powderfreak

Yeah it’s been nice seeing twilight on the horizon when I get to the mountain at 5:15am. No more. But I’d rather have light in the evening over morning on the whole.

I saw in the Boston news that this is the last day the sun will set before 6pm until next October. Can’t believe it’ll still be this light out at 7:20pm tomorrow.

There was that time when Eyewall had just moved up here that BTV went 2 years without a warning level event around the 2015/2016 time frame. I also think regarding event totals, some folks might break "events" up differently... I know you can tally an "event" for several days if it's the same trough or upper level low, right? Thinking of an event in a way that's different than looking at a list of individual CoCoRAHS 7am totals. Like an event may span several different morning reports... if you get 3 days of snow showers at 1.7" a day but it's all the same general pattern, that "event" may be registered as 5.1".

Nice yeah models highlighted that area well.

1,500ft... looked like a couple inches overnight. At least a fresh white look again. Only an inch in town with the wind basically just filling in the footprints.

Good squall.

These squalls are legit. Windexy. KBTV 130259Z 31019G39KT 1/4SM R15/1800V5500FT +SN FZFG BKN005 OVC060 M01/M03 A2999 RMK AO2 PK WND 32032/0255 Burlington Airport with 19G39 winds, 1/4 mile visibility in +SN. That's a solid squall. Snowing hard here now.

KBTV 130259Z 31019G39KT 1/4SM R15/1800V5500FT +SN FZFG BKN005 OVC060 M01/M03 A2999 RMK AO2 PK WND 32032/0255 Burlington Airport with 19G39 winds, 1/4 mile visibility in +SN. That's a solid squall. Snowing hard here now.

Crowds have been ramping up steadily since Presidents Weekend. Folks are getting the vaccine, feeling the end goal coming near, and a good deal of people are openly traveling for the first time in a year. I talk to folks all day long, many say they skipped Christmas and earlier vacation periods but are finally heading out for some leisure time now. It feels right too, long days of sunshine coming out of the dark days. People are upbeat for a reason and they are traveling again.

Always go with spruces. Smaller evergreens always look best in the snow, IMO. Great training squall there (I think you are east of the 302 marker where the county line bends back south?).

We had the appetizer snow showers but we'll have to see what happens when the actual FROPA gets here. Gusting to near 40mph at the airfield ahead of the line.

I love the scenes around your place... landscaping and lighting always seem perfect for that winter vibe. Great squall there.

00z HRRR, keeps highlighting Jay Peak and the same general areas of Northeast Kingdom of VT, N.NH, NW ME and southern Quebec.

Yeah there’s a really nice looking line across the whole international border. Jay Peak looks to have been getting smoked too and it goes all the way back into NY.

Yeah we have flakes flying too. Big ones, still warm enough for some aggregation. Mansfield teed up a pretty decent snow shower down into town. Edit: And just like that a fresh coating of white. Getting back on track.

Yeah I don’t think it’s all upslope either... there’s a bit of a synoptic look as well with pretty decent upper level energy dropping right through your area. I can see why models have a 0.50-1.00” QPF north of there into southern Quebec. Tonight wave drops through with best vorticity going from Jay Peak and then ESE through your area and towards the mid-coast. Then tomorrow night another piece of energy does the same thing. Can tell why the models like that area of southern Quebec into NNH/NW ME.

Yeah I really like the Jay Peak area over towards northern Coos especially (Pittsburgh and the CT Lakes). That far NNH and extreme NW ME is modeled some decent QPF over the next 48 hours from the two waves. Definitely two distinct periods, tonight and then again tomorrow night it seems. Flow looks fast and unblocked so this stuff should get downstream of the crest, pushing it into NEK of VT much more than usual upslope. 18z GFS 18z HRRR 18Z 3km NAM... overdone as usual on the peaks counting rime as QPF. 0.41” at MVL is interesting though showing the unblocked flow. 18z RGEM

We delayed opening to regroom key intermediate routes. Was a fun morning in the Mtn Ops office, rapidly changing plans, radio chatter gets a bit more exciting ha. When I first radioed the groomers at 5am it was a pretty rugged report. Turned out much better than expected.

Some upslope refresh coming? Two different waves could bring some appreciable QPF. GFS not biting but EURO/GGEM/NAM seem decent. EURO GGEM

Your area lost like 4-6" in a day per CoCoRAHS across SNE and the fluff bomb to the north was the opposite of a mature snowpack. That one had much higher dews and heavy rainfall too.

Down at 750ft in the village we never had a big pack (kept maxing out around 18-20") but still holding onto 10-12" on average. It is getting towards mid-March down here in the valley so without refreshes, it usually does start decreasing/fighting a losing battle this time of year. Up at 1,500ft and above along the spine there a few miles west will hold 18-20"+. The one thing I noticed this evening on the dog walk was how variable the temperature was. If the wind went calm, it felt chilly and cooled off very fast...like the snow/ice was giving off a refrigerated feeling. When the wind would blow though, it was hot. Any breeze led to temperatures that did not jive with the winter scene. It was in the upper 50s when this photo was taken, though it seems like it would look similar if it was 20F. What's left of the snowpack down here is going to freeze solid come the weekend and should last another 10 days at least given the current models.

The victim. When was the last time you saw 15 inches disappear in a day without rainfall? Even 10 inches?

It's pretty much physically impossible to lose 15" of mature snowpack in a day, without rain. Even with 3" of rain and dews of 60F I think it would be hard to do. Maybe fresh snow after a storm but not a mature pack. I remember March 2012 when we had highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s for several days in a row the mountains would lose 6-8" a day. Though that one is hard to compare as we had just gotten a 36 inch fluff bomb of an upslope event (36" in 36 hours) and that fluff went real fast in those temps and skews it a bit.

You’ll be trying to bring 60+ dew points to Montreal and Caribou in like 3 weeks. When you change to warm season mode, you change fast. I find it hard to believe if he lost any more than 3-6” as I don’t know if we lost 3-4” here today and it was just as warm and sunny.

Now that he’s over winter and onto spring he will try really hard to melt everyone’s snow... he’s just fishing. Looks maybe 3-6” different, if that, from the prior day’s photo.