#NoPoles Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 30 minutes ago, powderfreak said: One of the more impressive walks from staff parking to the Mtn Ops Center at 5am this morning. I don't have to, but the morning walk in the elements really sets the tone of the day to me. The snowbanks were getting sculpted with hard slab, which only happens in high, sustained winds. Happy birthday! Enjoy the arctic tundra! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alex Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 Oooh happy birthday PF! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavisStraight Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 24 minutes ago, alex said: I don’t want to anger the SNE weenies but this pattern has been amazing. Wish we could just have this all season long lol. Not sure what’s changed but after the 3-4 days of wind and small flakes we now have giant flakes piling up fast. So nice. I wish we had even a few inches during these winds, I love when snows blowing around drifting. Back I think was the Boxing Day storm we didn't get much but the low stalled around NS and blew the snow around for days, we had 3-5 foot drifts, just looked and felt like winter. I guess I'll have to go up your way this winter to experience it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.Spin Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 I had time to head up to Bolton Valley for another ski tour yesterday morning, and the weather was very much like what we’d had in the mountains for the past few days: temperatures in the single digits F with a lot of wind. Thankfully, Wednesday appeared to be the coldest of the days this week, and yesterday morning was about 5 to 10 degrees F warmer. On Wednesday I’d done a bit of lift-served skiing after my tour, but yesterday I decided to make my tour a bit longer instead of sitting on the lifts. On my ascent I topped out around 2,900’ on Wilderness, and I figured I’d gone high enough to get a good sampling of the snow at various elevations. With a few more inches of snow each day, the conditions on the slopes have just continued to improve aside from those areas exposed to the wind where scouring has been incessant. Exposed areas just continued to be scoured, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of those exposed spots had less snow than they did before this system began. Protected areas had simply fantastic snow though. Like Wednesday, I typically measured 20 inches or more of powder in protected areas yesterday, and the subsurface snow is a distant memory there. I also measured depths as great as 35 inches in some non-drifted spots, where it seemed like I was just pushing down into the older layers in the snowpack without even hitting any firm layer to differentiate the older snow from these recent couple of events. That’s a good sign about the overall quality of the snowpack though if you can’t even find a subsurface layer until you head down 35 inches into the snow. With the end of this most recent long-duration system, it looks like we could be moving into a pattern featuring some Clipper systems. The first one is coming into the area tonight, with another expected for Monday into Tuesday. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borderwx Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 Hopefully everyone gets a chance to get out in the woods up high. It is other worldly right now Starting out balmy, 14F. The slowest falling snow.. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.Spin Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 Our recent long-duration system finished up on Friday, and the next winter system moved into the area today, so Mother Nature continues to deliver snow and enhance the conditions on the slopes. My wife and I headed up to Bolton Valley this morning to check out the conditions with some lift-served skiing, and there’s no doubt that word is out about the conditions. It was midmorning when we arrived at the resort, and people were already parking at the third tier of Timberline and being shuttled up to the main base. The good news is that they resort has fired up the snow guns on Timberline, so they’ll probably be opening that area to lift-served skiing soon. After the run of relatively cold, windy (and thankfully snowy) weather we’ve had for the first third of January, today was extremely comfortable with temperatures around 20 F, no wind, and light snow falling. So, everyone we saw at the resort seemed to be excited about that. The resort had received another few inches of snow as the previous system wrapped up, and conditions on the slopes were very similar to what I experienced on Wednesday and Thursday with a touch of improvement thanks to the additional snow and more grooming. The scoured areas were still thin on snow, but grooming had definitely help equalize and soften the conditions there a bit. Natural snow areas out of the wind continue to offer fantastic snow – and when that snow is groomed it skis beautifully – you’re not hitting anything under the packed powder. Off piste, there is a lot of powder as one would expect. We were finding depths of around 20 inches, which is similar to what I’ve been finding this week. In general, areas with that sort of deep powder are skiing fine, but it’s not outstanding powder skiing. The powder is of roughly medium-density, but its density is roughly equivalent throughout its depth, so you can sink in pretty far and get a bit bogged down on lower-angle terrain. It’s not upside-down powder, but it just doesn’t ski as well as it would with a really nice right-side-up arrangement. Some areas did offer a better powder experience though. They have finally opened up more of the Snowflake terrain, and we found about a foot of powder over places that had either been groomed or had more settled snow underneath, and those spots offered some very pleasant powder skiing today. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alex Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 Love ghost trees 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mreaves Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 53 minutes ago, alex said: Love ghost trees What a difference a little elevation makes. I’m down in Littleton and there is maybe 1”-2” of snow. This area gets snow holed so I guess it’s not really a surprise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alex Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 2 hours ago, mreaves said: What a difference a little elevation makes. I’m down in Littleton and there is maybe 1”-2” of snow. This area gets snow holed so I guess it’s not really a surprise. Littleton is a terrible place for snow. Funny thing,many people around here LOVE Littleton because of that. I tell them I live in Bretton Woods and they respond “eew, you guys have terrible weather.” And I love Littleton but wouldn’t want to live there because of their weather lol. That said, right now there’s a pretty big difference between Bretton Woods and most surrounding areas, including Conway. Most of the snow since the holiday grinch has been upslope, and that’s quite localized. Many days this week I’ve driven the kids to school in Whitefield and seen it go from several inches of fresh powder at home to a dusting or an inch at school. Just the quirks of mountain weather 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavisStraight Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 1 hour ago, alex said: Littleton is a terrible place for snow. Funny thing,many people around here LOVE Littleton because of that. I tell them I live in Bretton Woods and they respond “eew, you guys have terrible weather.” And I love Littleton but wouldn’t want to live there because of their weather lol. That said, right now there’s a pretty big difference between Bretton Woods and most surrounding areas, including Conway. Most of the snow since the holiday grinch has been upslope, and that’s quite localized. Many days this week I’ve driven the kids to school in Whitefield and seen it go from several inches of fresh powder at home to a dusting or an inch at school. Just the quirks of mountain weather There are some weird people around that hate snow and cold. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alex Posted January 13 Share Posted January 13 2 hours ago, DavisStraight said: There are some weird people around that hate snow and cold. Haha. Preposterous 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mreaves Posted January 13 Share Posted January 13 3 hours ago, alex said: Littleton is a terrible place for snow. Funny thing,many people around here LOVE Littleton because of that. I tell them I live in Bretton Woods and they respond “eew, you guys have terrible weather.” And I love Littleton but wouldn’t want to live there because of their weather lol. That said, right now there’s a pretty big difference between Bretton Woods and most surrounding areas, including Conway. Most of the snow since the holiday grinch has been upslope, and that’s quite localized. Many days this week I’ve driven the kids to school in Whitefield and seen it go from several inches of fresh powder at home to a dusting or an inch at school. Just the quirks of mountain weather Whitfield isn’t great for snow either. I like Littleton for some of the shops and restaurants. We were shopping for our upcoming post-Christmas, Christmas celebration we are having with friends at the end of the month. After shopping it was lunch at the Littleton Freehouse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted January 13 Share Posted January 13 26 minutes ago, alex said: Haha. Preposterous It’s funny how folks like us moved up here for the snow and then you find some of the folks born up north absolutely hate winter weather. If you don’t ski (downhill or XC), snowboard, snowmobile, etc… I can understand it. Just a long cold dark season if you don’t enjoy the activities. Unfortunately most of the winter sports have a higher economic barrier to entry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alex Posted January 13 Share Posted January 13 19 minutes ago, powderfreak said: It’s funny how folks like us moved up here for the snow and then you find some of the folks born up north absolutely hate winter weather. If you don’t ski (downhill or XC), snowboard, snowmobile, etc… I can understand it. Just a long cold dark season if you don’t enjoy the activities. Unfortunately most of the winter sports have a higher economic barrier to entry. Agree. I can’t imagine spending a winter up here not liking the cold. But yes winter sports are not cheap - especially downhill. My kids are in the race team and it’s a constant spend on this pay for that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted January 13 Share Posted January 13 We did have a good little fluffer last night on Mountain Road. Almost 3” materialized after the mid-level lift moved out… surprising after barely an inch in the synoptic portion. The fluff stuck to this SUV’s wipers show the snow growth that made the most of the meager moisture on NW flow. 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.Spin Posted January 13 Share Posted January 13 Yesterday’s weather and ski conditions were excellent, but today kicked that up yet another notch. Today’s temperatures were well up into the 20s F with brilliant winter sunshine and no wind. And after our spell of cold, snowy weather, you could really feel the difference today. Whether you were riding on the slopes, sitting the lifts, or just hanging out at the base area, it was all very comfortable. Also, with brilliant sun, we had great light for action photography; Near base ISO I was able to shoot 1/4000 sec at f/2.8 even in the trees. I was up at Bolton Valley this afternoon skiing with my older son, and one notable, and surprising improvement was in the powder. As I mentioned in yesterday’s report, the powder skiing was decent, but not outstanding because the snow density was so homogeneous throughout its depth. I guess Mother Nature just needed a bit of time with that new snow because as of today it had settled beautifully into a more right-side-up powder stack that skied much better. My son and I dug into the snowpack and checked on what had changed, and the first roughly half foot of powder had dried out, and the snow below that had settled into a smooth density gradient, presumably due to compression from the snow above. At ~2,400’ elevation on Wilderness we found roughly 18 inches of powder before you hit what I’d say was a layer resembling a subsurface. With the weather and snow conditions, it was once again fairly busy at the resort with parking needed down at Timberline. Since we went up in the early afternoon though, we were able to get a parking spot up in the Village because people who were leaving, but it still wasn’t easy – others were arriving to get in afternoon turns as well. Based on the current forecast, the next system is expected to move into the area tomorrow, with a couple more over the course of the week, so hopefully we’ll have a few rounds of snow to keep the great conditions in place. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tamarack Posted January 13 Share Posted January 13 12 hours ago, powderfreak said: It’s funny how folks like us moved up here for the snow and then you find some of the folks born up north absolutely hate winter weather. If you don’t ski (downhill or XC), snowboard, snowmobile, etc… I can understand it. Just a long cold dark season if you don’t enjoy the activities. Unfortunately most of the winter sports have a higher economic barrier to entry. That's why I like ice fishing, though the price of live bait keeps climbing - up around $10 for a good day on the hard water. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borderwx Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 Wasn’t expecting to wake up to any, but 3” new over night. Super fluff.Tropical 22F. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 At least 3” overnight. Mountain got hit good. Reporting 5” from elevated snow plot (likely wind stripped a bit) but skinners and grooming think it could be as much as 8”. Lots of wind again. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bwt3650 Posted January 14 Author Share Posted January 14 At least 3” overnight. Mountain got hit good. Reporting 5” from elevated snow plot (likely wind stripped a bit) but skinners and grooming think it could be as much as 8”. Lots of wind again.Def more than 5…lots of wind again though.. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MRVexpat Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 MLK once again shaping up to be the winner of the ski holidays. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 22 minutes ago, bwt3650 said: Def more than 5…lots of wind again though. . We’ll call it a “Stowe 5” for now . Heard that one this morning, haha. Locals at the Sunrise lift saying the inches are different here. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 Yeah going to be 9” overnight. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.Spin Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 Since our long-duration storms from the start of the month have finished, I figured it was a good time for an update on the seasonal snowfall progression in our area of the Northern Greens. Those two January systems were extremely helpful with respect to adding liquid equivalent to the snowpack in both the mountains and the valleys and progressing the season’s snowfall. While they were fairly similar in terms of their liquid equivalent at our site, the second system had more than twice the snowfall of the first, and it became our largest snowstorm of the season thus far: 1/1/2025 System: 9.1” Snow/0.97” Liquid 1/6/2025 System: 22.7” Snow/0.79” Liquid The second system was just a bit shy of the 2-foot mark with respect to snowfall, and decent snow growth was a big part of that. Both systems had periods with those small, ~1 to 2 mm flakes, but they were much more dominant in the first system, where the overall snow density ended up at a very synoptic-like 10.7% H2O, while the second system’s overall snow density was a much more upslope-like 3.5% H2O. They both had that continuous wind as well, which really played a factor in the deposition of the snow. In any event, each system should have contributed 1 to 2 inches of liquid equivalent to the mountain snowpack, so that’s a great thing. There hasn’t been much talk about it in the thread, but it was a pretty unique period/pattern to have those two long-duration systems run back-to-back like that without much of an initial surface low pressure passing through the area. The first system did have that to some degree, but neither had one of those big coastal systems that meanders up into the Maritimes and sits there as a stacked low-pressure system. Both systems brought cold, windy weather, but it was single digits F in the mountains vs. subzero F temperatures, so it was far better than those extremely cold January outbreaks of arctic air we can get. And the great thing is that the relatively cold temperatures came with a bunch of snow, which doesn’t often happen. The forum always seems to be talking about how our winter weather patterns are different due to climate change, but if getting systems like that with the January cold is the new routine vs. just the clear, calm, January cold that we’ve often had, then that seems like a decent switch for when there’s appropriate blocking. Back in December I noted that the first 10 days of the month gave us quite a good run of snowfall (30.4 inches) and that’s an impressive snowfall pace that was clearly evident on the plot of snowfall progression below. In one fell swoop it pulled snowfall well above average from where it was after a relatively slow November. I would never bet on seeing something like that follow up the very next month, but thanks to those two long-duration storms with nearly continuous snowfall, the first 10 days of January actually surpassed that impressive early December snowfall with a total of 31.8 inches. That area of steep ascent for early January is clearly visible on the updated snowfall progression plot. And at the beginning of January, we weren’t starting out behind average snowfall pace, we were already ahead of it, so that burst brough us well above average. Season snowfall sailed right past 80 inches during that period, putting us more than 20 inches ahead of average. While the local ski resorts were farther ahead on average snowfall prior to those early January systems, that period certainly helped the valleys catch up. It looks like at 143” of snowfall, Bolton Valley is at roughly 116% of average, at 187” of snowfall, Jay Peak is at roughly 133% of average, and now at our site, snowfall is 134% of average. If it feels like it’s been a while since we’ve been ahead this much on snowfall at this point in the winter, my data say that’s true for our site; it’s been six seasons since the last time snowfall was ahead like this in mid-January. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.Spin Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 The back side of our current storm cycle has looked decent for a while on the GFS (which seems to typically do really nice medium-range work with these northern stream systems around here), and I see that the BTV NWS has Winter Weather Advisories up for the Northern Greens (and stretching down in the Central Greens a bit) starting at 4 PM today. This morning’s near term AFD talks about some of the snow that’s already fallen, what could be coming, and the Froude aspects. Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 930 AM EST Tue Jan 14 2025 NEAR TERM /THROUGH WEDNESDAY/... As of 918 AM EST Tuesday...Fcst in good shape this morning after our first round of upslope snow showers last night delivered 8.5 inches at Westfield CoCoRahs site and 4.7 inches near Enosburg Falls and 3.3 in Stowe. The setup for later this aftn into the overnight hours features a weak surface trof approaching from the north, while a combination of Great Lake and building mid/upper lvl trof moisture wl increase from north to south acrs our region. Expect the areal coverage of snow showers to increase aft 18z this aftn with localized moderate snowfall possible in the favorable upslope regions of the northern Dacks and mtns of central/northern VT by evening. Initially froude is btwn 1.0 and 1.5, which supports snow close to mtn ridge crests and less side, but toward 12z Weds numbers decrease <1.0 supporting heavier snowfall immediately upwind of mtn crest. In addition, thermal analysis indicates sweet spot for snow growth with progged 850mb temps falling btwn -12C and -16C and good moisture profiles, supporting snow ratios in the 25/30 to 1 range. All this is covered well in crnt snowfall fcst with a sharp elevational dependent snowfall anticipated from a dusting to 2 inches Champlain Valley to localized amounts near a foot Mt Mansfield to Jay Peak and similar scenario expected from the SLV to Giant Mtn in northern NY. Temps hold steady in the upper teens to locally near 30F CPV cities today with cloudy skies prevailing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mreaves Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 I’m in @J.Spin’s neighborhood for work today and took a ride up to Little River State Park at lunch. This is looking northeast over the reservoir towards the Worcester Range. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bwt3650 Posted January 14 Author Share Posted January 14 The back side of our current storm cycle has looked decent for a while on the GFS (which seems to typically do really nice medium-range work with these northern stream systems around here), and I see that the BTV NWS has Winter Weather Advisories up for the Northern Greens (and stretching down in the Central Greens a bit) starting at 4 PM today. This morning’s near term AFD talks about some of the snow that’s already fallen, what could be coming, and the Froude aspects.Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 930 AM EST Tue Jan 14 2025 NEAR TERM /THROUGH WEDNESDAY/... As of 918 AM EST Tuesday...Fcst in good shape this morning after our first round of upslope snow showers last night delivered 8.5 inches at Westfield CoCoRahs site and 4.7 inches near Enosburg Falls and 3.3 in Stowe. The setup for later this aftn into the overnight hours features a weak surface trof approaching from the north, while a combination of Great Lake and building mid/upper lvl trof moisture wl increase from north to south acrs our region. Expect the areal coverage of snow showers to increase aft 18z this aftn with localized moderate snowfall possible in the favorable upslope regions of the northern Dacks and mtns of central/northern VT by evening. Initially froude is btwn 1.0 and 1.5, which supports snow close to mtn ridge crests and less side, but toward 12z Weds numbers decrease mtn crest. In addition, thermal analysis indicates sweet spot for snow growth with progged 850mb temps falling btwn -12C and -16C and good moisture profiles, supporting snow ratios in the 25/30 to 1 range. All this is covered well in crnt snowfall fcst with a sharp elevational dependent snowfall anticipated from a dusting to 2 inches Champlain Valley to localized amounts near a foot Mt Mansfield to Jay Peak and similar scenario expected from the SLV to Giant Mtn in northern NY. Temps hold steady in the upper teens to locally near 30F CPV cities today with cloudy skies prevailing. Yes…I think we get lit up pretty good tonight as well. PF note the Westfield vs. Stowe numbers when comparing the “Stowe 5” vs. Jay 8, lol…Bread and butter for the win lately.. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 25 minutes ago, bwt3650 said: Yes…I think we get lit up pretty good tonight as well. PF note the Westfield vs. Stowe numbers when comparing the “Stowe 5” vs. Jay 8, lol… Bread and butter for the win lately. . Can’t compare the Stowe Village to Westfield but I had that coming lol. That Cocorahs site is about half the distance to the barrier than the Stowe Village one. That Lookout Cam just underreports too much sometimes. Too funny getting ribbed by the locals for putting 5” out there when they associate the High Road number to the snow they ski. And everyone knew HR would be much more. Sure enough almost double. I always find that “training” fascinating. A ski area literally trains its regulars what a number “means” over the years. If you put it up there consistently enough, the locals can guess it pretty accurately. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 Personally I think tonight comes in much lower. If the night you weren’t expecting it, over-performs, the next one usually doesn’t. We’ll see though. Dews yesterday were in the mid-20s in the valleys… today dropped to single digits. More moisture was around to act on last night IMO. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavisStraight Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 You guys still getting snow in the Stowe area? Looks like something on radar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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