powderfreak

I've heard whisperings in the industry that they are trying for a Wednesday opening. People on social seem to be wondering the same thing as they are at Stowe, ha. Snowmaking today was on the upper mountain at BW and I saw some FB comments wondering why they weren't able to make snow top-to-bottom because it was cold enough for natural snow to be on the ground. The base area elevations have been tricky! When I was up surveying the snow coverage at Stowe late today I caught the alpenglow on Mount Washington as the western slopes turned orange and pink.

Late afternoon I had a great view of the evening alpenglow on Mount Washington as the setting sun lit up the west facing slopes... shot from about mid-mountain on Mount Mansfield over 70 miles away. Didn't have much to add to the leaf discussion, ha.

It’s definitely harder to convince people that with 2100 vertical we need *all* of it sufficiently deep to sustain nightly grooming and high skier traffic. We are ready on 1600 verts which is a lot of skiing to be honest. But telling folks that the lowest few hundred verts are holding up the whole thing is tough. We just don’t have the upload/download set up that some other hills have. And 1500ft mid-slope has been cold enough for natural but not cold enough for long productive snowmaking. Same issue we had most of last winter to be honest. Days and days of upper 20s to mid 30s.

This is the Stowe status update I put together.

The cold front moved through at like 1am last night. Almost 24 hours ago the CAA started. These "cold shots" are mostly just cool. We've had November temperatures sub-zero (-6F in town) in recent years but lately the "below normal" periods have been missing bite. Still over a week to go but November has been missing any cold shots lasting longer than 12 hours. Mid-20s at mid/upper slopes while most lower areas are still in the low 30s. These are snowmaking temperatures... but they aren't great snowmaking temperatures. You run the snow guns at wet-bulbs in the mid/upper 20s but they are far less than optimized. It's a long process at these temps and we seem to get these marginal temps for 12-18 hours tops. High of 38F in the valley and above freezing at the base area didn't allow snowmaking until later this afternoon down low.

2" on the mountain. Crunchy coating of snow left here. I did have 1" on the elevated snow board (also known as a garden table) when I came home this evening. Snow coatings seemed very hit or miss... driving back from Sunapee in NH there were some areas of light snow accumulations and large areas of nothingness. It didn't seem to be that elevation dependent, just precipitation dependent. Here's the hill accumulation cam. Temperatures aren't very cold. Mid/upper-20s on the hill, around 30F at 1,500ft and low-30s in the valley. The snow squalls were fun but really could use colder for maximum snowmaking. Snowmaking to 1,500ft base area since early afternoon but production is slow at wet-bulbs in the upper 20s. Need a good cold air mass with highs in the 20s at 1,500ft to really make hay. Some years they come often, some years they never come in November.

That’s pretty damn cool... I guess pun intended, ha.

Yeah my wife just sent a photo that looks like over an inch at least, ha. At least it’s white.

Looks like some good squalls with 2”+ at the mountain and this shot from town posted by AJ’s shows accumulations down in Stowe village.

I’m down in Sunapee, NH but my wife says it’s snowing hard in Stowe. Radar looks legit.

Have had occasional snow showers and graupel…. Mostly dippin dot graupel.

Wait, 5 of last 6 years were trace or less during Oct/Nov down there? What’s out of season this year?

Yeah 2018 is known as Snowvember in the ski industry. That was obscene. Only 40” or greater Mansfield depth on record in November. Had like 60” cumulative that month on the hill, everything skiable, glades on Thanksgiving weekend, etc. Thats by far more of an outlier than a November like this.

Paging @ORH_wxman….. I feel like we’ve been having decent luck with November lately but I 2006, 2011, 2015 come to mind as terrible.

I get it but if you go snowless in Oct/Nov how far behind average are you? I mean up here I’ve seen anywhere from a 6-inch November on the mountain to a 60-inch November… and that’s just like the past 15 years. It’s a highly variable month so it feels like seasons in seasons to be variable.

I guess I’ll bite, lol… what months do you average the most snow? (Seasons when they are supposed to happen?) To be honest flakes and graupel on two days in a week in the second week of November in CT sounds pretty close to seasons in seasons…

This is some torrential rain at the mountain.

Not a lot of snowmaking windows coming up... mostly high elevation stuff. There is a decent cold shot on Tuesday night into Wednesday that would be better for low elevations but man it warms right back up. Later in the week looks poor for snowmaking from like Thursday through Saturday as we rot around -3C to +3C at 850mb. Really need -9C at 850mb or lower to get any real appreciable snowmaking going where wet-bulbs at 1,500ft and above are 27F or lower. Snowmaking looks ok Friday afternoon and night....then out of the question except highest spots on Saturday... then nothing Sunday or Monday. This type of look is no snowmaking to be honest Thanksgiving or Friday. No snowmaking after Tuesday and Wednesday. It's going to be interesting how ski season starts. Right now it's not looking overly optimistic IMO knowing what is needed for most places to make snow. Getting a little concerned to be honest going into December, ha. We need some -10C at 850mb for more than 12 hours at a time, ha.

Raining and it is so dark outside right now at 2:10pm that the lights have activated in the plaza here. It looks darker out now than like 9pm in July.

Summers back broken yet?

Yeah I think given the sparse obs, we’d have started as snow and then rained or mixed in NNE. Stayed all snow in NY state in the cold sector west of the low.

The first ever mention of a SWFE? After further reading it seemed it meant a snowstorm on the southwest side of the storm. Deep snowfall closing the Erie Canal in NY with 3" of rain in PVD and road washouts in Great Falls, NH? It does say in another section that it started as snow in parts of eastern New England, with 5" at Lowell and 7" at Portsmouth followed by heavy rain. Can envision how it happened, pretty interesting storm and observations. Thanks for sharing.

Light freezing rain/drizzle leaving work. SUV had some light glaze starting. Car thermo said 32F.

Winter exists at 1,500ft is the motto right now, ha. Stick season exists below.

Any elevation above like 1,000-1,500ft is just absolutely glowing white.