Froude

The air feels different this morning. 42 degrees, birds chirping, and full sunshine here in Fairfax.

This winter has been tracking remarkably close to 06/07 at the stake. Let's see if this week can help us keep up with the 2007 V Day blizzard.

07 

9 minutes ago, mreaves said:

Had 2”+ here at home. Went riding through the Groton area and up high it looked more in line with PF’s 4”-5”. Didn’t take many pictures today but it was a gorgeous day to be outside.

I'll second that. Absolute winter wonderland up high in the Greens right now. Looks like a fun week ahead.

3 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Where are you located over there?  Radar looks great.  Grooming department on Mansfield estimating bursts over 1”/hr.  We’ve even got some making it to town but given the radar it seems the heavy stuff is staying tight to the ski area and then westward.

I'm at 500' in Fairfax. Nice view of the mountains from here, but too away to cash in on most upslope setups.

And btw, my name is Nate... you'd recognize me better on the hill with a video camera in hand, haha. Unfortunately not up there this winter with everything covid.

15 minutes ago, backedgeapproaching said:

Finally got some moisture coming in down here also.  25F with some -SN.  Need Mr Froude to share his number as flow looks pretty blocked along the Taconics.

Rensselear plateau special.

 

Good eye.  https://www.weather.gov/btv/froudeALL

22 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Yeah looked like the mountain picked up a quick inch from 4-5pm.

Radar looks great.  I see we've got @Froude lurking so that's always a good sign for upslope, ha.

Ha yup let's get this machine up and running tonight.  Nice fluff coming down on the west side this evening.

The birch forests in the upper elevations of the Greens are caked. Feels like an alien planet.

10 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

@froude do those snow depth data factor in missing data, ie on days when there’s no snow depth reported (early season had a bunch when the NOAA camera was down)?  You probably could fill in some of the gaps as a baseline.  I think this year the stake missed that big upslope event in early November that left 16” or so of depth.  It probably wouldn’t alter the numbers all that much but I’ve always wondered how much some of the missing data days affect SDD up there.  
 

Last winter had a lot of missing data days when the camera went down in January.  If myself or Andre didn’t get up to check it, the values aren’t there and don’t get added in to SDD.  Then COVID closed the ski area and we missed a LOT of snow depth daily reports.  

Edit to say it’s still a terrible snowpack year up high so far, was purely just curious.

I just took the average from the days on either side to fill in the gaps. Quite a few years had a few missing days actually. And I filled it in as best I could for that early Nov storm like Matthew did on this graph. Not perfect, but it's still close enough to compare.

As you said, lots of missing data after the ski area closed last winter. But thankfully enough numbers in there that you can extrapolate out.  Thanks to you and others for the work to keep it going. The historical record from the Stake is such a great resource.

2 hours ago, J.Spin said:

Yes, we know if you integrate the snowpack over the season thus far, SDD are well below average.

Long time lurker here, chiming in.  I always appreciate your data analysis, J.Spin. The numbers never lie so it's a great way to see if our perspectives line up with reality.

In the valleys, snow cover thus far has not felt that abnormal to me. We are always due a cutter or two so nothing new there. The pack has been thin, but these last two weeks of preservation weather has been nice. Even in the CPV, there have been more days this winter with white ground than not.

Where this season really starts to fall apart is in the mountains. This has felt like one of the slowest starts to a ski season that I can remember - barring the non-winter of 15/16. The lack of open natural snow trails has really stuck out to me.

I put together the graph below based on the numbers from the Mansfield stake. Sure enough, we are in bad company. I grew up in VT but was not around for 06-07 or 11-12, which is perhaps why this feels so abnormal. In reality, the graph shows that we are due one of these sub-1000 inch starts every 5 years or so.  I haven't taken the time to add in the SDD for the whole season, but it would be interesting to see where some of these slow starts end up.

As others have been saying, we are one storm away from some good skiing. Hopefully this weekend comes through.