powderfreak

It just started dumping here too. Quickly turning white in areas that melted.

Power is back at home, phew. Mountain is still out though. Town got crushed. Debris everywhere. Gas station filled with folks filing gas cans.

This is your true "Shut 'em Down" event. Only time I can ever remember Stowe closing for the day. No power at the mountain or in town, trees down everywhere. 130mph max wind gust at Mansfield summit. 70 mph at BTV airport (I think it was Hurricane Hazel that had higher gust speed on record than this event?). Everyone seems to be without power around these parts.

BTV gust to 70mph. 2nd highest wind gust all-time.

Solid 3” of concrete paste at 1500ft. Roads were atrocious. It was like driving through a thick slush puppy. Even in a big SUV the vehicle was getting tossed by the slush.

Solid 3” of concrete paste at 1500ft.

Yeah western slopes already getting 40mph gusts well in advance of the strong LLJ. Up this way this is a prime home station to watch, owned by a NWS member. Gusted 39mph past half hour. They come right off Bolton Valley area down to 800ft elevation. https://nashvillevtweather.net Snowing outside in Stowe, maybe an inch?

That’s nuts. -50s departures.

Yeah, hoping for the best as that’s essentially BTV suburb area it gets into. Never want to go into Christmas without power… or a roof.

From BTV: The low level jet will peak during the morning hours, most likely between 4 AM and 9 AM, which will likely be so strong that it will break through the mountain barrier regardless of stability. As a result, dangerous wind gusts will occur well away from the higher terrain. Looking at model data reveals very strong 925 east-southeast winds increasing into the 70 to perhaps 90 knot range along the corridor from Essex Junction to Middlebury, supporting peak winds in excess of 65 MPH. Multiple long- time forecasters have not seen winds at this pressure level at this magnitude in our region.

What a day. Trying not to think of Friday, ha.

What a day. Enjoying it while its here.

Just a wave of water moving in on S/SE flow off the Atlantic. Crashing into the first huge barrier of terrain… S/C Greens and Whites. Get the sandbags, that’s a ton of QPF… in the warm season that gets eaten by vegetation. This time of year it’s either absorbed by snowpack or it all runs off.

Almost looks like a river moving northward SE of the mountains.

That’s some serious QPF riding up the coastal plain on Reggie.

That’s some wind.

Awesome photos JSpin. Those really share a vibe.

Must be fun with that new lift at Waterville. The new lift replaced the main HSQ right? I was impressed with Waterville last season on an industry Demo day there last year. Fast lift to good vertical and some fun pitches. Bet that place is fun with the dump.

Some areas are more prone to it, like NW sides of mountains in New England can rip big wind. Here it’s the towns NW of Mansfield and the rest of the Spine. I bet you mix down big winds on SE flow. Phin always saw big winds on south flow.

GFS is pretty similar. The downslope area NW of the Greens out in the Champlain Valley and flats of southern Quebec are going to absolutely rip.

Man, those are some big numbers for 10-meter wind gusts on the NAM on Friday.

Yeah you guys know me, I'm not trying to start sh*t, ha. I just have this dream of comparing apples to apples for the science aspect of it. I've always appreciated the show and tell style to snow measuring, because if 22" did fall up there it would be more interesting to see the why it did. Meso-scale banding, upslope, etc. Occasionally a number falls out of line with the overall tenor of a storm distribution (take all other ski areas and they blend in with the larger storm total distribution map) of a south to north gradient. I know its a tired topic and difficult to discuss without trying to sound like some sour grapes or something stupid like that, ha ha. 15 years ago when I first started and was green it would've bothered me, now I just find it curious. BTW, Jay's new comms guy is a great dude. Big pickup for Jay Peak. I'll be working on him for a Snow Cam. There has to be a place they can stick one that just gets nuked.

I'm not going to completely discount the 22" at Jay but I do wish there was some indication that it was actually measured. I've heard even from Jay patrollers today that they wish there was a little more science to their observations. It's still rare in this day and time to see regular measurement images but most mountains have shown some attempt at a visual snow accumulation. The ones that haven't probably should start to. It garners a lot of respect and trust in snow reporting. Looking at CoCoRAHS and other observations, the snowfall with this storm did decrease from south to north. The north got less, it is what it is. The Bolton Valley, Stowe, Smuggs, Burke areas owned that lower snowfall that fell in the North. I won't lie, I think it happened at Jay Peak too. I hate to say it, but I do not think those staying at that area found 22" on the ground when the other N.VT areas saw 12-16". On an aside, we saw 2-3" today at both the Lookout and High Road snow plots at 3,000ft. There's always going to be more at 3600-4295ft... but at the upper mountain snow plots that are are 2/3rds of the way up the hill or more, these snow study plots can be a good measure for mountain snowfall.

Nothing beats Christmas Day 2002. 24” in the backyard SW of ALB. Last winter living there… got a Christmas Hail Mary. It can be a broken record claim within the Xmas discussion, but nothing will break that daily snowstorm IMO. Pure glory, pivot point. 18” on Christmas afternoon/evening. Sustained 3”/hr. Up to 5”/hr recorded as it tightened up. A couple feet in very short duration during the holiday.

Yeah need a natural snow storm to fix it usually. Grooming and some random snowmaking help but it’s not like everything can be resurfaced. It becomes tough with snowmaking too if expansion or resurfacing and how to allocate those resources. Sometimes holiday week is just making sure as much as possible is open instead of snowmaking again on already open terrain.