powderfreak

Sun blasted out up here 1-2 hours ago and it feels hot on the hill in the sun. Spring vibe with some pow left still on upper mountain from the recent 3-4” past 36 or so hours while base area 1500ft is like sit outside on the patio spring weather. Water dripping off the rooflines, etc.

Been seeing wet snow most of the day at 1,500ft that hasn't accumulated much past 1/2-3/4th an inch that fell this morning. Seems pretty warm out. No doubt these are rain showers down in town. 3,000ft has seen about 1.75" and it's dense/wet... probably 0.25" water. Holding in the upper 20s at 3500-4000ft.

It's been a minute since I've gotten a bit annoyed at temperatures and January did that, ha. If I don't walk outside to -15 to -27 again this winter I'd be all right with that... and riding chairlifts with wind chills of -40F gets old. Felt like twice a week for a month there was a Wind Chill Advisory or Warning up. Wasn't even able to get the dog out much in the last month or so as her paws start to hurt after about 10 minutes below like 15 degrees and she just stands there lifting them up off the ground. I could go for a while of like 15F to 35F type temps and increasing daylight hours. Its obviously going to snow again and sometimes warmth brings larger systems... more risk but some reward.

It’ll snow again.

Far NNE will be like Bob in SE Mass this fall when people talked about back broken... "Don't tell me the back is broken when...(snowpack is in my yard) or (I'm still running my A/C)." We all know what it means though... big difference between January -7 departures and the second half of February pattern. Just like the difference between July and September. Yesterday I did notice the steep south facing road banks were getting destroyed by the sun.

Saw Mount Washington poking above the horizon earlier from Stowe.

HRRR really likes Jay Peak in the next day or so. Over 1/2" of water as snow, can see the little spec. These are the events that fly under the radar though and add to their annual total. They can easily pull 5-10" on SW flow with some Lake Ontario connection and then NW flow behind the system. Pretty cool how you can see the Adirondacks rob moisture from the rest of the Greens, but up north of the 'Dacks that moisture makes it to Jay Peak area.

Not gonna lie, today was real nice. Looking forward to spring. Long daylight, blue skies, comfy temps…

BTV has one of the busiest stretches of road in the entire state going right through the upslope zone too… I-89 between BTV and MPV. The ski areas provide great data too as they are just lined up north to south with cameras now and it’s just a generally busy area (relatively speaking) for Vermont. If there’s a type of weather to study and dial in around here it’s orographic mesoscale stuff. That and downslope or mountain wave wind events.

Yeah buddy. Winter vibes.

Awesome thanks! Love the attempt at keeping it going. It stands out as a small local hill from the larger ski area.

And 36-48” overnight with 50mph winds doesn’t even warrant a Blizzard Warning up there.

Conditions at Waterville got heavier later in the day once the precipitation tapered off and the sun even came out. Temps warmed up above freezing and the snow fell out of the trees. Again though, great conditions for testing all-mountain skis and having interesting conditions for brands to showcase their boards made for eastern/western conditions made for a great day. Some lower angle but wide-open glades were fun in the wet snow...surfy. Temps were 33-35F at this point as the snow fell/dripped out of the trees. Basically a 1,600 vertical foot high speed quad was the only lift we rode... and a ski area really wins my heart with 1500-2000ft laps off a high-speed lift. That's a huge plus in terms of maximizing ski time and not sitting on a lift. For whatever reason, I love longer vertical foot gains in short periods of time. Lapping that is fun regardless of terrain... but there were a few good steep rollovers in there. Lower Bobby's Run was something we did several times. Tracked out crud and push piles, mixed with moguls is fantastic ski test terrain. I know @MarkO has talked about a smaller local slope nearby there as he has a cabin in the area... I'd love to know if that's what we saw across the valley. In the photo above there's that small three trail ski area across the valley. It made me think that's the one Mark talks about. Fun to see a different neighborhood. Overall, fun day, diverse conditions, and WV has some vertical that is lap-able from a single base area (seems good for kids, can't get lost, end up at bottom regardless) on a high speed quad. There are some ancillary lifts that would be good on crowded days, along with another high speed servicing learning terrain in the middle of the mountain. Aesthetically pleasing layout for the overall size of the hill; laid out well.

Since I was able to get out of my usual neighborhood, I'll post some thoughts on Waterville Valley as a first trip. Had a great day of skiing and I liked the Waterville set up. This is what is considered a "business trip" in this line of work but headed out to chat with some some of our normal ski reps and meet some new ones in a large industry demo-day. Tried about 10-12 different skis from different brands throughout the day, but the only one I didn't want to give up was the next generation Atomic "Bent" Chetler 10. Skied 4 runs on that ski alone and may take the brand rep up on a pair. It's 100 underfoot but skis like 90 and the shovel/tip design really excelled in today's conditions (90-100 underfoot is my personal sweet spot for a daily driver eastern skiing mix of groomers/glades/ungroomed). That Bent Chetler got my seal of approval for the day out of the flagship skis from brands like Salomon, Head, Dynastar, Rossi, K2, Black Crows, etc. Waterville Valley reported 1-2" of new snow but that may have been at the base. I love a good conservative snow measurement; it's one of my favorite things. In the morning before things warmed up a bit, I'd say a dense creamy 4" was more accurate up on the hill. We call these conditions "visiting the cream cheese factory." Very surfy and great for testing wider width skis. Attachment limits mean another post is needed....

Great day at the cream cheese factory today skiing Waterville. They only reported 1-2” but seemed like a good 4” IMO on the top 2/3rds of the hill. Nice “surprise.”

The difference in about two miles passing Canon to Twin Mtn exit was crazy. 36-37F to 30F, snow back on the trees, winter. Weird thing is looking over in VT the high at a torch spot like BTV was only 33F.

Raining over this way past Loon and heading up into Franconia now. Was very wintry this morning now looks wet, snows fallen off the trees, etc. Truck says 36F.

I thought last night was southerly flow on 850/925 though?

Then kids get to high school and start spending a lot of time in the “woods” and seem really concerned about soil pH and you’ve come full circle.

Ha at some point you’ll be up north long enough to be ok with sharing snow and lose the southern anxiety. You won’t care about seasonal forecasts or patterns. Your kids will start listening to jam band music, growing out the pony-o. Half of them will ask for teleboots for Christmas. It’s coming.

It’s easy to do riding shotgun.

Pretty much raining just SE of Franconia at 32F at Lincoln exit.

You are sounding like me when Ginxy ribs me on being surprised. You expect one thing, then leading into the event you start doubting it, then you get the original estimates and are like “wow, nice surprise!”

Had a half inch coating in Stowe, looked similar across most of northern VT… hit freezing rain in Littleton, NH. Pretty snowy all the sudden in Franconia Notch passing Canon.

Some freezing rain in Littleton and snowing pretty good entering Franconia on 93.