powderfreak

Had light snow and graupel again today at 1,500ft. Dew points in the low to mid-20s have been quite effective at evaporationally cooling the cores of the showers.

Yeah I know I’ve seen like 3-6” overnight without the ASOS going below 2sm -SN in deep snow growth layer orographic snows. Big arms of dendrites hooking together. Honestly the late January storm yielded like 10” overnight of mid-level fluff at like 1.5”/hr in 3/4sm visibility. Meanwhile the flip side is you get the SWFE poor snow growth needles in a 6-hr QPF dump and struggling to 1.2”/hr snowfall but at M1/4, ha.

The 3/4-1.5sm -SN is probably one of the more over-stated weather obs by all. I mean, it can be 1”/hr though too with even decent snow growth at 3/4-1sm. So sometimes hard to fault folks. I will say if any of us started seeing 1.5sm vis -SN right now we’d say it was ripping out, lol. When you haven’t seen snow in a while, a mile and a half is a steady snowfall.

Frosty morning with 32F min.

Snowpack is solidly below normal on Mansfield… about 50% of normal for this time of year. Probably got another week or two left.

58F dim sun. Looks like we are reversing our fortune after the past couple days.

So chilly but with summer daylight well past 8pm, it feels like it should be warmer.

I just read “The Last Traverse” book about a winter death and rescue on Lafayette and that was a good read about that area. Rescuers find two bodies on the ridge frozen. One is barely alive and they save him, lowest body temp recorded in the U.S. to survive…. One survivor to tell the story, and those National Guard guys are cowboys in the blackhawks up there in 70mph winds at night. I’d recommend if anyone is looking for a quick but intense read.

I didn’t realize how cold this trough would be. It’s been flurrying and spitting snow all day out of slate gray skies around 40F at 1,500ft with steep lapse rates. I figured it would try to warm up but not really at all.

I’m in sandbar mode too. This is like November but with twice the daylight length. Nothing is going to accumulate but just spitting snow showers on May 8th, with a backdrop of sticks. Not a lot of value here, ha.

Did I miss something?

Ha, it’s like legit snowing now.

Light snow/flurries up here at 1,500ft base of ski area, ha. Phenomenal.

Yeah we have started with some stuff and it was really just this week, but still largely sticks especially just out of the valley floor above 1,000ft. I can tell it’s about to explode though. Feel like we need another 1-2 days of sun and mild and it would go full green everywhere.

32F… kind of has a November vibe with not much greenery and still stick season. Weird with the long daylight though. Bring back the 70s.