powderfreak

Even in crappy winters you guys still seem to get a good storm lol. It may only snow once in a ratter or something but it’s a good storm when it does .

Yeah what are some of those 6” storm stats from the 80s and early 90s? I remember Will listing some numbers and you couldn’t bank on a 6 inch event even once every 2-3 years. Now they seem to grow on trees. I remember hearing it and not believing it…how rare 6”+ was down there for like 15 years.

2 hours ago it was 61F, now it’s 39F and free-falling. It happens fast this time of year.

She rolled around in the frost for sure. She seemed to understand it wasn’t snow ha, but was like “I guess this will do.” I almost thought it was snow from a distance because I was like wtf is that trail white for? Like it’s late afternoon, is that still snow from the other day? Never expected frost to be that robust. Like even the evergreens were white , looked like they had snow on them from a distance.

It’s that time of year when frost survives all day long in the shadows. 3:30pm and walk to wall frost still on the northeast aspects.

27F was the morning min... heavy freezing fog too at 6-7am, even frosted the evergreens a bit. Didn't see any rime ice on the hardwoods though.

30/30. Frosty already. Should fog out soon. It's 36F at 4,000ft. Over at MWN, it's 34/-2, while BML and HIE are 29F and 28F respectively. Valley bottom cold.

Burlington is one of the more awesome places I know for what I want in a semi-urban setting. Big lake, mountain views of the Adirondacks across the water setting the scene... the multiple colleges/university can add to a younger more optimistic vibe on life. I guess that's why they call these small cities "vibrant." It's climate is definitely a much more mild one than either the west slopes or areas east of the Spine. BTV and the Vermont side of the Champlain Valley is a place of warmth in relative terms. A great growing season for the latitude. The wind is always moving, very poor radiational cooling, and well mixed funneling low level jet messing up the inversion there. Compressional warming on other flows.

Yeah, Stowe Electric is great. Stowe Cable too. Very responsive municipal utilities around here to be honest, especially for the mountain topography, weather and remoteness of transmission lines. They are used to cutting up trees. Highly funded Vermont town utility company, great response time and skill. That's my google review.

In CT they'd be done for another 3-5 days? Glad to see folks getting power back today on here... that's actually pretty decent for a storm this level IMO.

Damn. That's like microburst straightline wind style but from a synoptic storm. October has been a damaging month over the years.

We’ve had some good November’s… almost better than December’s have been. Some real cold shots too. It’s been a wintry month. Last year I had 10.5” on like Nov 2-3rd… I think it was the only storm with 10” or more in one single snowfall in my backyard . November snows are great because they vastly shorten stick season… this gray lifeless time of year that looks like a history movie from Chernobyl. Snowfall, even 1-3”, really brightens it up.

31F here with a lot of frost. Grass is bright white.

Yeah man, great silky snowmaking whales are one of the best surfaces out there for having fun... popping off the piles, having confidence in the surface. The crazy thing is even at 0-10F you'll end up with some blue snow in the middle of the piles, so sometimes the best option is to just let skiers have at it for a few days. That silk turns to chalk and snowmaking whales become a playground. At Stowe it usually has to be an expert level trail, but sometimes can be a secondary intermediate route that is open ungroomed with snowmaking.

Been a fun read SNE crew. Impressive damage there in SE MA. You guys do ocean storms the right way.

Pretty cool radar… similar in look to upslope. I’m assuming it’s speed convergence as the fast flow off the water slows due to land friction and you get lift/precip along the South Shore in consistently same spots, with the best echos mirroring the coastline orientation.

Haha it’s a big perception issue. Trying to explain why a trail is buried in snow but is just sitting there for a couple days. Often the decision is made based on quality vs quickness of opening trade-off. If it’s a main route that will spread skiers out, even if icy, just opening it up will lead to a better experience… those usually open fast and you hope to fix it with more grooming or natural snow in the coming days. If it’s a secondary route, it’s definitely going to sit for a few days to drain.

Obviously the "product" is much better if it's not too rushed though. Ideally you make snow on the trails you want to open, and then can let the piles drain for a couple days, while you make snow on other trails. That's generally the play if its an ideal world. Then you can open up some groomed terrain (the trails that had time to drain) and some ungroomed on the routes with current snowmaking. When I say drained too... all the snowmaking water likes to pool in the middle of those big snowmaking piles/whales. So when you see fresh snowmaking and jam your pole into it, and look down a foot or two to see blue snow or even water... that's what ideally has time to drain to the bottom and into the ground. Generally if rushed to open and short on time, you are forced to have to put snowcats on that and spread out the snow right after it's made. In that case you are generally smearing that wet soaked snow from the middle of the piles all over the trail. Leads to a very icy product. There's a big difference in snow product from snowmaking that has the chance to sit for a couple of days before being pushed out... and snowmaking that just gets pushed out right after it's made. That's always why at mountains you'll see big snowmaking piles sitting there for a few days and people are usually like "why hasn't that been groomed and open yet!?" It's because they are letting it dry out, not because they are lazy lol.

Yeah depends on what people mean when they say "cover a trail" because there's making it white, making it skiable, and then making it an actual product that you can sustain traffic on. Killington North Ridge area is like 500 verts and the trails are reasonably narrow. That's like 24 hours and you can groom it out with a cat. 12 hours and you can probably open it ungroomed. At Stowe we have to open top-to-bottom and need at least a good 72-hour run time to adequately put depth down on 2,000 vertical feet to the point where it can sustain daily grooming and skier traffic.... as well as put enough snow/depth around the lift load/unloads to support operations. Still, it can happen pretty fast. It can be warm until like November 12th and then get a cold shot in the teens and things are ready to go like 4 days later. A place like Killington opening the North Ridge can pull it off in probably 36-48 hours from gun start time to loading public skiers on a lift.

Do you have a snowcat to push uphill? Its something that being familiar with the snow output of the operation that if you think you can do it, you probably can. Mother Nature is the biggest wildcard though.

This notch in the velocity data, following the coastline. What a loop. Thanks dude.

This would be quite a winter storm... 2.30+ inches of water so far from SYR to BOS suburbs. Big water amounts over a wide range of areas. Some 5-6+. Pretty impressive and still going.

I hate that it does make me feel older to dislike these days... but man I am definitely not a fan of these chilled, wet rainy days. Low clouds, low ceilings experience, where terrain just rises up into the clouds in all directions... gets dark with headlamp required to be outside by 6pm. After the time change in a couple weeks, it'll be dark at 4:30pm. A few months ago it felt like you could start a hike at 6pm, hang outside for an hour or three. Days and days of dark, chilly rains. Seems like stick season in the hills though. It held off for as long as possible but now we are in it until it starts snowing with more frequency.

The rain totals have been solid. This thing is making some QPF... all the way back through SYR in upstate NY. I know most want wind but it's a solid synoptic moisture laden system, need some of these in the true cold season.

This is still one of the best memes I’ve seen for this forum. Well played.