powderfreak

Yeah a chair barn helps a lot. Still need to de-ice sheave wheels, rope and towers… but it’s a lot easier than de-icing 100 detachable grips. Chair storage is a big deal. We have it for the FourRunner Quad, but not Sensation Quad and that’s the photo I posted of the grips all iced up. Lift maintenance has to bang the ice off each and every one of those. Which by the way, hats off to all lift maintenance teams today. They were the ones up on towers, in the elements, all day long banging ice… it’s hard physical work, cold and wet… tethered in way off the ground. They are the real heroes.

I’ll have to look that up. Curious how.

Heavy icing… chairlifts don’t enjoy it.

Getting mangled snowflakes to start. 27/17

Latent heat release is real. SLK with a quick 0.07” at temps in the 20s. Gotta be slick out there. The ice maps are just QPF at temps 32F or lower… but a tenth of an inch as ZR gets slippery in a hurry on roads, driveways, parking lots, etc.

A mesoscale winter. Lake effect, upslope, the moist cold air advection spots. And a few random synoptic events. Suppressed at times.

Yeah, we tend to max out cold at 1500-3000ft around here. Though I’m not sure I remember one as shallow as this. 3,000ft can be the coldest on east slope but in this it’s much lower around 750-1,000ft.

3,600ft… 36F 2,600… 28F 1,500ft… 26F 750ft… 19/14 (MVL ASOS) Fake ice incoming.

Only 19F at MVL in sun. Its 37-39F at our two sensors top of FourRunner Quad and Gondola. 20 degree difference is impressive during sunshine.

Yeah if you are getting 0.10”/hr or more QPF, even at 28F, that’s going to try very hard to quickly get to 32F through latent heat release. I think we see a lot of 0.1-0.25” type ice with driving on cold pavement, cold dirt roads and side roads as the bigger issue.

1/-2

Woodbury Center, CT at 6.5” so far. That’s like two hours of snow.

That’s a legit band.

Been hammering this afternoon. Another 5.5” since yesterday afternoon. Snows getting deep on the High Road.

lol. I walked right into that one. Getting hard to post anything these days . Joking aside, exactly 10 years ago I also witnessed the lowest snow depth in recorded history... 0" in 12/25/2015... the only time since 1954 without even a trace of snow at the stake. Not even a patch of ice on a cliff somewhere. Nothing. I suffered through that bullshit and did my time, so I could enjoy a winter like this, lol. 10-years apart. Worst and best Christmas snowpacks. Merry Xmas and Happy Holidays to the AMWX crew.

Back to the #1 spot.

Making sure not to have a White Xmas…

Healthy 8” (8.5) on the mountain.

6.5” -SN

3” so far of Currier and Ives snow. It’s not deep winter here in the valley after the thaw, but its a nostalgic New England village winter vibe.

Up this way the 2-5am time frame holds the most intrigue. Upslope signal with some 0.10”/hr SWE panels.

Damn, nice. Maybe 2.5-3” here? And started earlier up this way. 4” is a legit quick thump.

Surprisingly good snow growth so far. Somewhere between 1” and 2” so far and a nice looking band about to move in.

Snowing steadily, roads covered immediately.