's, Cougar, Old Turnpike, and Lower crossover to the mix!
This storm was a great way to kick the conditions up some notches as we head toward Christmas, and with a couple more clippers on the way in the coming days plus cold temperatures for the foreseeable future, it looks like conditions will be improving throughout the coming week.

[klw]

1.9 from the system yesterday and overnight.  Still snowing lightly, most of the yellow and brown stained snow is covered.

[Boston Bulldog]

The Champlain lake effect machine has been turned on!

[J.Spin]

11 hours ago, Boston Bulldog said:

The Champlain lake effect machine has been turned on!

Nice, thanks for posting that – it was neat to see the Champlain lake-effect presentations on the radar today. I’d argue that Lake Champlain is always there helping to subtly boost the moisture and snowfall heading into the Greens (at least until the lake freezes over), but it’s only so often that the mountains pull the direct Champlain lake effect from their snowfall arsenal. At the time of your image, the bulk of the bands were certainly affecting the Champlain Valley, although you can see them helping to supply a bit of that moisture pushing eastward into the Greens. As the morning wore on though, the bands shifted such that they were more directly hitting the mountains, and I added a few additional radar images below. I was up at Bolton Valley this morning, so I hadn’t seen the radar to know exactly where the moisture was coming from, but the flakes were starting to pick up as I was leaving around midday, and when I got home I saw that it was due to the bands coming directly off the lake. In terms of the local mountains, typically it’s the Central Greens that get the most benefit from direct Champlain lake-effect, but we were definitely getting some up at Bolton today. Down at the house on the Waterbury/Bolton line we were getting hit by the bands as well to varying intensities, and it definitely helped keep it extra snowy throughout the day and boost accumulations.

[mreaves]

Those radar shots don’t really pick up the light snow that was in the air on and off most of the day here. Of course, radar can struggle on this side of the spine. 

[Boston Bulldog]

BTV did end up issuing WWAs for the Champlain valley south of Burlington, likely a fluffy 5-6 in the areas most favored by the banding.

[powderfreak]

16 minutes ago, mreaves said:

Those radar shots don’t really pick up the light snow that was in the air on and off most of the day here. Of course, radar can struggle on this side of the spine. 

Yeah the beam is getting too high up for the low level precipitation.  Just to clear the Spine the beam has to be about 4-5K feet and rising the further east one goes.  Over your head it's likely hitting at like 7,000ft or so.  Definitely struggles to sample the low level stuff in an arctic air mass like today.

[J.Spin]

I just looked outside and saw that it was still snowing here, and apparently the lake effect is still going on even now. Presumably these cold temperatures in the single digits are making for a decent temperature differential off the lake water. To some degree it looks like our typical, moist, northwest flow into the spine, but those narrower bands have the more unique look of some direct lake involvement.

[powderfreak]

7 minutes ago, Boston Bulldog said:

BTV did end up issuing WWAs for the Champlain valley south of Burlington, likely a fluffy 5-6 in the areas most favored by the banding.

Yeah a couple friends just SE of BTV airport reported 6".

Looks like BTV airport is showing a snow depth of 5".

Pretty cool mesoscale event.

[mreaves]

2 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Yeah the beam is getting too high up for the low level precipitation.  Just to clear the Spine the beam has to be about 4-5K feet and rising the further east one goes.  Over your head it's likely hitting at like 7,000ft or so.  Definitely struggles to sample the low level stuff in an arctic air mass like today.

Yeah, we’ve talked about that before. It would be nice to have a radar at KMPV. 

[Prismshine Productions]

3 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Yeah the beam is getting too high up for the low level precipitation.  Just to clear the Spine the beam has to be about 4-5K feet and rising the further east one goes.  Over your head it's likely hitting at like 7,000ft or so.  Definitely struggles to sample the low level stuff in an arctic air mass like today.

you would think they should place a radar tower for the eastern vermont radar hole...

[powderfreak]

Just now, J.Spin said:

I just looked outside and saw that it was still snowing here, and apparently the lake effect is still going on even now. Presumably these cold temperatures in the single digits are making for a decent temperature differential off the lake water. To some degree it looks like our typical, moist, northwest flow into the spine, but those narrower bands have the more unique look of some direct lake involvement.

We had a couple figure skating exhibitions this evening in the Spruce Plaza and fireworks display to kick off the holiday period... Over Easy running until 10pm.  It is absolutely brutal outside right now.  People were really struggling to stay outside to watch the events.

Hammering NW wind blowing snow through the plaza, temps nearing 0F and arctic flakes ripping past.  It's a very damp cold if that makes sense, at least up there on the SE side of the Notch.

Snowing and blowing, but the flakes are those small shattered almost fog/mist visibility reduction you get in the arctic air masses.

Disregard the Top of the Gondola station obviously, that observation hasn't been updating in a while.  The other locations show the air mass currently this evening.  Tough time to try to throw an outside winter celebration on the solstice, ha.

[powderfreak]

7 minutes ago, mreaves said:

Yeah, we’ve talked about that before. It would be nice to have a radar at KMPV. 

Yeah, we can dream right?  It would be so cool to have visibility to lower levels east of the Spine.

With these temps the DGZ is literally at the surface, ha.

[Boston Bulldog]

Despite the coastal system passing well south, I noticed that as the models began to depict an offshore stronger system, there was a bit of an “upslopey” look that developed.

It’s likely the deeper intensity of the coastal storm meant that the NW flow got moistened by Atlantic moisture wrapping in from Atlantic Canada. If there’s cold air in place and a strong low over Atlantic Canada, it’s gonna snow along the northern spine of the greens

[powderfreak]

4 minutes ago, Boston Bulldog said:

Despite the coastal system passing well south, I noticed that as the models began to depict an offshore stronger system, there was a bit of an “upslopey” look that developed.

It’s likely the deeper intensity of the coastal storm meant that the NW flow got moistened by Atlantic moisture wrapping in from Atlantic Canada. If there’s cold air in place and a strong low over Atlantic Canada, it’s gonna snow along the northern spine of the greens

Can't hate the progs for the upcoming clipper either.  If we can land another 0.30 - 0.50" of SWE to the Greens, things will really be falling into place for the holiday stretch.  Been a while since the mountains have lined up to be skiing like this during the holidays.  It's winter.

NAM

GFS

EURO

[backedgeapproaching]

4.5F with a little over 4" new over 2 days

Thinking back to last year, i think all 100" that fell was paste, or at least it felt like it was.  So having some snow fall the past couple days at 15-25F feels more "normal" i guess. 

[mreaves]

1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

fireworks display to kick off the holiday period... Over Easy running until 10pm

Shot them off over the ski area and the display ended up over the village?

[mreaves]

20 minutes ago, backedgeapproaching said:

4.5F with a little over 4" new over 2 days

Thinking back to last year, i think all 100" that fell was paste, or at least it felt like it was.  So having some snow fall the past couple days at 15-25F feels more "normal" i guess. 

I noted in the main obs thread that it was cold enough today for the snow to squeak. Like you said, all the snow last year was paste, we haven’t “heard” the snow in a while. 

[J.Spin]

It was a cold one out there today; indeed, it was really a good day to just enjoy lots of indoor activities. But we did just have another storm push through the region, and the conditions on the slopes are good and keep getting better, so I still wanted to get out to see what the new snow was like and get some exercise.

Bolton’s Wilderness Chair was set to open at 10:00 A.M. again, and with the cold temperatures I definitely wanted to warm up with some touring. So, I decided to go with a session like Thursday, which I kicked off with some touring before moving to lift-served turns. When I arrived at the Bolton Valley Village midmorning, it was 7 F according to the car thermometer, and single digits F is definitely midwinter cold. There wasn’t much for wind in the parking area at that moment, so I was encouraged by that while gearing up.

Ascending via the Wilderness Uphill Route was quite comfortable, since it’s well out of any wind, and I was generating plenty of heat. I stopped my tour at 2,500’, enjoyed a run through the powder along the edges of Lower Turnpike, and then hopped on the Wilderness Chair for a ride. My body was warmed up for the touring and Telemark turns, and the wind was happily at my back while I was on the lift, but I could tell it was pretty brutal up there at the Wilderness Summit above 3,000’. The calm conditions from below were gone, and the biting winds along the ridgelines made their presence known. After that trip, I didn’t have much interest in heading up to check out the Vista Summit, so I just stayed low and enjoyed a run off the Snowflake Chair. The warm-up touring definitely helped me stay comfortably warm for a couple of lift rides at least before I headed home.

Powder depths have obviously been bolstered by this most recent system, and conditions are good, but certainly nothing stratospheric for the Northern Greens. One factor in that assessment is that this latest storm was nice, but the snow was quite dry, and it was less of a resurfacing than the previous storm. We picked up about 0.20” of liquid equivalent from this system compared to 0.40” of liquid equivalent from the previous one, so scale those up a bit according for Bolton’s elevation and it give you a sense for their contributions to resurfacing. The resort is opening more terrain all the time, but lift-served natural snow terrain could still use another solid resurfacing storm with an inch or two of liquid equivalent to take care of the tougher areas. Overall, the natural snow terrain that’s open is quite skiable with good coverage and quality surfaces, and there’s a decent, consolidated base above 2,000’, but you still need to pick and choose your lines somewhat in those spots exposed to wind that get scoured.

The resort was indicating 3-6” of new snow in their early morning report, and I can’t separate out accumulations from this storm specifically, but the changes in surface snow depths between Thursday and today give a sense of the contributions from this most recent event at various elevations. Thursday’s surface snow depths are on the left, and the approximate depths I observed today are on the right in bold:

340’: T --> 1-2”

500’: T --> ~2”

1,000’: T-1” --> 2-3”

1,200’: 0.5-1” --> 3-4”

1,500’: 1-2” --> 5-6”

2,000’: 3-4” --> 8-10”

2,500’: 5-6” --> 9-11”

3,000’: 6-7” --> 10-12”

So, there’s a lot of nice, fairly deep powder above 2,000’, and it’s right-side-up and skiing great thanks to this latest storm’s snow being dry. My observations from down at the house have been giving me snow densities in the 2 to 6% H2O range throughout this latest storm, so indeed it’s some quality powder. The back side of this system has actually been aided by some direct lake-effect off Lake Champlain. The bands were mostly oriented to affect the Champlain Valley earlier in the morning, but as midday approached, the bands shifted such that they were more directly hitting the mountains. That definitely helped keep it extra snowy throughout the day and boost accumulations.

Tomorrow is supposed to be even a bit colder than today, so if I head out it will just be for a tour vs. riding any lifts. After the warming and consolidation earlier this week, it looks like Timberline is probably getting in shape to support some good touring and powder skiing again, so I may stay low and tour there if a ski session comes together. We’ll see how much additional snow the resort is reporting in the morning, but since we were getting hit at our place by those lake effect bands right into the evening today, Bolton should have been getting even more of that snow. The models suggest we’ve got another couple of clippers affecting the area over the next few days, with warmer temperatures as well, so that’s looking nice moving into the holiday week.

[J.Spin]

1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

Can't hate the progs for the upcoming clipper either.  If we can land another 0.30 - 0.50" of SWE to the Greens, things will really be falling into place for the holiday stretch.  Been a while since the mountains have lined up to be skiing like this during the holidays.  It's winter.

NAM

GFS

EURO

Thanks for latest maps on that Monday/Tuesday system. I mentioned the next couple of potential events in my report above, and that first one has been looking nice in the modeling. The thoughts from the latest BTV NWS forecast discussion are below, and they do mention the potential for more snow in the higher elevations:

Area Forecast Discussion

National Weather Service Burlington VT

946 PM EST Sat Dec 21 2024

.SHORT TERM /MONDAY NIGHT THROUGH TUESDAY/...

As of 304 PM EST Saturday... Monday night, a weak low pressure system and shortwave aloft will track eastward into our forecast area, spreading some snow over the North Country. Snow will start as early as Monday evening in northern New York, but the steadiest snow can be expected overnight Monday night/Tuesday morning.  Once the low moves to our east by midday Tuesday, widespread snow will diminish into more localized showers that will mainly be tied to higher terrain.  Total QPF associated with the system will be in the 0.1 to 0.4 inch range. Snow ratios around 15:1 will equate to a widespread 2-4 inches of snow out of the event, with some higher amounts possible over the mountain summits. The good news is that temperatures remain cold enough during the event to keep precipitation type as all snow, which will provide a nice backdrop for a white Christmas and overall limit the impacts of the system.

We’re closing in on 40 inches of snow for the month here at our site, so we’re nearing an above average December in terms of snowfall. It’s amazing to think, but this is already the snowiest December here at our site since 2017-2018. Another few inches and we’d actually pass 2017-2018 for our snowiest December in over a decade, so I guess it really has been a minute since we’ve had an overall snowy December. Whatever we end up with, the big period propping this month up in terms of snowfall was simply that first week – and it was just a Northern Greens bread and butter pattern with no major storms. It feels like we’re in a slightly less vigorous version of that now though, which is a good thing in terms of snowfall and the quality of the ski conditions.

[bwt3650]

Can't hate the progs for the upcoming clipper either.  If we can land another 0.30 - 0.50" of SWE to the Greens, things will really be falling into place for the holiday stretch.  Been a while since the mountains have lined up to be skiing like this during the holidays.  It's winter.
NAM

GFS

EURO

Tuesday morning has over-performer written all over it. The late month torch period looks to turn into just a great, comfortable ski period before a reload. Winter falling into place nicely so far and terrain builds well ahead of last year.


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