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NNE Heart of Winter


Allenson

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Yeah skiing looks great this weekend for the northern greens and all of NNE. Took a ride up towards Island Pond,VT this afternoon to scope out some snow mobiling trails, and went through areas between 2,200-2,700ft in Newark and East Haven,VT. Legit snow mobile heaven up there. No people, hundreds of trails. It's awesome if you want some peace and quiet. Depths up there ranged from 10" closer to 2,000ft and up to 17" near 2,700ft. On the descent down to 1,100ft here at the college it was quite sad, going from a solid 15" down to 3-4" in Lyndon proper (700ft) and back up to 5-6" here at the school. As for my adventure, it was definitely a success.

Did you ride or just drive around checking things out? It is a beautiful area, just watch out for moose.

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Yeah these flakes at the mountain this morning are probably similar, maybe a bit smaller than what you were seeing just as this is a low moisture, more western slope little snow shower event this morning. We've got 0.5" here but its no surprise you had 1" and so did Bolton and Smuggs. Inversion level is just above ridgetop so we are getting some spillover but you can tell its drying out as it moves east of the Mansfield ridge.

You're bolded part could not be more correct. Every time we sit through an operations meeting and talk about how much we think conditions the next day will be atrocious, we come in the next morning to fantastic conditions. The last 7 days have seen 20" of snowfall at 3,000ft so that certainly helps...27" in the last 9 days! I've heard its the same at Smuggs and Bolton. A friend who skied here one day and Jay the next thought that the skiing in this region of the Greens was a bit better as Jay was quite wind affected. Luckily we've been avoiding the 50-60mph winds that ruin powder snow surfaces... usually upslope comes with high winds but this year its been different. I can count the wind hold days on one hand when some years it seems to be 3 days per week.

And looking into the weekend, this pattern is expected to continue. "GPetrics" alerted me to the fact that the BTV WRF is showing around 0.5" of QPF over the next 36 hours here at Mansfield. Same region of Bolton-Mansfield-Smuggs could do a nice surprise for tomorrow morning with upslope.

QPF through 6z tonight...

And QPF after 6z... snow ends around mid morning.

Looks like I'm going to be at stowe tomorrow! How are trails like Chinclip skiing?

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Looks like I'm going to be at stowe tomorrow! How are trails like Chinclip skiing?

They are alright... Chin Clip has been skiing a bit firm/slick between the bumps all winter long. The natural snow trails are definitely variable but pretty good considering it was pouring rain 48 hours ago. I mean they are at least skiable and decently enjoyable. A little more snow tonight will help but I've had a good morning skiing non-groomed stuff like middle Goat, S53, and some woods.

Don't get me wrong, its frozen underneath but it could be much, much worse. There are at least a couple/few inches on top of the crust and that crust is a pretty smooth surface. Low angle woods are fantastic like Sunrise Glades and all the stuff over by the Chapel.

I just hope we can pick up a few inches tonight to start off the weekend.

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I have never snowmobiled but do you really get quiet when you are on one. Solitude I can understand but quiet?

Total quiet, no. My four stroke is pretty quiet, you hear more of the skis and track than the engine. Real quiet comes when you stop in a location miles from a road, the sky is clear and moonlit and themperature is about 0°.

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They are alright... Chin Clip has been skiing a bit firm/slick between the bumps all winter long. The natural snow trails are definitely variable but pretty good considering it was pouring rain 48 hours ago. I mean they are at least skiable and decently enjoyable. A little more snow tonight will help but I've had a good morning skiing non-groomed stuff like middle Goat, S53, and some woods.

Don't get me wrong, its frozen underneath but it could be much, much worse. There are at least a couple/few inches on top of the crust and that crust is a pretty smooth surface. Low angle woods are fantastic like Sunrise Glades and all the stuff over by the Chapel.

I just hope we can pick up a few inches tonight to start off the weekend.

Thanks for the info... It will be good to watch some of the winter carnival races as well.

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We've been seeing flurries pretty much all afternoon...after some morning sunshine... and now the mountain has socked back in its snow cloud.

Looks like moisture is increasing now to the NW and tracking right into this area of the northern Greens from the Winooski Valley/I-89 northward. BTV calling for 1-3" but I'm hoping for another orographic surprise, haha.

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Some photos from today... not "epic" but d@mn good considering it was pouring 48 hours ago. This mountain recovers nicely, haha.

Thanks for the pics PF, these are days when super fatties can really help with the floating on what’s available. Let’s keep these rounds of Champlain Powder™ coming and the conditions will only get better in areas that don’t get overly abused by skier traffic.

Event update: it started snowing here in Burlington about 15 minutes ago or so; it’s very light at this point but it’s starting to pick up at times, and if we’re getting it here, then the mountains are either into it already or soon will be.

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Thanks for the pics PF, these are days when super fatties can really help with the floating on what’s available. Let’s keep these rounds of Champlain Powder™ coming and the conditions will only get better in areas that don’t get overly abused by skier traffic.

Event update: it started snowing here in Burlington about 15 minutes ago or so; it’s very light at this point but it’s starting to pick up at times, and if we’re getting it here, then the mountains are either into it already or soon will be.

I have a feeling this event will be a bit more favorable on the western slopes than over here on the eastern side. This season has had a bunch of upslope periods that seem to have favored us on this side over the Underhill/Jerhico side, but this radar has more of a western slope appeal. Echos have certainly had a bit harder time making it over the Spine and throughout the day today when it was sunny at Stowe, you could see clouds building on the western side but they never were able to really break over the ridge. It was like water lapping at the edge of a pool, every so often a ripple would come and slosh over, but most of the moisture was stuck on the other side of the mountain.

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2 new additions to the PSU NH RWIS site. Franconia and Echo Lake ftw.

http://vortex.plymou...rwis.cgi?id=all

Wish there was a high quality video cam at Echo late!! Quite a microclimate in Franconia Notch.

Misc Musings.....

Still solid snow cover here. Great for sleding with the thick glaze. Snow is going to start having that dirty look soon. If you like ice skating Newfound Lake is frozen with large areas of smooth ice. Pretty rare as usually by Feb it is deeply snow covered. Can really tell the difference in the sun angle. Even on below freezing days its starting to eat away at the south facing snow banks.

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Yeah skiing looks great this weekend for the northern greens and all of NNE. Took a ride up towards Island Pond,VT this afternoon to scope out some snow mobiling trails, and went through areas between 2,200-2,700ft in Newark and East Haven,VT. Legit snow mobile heaven up there. No people, hundreds of trails. It's awesome if you want some peace and quiet. Depths up there ranged from 10" closer to 2,000ft and up to 17" near 2,700ft. On the descent down to 1,100ft here at the college it was quite sad, going from a solid 15" down to 3-4" in Lyndon proper (700ft) and back up to 5-6" here at the school. As for my adventure, it was definitely a success.

Your on the right tracks. Snowmobiling is so incredible in the wilds of NNE. Takes you to places no one else can get to, and with SPEED. This winter has been less than kind to us so enjoy what you can.

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I only ride during the day, Never at night, Thats when most fatalitys occur as folks out ride there headlights and end up off trail, And never drink and ride as well..

When I was younger(sigh).. used to ride a lot at night. Thats when we went really fast thinking that we would see the on coming headlights that you cant see during daylight. Of course we never considered the broken down sleds, groomers, that might be around the next corner. Im slower and older now, and I consider it a failure if Im not at my destination in daylight. Still love it though :sled: Also, back in the old days we would ride fast for 25 miles, then get off and brag about it. Now we go steady and ride far more miles per day.

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1.5" overnight at 800ft down in town... 2.5" overnight at 1,500ft. Groomers reporting 2-4" with horizontal snow currently.

Its quite blustery up here with significant blowing and drifting. The drive up 108 was very entertaining with full on white-out conditions once above 1,300ft. Headlights were doing no favors today with snow blowing off the snow banks right at eye level as you drive through it.

Radar is not doing this snowfall justice right now, half-dollar sized flakes moving sideways.

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Event totals: 3.2” Snow/0.10” L.E.

This has even been a decent event down here in the valley at this point, with total accumulation topping 3”, and the overnight push of snow really substantiating the liquid equivalent. I ran an analysis off the snowboard last night at 10:00 P.M. before heading off to bed, and the snow was still that ultra light fluff in the 1-2% H2O range. This morning though, there was another 1.6” on the snowboard, and it was immediately obvious that it had a lot more liquid in it. At 5% H2O it’s still quite dry by most people’s standards, but that jump from 1-2% H2O to 5% H2O is huge; for example, the first 1.6” of snow from this event contained ~0.02” of liquid, while the next 1.6” contained 0.08” of liquid. Depending on how things fell on the slopes, the snow is a bit “upside down”, but it’s all so dry that it probably won’t have any effect on the turns. The most important thing in terms of the skiing is getting as much liquid equivalent as possible on the old base to soften things up.

I’ve added the north to south list of snow reports from the Vermont ski areas for this event, using the 48 or 72-hour snow totals if available. Smugg’s only provides the 24-hour snowfall total, so that may need an update. The north to south trend with this event is very visible:

Jay Peak: 5”

Burke: 3”

Smuggler’s Notch: 4”

Stowe: 6”

Bolton Valley: 5”

Mad River Glen: 2”

Sugarbush: 2”

Pico: 1”

Killington: 1”

Okemo: 0”

Bromley: 0”

Magic Mountain: 0”

Stratton: 0”

Mount Snow: 0”

Some details from the 10:00 P.M. and 6:00 A.M. Waterbury observations are below:

10:00 P.M.

New Snow: 0.6 inches

New Liquid: 0.01 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 60.0

Snow Density: 1.7% H2O

Temperature: 28.2 F

Sky: Light Snow (3-12 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 9.0 inches

6:00 A.M.

New Snow: 1.6 inches

New Liquid: 0.08 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 20.0

Snow Density: 5.0% H2O

Temperature: 23.9 F

Sky: Light Snow (1-4 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 10.0 inches

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