powderfreak

I actually just looked up Hingham and it makes a little more sense. I don't know why I thought that was near KBED or Framingham and it most definitely is not. Coastal south shore town (as I'm sure all of you are aware, ha)... so now it fits a little more. But still, that's a rough stretch even on the water I'd think. But I think in my head I rush climo a bit along the actual coast/Atlantic ocean early season. Plowable/decent December storms are probably a little more rare there than say BED, right?

Another reason to hate that period. 16 of 19 brown Xmas’ in eastern Mass… yikes. I mean that’s like someone’s entire childhood. Turning 18 years old, finishing high school, and only seeing 3 Christmases with 1” or more dusting the ground in your life to that point… in the E.Mass climate belt that these days seems to squat out big snowstorms. Sounds more in-line with what you’d expect in Maryland or something.

I’d have to check but ALB in 2002 I think we woke up to bare ground on Xmas day… that huge storm started at like 9-10am IIRC. Then we had 18” by the time I was driving my grandmother home that evening and finished with 22” at my childhood house. Snowing 3”/hr during Christmas Dinner was awesome. But despite like 18” at ALB on the 25th, that 12z morning ob might have been grass.

I’m not sure the specific depth requirements but it’s pretty significant I believe…. like an even 30” wall-to-wall top-to-bottom. Possibly even more? It has to be enough depth to sustain winch cat grooming operations, drilling holes to set gates, and most importantly it has to be deep enough to sufficiently anchor layers of safety netting. Those anchors go pretty deep to be able to stop a skier moving at a high rate of speed and not just rip out of the snowpack. That’s where the wall-to-wall coverage is needed… can’t skimp on the side of the trails where safety netting gets drilled in and anchored.

I agree with your sentiments. Even a decent pack of 12” loses its “White Christmas” luster if it’s 44F, raining with 1/4 mile thick fog and blackened snowbanks. Sure it’s a “White Christmas” but despite a foot on the ground, there are soggy water runnels and pea soup views outside… whereas even a fresh 2-4” on grass and on every twig and branch probably achieves a better festive atmosphere with 70% less snowpack.

Isn’t it 1” snow depth at 12z on Xmas morning?

Granted living anywhere near Hilton Head can’t be cheap. I’m pretty sure it was a Kroger supermarket. Every single ski area I know of is incredibly short staffed and wages are higher than ever… not like a dollar raise either but like $5+ per hour over what that same job was 2 winters ago. Jobs that ski areas got away with paying $10/hr for a decade plus a ski pass are now at $15-$20… similar to the supermarket thing we were discussing. Plus signing bonuses, referral bonuses, etc. Its a great time to be a high schooler looking for part time work, lol. I know a financial planner in town who said his high school daughter made over $20K this summer as a waitress in like 3 months. I wouldn’t have known what to do with that money in high school lol.

Employees cost A LOT now in many jobs. It’s incredible the staffing shortages everywhere. Even when I was down in Hilton Head and Savannah, Georgia a few weeks ago the local grocery stores were advertising $20/hr to bag groceries. $25/hr if you wanted to stock shelves at night with up to 60hrs/week possible. Stocking grocery store shelves paying more than public school teachers and law enforcement down there it seemed.

Mild on the peaks. Mansfield is 45F at 4,000ft, fitting with that same elevation on MWN.

59F at MVL… feels wonderful outside. Might need to take a drive this afternoon to BTV to wear shorts one last time, ha.

Good data. The diurnal ranges have been crap the past few months… this whole warm season after May to be honest. This fall though was real bad, usually good for those 40 degree swings several times in the bookend season.

Holy crap, lol. Remote starting the car over here to try and melt the thick/heavy frost encasing it. Still sitting around 32F.

Almost infuriating lol. Paying for heat right now blasting out of the baseboards because it’s sub-freezing at 30F outside…while a normal mixed lapse rate from the summit down to the valley would yield low-60s for temps from 47F at 4,000ft. We could have the windows open right now if it was dry adiabatic; would be like a summer evening. Instead the ponds are growing ice.

33F here and a balmy 46F at 4,000ft. We inverted.

Yesterday morning it was 20F here and 36F at the Picnic Tables. November is the time of big inversions. This was the time of year we had a snowstorm, then a torch above like 1200ft while cold stayed in the valleys. Only time I’ve ever gotten a photo of full snow cover filling the valleys while 1500ft up to 3000ft was fully melted and brown. Then you started to hit snow again at the picnic tables.

Almost like fake warmth today… upper 50s and dry air felt great and then boom, shadow and it’s 39F. 57F at 3:10pm and 39F two hours later at 5:20pm.

Crazy how radiational cooling starts after the 2:54pm observations now. Dropping 7F between 2:54-3:54pm and well on the nighttime path so early.

That set-up would be ideal. I've always liked both Lincoln Peak and Ellen set-ups for early/late season skiing. Mt Ellen also retains snow very well. I see those north facing trails like FIS with snow on them for a very long time in the spring. I do think it favors spots with easy access to shorter vertical (just a portion of the hill)... for both early and late season skiing. Mostly because it's easier to open and to keep open 1,000 verts or less. We've always joked that it would be fun if Stowe had a mid-mountain lift... say on Nosedive or from the Mtn Triple to the summit. Call it the "Marketing Triple chair" to keep access to skiing/riding going early/late season. A long season is nice. Uphill equipment though has made it feel ok when places don't open/close as early/late as possible. You can still experience it if you want to. It is harder for places to put together 2,000+ verts of continuous acceptable coverage for such a long time.

It is. Temps were solid up high. We didn't do much production at all in the 2,500-1,500ft elevation though. A place like Killington has a huge advantage with the upper mountain lift system there in the North Ridge area.... they are making snow at 3,400-4,000ft to open for the season. The base of that lift is just above 3,400ft (for example that photo I posted is from 3,300ft). Then even the Killington Base Lodge is at like 2,500ft! Up here, that's like the mid-mountain elevation... it makes for a harder time of it this time of year when trying to cover 1,500ft to 3,600ft. So we didn't do any appreciable snowmaking in this last stretch below 2,500ft. We like a wet-bulb of 26F or lower for the most part for the tower guns and fan guns we use. We don't have many, if any, of those land frame (tripod) ratnik guns that sound like a jet airplane taking off next to you. But the noise is because they can make snow at higher temps and are compressed air hogs. That's why you see Killington bust out those tripod snow guns to open up early in the season, as those land frames can make snow at higher temps than the tower gun technology (which are energy efficient, but the trade off is lower temps are needed). Just while musing about weather and snowmaking... at Stowe our biggest issue is last bit to the base area (below Crossover on the trail map). It is a classic mid-slope climatology at 1,500-1,800ft. It does not radiate, despite the early shadows. I think that air is always flowing down the hill or out of Smugglers Notch as the cold air drain follows the river. As we know on this forum, not all elevations are made equal... 1,500ft at the ski area represents more mid-slope climo rather than say @alex's 1,500ft radiational cooling. It does lead to a perception issue with locals who aren't quite familiar with the mesoscale differences that various terrain can have with regards to temps. The last several days the cold night spots have been the valley/village and the upper mountain. The warmer zone has been the mid-slope. On radiational nights, we often can get like a low-20s valley, upper 20s midslope, and low-20s summit type thermal sounding. So you can turn the snow guns on in the mid-slope but it's marginal and shorter duration. Snowmaking is most productive on the upper mountain and if needed, you could make snow in the valley under the inversion for quite a while too. People wake up though to cold temps at home and assume the mountain is just as cold or colder. Even when they check the Mansfield summit station they might see good cold temps, look outside their windows and see good cold temperatures... so they assume that between the two is just as cold and likewise assume snowmaking took place top-to-bottom all night long. Then there are a lot of questions about why snowmaking didn't happen around the base area. Reality is, it just didn't get that cold for a long enough period of time to be productive. Sure it dipped to 27F briefly but mostly it rotted around 30-32F all night type of stuff. Local climatology has a big effect on early season snowmaking, which is pretty interesting to me, ha. That was a Tippy novel but not as well written.

First melt out of the way, though radiational cooling melts are far and few between. I started Dak and Amari Cooper in fantasy and that didn’t go well. At least Dak did some stat padding to salvage the day once the game was already over lol.

Brutal . It’s so much fake cold it’s real now.

Checking out the snowmaking now that the system is off… what a great day to be outside.

Nice man, this time of year isn't necessarily about quality as you know... it's just about getting out there and going through the motions again. Congrats on the first ski day.

Didn't we all have a discussion a while back about why the NWS considers it a "frost" at 32-36F? Good illustration of that.

What else is there to see when evaluating an environment? A place's vegetation shows a lot about it's recent history. That shows some decent storms there that might have been decades in return time. Holes getting dug in mature woods by velocity out of the low level jet, takes some force to do that on a regular basis.