powderfreak

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.

lol that forest looks raked in the canopy. Deadfall everywhere.

Watching the snowmaking plumes on the ridge get backlit by the setting sun yesterday evening. Looks like at least until the 14th or 15th of November now before any real snowmaking progress can be made. Looks like the last true mild period before colder regimes settle in.

Out for the afternoon meander in the sun. The cold dark side still very snowy. Will do a hike over there on the winter side tomorrow.

2:30pm and still frost in the shadows from this morning despite temps in town in the upper 40s. I don’t get it lol.

I was surprised to see the 8am obs are the coldest yet… 21F at MVL, down 2F between 7-8am. Crazy how late the sun is coming up now. 8am is already like 4 hours past the min in mid-summer lol. Now you still drop through the 12z obs.

A 6-10F spread already between higher elevations and the basin bottoms on some PWS. 34F at 1,700ft and 25F at 750ft.

That’s awesome.

26F and frosty already. Freezing fog seems like it can’t be far away.

I tell her to do a trick and she just sits there. Anyway, I think the daylight will finally make these after work walks impossible without headlamp after the time change on Sunday. Was a good run from March to November of daylight after work hours.

Crisp evening already but felt pretty nice in the last light of the day up at Spruce Peak. Upper 20s with a decent NW breeze but overall not bad.

That's awesome Alex!

This time of year produces some wild differences with the sun angle so low. Anything north/east facing stays midwinter but west/south can burn off. Pina coladas on the south facing hills up past 3000ft snow free… Meanwhile east and north aspects have snow down to like 1000ft. The Stowe side of Mansfield is akin to the north side of your house under the roof, ha. Easy to see why they put the trails over there originally.

Couple flurries floating out of the mid-level deck this afternoon.