powderfreak

This is awesome. I think a lot of people had some weather fun today, even the non-interested public. The cell phone alerts for Snow Squall Warnings, followed by wind/snow for many, with low visibility… it felt like the winter version of a summer cold front.

Looks like about 3” at home today.

The 6:25PM ob here… oddly I can’t find it in the METAR anymore. https://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/getobext.php?table=1&banner=off&sid=KBTV

Interesting! I thought that was a 5 min obs… but 1/8 SQ is awesome.

Second line moving through up here. BTV Airport showing the M1/4sm visibility for under 1/4 mile. METAR KBTV 192325Z AUTO 30015G21KT M1/4SM SN

Second line moving through up here. BTV Airport showing the M1/4sm visibility for under 1/4 mile. METAR KBTV 192325Z AUTO 30015G21KT M1/4SM SN

Cool Satellite image. SW flow WAA stuff ahead and then the cold front right behind it.

Snow Squall Warning. We'll see if this can amplify as it hits the mountains.

Ha that's awesome. 5" out of that. I think 3-4" at Stowe. No idea down in town but nice to see MVL ripping moderate snow for a while.

Sounds like I-89 south of Montpelier has a wreck involving up to a dozen vehicles from this morning's 1"/hr snowfall.

Snow Squall Warning Issued. NYC019-031-VTC001-007-011-013-015-023-027-191830- /O.NEW.KBTV.SQ.W.0002.220219T1733Z-220219T1830Z/ 1233 PM EST SAT FEB 19 2022 Clinton County NY-Essex County NY-Addison County VT-Chittenden County VT-Franklin County VT-Grand Isle County VT-Lamoille County VT-Washington County VT-Windsor County VT- The National Weather Service in Burlington has issued a * Snow Squall Warning for... Clinton County in northern New York... Essex County in northern New York... Western Lamoille County in northwestern Vermont... Addison County in central Vermont... Grand Isle County in northwestern Vermont... Chittenden County in northwestern Vermont... Northwestern Windsor County in southern Vermont... Western Washington County in central Vermont... Franklin County in northwestern Vermont... * Until 130 PM EST. * At 1230 PM EST, a line of dangerous snow squalls was located along a line extending from near West Beekmantown to North Hudson in New York, moving northeast at 40 mph. HAZARD...Whiteout conditions. Zero visibility in heavy snow and blowing snow. Wind gusts in excess of 35 mph. SOURCE...Radar indicated. IMPACT...Dangerous life-threatening travel. * This includes Interstate 89 between mile markers 66 and 129.

This is legit heavy snow. Wasn’t expecting this. 30-35dbz.

Let’s go, east slope making up for yesterday. Crushing dendrites. A quick 1-2” already. Easily 1”/hr.

Surprised at how hard it’s snowing here all the sudden. Radar blew up but it’s really coming down. Hopefully we can keep a little standing wave over the mountain into eastern VT going for a bit.

38G88 is noteworthy, ha.

That is massive. Those evergreens/pines are like kites. Impressive.

Such a different look on the calm windward side vs the lee side high winds mixing down with the snow. That looks so much more uniform and stacked on vegetation than the 50 mph scour and drift on the Lee side.

Oh yeah absolutely on vacation weeks. People have been looking forward to it for months in many cases, they are going skiing whether it’s tropical downpours or -50F wind chills. They have a week of lodging, tickets, etc it’s vacation… they going. To be honest, Christmas Week sees it almost every single year of crap weather then hard arctic freeze . Presidents Week has been more lucky. I’m sure beach community folks think the same when my family rents at the beach and goes even if it’s cool, cloudy, showery… I traveled to the ocean I’m sitting on the beach and swimming dammit!

Its hard to tell with the wind but I’d bet it’s 2-3” up high and 1-2” down low. There’s some snow in the lot but it’s all blown around. Has the look of 1-2” with wind here. And I don’t mean to say it’s going to be good skiing, just that trail count to me isn’t a huge barometer… as there could be 10 feet on the ground at the stake and it rains and flash freezes, and the same exact trails would be open as this weekend (anything a groomer can hit). Once that thick ice layer is there, the only way to fix it is mechanically or with a lot of fresh snow.

See I disagree that it’s rare. Every year has its thaws and freezes… they’ll groom even natural snow trails. It’s just a groomed vs ungroomed trail scenario. They’ve got 2-3 winches working both shifts tonight I think. Hayride, Liftline, etc. You fall you’ll go for a long ride though. If you fall on an beginner trail that’s not groomed you might be in for an uncontrollable fall . But we have times after thaw-freeze where it’ll be a day of one route down off of each lift. The snow is still there, just need to groom it. I’m not saying it’ll be good but it’ll be open, ha.

No we'll be at like 65-70 tomorrow. Just didn't have enough time to groom with the late freeze. We went into today with the plan that from 5am to 10am we could groom 30 trails to be skiable. With two full shifts they should be able to get to all the snowmaking trails and some natural trails. We've had one day acute trail reductions most winters after a thaw... normally they can groom 60-70 in a night and it's hard to be much below that for any period of time.

We were only at like 30 trails or lower today out of 120 for that exact reason. It’s a very common practice. You never groom in the rain as a rule of thumb. Yesterday I was in a meeting about what to do about today and there’s actually a lot of thought that goes into it. I figured it looked like snowcats could get on the hill by 5am or so. We took a 6 acre per hour grooming rate per operator and wanted to get at least 150 acres open of beginner/intermediate terrain. Then decided yesterday morning to delay opening until 10am today… 5 operators, 5 hours, at 6 acres/hr gets that 150 acres. Operations teams do think about this stuff quite a bit… not just throwing darts randomly haha.

Also anyone know what this is? Secondary FROPA that line that swung through very fast on radar? Almost like a gust front?

Nice surface outside of Mountain Ops this morning looking up towards the bottom of Nosedive/Sepps Run....

They were ok when I came up. Lots of standing water though that hadn't frozen yet. I hear its terrible now. I mean it is absolutely plummeting temperatures. It was 40s like two hours ago. Now 16.7F at the office and sustained winds of 30mph. Flash freeze at it's finest. The "forecast" icon is hilarious, lightning, snowflake, raindrop.