NNE Cold Season Thread 2024-2025

[dmcginvt]

On 3/3/2025 at 4:30 PM, powderfreak said:

It sometimes matters, blocked vs unblocked, but to me it matters more for the lower elevations around the mountains.  Regardless of blocking, the actual Spine above 2,000ft is going to get snow regardless.  Like a blocked flow that favors west side is still going to snow on the upper east slopes of like Stowe, Sugarbush and Jay.  Likewise, a more unblocked flow is going to still snow at Bolton and Smuggs upper elevations.

The blocking discussion and Froude can be used to highlight the jackpot areas, but above 2,000ft along the Spine is going to get at least some snow in all Froude numbers.

NWS BTV Froude study was more for how it impacts the inhabited elevations around the mountains… so like blocked flow, we aren’t getting more than light snow in Stowe Village or RT 100 corridor while Underhill and Jeffersonville or towns along west side are pounding.  Unblocked flow is going to put snow into the RT 100 corridor on east side while it’s going over the west slope communities.

Through it all, the mountains and Spine are getting snow in most of those situations.

Either way, Smuggs is a fine choice for CAA, W/NW flow squeezing out residual moisture after the rain.  If the flow is blocked, the snowfall should get more into the lower elevations on that west side, while it dries up or at least is more gusty wind-blown snow below 1500-2000ft on the east side.

damn best explanation ever/  It goes for that garfield area of hyde park too up by green river res.  Just a magical place for snow.  Everything that comes down the lamoille valley and has a little elevation just gets crushed because theres nothing else to stop it it is essentially the upslope between say whiteface (aka sterling but not the sterling at smuggs it's confusing) and idk belviedere as far as peaks go. I did not explain that well, but there's just enough rise coming out of the lamoille valley that this area gets so much snow

[borderwx]

Primo skate skiing on the fresh tilled. That March sun matters, in the shade very fast conditions, the sun was softening wherever it could land, despite the wind.

Backroads doing the same, ice packed to ruts and back again.

Nice view from Craftsbury…



.

[powderfreak]

@J.Spin in line for a good streamer.

[J.Spin]

5 hours ago, powderfreak said:

@J.Spin in line for a good streamer.

I was driving home from Burlington during that, and it was brutal. It wasn’t that the roads themselves were too bad in terms of traction, since there was only and inch or two of new snow on them; it was the visibility that was an issue. It was 1-2”/hr. snowfall with big flakes, and the plows weren’t really out clearing things off yet. So, it was just white on white on white with massive flakes pounding down so that you can only see about a car’s length in front of you. Forget about trying to tell where the edge of the road or the other lane was. I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t received a squall alert on my phone with how difficult the driving was, but at least there were Special Weather Statements:

NEAR TERM /THROUGH SATURDAY NIGHT/...

As of 645 PM EST Friday...Main focus with the update this evening was to monitor the ongoing heavy, gusty showers stretched across the forecast area. Have issued Special Weather Statements over the past few hours to note this, however these showers are not quite reaching true snow squall criteria with visibilities floating around 1/4 to 1/2 but wind gusts barely cresting 30 mph at times. The concern comes in regards to folks still traveling for an evening commute. PoPs have been increased and weather type switched to heavy snow for the next several hours.

I was definitely in the target audience for that message though, and it was essentially heavy snow for my entire drive home. I’ve never appreciated every little road reflector and sign that the highway department has in place along Route 2. Thankfully we don’t have those massive open areas of terrain like they do in the plains, but you can clearly see why they sometimes close down the highways out there.

I was reading the BTV NWS forecast discussion, and it was only there that I learned that apparently more snow is on the way tonight:

Once the Sun sets, winds should begin to decrease and temperatures will gradually cool off into the teens to lower 20s again. That surface trough will produce additional snow showers overnight, which will be enhanced by an incoming upper vort and then push south by morning.

Sure enough, the radar shows more snow upstream just about to hit the area. Life in the Northern Greens.

[J.Spin]

I really hadn’t planned on skiing today. Earlier in the week, Winter Storm Lola came through the area, and it was a warm enough system at all elevations that conditions were clearly going to firm up after it passed and temperatures cooled back down. While we did get some snow on the front and back ends of the system, it wasn’t going to be enough to get anywhere near the resurfacing that would be needed to soften up the ski surfaces. I was somewhat looking forward to an excuse to not head up to the mountain though; the snow conditions have been so good for more than two months straight that it’s been hard to pull away from the snow to catch up on everything else in life. Today I figured I’d take the opportunity to head on in to work and get some things done there.

Mother Nature seemed to have other plans for me though. While there weren’t any major winter storms in the area, this is Northern Vermont, and sometimes snow, heavy snow, just happens. As I was driving home from Burlington yesterday afternoon, I did so to the tune of some very heavy snowfall. It wasn’t that the roads themselves were too bad in terms of traction, since there was only an inch or two of new snow on them; it was the visibility that was an issue. It was 1-2”/hr. snowfall with big flakes, and the plows hadn’t been out clearing things off yet. So, it was just white on white on white with massive flakes pounding down so that you could only see about a car’s length in front of you. Forget about trying to tell where the edge of the road or the other lane was. I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t received a squall alert on my phone with how difficult the driving was, but I did find out that at least there were Special Weather Statements posted:

NEAR TERM /THROUGH SATURDAY NIGHT/...

As of 645 PM EST Friday...Main focus with the update this evening was to monitor the ongoing heavy, gusty showers stretched across the forecast area. Have issued Special Weather Statements over the past few hours to note this, however these showers are not quite reaching true snow squall criteria with visibilities floating around 1/4 to 1/2 but wind gusts barely cresting 30 mph at times. The concern comes in regards to folks still traveling for an evening commute. PoPs have been increased and weather type switched to heavy snow for the next several hours.

I was definitely in the target audience for that message though, and it was essentially heavy snow for my entire drive home. I’ve never appreciated every little road reflector and sign that the highway department has in place along Route 2. Thankfully we don’t have those massive open areas of terrain like they do in the plains, but you can clearly see why they sometimes close down the highways out there.

Later in the evening I was reading the BTV NWS forecast discussion, to catch up on what had hit the area earlier, and I then learned that apparently more snow was on the way:

Once the Sun sets, winds should begin to decrease, and temperatures will gradually cool off into the teens to lower 20s again. That surface trough will produce additional snow showers overnight, which will be enhanced by an incoming upper vort and then push south by morning.

Sure enough, the radar showed more snow upstream just about to hit the area, and I couldn’t help but wonder what things were going to look like in the morning.

By early this morning, we’d picked up 3.2” of new snow down at our site in the valley, and Bolton Valley was reporting 3-5” new in their snow report. For better or worse, I knew that was going to be enough to get at least some of the lower angle terrain skiing quite well, so I packed my gear for a quick ski tour on my way into Burlington.

Based on the accumulations, I knew the Wilderness Uphill Route would be the place to go, and this was only reinforced by the fact that neither the Wilderness Double Chair nor the Vista Quad Chair were running because of the strong winds that were hitting the mountains. Indeed, when I reached the Bolton Valley Village, the winds were howling. I was amazed at the number of visitors that were at the resort without two main lifts in operation – cars were parking in the third and fourth tiers of the Village parking lots.

Temperatures were well up into the teens F though, and you can really feel that we’re not in January anymore. It was clear that the winds had been strong for a while, because even the very sheltered Lower Turnpike area had been hit. Between areas that had been groomed, and areas exposed to the winds, you really had to head off the edges of the trail to get into the powder. Once you got to that new snow though, it was there just like the snow report had said. Starting right from the 2,000’ elevation, I found about 4” of powder in protected areas off the trail, and I was able to find a general 3-6” of powder in the 2,000’ to 2,500’ elevation range where I toured. In areas with some drifting, I was finding up to 12” of new snow, but that was certainly not the norm.

The skiing was excellent, as long as you knew where to go. The lower angle trees were definitely the ticket this morning – the powder in there had not been hit by the winds, and they probably collected the extra snow that had blow from the exposed areas on the trails. It was medium-weight powder, so certainly not enough to be bottomless, but on mid-fat skis it was enough to generally keep you out of contact with the subsurface for nice, quiet turns. The Lower Wilderness Woods area was very good in this regard, and it was made better by that fact that the snow was pristine. Yes, the summit lifts were down, but very few people were even out touring, and nobody had been in there.

The turns were nice enough that I contemplated going for another run, and I definitely would have if I didn’t have anything else on my schedule for the day. It was especially tough to pull away from the mountain at that point because another round of heavy snowfall had moved in as I was finishing up my tour. It was quickly accumulating over everyone’s cars, and you knew it was going to beef up the powder another notch to further improve the skiing.

[J.Spin]

Since Winter Storm Lola last week, we’ve had sort of a miniature Northern Greens bread-and-butter pattern of storms. We’ve had five winter systems affect the area in the past five days, bringing a foot of snow to our site in the valley, and substantially more to the local mountains. The two most recent weather events affected the area within hours of each other, with an area of upper-level vorticity affecting the area during the midday period yesterday, and quick moving Alberta Clipper system hitting the area during the overnight period. When I looked outside last night around midnight and saw heavy snow falling with flakes up to 20 mm in diameter, it was a sign that I should get the ski gear ready.

As of this morning we’d picked up 4.8 inches of new snow at the house, and the Bolton Valley snow report was indicating 6 to 8 inches of snow in the past 24 hours, so a trip up to the hill was definitely in order. My time was somewhat limited in the early morning, but with the potential for temperatures to rise above freezing later in the day, I still wanted to get in a quick ski tour in the fresh snow.

I toured via the Wilderness Uphill Route on the lower half of the main mountain in the 2,000’ to 2,300’ elevation range and found powder depths of 7 to 10 inches over the subsurface. It was medium weight powder and easily set up bottomless turns on lower and mid-angle slopes. Temperatures were in the mid-20s F, which was comfortable yet cool enough to keep the powder in excellent shape.

[J.Spin]

With yesterday’s new snow, my plan had always been to head up to the mountain for some turns as soon as I’d taken care of a scheduled meeting in the morning. Unsure of how the temperatures were going to affect the powder later in the day though, I’d gone out for an early morning ski tour via the Wilderness Uphill Route. A colleague of mine is in town for a couple of weeks working on a project, and he was eager to get up to the mountain for some Nordic skiing when he heard about all the new snow, so the two of us headed back to Bolton Valley for a midday session.

For the afternoon session, I was thinking of either going for another tour, or doing some lift-served skiing, but I first wanted to see how the quality of the powder was faring as we approached midday. While swinging through the Village Circle to let my colleague pick up his Nordic pass, the temperature was just below freezing at the 2,000’ elevation, so I figured riding the lifts was the safer bet in case the snow started to get wet.

We parked right along the Broadway Trail in the backcountry lot, and it provided perfect access for my colleague to jump onto the trail network for his Nordic session, while I headed up to the Vista Quad. Though the temperature may have been approaching the freezing mark at 2,000’, it was well down into the 20s F once you got up around 3,000’. I’d wondered if there was going to be some warmer air at elevation, but that question had been quickly answered.

The powder I found was just as good as what I’d experienced in the morning, and there had obviously been some lift-served skier traffic, but being a midweek day, there was still plenty of untracked snow to ski. I started off on Spillway Lane, and the typically snow areas off to the left were providing excellent powder turns. When I dropped into Hard Luck though, I quickly realized that it was too steep for the available snow – it was tracked up enough that I was hitting the subsurface constantly, and that subsurface is fairly firm. As soon as I discovered this, I cut to the right into some trees and made my way onto Vermont 200. What I found was that at those black diamond pitches, you really needed first tracks to get soft, bottomless turns. Once a few tracks were in place, you started to hit the subsurface. Thankfully, the bottom sections of Vermont 200 where the terrain spreads out provided plenty of untouched snow for excellent turns.

After that first run though, I spent the rest of my session focused on more moderate angle terrain, and that provided consistently great turns. With time, the snow started to get a bit denser down toward the Village, and the powder was still skiing well, but you could tell the freezing level was rising. When I’d finished my session and was waiting at the car for my colleague to finish up, I was able to soak up some sun really appreciate the weather that we were getting. After what’s been a long, consistently cold winter season, it was finally starting to feel like March!

[#NoPoles]

We lost a lot of snow today. 55 degrees felt amazing! I want more