powderfreak

This shit is bonkers out there. Man, the operations excitement cannot be matched. Mid-day a slide breaks loose, crosses the highway and onto open beginner terrain at Snowbird. Employees then are doing a probe line, with Avalanche dogs searching for any burials. Immediate 1pm Interlodge (Marshal Law) was called. Everyone inside immediately.

Warm day. T-shirt ski weather. A couple dozen people skiing, ha.

50F at the picnic tables earlier and 30s down below 1500ft. Classic.

Quite the difference between east of the Greens and west of them. 53F BTV and 36-37F at MPV/MVL.

You see the size of these avalanches that buried Highway 210 in LCC? They’ll be digging for days. “Seven-day totals of snow water equivalent are 4.3 to 5.7 inches of water in the Cottonwoods.”

Will you honestly install window units in New England as early as Easter weekend?

Icing here is from 2500-4000ft. 3600ft… 27F 2600ft… 31F 1500ft… 33F Picnic table ice. My buddy in Montreal says they are getting destroyed. Thunder, lightning and heavy ice. Thunder ice, ha. Widespread tree damage starting to occur.

Good grief. Alta, Utah.

Wonder if this impacts ice chances today but dews plummeted last night on NE flow. It was 33/30 then NE flow and now 33/18.

A couple extra weeks of melt up north is a small price to pay for exciting weather in the winter. 33F

I noticed that after like 12z on Sunday, the 925mb temps don't come anywhere close to freezing up this way for the entire week. Looks very warm. Wed/Thur is just an absolute torch on the EURO... +20C at 925mb comes cranking in from the SW late on Wednesday with highs into the 70s. Wednesday PM Then it just goes bonkers on Thursday with +20C at 850mb even.

Some impressive icing on the 18z HRRR for tomorrow. I think over here it's a mid-slope icing like 1,500-3,000ft that usually wedges into the east slope with mid-30s in the valley, but over in NH and ME there's some serious QPF falling into sub-freezing surface temps on that run. Gene gets destroyed on his hill.

Congrats Ginxy… 69F at IJD. Luckily no rain here at 46F, looks like Dendy takes the toilet bowl award this afternoon.

One of the only times in the United States that civilians are allowed to operate military weapons is for avalanche control. This is the holy grail of Mountain Operations. Alta, Snowbird, UDOT and others use long-range military weapons to bomb the mountains for avalanche control. It happens daily out there in seasons like this. Thats also why Marshal Law is instigated and they will arrest you for going outside while bombing activities are happening. They’ll bomb multiple ridge lines over too, miles away. It makes the US Military very uneasy to have these weapons operating inside the country but it’s for public safety so they must’ve lost that argument. A decade or two ago the Snowbasin Patrol north of SLC missed a ridgeline and bombed a suburban backyard, but that’s the only incident I’ve heard of.

SLK, MVL, BML all 80/35 while it’s 47/46 BOS to ORH?

Sounds like the ski area won’t open today due to avalanche danger and Marshal Law “Interlodge” is in effect so it’s illegal to go outside. Wild times.

Yeah I met Dave once virtually on a zoom call during COVID, ha. The highway 210 never opened yesterday and hasn’t opened today due to avalanche danger. No one from SLC area can access the mtns so the only people enjoying it are the ones up there already. They call it Country Club skiing when the lifts run but road can’t open. Guess there was a large natural avalanche cycle last evening during the heavy fall rates with numerous paths flushing out towards the road.

42F with OVC here and rotting snow in town with areas of mud, ha. Lovely. Could go for 20F warmer.

That's gotta be one of the more extreme examples we see around these parts. Higher summits blasting off in warmth while mid-slopes and SFC freeze? That's like 50F at 875mb.

Wild looking at the differences between 925mb temps and 850mb tomorrow on a variety of models.

And 12 hours later still nuking. 35" storm total, another 15" in those 12 hours with seasonal total of 845" now. What a time to be alive out there.

The situation and year that has happened in the western US makes me happy because it shows the "big year" is certainly possible. The record season. This season ~220" of snow has fallen at 3,000ft. In 2016-17 it was a high-water mark of 375". This season out west has made it seem possible that a 400+ or even 500+ year could exist back in the inter-mountain East. 2000-01 was like 425" I think for the resort. These type of incredible records from patterns sustained for months... it keeps the dream alive. What's happened out west is right there with 2015 Boston area snowfall.

I’ve always thought this stuff was crazy. Tractor-trailers just getting blown over in high winds. Damage on sunny nice days out west. 395 in California between Mammoth and LA.

The Wasatch in Utah and both Cottonwood Canyons (basically suburbs for SLC) at 750+ widespread up there. Alta at 830" (after racking up 18 today with ease).

It’s completely anecdotal but I felt like 10-15 years ago even it was real nice in the summer up here, never needed A/C. Now everyone has it. The overnight mins have been real elevated it seems the past decade insummer.