powderfreak

It absolutely affected it. We've had the Toll House area closed since the warm day before the last rainfall and although it's relatively lower elevation 1,300ft - 2,200ft and all natural snowfall (no snowmaking), it's very rare to not be able to operate that in N.VT in mid/late February. It has a big impact too on those who stay in condos, townhomes, lodging etc down off those runs and there's no way to get folks up except the the road (which at two-lanes is stressed as it is when thousands of people want to go the same direction at the same time). I think the snowpack made it a very easy decision and they probably weren't *that* stretched for staff. Without sufficient snow cover to execute a lift evac or get snowcats, snowmobiles, personnel in there... that thing is long. No one wants to be in a "walking/hiking" situation with paying guests if that lift goes down. And mechanical freak things happen that stop lifts from running. A bolt breaks, leading to a sheave listing vertical, causing alignment issues. Can be fixed pretty easily but the lift may not be able to run again until it's unloaded. Lift evac happens. Short handed for a remote lift evac sounds like the absolute last thing anyone wants to do. If there was even a chance I didn't have enough staff to run a lift like that in low snow, it would sway me to a nope very easily. Maybe at some point the snowpack is marginal BUT you are staffed strongly, and know you can have a strong response in the event of an issue (the amount of resources you have to throw at a potential problem, the more lenient one might become in operations)... to a point obviously.

I doubt it’ll be much different. These are usually pretty uniform. Not like GYX showing 8” at BML would be that much different than their forecast for you I bet. Edit… should’ve read a few posts after this, sounds like that’s what you are thinking, very similar to BML.

Who’s ready for some leaf blower on concrete up north? Ha.

Who knows, Sugarbush hasn’t even hit 100” yet at the top of the mountain. Meanwhile BTV isn’t that far from normal snowfall. It’s interesting you aren’t that far from normal snowfall as upslope has been missing so much this winter but that’s your climo too. How’s your liquid stats? It’s felt real dry this winter on the whole to me. That’s where the mountains suffer.

Yeah it’s funny how the lows are all at like 30-32” and then ‘61 is 15” below that. That’s the difference between getting snow tomorrow vs rain. The stats can endure a lot, but it takes something special to be #1.

Since 1955, there have only been 5 years with the same or lower snow depth at the fabled Mansfield Stake than this year. Current depth… 32” 1957… 32” 1983… 31” 2016… 30” 1980… 30” 1961… 15” Something interesting is the clustering… 1957 and 1961 (4 years apart)… 1980 and 1983 (3 years apart)… and 2016 and 2022 (6 years apart). Poor snowpack seems to run in close clusters.

The craziest thing is how varied our winters are. Can go all-time low of 2015-16, to one of the largest snow depth days season on record in 2018-19 with monster snowpack, back to this winter. We can go huge or small, multiple times in a 6 year period .

The back to back rainers did it. It was tracking below normal, but ok. The last 7 days have really hurt. Closing in on 2015-16 levels. However snow depth days would be so much better this year than that winter when there was 0” at the Stake on Xmas.

I’ve started believing in a 500-600mb fronto-band from west to east across C/N NE. Western shore of Lake Ontario into north/west NE, or cutting through C.NE? Tough to say if someone fluffs themselves to some decent total. But QPF progs are fairly uniform.

It’s been two high-end FROPAs. I don’t remember back to back thaws/cutters mixed with such severe temperature changes. I’m sure it’s happened before but within a week is hard to do. 40+ degree temp drops.

Today was noteworthy. It was in the 50s early this morning, in both town and on the mountain. Temperatures started dropping, but it wasn't until the true cold front moved through that temperatures plummeted to more normal levels for February in NNE. A couple photos from the boundary slinking south, which seemed to have connections back to Lake Ontario. Even at the valley ASOS/MVL there was a decent couple hour period of snow reported with the temperature drop. Down to 13F as of an hour ago off mid-50s in the morning.

There is some strong lift in the 500-600mb range and sometimes we do get those fluffy mid-level bands well north that drop 20:1 ratio snows. It just seems like widespread 8-12” on the maps for this area over to you seems optimistic. I rarely disagree with the NWS but here I sell a middle ground of 10”. I like 4-8” and even that is assuming good ratios as all non-NAM models are like 0.30-0.50” from me to your area. If that’s 8-10:1 sand instead of fluff, it’s a bust. There are a lot of people thinking 10-12” is coming up here which makes me uneasy, ha. Because if we get 5” they’ll be wondering what the hell happened, when in fact it looks like that’s been a decent chance the whole time.

I still can’t believe BTV has 10” here for this one. 18z EURO is even more paltry. Gonna need some healthy ratios on some of these runs.

2” and pounding at 1500ft. Might pull a 3-4 spot.

Around 2”/hr rates. Wow it’s cranking.

Absolutely nuking dendrites. Everything white again. Short duration 1”/hr band moving through.

lol it was just the best graphic for it. The GFS wasn't much different. DGZ on the lower end up the best omega in the mid-levels.

Looks like the lift is way up there... like 400-600mb at MPV.

Probably will see that pic regardless of if it's 2-3" or 7-9" .

I think it is there in the QPF maps.... just not as pronounced. If it's fluffing definitely signs of a rotting band from like 'Dacks through MPV over to LEW. But I bet the band might be even a bit north to BTV-MVL-BML.

If we get those amounts it won’t be wet, it’ll be because of ratios.

Surprisingly have both Gondola and Quad going today. West wind staying just high enough over top. Slamming Spruce though. Full on torch though. Dews were near 50F and breaks of sunshine! Feels like it might be trying to dry out a bit.

I'm outside at the ski area in a t-shirt right now, birds chirping... thinking about days of sunlight until 9pm and hiking with the dog . Ice rink up here looks like we should stock it with trout or something.

Big difference even yesterday from some of the larger wide open exposed fields and more sheltered calm locations. Noticed you can drive by bare fields and then a more woodsy residential area has solid cover everywhere. The larger wind-exposed fields are toasted. I mean, at this point it looks so rough and melted anyway. My yard had standing water on top of the shallow few inches of snowpack left.

Widespread 50s this morning.