powderfreak

Winner so far, ha.

It's that time of year when there's absolutely zero evapotranspiration going on, no green growth to slow the diurnal range in anyway shape or form. Just dry bake during the day and then plummet at night.

SLK has done 31F to 76F before noon.

78F at 11:54am. A 42-degree rise before noon is impressive even here in the Mtn valley.

36F to 71F currently.

This is probably the end of the cold season. Might be time for a warm season thread. We didn't get to the High Road plot yesterday due to wind, but this morning a snowcat went up to check the snowfall at sunrise... and retrieve the snowboard and depth stake. The porcupines love to eat them in the spring as the sun warms the wood. 5" of refrozen snow sat on the board. The seasonal measured total rises to 362". That's often a 24 hour total, so there's some settling. It looks like we move on to the warm season rapidly now.

I love snow, but there is nothing that hits better than a 72/30 day of full sun and long daylight. 10/10 day. Staff day has become a fun gathering with the Quad running for employees only, the day after “last day.”

70/27 20% RH

Already 66F off another frosty night of 30F. Easy 40F diurnal swing incoming.

Closing day brought a couple inches of snowfall at the plots 0-4” on the trails. Photos from below 2,500ft. Above 3,000ft saw 4” or more per MMSP. We could only verify 2” so far.

Stein definition is very close to becoming any time it is not physically raining… its Stein.

Immediately after the rain stops it’s back to “Well, seems kinda dry out.”

It's pretty crazy how the wet-bulbing works this time of year. At 12:30 we were ripping 1 mile visibility in snow at MVL. METAR KMVL 271630Z AUTO 34007KT 1SM -SN BR VV014 02/M01 A2990 RMK P0002 Now at 6:30pm it's 48F and the sun is out.

Dumping at the mountain and just flipped to wet snow in town now. Huge flakes. METAR KMVL 271540Z AUTO 32009G16KT 2 1/2SM -SN BKN015 BKN024 OVC031 03/00 A2987 RMK P0002 BTV has a narrow bright band around it, they might be close to flipping over too down there.

Definitely localized up there… the area serviced by lifts on the east side gets a lot of snow water equivalent in the winter. Then it preserves it too. It’s a microclimate zone on the higher elevation east side. Avoids the direct sunlight in the afternoon that the west side gets in the spring. The west side of Mansfield is pretty torched to the summit.

About an inch of rain today on the mountain. Luckily things dried up between 1-4pm for some Saturday afternoon laps. Then proceeded to rain hard from 4:30 onward. Two rounds of 3-5 hour “showers”… but did get to enjoy the break in precip a bit. Closing day tomorrow. Time to shut ‘em down here. Stake down to 65”… similar to the above pictured elevation band.

Nice to get a week’s worth of water down on a Saturday. Thats a win against Stein.

None, he decided it 4 days ago and won’t waiver.

I guess I just don’t see why you arbitrarily toss guidance once your mind is made up days in advance. I don’t have an opinion other than based on some guidance you could see maybe an inch or so. Not sure what threshold constitutes a soaker vs showers. Even a half inch is a solid ground soaking rain.

Try the latest one, not what was on Twitter earlier. Thats 9z this is 21z.

Looks it. And before you say I’m calling for inches, I have no skin in the game but find it funny how hard you try to duck, dive, and weave model data that shows a solid soaking.

The best type of days… 72F off low of 30F. A 42 degree diurnal range.

Using very minimal heat up here… the day time warmth and sun seem to do most of the work… our biggest windows and slider doors face south. Doesn’t cool off as much at night inside with everything locked up. Beautiful morning out there.

30F and frozen while picnic tables stay warm.

Only 4 more days before we shut ‘em down. This morning might’ve been the the best one left. 72” at the stake on a 54” average. It’s time though. I’m ready. Bring the warmth.