powderfreak

J.Spin- We were only up there on Thursday night... a buddy had one of the 3-bedroom 3-bath Front Four units for the night and I've never stayed there but holy crap that was a huge condo for being inside a hotel. The thing had to have 1,500 square feet, lol. On another note, here's a photo from yesterday of the Toll Road near the top of Nosedive. 96" on the COOP report for depth last night. Looks about right. The Toll Road was supposed to open in like 3 weeks but we pushed it back to May 26th now I think. Daily Hydrometeorological Data National Weather Service Burlington VT 724 PM EDT Tue Apr 24 2018 Station Precip Temperature Present Snow 24 Hrs Max Min Cur Weather New Total SWE ...Vermont... Mount Mansfield 0.00 58 42 57 96

Good to start melting the snow. These are from yesterday at the mountain. Plowing out the Auto Toll Road on Mount Mansfield with an 8 foot snowpack. 96" at the COOP stake as of yesterday evening. Snowpack drops to about 2 feet down at 1,600ft near the base of the Gondola (this is on the east/north facing aspect of Mansfield were Stowe's terrain is). Crazy part is the south facing spots at this same elevation at Spruce Peak across the road only have patchy cover at the same elevation, showing how big a difference aspect makes this time of year. Patchy cover on one aspect and a solid 2 feet at same elevation but different aspect.

Can really tell the mountain snowpack is starting to melt, as we haven't received much rain (maybe 0.3" or so) but the river continues to rise steadily. Dews hit 50F at the ASOS now, so even without a lot of rain its interesting to see how fast the water has been rising this afternoon. If we get the heat next week, the river should really ramp up as there's probably two feet of liquid equiv sitting on the mountain.

Congrats man, you've been waiting patiently to start the install posts. Upper 70s here would be amazing.

Same here... 70/19 at MVL. It's so dry. I can't believe how fast things have dried out around here. It's like the snow melts and 48 hours later it's dry spring time.

The crazy part is you are 1,000ft higher too. I think it stands out to me the marginal events. JSpin gets 1.7" and you get 3.7" due to marginal temperatures. See I was going to say you do better in early/late season and marginal events. JSpin does really well in SE/E flow events which happens in nor'easters a lot, but I'm just used to him as the local jackpot no matter what the system. Alex do you do liquid as well? I think it would be interesting to see any precip differences.

It certainly all came together last weekend. Perfect storm of the very FIRST spring skiing and riding of the entire season (aside from February, lol) following a week of several snow/wintry events. Places like Stowe and Smuggs missed out because weekends like that don't come together very often. Just make one of Saturday or Sunday overcast, even with the same temperatures and snow, and we'd see just how important sunshine is this time of year. The sun shining probably resulted in the difference of THOUSANDS of skiers at Killington. It's crazy to me how that happens, when it all lines up there are so many factors that can come together to produce a huge weekend.

Ahhh ok gotcha. It just happened earlier. I think that's my thinking, its going to happen everywhere in New England. It just comes at slightly different times. I've been really surprised at how quickly its dried up here in the mountain valleys. From full cover to dry lawns in 48-72 hours. I guess these 10-20% RH days will do that. Funny how a few days ago I was like, the local kids can't have any spring sport season and now they are out there practicing after school. This is the last patch of snow I can see from the living room, take the dog over to it so she can roll in it, ha. The row of evergreens provides nice shelter. The funny thing is there's one yard by the Green Gables Inn down the street that still looks like almost full cover at like 8" of depth. Everyone else is like 98% bare. There's always that one sheltered yard that never sees sun but I always laugh because if that guy was a CoCoRAHS observer or something, it would be head scratching depth obs but would be legit for his yard. I'll try to get a shot driving by.

There's something about the April sun angle and albedo that just makes the peaks glow white. What a fantastic upslope event last Friday, that just capped it all off.

I've got Landgrove at 190.9" (another 8") but man what a winter relative to normal for S.VT. That's a big year for Landgrove and Wilmington. J.Spin came in 4th at Waterbury 3.0nw but its usually between Westfield, J.Spin, Morgan and Greensboro for VT CoCoRAHS. Congrats to S.VT for taking 2 of the top 3 spots.

Nice late-April day at the beach. Mansfield summit: Mount Washington from Mount Mansfield... with a 300mm lens. The sicko in me notes how the snow level has now risen above the valley floor and is sitting at around 1,000-1,200ft. Down at the floor at 700-1,000ft is now mostly snow free except for rouge really shaded spots, cold spots or plow piles and roof slides.

But don't you have that down in SNE too? I mean how much time did you spend outside in the past month doing things like that? I get what you guys are saying but I just don't see how you avoid it down there? Or maybe its still coming this spring? Hell Kev had his kids playing soccer in the snow.

65F so far off a low of 19F. Classic spring 45+ degree diurnal swing.

Yeah I agree but I think they have it else where too... it's just earlier in the season. Maybe it's just more acceptable to have that in March and early April though ha. Its all on a sliding scale to some degree. But there are golf courses open in VT, had some friends play yesterday in the valley. Soccer now going on in Stowe, crazy how fast it happens from snow covered fields to practicing in a few days. I'm pretty sure DIT posted a pic of his daughters soccer game in the snow a couple weeks ago. The spring line is moving northward luckily.

Yeah I guess that's my feeling as well. Debating that one spot is tougher for the population than another seems mute because we'll find some days when it's east winds and 48F sheet drizzle at BOS while it's 60-65F and sunny at MVL. I feel like everywhere in New England there's a period of time where outdoor activities suck, aside from skiing maybe... just whether you want to deal with that period from March 15-April 30 or maybe somewhere else it's April 1 to May 15? Everywhere there is that 4-6 week period where there are some nice days but by and large it's sort of like, well are we done yet? You could probably pin point it climo wise to when average highs are 40-55F at any given station. Below that it's still winter, and after that it's like ok we should be consistently getting 55-60F. But when your average max is 40-55F is your period of suck.