LaGrangewx

27.1 inch depth reported at Lake Colden ~2800ft as of 2 days ago in the ADK High Peaks. Pretty impressive and on par with Hermit Lake on Mount Washington even though its 1000' lower. Widespread ~15-20+" depths basically across entire ADK now. They look like they will be cashing in well with upslope/lake effect the next 2 days as well. I know Whiteface had 6+ fluff yesterday caught a lake streamer I think. Had a friend there who said it was great. They were in pretty bad shape just a week ago.

Was looking at the MW avalanche site. The manual Obs site from Hermit lake Now has a 37 inch depth. That’s pretty sweet hopefully it keeps shooting up. I think the snotel says it’s at 3750 a little bit down the trail and has about 31-32”. Awesome pics looked like a great tour. As of Monday Chimney pond, Came in with 18” depth I believe. The Adirondack backcountry updates will come tomorrow I’m interested to see what Lake Colden is reporting. They had 11.5” before this significant storm cycle and have caught some lake effect. They’re also reporting depth from a few additional spots around the ADK This year which is cool. Old forge and snowmobile country has cashed in on lake effect all in all this system was generous to all the areas that desperately needed snow. Hopefully deep winter is here and rolls on in the mountains.

Heading up to Gore for Thursday, Friday but they’re sold out for the weekend. Thinking of trying to hit Oak Mountain for some runs on Saturday. Agreed forecast looks great as of now for Saturday. Looking more and more like 6+ really hoping it holds.

I know Whiteface can do extremely well with certain lake effect connections. Gore on the other hand almost never gets In on it as it seems to have trouble getting past the mountains west of Indian lake. I think the high peaks region actually gets a lot of lake effect and snow in general it’s just not documented well. So I don’t think the greens necessarily steal the adk snow rather than its impressive that they still cash in while the Adk’s are getting some as well. Also from that map it’s so evident how the northern greens have incredible topography for NW upslope. It must be like every nor’easter Has to be treated as a 2 part storm up there

Cool map. I’ve seen his maps before. He does some pretty accurate post event analysis. Shows my areas max of about 2 feet pretty well.

That report of 48” must of came from near ragged mountain. Regardless of the accuracy at 2000ft there they must have been crushed

I just looked at 2 different reports from Ludlow. 44”at 930am was at 1800ft and 41” at 10am. I checked the radar loop and snowed till At least 2pm in that area. You’d expect even higher storm totals then the final measurements If those were accurate. Were those reports tossed for some reason?

You’re definitely right that the window of snowfall was perfect to get high reports with the clearing. This reminds me of an intense lake effect snowfall just Incredible in a short window. What are the rules regarding clearing? I thought it was ok to clear every 6 hours but has that changed now? Does it vary for Nws, Coop, or CoCoRaHS?

Went to Magic today and the snow on the drive up from NY was incredible once you hit Manchester. Do you think a favorable location probably had 50” if they cleared?

Haha thanks I like the confidence

Do You think 2feet is possible. Dutchess county NY. I border Litchfield county

Weeniest of weenie maps

For what it’s worth the Latest Para GFS is extremely different from the operational.

Sugarloaf and Wildcat both have a solid amount of substantially higher terrain up to 4k+ instead of 3k and probably benefit a bit more from orographic enhancement which gets them to that 200 range like you said.

Yup you highlighted it perfectly. Just check that area out on any high-res model and its always the bulls-eye in southern Vermont for almost all systems. I think the Woodford Snobusters Snowmobile Club goes back in there but I could be wrong. I bet they see some ridiculous depths for southern Vermont if thats the case.

Really thorough analysis. 150" at Sunday River probably goes a long way with their retention, especially if it is from a majority of synoptic snow. I think somewhere like Mt. Snow obviously does not market their snowfall the same way Jay Peak or even Stowe does. Mt. Snow doesn't rely on snow to draw crowds, as their insane Terrain park, location, and amount of consistently groomed cruisers does the job. I think somewhere like Jay has to make it known loud and clear that they get that kind of snow, to draw people up to their more remote location. Its for that reason that a place like Mt Snow in my opinion does not track snowfall quite as diligently and make sure they report as many inches as truthfully possible from the snowiest place on the hill. They also don't get anywhere near the nickel and dime type snow that the Northern Vermont resorts get. As someone said earlier it is literally 10% of it and almost all their snow is synoptic whereas Killington can definitely get some more orographic benefit snows. I also believe Mt. Snow and Stratton are east of the best orographic snows in Southern Vermont that actually occur over the center of the plateau near Woodford and up to Glastenbury Mountain. Its amazing to see the difference in snow depths at times in the Mt. Snow base area vs Route 9 crest in Woodford when I've driven through there. I think you're on to something saying that 150" could be a number for eastern ski areas at 3000' in good locations for coastal storms that don't benefit from orographic snows.

It's interesting. Their data goes back to the 80s and the best 10 year average during that period seems to be around 260. 10 years is probably not enough data for a true long term average. I know another post above mentioned how it would be surprising if the r/s line in an event was between (Stratton+Mt Snow) and Killington but it does happen. I remember the mid-march storm of 2014 dropped 2 feet on Killington but it was a mixed mess in southern Vermont. Probably does not happen too frequently but it can. Killington is more centrally located on the crest of the spine than Stratton and Mt. Snow which probably helps them a bit as well. Long term I'd guess they probably average somewhere in that 200-250 range but they seem to have had a really tough go of it the past 10+ years. They haven't had a winter above their claimed 250 since 2010 and consecutive above average winters since the mid 2000s. Southern Vermont had a big 2018 thanks to March and even Whiteface had had a huge winter recently with the monster 2017 storm where they got like 50". Killington can't seem to catch a break someone alluded to it earlier but recently they've been sandwiched between patterns it seems.

One thing to consider is where the resorts are measuring snowfall. I know for a fact Killington used to mention on there website that they were listing summit snowfall totals as their average, which definitely can be misrepresentative of the resort as a whole especially as big as Killington is. I just looked at their website and their 10 year average is around 215" at the summit and that is excluding the abysmal 2015-2016 season.

Yup I saw that picture too. I saw it on nws btv Twitter

Wow that’s cool. I wonder if that’s rare or a more frequent occurrence and the summit misses out on some snow

Was looking at Bretton Woods on Instagram and saw they reported snow but MW Observatory has not reported any and seemed to be above the clouds yesterday. Can the summit of Mount Washington actually be above the upslope at times?

I passed Harvard Cabin on the way up Huntington and then came down Tuckerman through Hermit Lake. I remember it being very dense on the way to Harvard Cabin but if I remember correctly it opens up a bit from there to the base of Huntington Ravine. Looking at the Topo Harvard Cabin is at about 3500 and Hermit 3900. They are less than 3/4 of a mile apart as the crow flies so yes it would be very interesting if there were truly drastic differences.

Thanks for the input. That’s Interesting. I would love to get over and ski Tuckermans this spring. Seems like the 2 years you mentioned are probably below average seasons snowfall wise. I remember reading in this thread that some are very skeptical of MW summit snowfall measurement practices and that it’s almost impossible to accurately measure up there. I remember guesses that In reality it could average more like 400” which seems believable at 6280. I know Wildcat claims about 200” at 3000 feet mid mountain across the notch and Hermit lake is part of the actual MW basin about 1000’ higher than wildcat so I guessed maybe it would be more like 250”. But time will see if they are reporting now. I feel like it could be slightly more accurate down there than the summit as it is far more sheltered from the wind.

Always love reading through this thread. I haven’t been the most active on here but I keep up with reading for the inside scoop. I have lots of weather and snow related questions and figure you guys have great input. Was wondering what you guys thought hermit lake plot averages? 250? Or even more? Also how do you think that compares to Chimney pond ranger station under Katahdin and the Lake Colden Ranger station in the Adk at 2800’ sandwiched in between Algonquin and Colden. I’ve always viewed those as the 3 big interior backcountry locations with at least some snow or depth reports. I know both chimney and hermit lake had about 100” depth in 2017 and Colden outpost routinely has 5-6 feet. I’ve hiked all over the ADK and just did Huntington Ravine and Katahdin this past September. Both were tremendously impressive.

Haven’t posted in awhile but love reading this forum. I was wondering what the Vermont resorts are expecting in terms of crowds and business, considering only Vermont residents seem to be able to ski this year as of now. I would guess a vast majority of skiers for the southern Vermont resorts come from out of state. Are they expecting to take a massive hit this season?