powderfreak

Everyone around here is saying “forget nor’easters, our best snow comes from the west” lol. This was a fun event… threaded the needle to see widespread 1”+ QPF on the narrow cold side. Heck even MVL ASOS had over an inch of water and that gauge rarely reports any water when it snows, ha.

You guys were in the zone on the PNS and water reports. Right where models had it.

We jacked up. The big Harlow Hill is crushing people. That’s an awesome cam, got a link to that?! Looks like it’s on the VTrans sign?

It's quite possible that since like 8pm last night there was more snow in Montpelier as it was further southeast. The mountain totals include the 3-5" of dense wet snow that fell yesterday when it was raining down lower. That is what got the storm totals to the 15-18" range. I bet MPV had similar to 3,000ft since both elevations started seeing snow.

It just keeps snowing. Long duration storm. Snowing pretty hard too. 16" at the mountain now.

It’s perfect snow, not wet but dense. Like a small cold Sierra snowfall. They’d probably call it snow showers, but you know the type. Baking powder tiny flakes.

At the mountain 3,000ft as of 9am we had roughly 14" or 14.5" at the High Road Plot. 5" through 4pm and then 9.5" overnight. The bonus snows are here in full fluff factor now after the first 14" were very dense.

At the mountain 3,000ft as of 9am we had roughly 14" or 14.5" at the High Road Plot. 5" through 4pm and then 9.5" overnight. The bonus snows are here in full fluff factor now after the first 14" were very dense.

9” and dumping. Euro has a nice daytime bonus from 9am-9pm.

Eyeballing 8” or so of tiny flake baking soda outside at 4:30am. Feels like ratios can’t be better than 10:1 despite the cold. Looks awesome. Euro has this from 9am to 9pm today so snow should go most of today too.

Sugarbush skiers though say the same thing about Stowe… we are 30” over them one county north and then Jay is 30” over us another layer north?

Yeah we’ve all been there in our heads, ha. But I don’t ski there so I can’t really tell. I do think they get more though, how much, hard to say. I mean there’s usually a good increase from Sugarbush to this area, there’s probably another similar step up at Jay.

Finally getting the real deal snow covering the region. Big increase in the past hour and can see moisture continue to build from SW.

Good snow finally moving into the area on radar the past 30-60 minutes. The real deal stuff is beginning… next 8-10 hours should rip.

They were definitely in better SW flow today and models had better QPF north during the early part of the system… I can’t say one way or another but I bet they had a bit more than Mansfield. Anyway, our High Road ground plot was snowier by 1.5” over the live snow cam through 4pm. The cam location is usually on the conservative side of things on the windy knuckle there at top of Lookout vs center of mountain on Gondola/High Road. Either way, measuring on a mountain with thousands of vertical feet and miles of difference at times can lead to interesting things. I truly enjoy the live cam running conservative as that’s generally how I approach weather forecasting and snowfall, ha. We all know that 3” on that thing is a fun day. You get double digits there and it’s game on. Here was High Road at last Gondola ride today.

To get over the Green Mtn Spine, the BTV radar beam needs to be at least 1.5 degrees and best at 1.75 and I personally like the 2.2 degree scan… that puts the beam height in E.VT near the River/91 at like 8,500-13,000ft above the ground. Where I am I need to sample 6,000ft at least overhead by the time it reaches me on an angle to clear Mansfield at 4,000ft ridgeline… despite being only like 25-30 miles from the radar site. Meanwhile someone like Phin is 60 miles away from GYX radar but and gets sampled at 4,400ft elevation because he can use the 0.5 degree scan… he actually has better radar coverage than a lot of eastern VT past the Spine despite the much further distance away.

It’s the beam, the classic too far from both radar sites. I-91 between NH/VT has to have the worst radar coverage in New England

You’d have to imagine someone south of the front gets a solid ice storm… but narrow axis?

I know you don’t think I work but occasionally I do … going to be a busy couple days at the ski area. Will be back at 5am tomorrow for another 12+ hour day. Getting a ride up pre-public in the AM to get some shots hopefully. May not hear a lot from me tomorrow haha. Snowing steadily, but very elevation dependent today. There was 5” at the High Road Plot and 3.5” at Lookout Plot at 4pm. Only an inch at 1500ft at same time.

Here comes the cold now. 32/29 at MVL east of Mtn Spine 27/24 with 0.75sm vis -SN at BTV. BTV getting good cold air drainage down the Champlain Valley unobstructed.

What a crush job on the EURO.

Still SW winds aloft.

It took a while here. It’s not “cold”… we are at about 2.5” above 2,500ft… a coating to 1” from 1500-2500ft. It’s a wet snow. Valley is still 34F -SN that I assume isn’t sticking at MVL.

We flipped to snow at 1,500ft about 20 minutes ago. Definitely was a couple hours later than I was thinking.

It flipped to snow at Stowe base right after my last raining post. Steady light snow.