NNE Cold Season Thread 2024-2025

[backedgeapproaching]

Tried to get mailbox cleaned out, no shot with that shovel, it's a brick. 

 

[DavisStraight]

9 minutes ago, backedgeapproaching said:

Tried to get mailbox cleaned out, no shot with that shovel, it's a brick. 

 

I should have done a better job myself cleaning up Sunday, can't move what's out there now.

[powderfreak]

1 hour ago, Froude said:

The wind really made that one of the more impressive storms we've had in years. One from driving in Craftsbury yesterday... overhead snowbanks and stakes lining the road so the plows can find it.

That's a vibe right there.  

[powderfreak]

20 hours ago, J.Spin said:

The storm pushed this month’s total snow to 50.7”, ensuring an above average February with respect to snowfall. That means that for this season, December, January, and February will all end up above average for snowfall, and that’s the first time that’s happened since the 2010-2011 season. Even with the very high reliability of snowfall up here in the Northern Greens, it still seems difficult to get all three of those midwinter months to achieve above average snowfall, so that’s a feather in the cap of the 2024-2025 season.

That's a great stat, especially as your observation database keeps growing.

That 2010-2011 season was my personal favorite up here.  That winter just wanted to snow.  For personal reasons too, as I skied 150 days that year, in my prime with a large lack of responsibilities except take photos for the mountain and measure snow.  The golden days, ha.

[mreaves]

47 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

That's a vibe right there.  

@Ginx snewxdisrobed looking at that picture. 

[qg_omega]

[Ginx snewx]

[Ginx snewx]

On 2/18/2025 at 8:49 PM, mreaves said:

@Ginx snewxdisrobed looking at that picture. 

So much 2011 vibe up there, complete with roof failures, avalanches and ice jams.

[eyewall]

Winooski, North Carolina 

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1AtUBRHfmt/

[borderwx]

Checking out the Mountain View’s in Maine for a few days.

That late Feb sun has the feels.




.

[J.Spin]

The Thursday night system brough roughly 4 inches of new snow down at the house with 6 inches reported up at the mountain, and these were our most notable snow accumulations since Winter Storm Jett over the weekend. Other than a weak shortwave/upper-level trough tracking across the region in the Tuesday/Wednesday period, there hadn’t been any systems in the area this week, and mountain temperatures have been on the chilly side anyway, so it’s been nice to have a break and catch up on other things. Thursday night’s forecast did call for an inch or two of snow down in the valley, but since we got a bit more than expected, it seemed like a good excuse to head up for some morning exercise.

I stopped by Bolton Valley for a quick morning tour using the Wilderness Uphill Route and got to the mountain within an hour of opening. So, I was surprised to find that cars were already filling up the third and fourth rows in the Village parking lots. That’s notable for early on a weekday, but I think it’s winter vacation week for a number of schools from around the region, and people were definitely out taking advantage of it. The backcountry parking area had plenty of spots left though, so I was able to park there and get fairly decent access to Wilderness.

I hadn’t thought about temperatures, but they were still quite cold – it was in the lower single digits F up in the Village when I began my tour. There was also some wind, and while it was nothing like what we saw on Monday on the back side of Winter Storm Jett, it was still brisk enough that with single digit temperatures, it must have been cold riding the lifts. I toured in the 2,000’ to 2,500’ elevation range, and even at the lowest elevations I was finding accumulations of 4 to 6 inches of new snow. The new powder was nice, but it was super dry (liquid analyses from down at the house were in the 1 to 2% H2O range), so even on 115 mm fat skis, the turns weren’t bottomless. The subsurface is typically quite soft though, so the turns were still very good aside from spots where there were irregularities in the snow from old ski tracks, etc.

We appear to be moving into a clipper-type weather pattern for the upcoming week or two. The next shot of snow is forecast to come into the area tonight into tomorrow, and depending on how you break it down, the latest run of the GFS has anywhere from 6 to 9 different systems affecting the area through the first week of March. It probably won’t play out exactly as modeled, but it looks like there’s a decent parade of wintry systems poised to affect the Northern Greens for the upcoming period.

[dmcginvt]

Cant wait to see what this week brings.  PF did you work with Mark Dvorak?   Taking pictures,  Just curious.  Man it's snowing again.  Ill be skiing monday looks like another amazing day

[J.Spin]

Yesterday was just one of those gorgeous midwinter days – bright February sunshine and temperatures in the mid to upper 20s F. On top of that, the snow conditions in the local mountains just continue to be excellent. I had a bunch of work to get done yesterday, but I still wanted to get out for some turns and exercise, so I headed up to the mountain around midafternoon.

Since it sits at the lowest elevations of the alpine trail network, Bolton Valley’s Timberline area is typically the last part of the mountain to really get it’s act together with respect to snowpack depths and coverage. With the snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield stake hovering in the 90”-100” range, we’re easily in that zone now though. Relative to the rest of the resort, I haven’t had a ton of runs at Timberline yet this winter, so this is a great part of the season to spend some time there checking out areas that I haven’t visited much.

The resort clearly had plenty of visitors based on the cars I saw in the Timberline parking lots, but by midafternoon it wasn’t hard to grab a spot in the upper tier of parking. I was surprised that there was still even a lift queue of a few minutes at the Timberline Quad, and to see something like that so far into the afternoon definitely meant that people were still out enjoying the slopes. From the conversations I heard during lift rides, I quickly discovered why the resort was so busy – it was that combination of weather and snow conditions. Listing to people talk, it was clear that some of the absolutely fairest of fair-weather skiers were out for the perfect weather. I heard one woman comment that she wasn’t going to ski Sunday because it was going to be “messy”, and if upper 20s F and light snow is your definition of “messy”, then you know your standards for ski weather are pretty darned high. I guess we’re also finishing one school break week and starting another, so that’s a lot of extra folks that are probably on vacation at the resort. In any event, people were clearly out enjoying the weather – it was nice enough that it wasn’t uncommon to see people simply sitting outside comfortably enjoying the sunshine

For my first run I headed right to Adam’s Solitude, because it’s been a long time since I’ve skied it, and I knew it was better to get out there sooner rather than later; patrol sweeps it very early. I explored a lot of the terrain like Secret Solitude on the outskirts of the main lines, and it reminded me of just how many acres and acres of steep, unexplored terrain are out there. My explorations kept me out there for a while, and indeed one of the patrollers was on sweep by the time I was finishing my run on the return track. The Twice as Nice trail had excellent natural snow, and you know the snowpack is good when even the scoured headwall areas are covered to such a degree that you have to strain to even find an exposed area of ledge of windswept pocket. From what I saw and heard, terrain with manmade snow varied somewhat – in some areas you could tell from the lack of any sound that even there the snow quality was excellent, but I could still hear some sounds of slick turns in the steepest and windswept areas.

There was no new snow yesterday morning, but as of today, the resort is reporting 2 to 4 inches of new snow in their morning report from our current small system coming through the area. That snow is continuing to fall today, so it should represent another good freshening of the ski surfaces. Through the first week of March, the latest run of the GFS shows about a half dozen additional weather systems that could potentially affect the area, so the current Clipper pattern still seems to be holding in the models for the foreseeable future.

[borderwx]

Cleared 4” at the house
Skied 6”+ at the mountain

Nice to be home.


.

[DavisStraight]

It seems you guys in the mountains up north just need that cold air to blow down from Canada to collect the goods. Same things around the great lakes, the guy that takes us out fishing was saying they have a 6 foot pack in Oswego when he left Thursday. Last year he said they hardly any snow throughout the whole winter.  Those small 2-4 , 3-6 inch flurries add up over time.

[mreaves]

Did a little riding around this afternoon. As much as yesterday was the winter version of CoC weather, I really like these days that are cloudy with on and off snow flurries and light snow showers. I can’t give this winter an A yet because we were a little light in snow for a while but it’s edging towards it. 

[J.Spin]

Saturday was a real gem of a winter day with sunshine and temperatures in the 20s F. Our next system moved into the area Saturday night and continued through the entire day Sunday, delivering another 4 inches of snow here in the valley, and 10 inches up on the mountain. The snow was steady by generally light in intensity, and the temperatures stayed right up in the 20s F, so Sunday was another great day to be on the mountain.

I headed up to Bolton Valley in the afternoon with my wife and my older son, and we spent our time at Timberline just like I’d done on Saturday. While Saturday had been busier than normal, in part due to it being such a pleasant, sunny day, Sunday seemed much more typical, with no lift queues at the Timberline Quad.

Twice as Nice and Spell Binder had some excellent natural snow conditions, which had been bolstered by the new snow from the ongoing storm. When my wife took a break in the lodge, my son and I headed out for a bit more powder exploration, with a long run in the Adam’s Solitude area. Even with the new snow, there had been a lot of traffic over the weekend in greater Adam’s Solitude area, so you had some hunting to do for untracked lines. We found that most other off piste areas had seen less traffic, and we had some nice lines in the KP Glades, but you can’t blame folks for hitting the Adam’s Solitude area – the snowpack is deep and this is the time of year to do it.

[J.Spin]

I cored our site’s snowpack yesterday for CoCoRaHS “SWE Monday”, since it also seemed like a good time to run an analysis ahead of some potential consolidation temperatures this week. The NOHRSC modeling for our site had the snowpack with a bit below 6 inches of total liquid equivalent in it, and indeed that wasn’t too far off from what I measured as the plot below shows. One can imagine how much water is up in the snowpack in the high country if we have half a foot at the bottom of the Winooski Valley at ~500’, and there may be more to add to it still in the coming weeks. Hopefully the melting process proceeds at a reasonable pace when the time comes.

[#NoPoles]

Precip is liquid. It's been a long stretch this winter where the precip was all of the frozen variety. Pattern change? Transition to Spring?

Lots of melting now with the increasing sun angle and length of daylight. 

[backedgeapproaching]

Really don't know how these 3 came away with just minor injuries, small plane into the side of Mt Equinox and minor injuries is crazy.

https://www.wmtw.com/article/vermont-plane-crash-equinox-mountain-manchester/63935470

 

[borderwx]

We stayed snow at 33F for most of the day yesterday, managed an inch

Wild morning to start with a windblown 2-3”
Back to winter

Newark, VT, end of February



.

[backedgeapproaching]

On 2/27/2025 at 9:44 AM, backedgeapproaching said:

Really don't know how these 3 came away with just minor injuries, small plane into the side of Mt Equinox and minor injuries is crazy.

https://www.wmtw.com/article/vermont-plane-crash-equinox-mountain-manchester/63935470

 

https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/community/local-news/maryland-pilot-crash-vermont-airplane-BPBY6EDKTVDQZJII2YGDGWB2MQ/?fbclid=IwY2xjawIvb1pleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHecoX44nfF__FNERJkbiF9QwQCuhpWxwaasfi0U65ccJZyF95R7b19A9-Q_aem_XJi0thqWLoCJqOMtxNdNLQ

Update on that crash. Beyond lucky family.

[J.Spin]

I hadn’t been up to the mountain since Sunday, but temperatures have been on a bit of a roller coaster ride this week, and we’ve had some snowstorms come through the area as well, so I was curious to see what the conditions were like on the slopes. Since the weekend storm that was putting down snow when we were at Bolton Valley on Sunday, there was a midweek system that brought about a half foot of snow to the mountains, then a similar system that hit the area yesterday into today. There were also some warmer days during the week, and I’m not sure how high the freezing levels went, but up to a foot of snow in the past few days definitely had the potential to further enhance the ski surfaces. From the two systems, we picked up almost ¾ inch of liquid equivalent down in the valley, so the local mountains must have had an inch of liquid equivalent or more.

Arriving at Bolton Valley between 9:00 and 10:00 A.M., I was surprised to find that people were already parking in the third tier of the Village lots, but then I remembered that this is also a big school vacation week, just like last week was. I toured in the 2,000’ to 2,500’ range via the Wilderness Uphill Route, and there was definitely some elevation dependence with the recent snowfall accumulations. I typically found powder depths in the 4-6” range around 2,000’, but I was getting 6-10” readings up around 2,500’. It appeared that there was some mixed precipitation and/or melt crust in the layers of surface snow, depending on elevation. Those firmer layers were typically sandwiched between layers of lighter snow, but you could definitely feel them, and they had more of an effect in the areas with shallower depths of powder. I had to really be disciplined when making Telemark turns to avoid getting pushed around, but with alpine turns you could hardly tell there were any thicker snow layers present, and I bet if you were riding a board, it would be even smoother.

Our next system is hitting us right now, and this one may be a bit more potent because I’ve seen snowfall forecasts as high as 8-12” for some higher elevations spots along the spine. Tomorrow has the potential to be a pretty decent day with the addition of this next round of snow atop the others that fell this week.

[mreaves]

29 minutes ago, backedgeapproaching said:

https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/community/local-news/maryland-pilot-crash-vermont-airplane-BPBY6EDKTVDQZJII2YGDGWB2MQ/?fbclid=IwY2xjawIvb1pleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHecoX44nfF__FNERJkbiF9QwQCuhpWxwaasfi0U65ccJZyF95R7b19A9-Q_aem_XJi0thqWLoCJqOMtxNdNLQ

Update on that crash. Beyond lucky family.

Holy crap. I guess they were lucky. I can’t believe he could hike back up with investigators this week. 

[bwt3650]

Cant stop, wont stop…dumping snow again…




.

[tamarack]

February in the foothills:

Avg max:  26.3   -3.0      Mildest: 44 on 25 and 26
Avg min:    5.5    -1.0      Coldest:  -19 on the 2nd
Mean:       15.9   -2.0

Precip:  2.58"   0.37" BN  0.85" on the 16th
Snow:  26.5"    4.5"  AN   6.5" on the 16th, part of the 8.0" storm

Avg pack:   16.6"   -2.5"   Tallest:  22" on the 16th

DJF avg 17.7   -0.7    First BN for DJF since 2018-19.

[DavisStraight]

1 hour ago, bwt3650 said:

Cant stop, wont stop…dumping snow again…




.

Looking at models and radar there's more to come.

[J.Spin]

We’ve reached March 1^st, so it’s a good time for a check on the season’s snowfall progression at our site. February was another solid month for snowfall, with 60+ inches to add to the totals. The train of winter storms has been keeping this season’s snowfall progression right up there with the 2007-2008 season as the cumulative snowfall chart shows below. In the 2007-2008 season we were in the midst of a double-digit storm on this date though, so it’s going to be tough for the current season to keep pace with that in the short term. We’ll have to see how much more we pick up on the back side of the current system, but even down here in the valley we’ve been getting hit with heavy snowfall made up of huge flakes this afternoon.

As it stands right now, 2024-2025 certainly has the chance to be another 200”+ winter down here in the valley; there are 2 to 3 months left in the snowfall season, and simply getting average snowfall from here on out would hit the mark. In fact, even 80% of average snowfall from here on out would hit the mark, but we’ll just have to see what Mother Nature delivers.

[J.Spin]

Our latest clipper system began affecting the area last night, setting up some fresh accumulations in the mountains for today’s turns. Bolton Valley was reporting another 3 to 4 inches of new snow overnight to top off the snow from our other recent systems, and down at the house we’ve picked up 3 inches of snow from this system with a bit over ¼ inch of liquid equivalent.

In terms of how the new accumulations played out on the mountain, you really wanted elevation to get to the best snow. Elevation mattered both in terms of the quality of the subsurface, as well as the depths and consistency of the powder above it. We found that conditions were fine as long as you were above ~2,000’, so although we parked down at 1,500’ at Timberline, we spent most of our session up at the main mountain. Up above 3,000’ it was easy to find powder depths in the 8 to 12-inch range above previously packed surfaces, and at 2,000’ I’d say depths on equivalent surfaces were more in the 4 to 6-inch range. That dropped down to just a couple inches at 1,500’, but just as important was that the subsurface snow became wetter down below 2,000’. Based on what I’d experienced on my ski tour yesterday, where I found multiple layers in the surface snow of varying densities, we went with alpine skis today instead of Telemark skis, and that really seemed to be the right call. It didn’t matter much in the highest elevations where the powder was deeper, it was of lower density, and thicker layers in it were less pronounced, but the lower one went in elevation, the more having that stable platform of alpine skis helped in the off-piste areas. You really could get some nice turns at most elevations, but the main mountain delivered the best powder.

Temperatures were very comfortable today – they must have been right around the freezing mark when we arrived at Timberline in the morning, and probably in the mid-20s F up in the summit areas. We’re at the end of the current winter vacation week for schools, so being a Saturday with fresh snow and good temperatures, it was busy at the resort. When we headed back down to Timberline around midday, it seemed like even the Timberline parking areas were filling up, and people were having to hunt around for spots.

Both in the mountains and the valleys, it really started to pound snow in the afternoon with huge flakes as the back half of the Clipper began to push through. With this system, Bolton hit the 300” mark on the season’s snowfall, so they’re quickly approaching their season average with all of March and April still to go.

[#NoPoles]

Not a fan of this airmass