powderfreak

We went 12 days without a full inch at the plot in mid-winter. That is incredibly hard to do. Now every measurement is multiple inches.

Ha my bad. I use this, change location to Mount Mansfield and explore the options. https://www.weather.gov/wrh/climate?wfo=btv

On the upper Toll Road. This past multi-week cycle was largely upslope driven. There have been synoptic episodes at times, but multiple CAA intrusions into moist, higher than normal PWAT air masses is going to precipitate efficiently in the NW flow zones. Blocked and unblocked flow, but either way it has dumped over the Spine. Blocked SE flow on front side followed by NW flow can absolutely load the upper east side. Upslope flow with spring moisture levels has historically led to snowier (higher QPF) events than expected in the mountains. In the end, regardless of location it has been the longest high elevation observation in the state of Vermont. NWS has an elaborate camera set up on “the Stake.” Almost 70 years of observations to compare to at the exact same spot.

Another 8” at the plot between 4pm yesterday and 12pm today. Couldn’t check it earlier because of lift wind holds. Multiple lifts never opened today, but co-worker and friend Andre took on the mission and traveled uphill and a couple miles laterally to get the snowfall reading off the Gondola from the Sunrise lift. It just wants to snow. 87” depth at the Co-Op Stake! Bottomed out at 40” in early March… and have since gained about four feet in snowpack depth since then. Does the hill hit 100” on the ground?!

Ha all joking aside, of course less phasing is probably the way to go which would push it all ESE a bit. It makes sense synoptically. Typical Euro and NAM bias of over-amped at this lead.

Stop trying to steal my snow .

Huh.

That looks about right. Fun stuff.

Hey I’ll take the bait… it’s been a fun day weather wise for some. Not a reflection on the snow total amounts, but it’s more interesting than 90% of the time this winter. Summer thunderstorms and downpours, or snow squalls and flash freezes, weather junkies like myself get a kick out of dynamic events.

It can happen if you thread the needle correctly. That was March 6-7, 2011 up here. Relatively narrow zone of 20-30” just NW of the low moving up/along a slow moving boundary. BTV had 25.8” in that. Warm and moist south of the boundary, 26-32F north of it. A 12+ event seems possible for someone in the NW quadrant of the system.

Sagged south a bit. Those spring time juicy lows riding a frontal boundary can produce some high QPF just to the NW… just needs to be cold enough. The snow zone on this is likely far too big, it usually ends up a tighter swath where the best moisture barely overlaps with sufficient cold.

Awesome. That’s a memorable squall.

Picked up maybe 2” of absolute paste in town? Never seen a landscape look so white for so little snow. Trees just hit with spray foamed from top to bottom.

What a squall event. Best in a long time.

This has to be 4”/hr. This is like 1/16sm visibility.

Thunder snow just north of BTV. Another squall warning issued.

Maybe we could pull that off with obscene mins and rain lol. This whole disco is about max temps and nice weather it seems. One side talks daily means, the other talks max temps. Repeat daily.

What a stretch though. Just put down another 4” or so. Almost 5.5” since yesterday at 4pm. This stuff adds up fast. Summit depth now likely over 80”.

Snowy morning, woke up to white ground after overnight snow showers. Another 1-2” at the base of the mountain and snowing nicely. About to get smoked with a quick 2-4” I think as the firehose hits the hill.

I will say it has been impressive that despite +10 departures, it's still been cold enough to snow on the mountains. 13" in 24 hours at 3,000ft we measured on Mount Mansfield. It had some QPF to it too. A nice SWE gain to the mountain snowpack. For reference, 3K feet is a third of the way down the ski terrain in this photo from the top. Ridgeline is 4K feet, Cliff House top station is 3,600ft. Measuring location is another 600 vertical feet below that. ' Mansfield depth is now above normal, ha. That's absolutely absurd given the temperature departures IMO. A solid foot gain with this storm and 36" increase in March so far... from 40" to 76".

Have we moved on to the time of year where “above normal” is a synonym of “the days better be fukkin’ nice.” No one wants to hear how warm it’s been if the afternoons aren’t 70F and sunny. Dreary and mild is like a dirty humid summer pattern where it’s near record above normal but the days are cloudy.

It’s funny because it’s essentially snowless in the valleys. The gradient from 1500-2500ft is the steepest. Spring below, full deep winter above. We had like 2-2.5” in town that just burned off immediately in the sun today except in the shade.

If we ever get a week of like legit -5 to -10 departures, the public is going to think an ice age is coming. Everyone’s baseline is so out of whack.

To be honest the highs there are every bit as warm as the lows, ha. After all that discussion the highs were really +10F down there? The way folks talk it sounded like +2 or +3.

Enjoyed it immensely today. The snow felt like it had a decent shot of SWE included in it. Wasn’t total upslope fluff. I would’ve guessed 0.75-1.00” QPF was added to the snowpack on Mansfield up high. It was cold but had some body to it. We triggered a slab, you can see the fracture line here. Looked like it was the rapid overnight load falling on the fluff yesterday afternoon that failed.