powderfreak

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.

Definitely not feeling any worry about melting out anytime soon. Stowe has arguably the best snow preservation being on Mansfield’s east slope where it only gets direct solar in the morning. The big tell at Stowe is if that north wall of the Notch (steep and facing south) still has 100% cover that the ski terrain on Mansfield isn’t even close to thinking about low tide. In my photo from earlier that’s the wall on the furthest right side of the photo at the edge of the shot. That north wall will melt out to 3,000ft in the spring sun before even 1500ft where the FourRunner Quad and Gondola are. We can often ski glades to the base area still while staring across at a snow free hillside. Even March 2012, 5 days of 70s with lows in the 50s didn’t end it.

Yeah this is spot on. The snow needs to get rained on or melt, refreeze, and then warm up again to get the corn cycle. Can't go from cold snowpack to hot like we just did because the snow gets super sticky and slow (as is happening today on a lot of the natural snow terrain). Those powder dendrites that were forming the layer of powder on top, just got wet and when those flakes get wet those big arms of the crystals act like a suction cup on your ski bases. Need to change the crystal into granular first, then warm it up. The past two days have had the best skiing on the man-made snow trails that are groomed and heavily skied as they have lost most of their powder qualities through the daily grinding. That stuff is the closest to granular snow and has skied so much better than the natural snow trails. The difference at Stowe between like Nosedive/Hayride vs. Starr and Goat is obvious when you ski them. From mid-mtn on down, the snow on Starr and Goat want to rip you out of your skis it's so slow and sticky...even with a fresh wax. We were joking it felt like your boot liners would just come right out of the shell with your feet attached. The man-made snow runs and heavily groomed are by far the best right now. After this though, we should refreeze and if we do not get any more snowfall the corn will be ripe the next time it warms up. But as soon as it snows, it resets itself and needs to go through the transformation again.

This sounds pretty accurate.

70F at ORH... wow that’s fairly impressive.