alex

24 minutes ago, wxeyeNH said:

I know.  I am eating my popcorn and watching your show!   Should be my turn in another 30 or 45 minutes

Lol!!!

Holy cow it’s a whiteout out there 

Light snow

Snowing moderately, and surprisingly it’s sticking even though it’s 35. The 18F dew point is probably helping 

Flurries here at 36/17

It was super windy here too. Gondola shut down around 11

17 minutes ago, wxeyeNH said:

Alex,  looks like lots of dripage on your cam.

30.9F Light freezing rain here.  Trees are glazed.

It's balmy here at the moment (35 or so)

We got a few downpours with parachutes mixing in in the past half hour or so

3 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Downsloping up high is warming the mid-level layer.  Just a slight sinking motion at 850-700mb can cause it to go above freezing.  CAD locking in the surface temps but aloft there's some sinking motion there.

Can see it on the 3km NAM... see the above freezing 850mb temps in the lee side of MWN from the wind direction.

Can see the Green Mtn Peaks in N.VT doing the same thing.

 

Thanks PF! Never thought of the fact that you can downslope in the mid levels and not at the surface. Good stuff! But yeah, can we get a regular old fashioned storm? Haven't had a good one since October lol. Thank God for upslope 

9 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Fascinating obs between Alex and Phin...Phin def got downsloped on today’s event. 

I find it a bit bizarre that he's raining at 31 and I'm snowing at 34. I assume it's topo induced but not sure how you explain it

1 hour ago, J.Spin said:

Yeah, I see what you’re saying – your data clearly show that there hasn’t been much in the way of big synoptic systems this season in your area.  To me, those larger systems that require phasing are always going to be luck of the draw, and that’s why snowfall reliability and season snowfall numbers tend to fall off the father one gets out of the mountains or upslope areas.  I guess I’m just used to the climate up here, where those kinds of systems are great when they come, but if not, the much more reliable bread and butter systems are usually around to get the job done.

Phin’s area is a bit different from yours though in that he definitely gets in on the daily snows, and you can see from his neighbor’s data that they’ve just had the equivalent of the 4-6” storm he’s looking for over the past several days.  They’ve literally picked up more than that in the past week – 7.7” on 0.50” of L.E.  That’s the a solid, moderate winter storm right there.

Would people really rather have all that snow fall in one day and then have six days of nothing, vs. having snows literally every day?  That’s sort of the definition of a feast or famine climate.  From a skier’s perspective, that’s really not that optimal for keeping the slopes fresh, unless you’ve got incredible preservation and very low skier traffic.  And even from someone interested in winter weather, that seems sort of dull.

I guess there are times when people can “have their cake and eat it too”, with both larger systems and daily snows, but it doesn’t always work out like that.  One really has to watch out with those bigger systems because the phasing can screw up the nice steady flow of systems in the northern stream.  The end result can be a warm system that ruins the consistency of the snowpack, vs. a smaller system that would involve less moisture, but wouldn’t pull up the warm air that a larger system could.

This area (and Phins) generally sits in a good spot to get both upslope and decent synoptic. This year the synoptic has sucked - for us even more than Phin, which explains the much wider than usual margin in recorded snowfall between us and you. Normally you do better in upslope and we catch up with coastals. This year the coastals just haven't worked out for us. But as you say, we can still work our way to a very decent winter season without coastals. 

Nice dumpage here today. Between snow and wind you essentially got first track every run. About 2-3" of heavy sugary snow. Brightened up now but still snowing, temp up to 33 though. 

13 hours ago, CoastalWx said:

Yeah I look at it from the approach of the local news magazine “Chronicle.”  I enjoy the picturesque towns, each with individual character. The whites have majesty, but many of those towns don’t offer what the Berks have. It just depends what you want I guess. 

I probably haven't found the right towns lol. It seemed to me that the character and picturesque nature started in SVT. There it was beautiful little town after beautiful little town. The Berks seemed more like run of the mill rural towns, not particularly different from Central Mass where I lived for a while and certainly not as charming as places like Salem MA or Concord MA

To put it in perspective, I have a 4 year old and a 6 year old. They don't give a rats ass about the town vibe lol. But also, once again, it's probably a Covid thing. The town vibes were depressing with everything shut down. It seems like it would be a much better destination in the summer. 

Back from the Berks! I have to say, it reminded me how lucky we are to live up here. We drove around the scenic routes and (no offense to anyone from around there), there is just no comparison to the scenery here. Crossing from VT into Littleton NH we were greeted by the massive white silhouette of Mt Washington standing tall in the bright blue sky... It gave me goosebumps. It's good to be reminded of what we have and so often give for granted. 

Another thing that made me happy was to come back to a place where the pandemic feels much less burdensome. So much down there was still shut down, it was actually a bit depressing. 

7 minutes ago, Hitman said:

To be fair, it was in the mid 40’s there yesterday.

pleasantly surprised how good the ski surface was at Lincoln peak, even down towards the base.  The upper mountain is in great shape.

Nothing that a good grooming team couldn't fix though. Instead of going by what makes sense, they groom by the time of the day. Oh - it's 5 pm, temp is 42 and I should probably wait until it goes below freezing to groom but since I'm supposed to do it at 5, I'm doing it. If they had groomed this morning it would have been a different world. It takes flexibility and sensibility and not every resort is willing to do that. For all their faults, it's one thing that Bretton Woods does seem to get right

Just now, powderfreak said:

Grew up there skiing on Sunday afternoons/evening under the lights.  We had cheap passes from like 12pm-8pm on Sundays at Jiminy.  We get quite spoiled up north when I think about the difference on days like this... skiing 8" of upslope blower up north or chattering down ice cube sized granular.  As a kid I feel like I didn't know any better and I loved it... as an adult it's like "I could be doing something else right now..." ha.

Granular would be great compared to this. It was literally a glacial sheet. Tricky too because it looks like corduroy, but it's petrified lol

5 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

LOL this is like me leaving Randolph to go to Ski Liberty in southern PA “for fun.”  

Haha true. I still enjoying exploring new places. And it helps appreciate what you have!

I’m down in the Berkshires. Skied Jiminy Peak today - skiing is a bit of a stretch, as it is more of an ice skating experience than skiing. Absolutely awful. Talked to a ski patrol guy - “it’s just New England skiing.” Hmm, no, it isn’t lol. Never in 5 years have I seen conditions this bad in Bretton Woods. 

22 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

Nice!

Sounds like I was downslope central on this one. Better snow all around.

It seems that this storm had a somewhat extreme downslope component. The difference between my area and just a few miles away was fascinating

Interesting. I guess it’s a good point, upslope takes many forms. The mountains definitely played a role; it was very windy in BW where it was also snowing very hard, but not a breath of wind just a few miles away (and barely any snow).

Kinda funny to be leaving the Whites to go skiing the Berkshires lol. But I had a free week to use so whatever. It’s always fun to be away

Driving west towards 91 and the local weather is just bizarre. It was like whiteout in Bretton Woods with moderate to heavy snow and wind; it’s barely a dusting just 5 miles west. Pretty amazing considering this isn’t upslope 

Snowing a lot harder here than I thought it would. Leaving for the Berks in a few! It’ll be a fun drive in this lol

3” of pure fluff here. No water content whatsoever but it’s pretty 

39 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

I like to think we don’t over-report or under-report... we report what it is, lol.  I really think the key to a ski area is a fixed point so you are always measuring the same place/way.  Snowfall varies so much sometimes on the mountain but over a decade now people know what the number means (if that makes sense).

I personally think all the ski areas in this area do a very good job with it.... we get plenty of practice, ha.  With that said, most have adopted the practice of “when in doubt, report low” so you don’t have social media chirping about misleading snowfall.

Personally, I prefer an underreport.  Surprise and delight leads to a better guest experience.  I have low-balled it plenty of times over the years when in doubt.  Expecting 3” and finding 6” makes for happy customers.

Yes that’s very true. I remember a few times in my Wildcat days when I had to choose between Wildcat and Attitash and I’d leave Attitash to go to Wildcat based on their snow report, only to get there and find out they had received 1/3 the snow of Attitash even though their report said the opposite. It was very frustrating!

It does seem like Stowe does a good job, but it’s really hard to put Bretton Woods in the same category. It’s got great terrain, unbeatable views and awesome conditions but management just does not compare to other ski areas. I mean, hell, we still have paper ski passes lol!