powderfreak

Hopefully the southern crew can score a wintry scene out of this one.

Hopefully you grab a fronto band… still looks pretty wintry there. Given warmth ahead and CAA, I’d imagine elevation will help.

You leave your truck in the street and driveway empty so your town’s DPW crew can “accidentally” remove a side view mirror with a plow? I think you see 1-2” refresh.

Labs man… any water, frozen or not.

No she does it for a full hour in what is the slowest 3-mile loop because she never walks…. Just rolls. Turn around and she’s 100 yards back legs up in the air having a blast.

Up to 26F here now, really nice and feels balmy. Up over 40 degrees from the minimum. Cold has frozen the River out back for the most part… But the wildlife gathers around the few open water areas.

Kids bounce too when they fall, ha. I mean you hear stories of kids falling off chairlifts at ski areas at heights that you assume might be critical or even fatal but then you hear they skied away from it. Adults fall 30 feet to flat and they are getting air lifted out.

Yeah that’s been my progression. I’m tentative in the woods right now. Slow, pick your spots. The spring snowpack is so much better for low depth woods as you are often on top of the snow not in it. Also at this stage of life the financial implications of shutting on a couch for weeks all maimed aren’t as appealing as when I was in college or in my 20s. A great local skier saw her season end in the woods during this storm, with 3 fractures and 2 surgeries needed from a hidden snow snake. It’s sobering.

I posted this in the other thread but the BTV current conditions page is a wild gradient in NH. Here it’s 10F colder than the west side of Mansfield but starting to erode.

It’s starting to erode here. It’s 10F warmer on the other side of Mansfield. Warmth pushing into CPV. But check out that gradient from MHT to Coos County. Also up in the St Lawrence Valley… like under 10 miles from 14F to 34F.

Lol. Now maybe it comes back?

That’s like another planet to me right now but all in New England. Crazy. That’d be like T-shirt weather after -15F this morning.

Ha me too.

Had -15F this morning, now up to 13F. There’s been some cold around.

The power line up the driveway along the Mountain Road... caked. The wind has been blowing off the dry snow, but the melted and then frozen snow has left an icy glaze on the trees. Hopefully it can all fall off before the power goes out in a gale.

Drove through Waterbury on the way to BTV this afternoon… the best snowpack between here and there was in Waterbury, exit 10 area to the Hydro Dam. That area gets smoked on ESE flow… right up the Winooski Valley into the Spine, elevation doesn’t seem to matter. What a stunning drive though, just pasty snow the whole way. Power lines completely covered and defying gravity. The pockets with no wind were absolutely caked.

Midnight high of 23F. Dropped to -1F earlier this evening. CAA all day long. Slow, steady drop.

Do we cloud over or radiate. That is the question.

Game changer snowstorm for the mountains. It's amazing what real snow is like, ha. A former employee visited today and enjoyed some birthday powder. This dude showed up at the ski area as an 18 year old from Iowa four years ago. He was dealing with some stuff, moving on the wrong trajectory, and needed a change of scenery. I took the big brother approach and he excelled and thrived. The amount of personal growth and increase in personal responsibility during one winter was awesome to witness. Snowboarding became his outlet. He moved to Aspen and spent 3 winters there, now he's back east at Loon. You love to see it, snowboarding changed his life for the better.

There are pockets out there for sure. Almost everything is open now. That storm was just what we needed. Funny thing I notice too… parking lot was packed but the Quad was ski on even with Gondola on wind hold today. Everyone goes into the woods and skis tougher terrain which makes for longer laps. Spreads bodies out on the hill while they slowly wander in the woods and bumps, natural snow stuff. Much different than when everyone is just fast cruising firm groomers and recycling back to the lift line after a 4 minute run down. Now runs take 20 minutes.

Coming in with 13” at Stowe… probably 10-15” could suffice depending on elevation and wind. Great increase in the snowpack.

A couple shots from today from the real camera. Definitely a much needed storm. A solid increase in snow water equivalent gives us the base we need. Now we can fluff it up with refreshers going forward.

Definitely. The QPF aspect was solid. Down here it was certainly wetter and/or got above freezing at home. Snow has a bit of a crust. Snowing lightly again, looks like the western slopes have blossomed up. We joke about J.Spin but there's a reason the models often put small areas of QPF maxes in his neighborhood. That Winooski Gap seems to add convergence on westerly wind set-ups.

If we can add this from 7pm to 7am (12hr total) of high ratio fluff we’ll really be in business.

Color me impressed up here. There’s 9-10” on the ground of dense snow where we park on the holiday weekends at 1300ft. Legit storm, can’t believe we weren’t that far off areas modeled almost double us or more.