NNE Cold Season Thread 2024-2025

[bwt3650]

Yeah I had that in mind before I read your comment about snow. You could make an argument that upslope snow might increase as we warm, but as you said retention may take a hit.

Retention was an issue last year even here. We went back to almost zero at 1900’ a couple times. November/early December started out like it was going to be a 2018 repeat and it was bare by Christmas…happened a couple more times throughout the winter, but then would come back strong.


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[bwt3650]

Early Christmas grinch was powerful last year…

Dec 13th…



December 19th…




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[tamarack]

Just a dusting here last 12/13 but we had 12.4" on 12-3-5.  The 2.3" RA (some ZR at start) compacted snow to 4" then came 4.2" on 17-18, most falling at 50-55°.  Was glad there was little on the ground going into the deluge, as it would've melted 20" and possibly turned the 2nd highest peak flows in the Kennebec drainage into new all-time records.

Still no power here but not quite as windy - G35 instead of 40.  CMP scoped out our short road about 11:15.  The four lodged firs that were tipped on 12/18 remain secure; any one of them would easily reach our power lines if they came loose.

[J.Spin]

1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

Right now.  Dumping, ha.

I was up at Bolton Valley at around 2,500’ this afternoon, and at some point after 3:00 P.M. I started getting hit with frozen precipitation. I was never up above 3,000’ to see what it was doing up there, but it was generally a mix of precipitation types at 2,500’ and I didn’t see anything frozen back down at 2,000’. On the weather side, Bolton had a fun promo for mountain biking today where the cost of a lift ticket was based on the temperature (and they were using the Vista Summit 3,000’+ temperature, which certainly favors the customers). Even in the rain and snow the lifts were running and the riders were still pounding out the laps. Every time I’m up there I see more trails going in and more work being done, so they are clearly investing heavily in the biking as one of their warm season activities. Based on the number and quality of machine-built flow trails they have already, they must have put in hundreds of thousands of dollars or more at this point. Hopefully they’re recouping on that investment, but it’s definitely brought a lot more warm-season traffic with multiple tiers of the Village parking lots being used. They just had their first bike event at night under the lights on Friday, so it seems like they continue to add more options for riders.

This looks like a good stretch coming up to monitor the local snowfall and snow levels – the Mansfield graphical forecast from the BTV NWS has plenty of flakes in it.

[powderfreak]

The Lookout plot (on remote cam) with a half inch of slush.  This plot can be a bit less than the Gondi side at the same elevation… but nice to see the pace of wet snow is outpacing the melt rate.

[bwt3650]

White slopes on almost the same date 3 out of the last 4 winters…this one should be significantly more then the recent ones though…




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[powderfreak]

These two photos from today show the elevational change in weather conditions… of a Gondola/lift that spans 2,100+ vertical feet.

Multiple seasons and climates in a 12 minute ride.  Start in autumn, end in winter.

[OceanStWx]

The winter equipment install happens today for @tunafish, the season is officially open for business.

[tunafish]

2 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

The winter equipment install happens today for @tunafish, the season is officially open for business.

Yes indeed.  LFG.

[tunafish]

3 hours ago, OceanStWx said:

The winter equipment install happens today for @tunafish, the season is officially open for business.

Done. Now we wait.

[eyewall]

The snowliage made it to western NC below the highest elevations which were entirely defoliated by Helene on the eastern slopes (not my pic)

 

 

 

Here is a video of the devastation to the trees along the Blue Ridge

https://x.com/matt_vanswol/status/1845913514814140427?t=S_LTOrgCENnWGTEl-27sEA&s=09

[tunafish]

12 hours ago, OceanStWx said:

The winter equipment install happens today for @tunafish, the season is officially open for business.

Might have found you a CON guy (cc: @dendrite).  Not sure how good of a site it is.  Def within 2 miles of CON and same elevation.  He'll email GYX tomorrow.  Working a few other leads too.  Can't let that continuity of data die.

[LongBeachSurfFreak]

6 hours ago, eyewall said:

The snowliage made it to western NC below the highest elevations which were entirely defoliated by Helene on the eastern slopes (not my pic)

 

 

 

Here is a video of the devastation to the trees along the Blue Ridge

https://x.com/matt_vanswol/status/1845913514814140427?t=S_LTOrgCENnWGTEl-27sEA&s=09

Likely very similar to what was reportedly experienced in northern New England after the hurricane of 38. Different storm and setup but terrain, PRE, rapid speed (even faster in 38) net a similar result. 

[eyewall]

7 hours ago, LongBeachSurfFreak said:

Likely very similar to what was reportedly experienced in northern New England after the hurricane of 38. Different storm and setup but terrain, PRE, rapid speed (even faster in 38) net a similar result. 

Exactly what I was thinking. It was the southern version of that. As it stands I didn't get a chance to look at how the foliage season turned out up there this year. Always nice to see the early snow as a reminder that yes winter will return.

[qg_omega]

[powderfreak]

Some scenes from yesterday…

[Met1985]

1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

Some scenes from yesterday…

Wow that is freaking awesome!

[wxeyeNH]

Beautiful day in the White Mountains.  

[tunafish]

3 hours ago, wxeyeNH said:

Beautiful day in the White Mountains.  

Beautiful.  Where from?

It's that time of year it stands out from here in (South) PWM.   Visible in the Summer if we get clear days, but it really pops this time of year.  Clear air, snow covered peaks, and a lower sun angle with a more-southernly rise position make all the difference.

[J.Spin]

With this latest round of autumn snow culminating in over a foot of snow on Mt. Mansfield, the setup was calling for some early season turns. I think yesterday was the way to go for potentially the best snow quality with the way temperatures were predicted to rise today, but I was too busy to get out. I did get out this morning though, and while snow preservation was undoubtedly better yesterday, the clouds totally disappeared today to reveal incredible snowliage in the sunshine.

I started my ascent from the Gondola base at 1,600’ and walked with my skis on my pack for a few minutes to get above the areas with the most melting, then I put on my skins and skinned from there. The snow was already becoming spring-like down low in the sun, and areas in the shade featured refrozen snow. So even yesterday, the freezing level made it above the base elevations. I encountered my first real winter snow that had not seen a thaw-freeze cycle at about 2,800’ in the shade, and then at around 3,200’ I began finding some winter snow even in the sun. I made snow depth checks along the way, and here’s the depth profile I found in the late-morning to midday period:

1,600’: T-2”

2,000’: 4-5”

2,500’: 9-10”

3,000’: 12-13”

3,600’: 13-14”

Depths had consolidated a bit even up at 3,600’ based on the earlier pictures I’ve seen from PF, and the sun was really doing a number on the snow down low. The Gondola terrain gets hit by the sun, and the accumulations down near the Gondola base were just about gone by the time I finished my descent

In terms of the skiing, I encountered just about every sort of condition that Mother Nature can thrown at you, from dense, silky powder, to refrozen areas with unbreakable melt crust, to spring snow, to sticky, freshly melted snow. Once you were down below the driest snow up top, the best approach was to fucus on the snow that was in that happy medium between seeing the most sun on the skier’s left, and that which had seen no sun on the far skiers right in the shade of the trees.  The snow on the skier’s left that had seen some hours of sun was getting sticky, and snow that was shaded by the trees was still frozen with either an unbreakable or breakable melt crust, but in between there was an area of quality snow that had seen just enough sun to soften up but not get sticky. Once you were down below roughly 2,000’, everything was melting, so you just sort of kept going until you felt the snow was too thin. You could still make it all the way to the base with the help of shaded areas depending on what level of rock skis you might be on, but I took off my skis for the last few hundred vertical because I didn’t want to beat them up.

That was a solid dump for the middle of October though, and with the bonus snowliage it was a great way to kick off the season.

[J.Spin]

[J.Spin]

38 minutes ago, tamarack said:

Just had to look.  I found 3 years in which October pack persisted, the earliest start date coming in 1976 when measurable cover began on 10/14.   MWN's coldest November helped keep the snow.  October 2005 had 78.9" and the depth reached 32", but late November warmth melted it all, with Dec 1-2 w/o measurable.

 

1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

I guess I should say mid-October.  Maybe there is a some Halloween snow up there that lasted.

I know it hasn’t happened on Mansfield.

What about the ‘62-‘63 and ‘76-‘77 seasons on Mansfield? That ’76-’77 season is the same one mentioned above, but it’s surprising to think that if Mansfield can pull of keeping October snowpack though the entire winter, that Mt. Washington doesn’t do it even more often with an addition of 2,000’+ of elevation where monitoring takes place.

[powderfreak]

39 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

 

What about the ‘62-‘63 and ‘76-‘77 seasons on Mansfield? That ’76-’77 season is the same one mentioned above, but it’s surprising to think that if Mansfield can pull of keeping October snowpack though the entire winter, that Mt. Washington doesn’t do it even more often with an addition of 2,000’+ of elevation where monitoring takes place.

Ahh I messed up, I was looking too much at mid-October snows.  There are late October snows that go through.  Like in Oct 1976 it snows on the 18th, then melts, then snows again later and carries it through.

[tunafish]

16 hours ago, tunafish said:

Beautiful.  Where from?

It's that time of year it stands out from here in (South) PWM.   Visible in the Summer if we get clear days, but it really pops this time of year.  Clear air, snow covered peaks, and a lower sun angle with a more-southernly rise position make all the difference.

Didn't have my camera but you get the idea. 

[J.Spin]

2 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Ahh I messed up, I was looking too much at mid-October snows.  There are late October snows that go through.  Like in Oct 1976 it snows on the 18th, then melts, then snows again later and carries it through.

I thought it might be the emphasis on mid-October that was the difference – but I remembered a season or two where October snow seemed to have remained right on through when I was working with the Mansfield data, so I figured it was good to clarify. It certainly doesn’t look like even late October snowpack retention has happened during your tenure on the mountain though, so it’s quite rare for October snow to persist right on into the season. It probably takes a special combination of October and November snow and temperatures to make it happen, so maybe that’s why it’s still not all the frequent, even on Mt. Washington.

[tamarack]

1976 having MWN's earliest continuous snow cover is not much of a surprise.  In my 45 years as a forester, only 2 autumns passed into frozen ground logging without a fall mud season, 1976 and 2013.   October 1976 had BN temp, especially during the 2nd half, then November averaged 11°, MWN's coldest.  In 2013, October was 3° AN (but dry) and had only 7.4" snow - no chance.  November '13 was BN with abundant snow but too late; continuous cover began during its first week.

[powderfreak]

This February sun angle and E/NE facing aspect of the Mansfield ski trails doesn't melt snow very fast these days, despite summit temps around 50F today.

[borderwx]

Leaves are down for the season, hard frost this morning, excited for the change of season

Last weeks view





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[J.Spin]

Well, based on the modeling and the recent BTV NWS forecast discussions, it looks like we could be moving into our fourth round of early season snows in the coming days with these continuing cold frontal passages. With valley lows projected to get down into the 20s F, it seems that snow levels could get down to the valleys again.

On that note, I finally had time to put together my website post summarizing last week’s snow event, so that’s available and I’ve put the text from that below as well. Lots of thanks go out to PF for the numerous posts and photos he added in the forum as someone who is literally in the thick of it so often with firsthand timely observations.

https://jandeproductions.com/2024/10/16/third-round-of-early-season-snows-for-vermonts-green-mountains-have-been-the-most-impactful-yet/

We’re wrapping up our third round of early season snows here in the Green Mountains of Vermont, and this cycle has certainly raised the bar with respect to accumulations. For several days, the weather modeling has shown the potential for a solid shot of snow at elevation, and as of Sunday’s runs, it was becoming more obvious that the event was coming together.

Personal observations related to this latest cycle of snow began for me on Sunday – I was up at Bolton Valley around 2,500’ and was getting into some frozen precipitation even down at that elevation. Right around that time, Powderfreak reported in from the upper elevations of Stowe Mountain Resort at the Gondola with a picture of big flakes coming down. As of later that afternoon, the snow level was around 3,200’, but it was expected to potentially mix all the way down to the valley floors by Monday. Late that evening, the 3,000’ Lookout plot on Mt. Mansfield was showing about a half inch of snow, so accumulations were clearly beginning.

By midday Monday, the Mt. Mansfield Lookout plot was at 2 inches of accumulation, and later that evening, snow was mixing in down to the valley floors as expected.

As of Tuesday, snow accumulations were pushing farther down the mountainsides, and the evening update from Powderfreak was that the 3,000’ Lookout plot had seen 7 inches of snow up to that point in the event. Snow was even mixing in with the rain down at our house at the 500’ elevation in the Winooski Valley, and our site recorded its first trace of snow on the season.

Wednesday was the culmination of the event, with accumulations on Mt. Mansfield topping out around 15 inches. At Stowe Mountain Resort, the snowmobiles and snowcats were out trying to open the Gondola for summer/fall operations for the tourists. The snow depth at the famed Mt. Mansfield Stake came in at 12 inches, which is certainly solid for mid-October depths.  Powderfreak put together a great collection of photos from the upper elevations of Mt. Mansfield that nicely showed the accumulated results from this early season snowstorm.

This was a great early season event for the local mountains, and even at elevation, there were still enough leaves left on some of the trees to create excellent snowliage images.

[CoastalWx]

Keep the picnic tables open when it’s summer by Wednesday.