NNE Cold Season Thread 2024-2025

[J.Spin]

There hasn’t been much change to the BTV NWS advisories map, but the Event Total Snowfall map has seen some adjustments with their latest update. There’s an expansion of the areas with 6-8” shading in Northern Vermont, and now some 8-12” coloring is appearing along the eastern slopes in the Stowe/Smugg’s area. In general, the snow accumulation zones were extended a bit farther south, presumably based on changes seen in more recent modeling runs. In our area, the point forecast for snow has been bumped to roughly the 4-8” range, which seems consistent with the updated map. The BTV NWS forecast discussion clearly notes how difficult it is to pin down specific snowfall amounts with how tight the gradient is along the front, so they’ll just have to keep watching the guidance and we’ll get their latest thoughts in the next update.

[J.Spin]

I received an afternoon text that we’d be put under a Winter Storm Warning, and in the BTV NWS forecast discussion they mention that they put it up for areas with an 80% chance of seeing at least 7 inches of snowfall through the event. Those are also areas in which very heavy snowfall rates of 1 to 2 inches per hour are expected tomorrow morning. In line with this update, there’s also a more expanded area of 8-12” snowfall shading in this part of the Northern Greens.

[DavisStraight]

6 hours ago, J.Spin said:

I received an afternoon text that we’d be put under a Winter Storm Warning, and in the BTV NWS forecast discussion they mention that they put it up for areas with an 80% chance of seeing at least 7 inches of snowfall through the event. Those are also areas in which very heavy snowfall rates of 1 to 2 inches per hour are expected tomorrow morning. In line with this update, there’s also a more expanded area of 8-12” snowfall shading in this part of the Northern Greens.

Models have 12+ but some might be freezing rain/sleet.

[dmcginvt]

Dude it is dumping hard literally pouring snow at well over inch an hour right now

[dmcginvt]

[#NoPoles]

3 inches and counting

[borderwx]

23F here, deer have come out to feed. Snow just stopped but looks like the range is still in the snow cloud

A few inches


.

[powderfreak]

Models did a good job yesterday with the narrow zone through the heart of BTV’s area.

Tapered quick up north and mixed down south.

[mreaves]

Looks like about 6” here

[NW_of_GYX]

5” here, great little pow day on the hill with no one there




.

[#NoPoles]

Around 8 inches of cement. Did a number on my back and the snowblower. Complete over achiever here. Forecast had 3-5 mixing with sleet and zr. Glade are open at Bretton Woods. Fantastic end of season ski day

[MarkO]

Silly New England weather. 6" and still snowing at cabin, 33F and drizzle in Lowell, but mid 80's in SW CT.

Edit: light snow in Lowell 32.9F

[powderfreak]

The secondary spike in depth is common this time of year.  Sometimes it happens later in April, other times in March, but there’s usually a rebound in depth after the first real spring melt.

 

9” at 3,000ft on Mansfield for the initial wave of precip.  The next wave tomorrow morning is going to be IP/ZR/RN.

[J.Spin]

Snow from our latest winter storm began to fall late Friday evening, and then it really hit hard overnight with snowfall rates of an inch per hour or more that lasted into the early morning. Bolton Valley was already reporting 8 inches of overnight snow as of their early 6:30 A.M. report, with more snow still to come.

My liquid analyses from down in the valley indicated that we’d picked up ¾ inches of liquid equivalent in the snow at that point, so the mountain probably picked up in the range of an inch of liquid equivalent, and you could feel it in the snow. The snow at our site came in right around 10% H₂O, so this storm generally brought medium weight powder. Even on the mountain the new snow fell with minimal wind, so it was a very even coating across the entire resort that set up some excellent skiing both on and off piste.

My wife and I headed up to Timberline for the chair’s opening, with plans to quickly meet up with our younger son and several of his friends for a session. While we waited to group up, we took a run on Twice as Nice, which had just a few tracks on it and plenty of untouched powder. As the numbers suggested, there was plenty of liquid in the new snow for a resurfacing on just about all terrain, and even on mid-fat skis, bottomless turns were the rule. Being such a low elevation trail with only natural snow, I believe Twice as Nice had been closed due to some areas of poor coverage after our run of spring warmth. But a testament to the resurfacing ability of this storm was the fact that ski patrol was able to open it right back up for some great skiing. You could still see some of the taller evergreen shrubs sticking out of the snow, but those were pretty easy to avoid.

After that first run at Timberline, we teamed up with my son and various friends and spend the rest of the session over at the main mountain. We skied everything from mellow to very steep, and on many occasions, I was surprised by just how well the powder was covering everything up. We knew the subsurface would be fairly hard after days of spring temperature cycling, but time and time again I’d jump into steep tree lines, and whenever you had untouched snow, it kept you entirely off the base. Temperatures were generally in the upper 20s F, but as we got into the afternoon, we could tell that the temperature was creeping up around the freezing mark; the powder was starting to get a bit denser in the lower elevations, and packed areas of snow were taking on hints of that wet pack type of surface.

Bolton is reporting 12 inches of total snow in the past 48 hours, so this storm was certainly a nice shot in the arm for the local spring skiing. The snowpack depth at the Mt. Mansfield stake is also back up to just shy of 100 inches thanks to this system and the one we had earlier in the week. So indeed, March has been behaving like March, with some warmth but also continued winter storms to help with the mountain snowpack.

[borderwx]

Rugged out there. 34, cold wind and rain.
Feels like Maine


.

[J.Spin]

Earlier this afternoon I received an alert that we’d been put under a Winter Weather Advisory for the weather coming into the area tomorrow. I haven’t seen the updated BTV NWS forecast discussion yet, but in the available discussion they mention “a winter wx advisory type of an event is expected from the combination of snow changing to freezing rain/sleet, followed by rain on Thursday midmorning.” The headline link just brings one to the standard winter weather page and the map suggests an inch or two of snow at this point.

[J.Spin]

I saw on TWC this morning that the snow in our point forecast had been increased for this next incoming system, so I stopped in at the BTV NWS site to check on their updates. There was a substantial expansion to the coverage area of the Winter Weather Advisories and some increases in projected snowfall amounts on the Event Total Snowfall map.

[J.Spin]

Based on the weather, yesterday really wasn’t a day that I would have typically hit the mountain for skiing. It was one of those spring “in between” days, where temperatures weren’t cold enough that we were getting fresh snow, nor was it warm and sunny enough that we were really getting a nice spring skiing day. But my younger son and a number of his friends were heading out to partake in Bolton Valley’s pond skimming portion of their big “Spring Thing” event, so we decided to head up to check that out and get in some skiing. From what the website indicated, this was the first time they’ve put on a pond skimming event in about a decade, and they were also trying out dual slalom mountain bike races on snow - which seems like a pretty unique event.

I typically shy away from skiing on these middling spring days because you can end up with hard snow surfaces without either enough fresh snow to cover them up, or enough warmth to soften them up. Surprisingly though, the snow yesterday ended up being fine. Even though the temperatures on the mountain were only around 40 F at the base, and it wasn’t sunny, the surfaces had softened into some nice spring corn snow. Snow surfaces were just a bit firmer up near the ridgeline above 3,000’, but even there they were soft enough to be corn.

The weather took a turn as we approached midday and precipitation moved in. It was a combination of sleet and rain, and while it didn’t really affect the snow surfaces, riding the lift and skiing were much less pleasant because of the precipitation falling. We headed out at that point, but from what I saw on the radar, that precipitation eventually pushed through by later in the afternoon when the resort was running the bike races.

[powderfreak]

Some snow coming for the mountains over the next 36-48 hours.  Spine could do 4-8” during that time?  

[J.Spin]

On 4/7/2025 at 1:07 PM, powderfreak said:

Some snow coming for the mountains over the next 36-48 hours.  Spine could do 4-8” during that time?  

It looks like that was a decent call – I’m seeing a lot of 4-8” totals for the valleys and 12”+ for the elevations.

[powderfreak]

50 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

It looks like that was a decent call – I’m seeing a lot of 4-8” totals for the valleys and 12”+ for the elevations.

Yeah a bit low on the call.  High Road plot did 7” yesterday and 7” on this morning’s reading for 14”.

Yesterday’s burst was surprising.  The elevated Lookout Snow Cam which runs conservative/low did 4” between 7am and 8am.  Looking at the times it looked like it did 1” in like 11 minutes.  Board flipped clean at 6:56am on the clock then hit 1” by 7:07am.  It hit 2” at 7:20am.

Thats some high end snowfall rates.

[J.Spin]

It’s April in the Northern Greens, and our most recent storm came through the area yesterday, finishing up overnight with 4-8” of snow in the valleys and 12”+ for the local ski resorts. Bolton Valley was reporting 13” of new snow from the system in their early report, so I hit the mountain this morning for some touring in the fresh powder on my way to Burlington.

The ongoing April temperatures, rounds of new snow, and the upcoming forecast have been decent enough that Bolton has decided to add some extra innings to their operations schedule this week, but they weren’t starting up the lifts today until noontime. That meant that the resort was on the quiet side this morning; only about ¼ of the upper Village lot had some cars from folks out ski touring and taking care of other things at the resort.

My car’s thermometer was reporting temperatures in the mid-teens F when I started my morning tour, but even if you weren’t in direct sun, you could tell it was April – the solar radiation is just that strong at this time of year. The weather overall on the mountain today was a gorgeous April mix of light to moderate snow at times, scattered clouds, and frequent breaks of direct sun. The system that brought the snow was pulling away and there wasn’t really any wind behind it, so it was warm enough to be comfortable but still well below the point where temperatures would have affected the quality of the powder.

And indeed, although this was an April storm system, the powder it delivered was midwinter dry. Down in the lower valleys, the snow did start out on the denser side for the very beginning of the system; my liquid analyses indicated 8-12% H2O snow during the day yesterday, but the bulk of the snow fell overnight, and that snow density was in the 3-5% H2O range.

While the wind had dissipated by this morning, there was definitely some wind with the system, because the effects of the drifting on the dry snow was evident. As long as you avoided scoured areas though, bottomless powder turns were readily available. When I saw the storm total exceeding a foot up at the resort, I decided it was another day for the fat skis, and they were indeed an appropriate tool for the job.

There was quite a snowfall gradient with this storm as one headed up from the valley, and there was a real solid jump in accumulations between 1,500’ and 2,000’ that made touring out of Bolton’s main base area the clear choice. Here’s the accumulations profile I found from this morning’s outing:

340’: 1”

1,000’:1-2”

1,500’: 3-4”

2,000’: 7-9”

2,500’: 8-12”

3,000’: 12”+

I went on the conservative side with accumulations in those upper elevations, but there were plenty of areas with a good 12-13” at 2,500’ and 15-17” at 3,000’ that weren’t drifts. I just couldn’t find those depths consistently enough to call them representative overall for those elevations.

In this morning’s report, Bolton Valley was at 374” on their season snowfall total, and as we approach mid-April, the ski resorts in the Northern Greens are generally reporting season snowfall the ±400” range. That’s above average, and it looks like another April system may be hitting the area this weekend with more potential snow for the mountains, and there could be additional snow next week as well.

[NW_of_GYX]

Upslope signal emerging for midweek is starting to get interesting. How close is Jay to 500”?  

[powderfreak]

1 hour ago, NW_of_GYX said:

Upslope signal emerging for midweek is starting to get interesting. How close is Jay to 500”?  

Not sure but Mansfield is looking to pass 350” of observed, measured snowfall at 3,000ft.

Everything was open today if you could get to it from the top of the FourRunner Quad… buried, no weaknesses anywhere. I hope I get to see a 450+ winter.

Mansfield stake would be at 150”+ easily.

 

[powderfreak]

This doesn’t even make sense but the GFS isn’t backing down.

[CoastalWx]

14 hours ago, NW_of_GYX said:

Upslope signal emerging for midweek is starting to get interesting. How close is Jay to 500”?  

They’re a few slants away.

[NW_of_GYX]

1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

This doesn’t even make sense but the GFS isn’t backing down.

GFS trying for one of those 3’ multi day fake snow events in the northern greens 

[J.Spin]

5 hours ago, powderfreak said:

This doesn’t even make sense but the GFS isn’t backing down.

Well, whether it ends up being ± whatever actual amount of liquid equivalent in the end, I find that on average, the GFS is the best of the tools in that medium range timeframe for northern stream and upslope systems in the Northern Greens. The ECMWF model is quite good in general of course, but it and the other medium range models just don’t seem to “see” the mountains around here in the same way with whatever physics they implement. In any event, the BTV NWS is already paying attention to the potential from Tuesday through the end of the week. It is fitting though to see a quote from the experts that says: “…and with a tendency for these events to last on the longer side of guidance, trended toward this solution.” As someone who lives along the spine of the Northern Greens and routinely documents the snowfall from these events, that seems to be an aspect that the GFS typically “gets” more than some of the other equivalent models. It’s also interesting to hear about the difficulty in using ensemble data as effectively for these types of events because it’s too coarse to resolve the terrain well.

LONG TERM /TUESDAY NIGHT THROUGH SATURDAY/...

As of 339 AM EDT Sunday...Upslope precipitation begins Tuesday night and will continue through Wednesday. The mountains should see exclusively snow, and with steep lapse rates, much of it should be powdery. As temperatures rise during the day Wednesday, there could be a little rain mixing in in the valleys, but the steep lapse rates could cause it to be all snow despite temperatures well above above freezing. The precipitation will be snow everywhere Wednesday night. There is some uncertainty on when the upslope precipitation ends. Some guidance keeps it going all the way through Thursday, and with a tendency for these events to last on the longer side of guidance, trended toward this solution. However, snow would likely be lighter and more scattered on Thursday as the depth of the atmospheric moisture declines. Ensemble probabilities are tough to use in these upslope cases since they are too coarse to resolve the terrain well, so looking at the deterministic guidance, several inches look likely in the northern Greens and Adirondacks, with the possibility for significantly more. It looks like the upslope precipitation should taper off by Friday at the latest, and ridging will briefly build into the region to end the week.