powderfreak

44" seasonal snowfall measured. 38" of snow depth at the Stake. Not much settling happening out there. This snow is dense, with plenty of dense graupel and smaller flakes, mixed with wind. It has felt like dense sand... QPF-rich frozen precip.

That’s actually good to know. I’ll try on my wife’s iPad later.

I’ve been too busy to ski it today so far but the content coming out of the woods around here is crazy for 11/17. 10” on top of the rain crust and all is good again.

From 6am… Mike Hayes credit.

I hate going down the rabbit hole. I do believe they get more on average, but it’s clear there is zero controllable measurements going on and the report is a “vibe” check. I generally take the lower end of the range as logically acceptable. The upper end could be found drifted in the Face Chutes, but you aren’t finding it at a controlled sheltered measurement plot. And honestly, every single event isn’t a 12” range. Like today, we have 10” at base and 10” at top plots. Their ranges get massive really quickly by adding up to 50% for the summit. I won’t lie, that’s how we used to do it 15 years ago and I know exactly how it works. You know what you have at the bottom, and you just add inches for the top regardless. You find 10”, call it 10-14”. You measure 6”? Call it 6-10”. Just add inches and say that’s what’s at the summit. And it escalates totals REAL fast. That’s the old school Eastern snow report way. Stowe went from like a 333” average to 275-ish average when I started measuring and not basing it on vibe or adding inches “for the summit”… The other thing… it’s fukking snowy out there. If you aren’t measuring or paying attention to time frames, it all blends together. You don’t know what’s new and what’s not. What fell two days ago vs last night. Etc.

In town I’m at like 8” on the season after 4” last night… JSpin’s gotta be double that. Outside my office is a different story, right there at Alex’s elevation.

There’s a meme for that.

Had 10” at 1500ft Barnes Camp plot at Smugglers Notch gate closure on the Stowe side.

Interesting they were all working for me…

The nocturnal blocking came through and organized it really well. It hammered from like 10pm onward. All good, ha. Worried for nothing. Several inches overnight at home but the mountain radar looks crushed.

Yeah it was for sure snowing… Lookout cam had picked up 4” today when I wrote that. Now up to 7” at 2am, ha. Didn’t mean for it to come off like it wasn’t snowing, but to get some of these gaudy amounts 18-24”+ thrown around, I would’ve liked to see a bit more earlier today. The nocturnal flow blocking has helped a lot, congealing into a more laminar classic band.

Kind of a dud so far… flow is too chaotic, not blocked enough. Should’ve known the Froude of 1.5+ for today was going to do less organized precip and mostly just windy snow showers into the NEK. Still should see it try to organize nocturnally as the the flow was going to try and block up a bit after midnight.

Heavy snow in town. Low visibility, easily 1/4sm burst.

Isn’t the normal high for BDL still 52F right now? And that’s for the south shore? Looks normal, no?

Got up to 37F today, melting out the valley fields to reveal deep green. Snow really is poor man’s fertilizer… less than a 1,000ft higher saw a high of 32F and very healthy snowpack on the ground.

Mansfield summit depth record highest shows 30" on Monday and Tuesday, with 33" on Wednesday, 28" on Thursday, and 30" on Friday. All of those could be in jeopardy. A record breaking week of snow depths?

Sleet to start.

Ha I noticed it was pretty snowy in Maine too. CAD wedge and secondary trying to get going.

Lining up to get the northern Greens another high end snow event tomorrow into Monday night. This is only through Monday 1pm and still going strong. Another 1-2” QPF snow event for the mtns.

Regardless of the maps, the signal is there for the 1500ft+ elevations from Stowe to Jay to get appreciable snow following the messy/rain before that. Also that same elevation at Bretton Woods in Alex’s zone looks just as good. Moist W/NW flow behind the Saturday night system looks to be productive from Sunday PM to Tuesday AM.

That is a crazy snow cycle... and wild melt afterwards. But 43" on 4.9" of liquid is a big cycle. Wow. Honestly, it's probably about the current cycle ratios we've seen, 10:1 or under... but with twice the QPF.

Starting off the season with a bunch of dense snow. Interesting that while 25" is more than 69 other recorded winters, as one can see with the 45" on this date in 1990-1991 that it didn't mean much for the rest of the winter, ha. I'll have to look up what happened around this time in 1990. That must've been a monster event or couple of events to go from like near 0" to 45" of depth in a week or less. Then to lose it almost as fast. It's interesting that spike in snowpack is so far above anything else in the long recorded history. 70+ years of records and that one spike is like 50% higher than the next highest season.

It’s true. This Saturday night event will wreck the surface but it’s going to be minimal melt, if at all, and will only lock the snowpack up tight. Then another 6-10” upslope over two days? The snowpack is bomber. The ol JSpin pole depth check on a 50” ski pole. Couple feet of base on Chin Clip? I’ve seen this trail open on a lot worse coverage ha.

Stopped snowing.

Oh they are on, haha. That area isn’t heated though.