powderfreak

When the cars start melting out at the Japanese ski resorts... ha! This is pretty wild.

That track coming down the Face there looks pretty damn nice. Trenchy.

Decent squalls on radar from the blocked flow on the west slopes. I bet that's mid-winter fluff coming out of those given the snowfall up here.

Been snowing steady light currier and ives at the ski area since I got here at 5am. Looked like another inch overnight on the hill. Fairy dust style.

Yup, and in these marginal events you often see an upslope/downslope temperature couplet where the snow levels are lower on the upsloping side due to the cooling associated with that forced ascent... and then on the other side you'll see a sharper rain/snow line. Just that extra 0.5C of cooling/warming between up/down motions can be the difference between @Froude getting 2" at 500ft on the west side and a sloppy coating at 750ft on the east side. I love that fascinating stuff though. The micro-scale differences caused by the mountains in different set-ups.

Today's event worked out for the ski areas as surmised... 3-6" with spot 7-8". The dense snow drying out on top led to some explosive turns.

Fair take. Wanting to ski powder leads to a place that produces frequent powder and whether or not it's looked at as a competition, it subconsciously happens in the decision process. All of my decisions have revolved around skiing fresh snowfall that I guess it happened organically but is essentially a competition between locations that leads to a given spot. Where I live is definitely backseat to the skiing.

I absolutely love it. The route finding aspect and grass skipping (you can send it no problem over a surprisingly large area of grass without slowing down much)... it's by far my favorite part of spring skiing. Following some ribbon or patches of snow without knowing if it'll end in raw earth or snow. We'll leave some stuff open even if you may have to "turf it" a bit. Slide across some wet leaves or grass. All in the fun spring skiing atmosphere. Since this winter seemed close to 2012... here's a shot from March 24, 2012 (that melt still leaves this season's melt in the dust)... blond mullet wigs and good times sending the strips of snow. This is an open trail, love this stuff.

Ha fair enough, it was a bit in jest.... you'd hate living where I do lol. I was just listening thinking to myself "Yikes" as I drove down the road this evening thinking about your Jackson and Conway posts. I'm sure those folks enjoy living there. Maybe I'd be ready to blow my brains out if I didn't spend 8-12 hours a day on the side of the mountain. No hard feelings.

You crack me up with this stuff, so competitive. Yikes in Jackson, what a pit in Conway, about to throw your phone out the window if GYX labels any bigger total in the PNS as "Gorham" . I can only imagine the stuff you'd think driving the few miles I do every day between the mountain and home, lol.

We call it "a fun challenge" on the report. It's a funny joke the locals love it on the report, been using that one for years and years... "ungroomed terrain will offer well, a fun challenge if you decide to try it" basically means best of luck if you survive it. A trail is "sporty" is another one. People seek those runs out if you call something sporty, they know what it means. They want to hop from patch to patch to avoid rocks and dirt.

Just a mulch topper here in the valley. The few remaining snowbanks have a decent accum (ha) but grass is pretty much completely torched. Very sharp gradient around 1,000ft here (seemed to be the line from like 1-2" to pretty much nothing) and 1,500ft is like a great winter event.

Still the all-time best COVID thread rabbit hole we all ever went down...

Awesome man. I bet that's one of the better totals for that elevation. I'm about to head home down into town but expecting a good drop off from Mtn Ops up here down to village level. Wouldn't be surprised to see just a wet coating. It was fun to be skiing in a winter environment again... with snow and blowing snow and cold surfaces. Seems like a long time ago when we skied some real natural snowfall with some moisture content in it, ha.

It's cranking again here now.

I don’t think Stowe Village has had more than a sloppy half inch at 750ft and there’s a little north of 4” at 1500ft. Sharp elevation gradient as happens this time of year.

Yeah that sounds about right for Jay at your elevation. I saw Smuggs reporting 8" at 11am which not going to lie, I don't like questioning because I know snow measuring can be tough but for that snowfall at that time would imply 1"/hr sustained from 3am to 11am. Especially when all the ski areas up and down the Spine seem to be in the same ballpark, that one stood out.

Eyeballing around 4" at 1,500ft on elevated surfaces. The evergreens are pretty caked. Still snowing. Not an earth shattering snow event but working out pretty decently given lower ratios than the 10:1 maps. The snow QPF is probably pretty close, I bet we've had 0.50+ frozen water so far.

Crushing snow in this thin band that just rolled into the Mountain or we must be getting something from it because snow just went up a notch or two on the intensity to legit snowstorm.

Good snowy day. We'll hit the 3-6" range at the ski area. Currently in that 2-3" range down here and 4" up top.

Ripping out now. Good deform band. Flake size and snow growth just exploded.

Looks like a bit of a lull now, but nice looking H7 fronto band should pivot east as that 700mb thermal gradient continues to swing through.

Was a real sporty drive this morning at 5am with 1-2" of heavy wet paste. Some seriously low ratios last night, ha.

Good point. Maybe the take is they are on top of things and achieving strong quality control. These companies want profits but I do believe they want high quality. Their desire to avoid negative quality and PR outweighs their desire to cut corners. I think they are on the ball overall.

Sweet. Notchbrook is a relatively good location relative to being close to the Spine axis. I still have some doubts down below 1,500ft on the east side but you'll do much better than my place there. I'm lower elevation and 3 miles east at home.