alex

29 minutes ago, wxeyeNH said:

Alex,  I'm guessing you will be fine as far as flooding is concerned.  It is a quick 12 hour warm sector then within an hour or two back into the deep freeze.  I think the snowpack at elevation can absorb the heavy rain before it gets down to the river.  With a flash freeze there is going to be a lot of ice around.  Ski areas are going to have to work fast making snow or the trails will be hard and fast for sure.

Yes I hope you’re right. I looked at 2 years ago, when we had a close call, and we had much more snowpack to begin with, 2 full days above freezing with several hours at about 60F, and about 2” of rain. Either way, it’s good to be prepared!

in the meantime, amazing skiing today. The ungroomed natural terrain is just amazing right now. The resorts will suffer but with the cold temperatures they’ll get back quickly. Groom those suckers a couple of times, make some snow and voila, everyone is happy. 
 

speaking of which - yesterday some of the newer guns were set on this very fine mist - almost like vapor. It didn’t seem like they were doing anything but the trail underneath them was like fresh soft powder. I was pretty amazed. 
 

back to skiing (typing from the gondola lol)

1 hour ago, tamarack said:

The evergreens, starting with balsam fir, are much more vulnerable during the leaf-off season.  That said, the NW gales generated by the 1962 New Year's Eve Bangor blizzard tipped a lot of NNJ trees from all-hardwood forests, including some large white oaks, a species with a tap root and thus usually more windfirm.  No actual measurements to offer, but IMO there were gusts reaching 70 from late on 12/30 thru most of 12/31.  Only the Nov 1950 Apps Gale compares with that event in my personal experience.  12/31/62 had temp 5/-8 at our place, chilly for NNJ, but we had not heard of quantifiable wind chill back then.

Interesting - thanks for sharing. Most of our evergreens (balsam fir and red spruce) up here are pretty short so maybe less prone to damage, plus our location gets some pretty nasty winds pretty regularly but will be interesting to see. More worried about the potential for flooding than wind damage, but that’s very IMBY

16 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Some areas are more prone to it, like NW sides of mountains in New England can rip big wind.  Here it’s the towns NW of Mansfield and the rest of the Spine.  I bet you mix down big winds on SE flow.  Phin always saw big winds on south flow.

Yes we do! 

Are 60-70 mph gusts that big of a deal with bare trees? I feel like we get that a few times every year without much consequences - but I could be completely wrong (and the fact that so many are focusing on winds probably tell me that I AM wrong)

55 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

No upslope with this to help bring them back online . Just icy trails 

That’s where good resorts like Bretton Woods shine. Give them 2 rounds of grooming and that ice will be turned to a fast packed powder that’s really fun to ski on. 

29 minutes ago, STILL N OF PIKE said:

Looks like euro gives several inches to some NNE Resorts friday am and the mild up lasts about 12 hours . This doesn’t really seem like a big disaster to me 

I'd like to think that, but the AFD was pretty gruesome. My biggest concern of course is flooding... but would also like to salvage some snowpack if we can. I don't even particularly care much for me - we see plenty of snow (it's STILL snowing today, after all) and even my kids don't care that much since they're so used to it, but it's so sad for people who come up for Xmas break and it's their one ski trip a year. Also, I'm in a really bad spot for retention in cutters. I think the only way we don't downslope is on West or North winds; we are otherwise surrounded by 5000 ft+ peaks. The mountains giveth, the mountains taketh

Pretty nasty snow squall coming through 

1 hour ago, uncletim said:

Looks like a scary ski holiday coming up: bulletproof surface + holiday crowds + limited trail count. Recipe for tragedy and I hope resorts lean on the safety messaging.

Sounds like every holiday week in the past 3 years

On 12/17/2022 at 7:39 PM, powderfreak said:

Saw this from Wildcat.  Those are some serious stacks on the chairlift. Feet.

That's sweet. Hopefully they can hold on to it in this upcoming weather cycle. Bretton Woods is going to get nuked, unfortunately, and there doesn't seem to be much upslope if any to follow. At least there's good grooming lol. Feel bad for the masses coming up for the holidays...

Bretton Woods was just amazing this weekend. Tons of new terrain, much of which all natural. One of my favorite glades was open as well (Glade West)

 My snow covered trees fetish has been well served by this last storm 

While we contemplate the imminent doom, it’s really beautiful out

This storm was bizarre. I thought we got downsloped but North Conway has quite a bit less than we do. They usually do very well in this type of setup. The notch is stunning though 

Snow rates have picked up significantly- upslope? Perfectly timed with my drive down the notch to North Conway lol. Grrrr

8” here but I think accumulation was held down as we rotted at 33 degrees for a while. The upper elevations seemed to have quite a bit more. Either way, beautiful scenery and amazing skiing so nothing to complain about! At least till the cutter next week

35 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

FWIW

 

Random question - I have a subscription to weathermodels.com but where do you find this map??? Can’t find it anywhere

It’s gotten quite warm here - 33. Snowing nicely but very wet

Picked up quite a bit in intensity. Unfortunately we have guests with 2nd that can’t make it up the road to the condo 

Well the forecast says the best should be coming overnight... but the radar seems to be drying up so not sure what to make of it. I'm ready for upslope, but this sounds promising: 

Finally, in the mountains... totals have come up by a couple
inches across the board in the higher terrain, particularly
through the higher terrain of New Hampshire where confidence
continues to increase in 1.5-2" QPF amounts as forcing and
adequate moisture slowly pivots over those areas and squeezes
out snow for the next 12+ hours... while areas further east dry
slot and rates diminish.

33 minutes ago, backedgeapproaching said:

The Bennington of NH.  I think that was probably expected there with the screaming east flow though..

Yeah it’s definitely a local snow hole. It seems that they often get less snow than even Littleton. Pretty much get screwed in every direction - they do get upslope but it’s much much lighter than what we get here less than 15 miles away. Given that we are just on day 1 of 4, I’d expect they will end up with at least some decent snow but who knows 

Omg just got back from Whitefield - no snow at all there, just a dusting! Bizarre. 

2 minutes ago, #NoPoles said:

Stop stealing my snow!

Never!!! And if you have no snow to steal, I’ll make my own!!!

5 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Color me a little skeptical of that 18-24" amounts up high around here.  But who knows.

It's a pasty snow at 1,500ft, every little branch and twig white.

I’d be happy with 6” lol BUT keep in mind that GYX AFD mentions that they expect light stuff today and showery in nature and better forcing to arrive this evening into the overnight. And we are about 6 hours in when the storm is going to last through Monday. Not sweating it at this point. 

15 minutes ago, #NoPoles said:

Mostly light snow. Had about an hr of moderate snow, I guesstimate an inch to an inch and a half. I'm using my porch railing.

Mmmm are you getting downslope from my roof lol??? 

5 minutes ago, #NoPoles said:

Bretton woods is getting shadowed. So far just light snow. It started around 8-815ish this morning

Is it though? It doesn’t look that way to me. The storm is just starting up here. Point forecast calls for 16”, and accumulation of 1.6” by 1 pm. Given that it’s 10:20 and we already have 1”, seems like it’s pretty much on track. Hasn’t even made it to Maine yet