powderfreak

This photo is awesome and shows the Whoville caked vibe up high in the mountains. I think its fascinating to see the stepwise increases... like we've had good snowcover down here in the valley but it's been holding between like 10-15" lately on both the west and east sides in that 500-1,000ft elevation range. Once you get to 1,500ft+ it's a stepwise doubling of snowpack. Then it does it again at like 3,000ft+ and the 4,000ft elevations are absolutely buried after 5 weeks of orographic snow and rime and very little time (if any) above freezing.

Yup you're a long timer too. Think J.Spin was on them all too. I think I've known J.Spin online since like 1998 going back to the UVM SkiVT-Listserve. It's crazy when you think about the time frames involved. The internet was just really taking hold back then. All of us were like, wait, there are other people like us out there that we can discuss weather with? The posts were detailed and well thought out. You didn't just post for the sake of posting back then. You had to come with like supporting evidence and posts read more like scholarly discussions, lol.

Add me to that list. Found WWBB I think in the early December 2003 storm while at UVM. Remember all of you. Kev wished for cold summers still back then. Messenger in 2004-05 was just on another level though, dude became a legend during that time. It's wild it's been 20 years with some of ya'll over various forums. WWBB to EUSWX to AMWX.

Lack of ice crystals and nuclei in the dry slot. So what often happens is we’ll get the deeper mid-level WAA lift being a several hour period of steady snow… but then the mid-level dry slot punches through. Snow growth temperatures are so high up because of the warm air advection (but not above freezing)… we end up with supercooled water droplets and low level orographics enhancing moisture slightly in the mountains. Enter freezing drizzle and freezing mist. The type of stuff that coats your goggles and jackets but sometimes just seems suspended in the air, maybe not even weighing enough to fall to the ground. And if it is heavy enough to fall, it’s small droplet (drizzle) and low QPF. We see this quite a bit in these set ups… as soon as the mid-level lift exits northeast, it goes freezing drizzle or snizzle. QPF may not even be measurable but it can candy coat the snow, lifts, trees. And then if you do get a stronger shower or better lift it’ll go back to snow as the lift is usually higher up in that case. Those are the times when you get freezing drizzle and mist, then burst of snow then back to very light mist/drizzle… all at like 22F up on the mountains.

There was a power issue at the top of the Lookout Double that took the cam off-line. Friends in Lift Maintenance were nice enough to troubleshoot this morning and the cam came back online… only to discover it broke a weld while rotating into the massive drift that formed underneath it last night. So the board rotates at 6am and there’s one on the bottom and one on the top, and they just flip 180 degrees each day. A drift formed underneath the elevated platform and, well, broke it (not the first time it’s happened and not the last). So it was removed from the website while it’s getting fixed… but it’s never truly removed, it’s just hidden. The live image is still there at the source… which you can find this address if you look at the HTML code for the web cam page when the camera is active. https://player.brownrice.com/embed/stowesnowstake Lift Maintenance brought it down to the shop and was working on it this afternoon… we hope to have the platform back up tomorrow or Friday. Then it’ll be unhidden again from the resort page.

Ha that’s awesome. There’s so much snow at elevation.

Can definitely leaf blow 4”, unless it’s wet. 12:1 ratio is easily blown away.

1pm trail pow thanks to the upslope pulse. Whole mountain was refreshed during the day after the morning powder rush. Good local rush at opening to the overnight snowfall, then folks dispersed or went to work/school. As the morning rush was ending, it started dumping and was dropping 1"/hr there for a time. The afternoon turns were fantastic. It was snowing heavily at times. 7" at High Road as of 9am and it just kept going from there, with another 4" after that.

The Japan scenes look like a suitcase full of Benjamins, when compared with our nickels and dimes. The four feet in 12 hours is high-end.

Weekends are a bit of a gong show though, as often is the case at northeast ski resorts.

Flurries and light snow in town but once up Harlow Hill it’s pounding. Classic Stowe side gradient. Once you get to Binghams Falls and past there, it’s just full on buried.

Midweek is the time to go. The place is empty right now. Lot looks full but it’s all 1 person per car locals. All the lifts are ski on and empty chairs going up.

Talk about going into the snow portal… holy sh*t at 1500ft. The ski area is just stuffed with snow. Its dumping near 1”/hr upslope after 7” of denser snow overnight. There has to be 24-30” on the ground at 1500ft now. Road snowbanks are taller than SUV’s. Last night took this up another level with some good QPF rich snow. This little pocket up here is buried.

Ocean effect.

Front sagging SE through the area (past Montreal now) with a burst of QPF out ahead of it.

It’s a new cam with a live view. That old one was static low-def. A nice base area observation point there at Midway base lodge.

Not going to get 3” down low tonight, ha. Elevation dependent with the CAA lagging, needed to be above 1,000-1,200ft. Clawing to maybe 1” of slop below those elevations. 4+ up high so far but down low here got warm today.

Yeah it’s been like a white rain. A half inch sloppy coating.

Really raining my there? Snowing at 750ft here but really only sticking to cold surfaces. Roads and parking lots are wet in town.

You’re not the only one lol. The Stowe Family is always arguing with me that there’s more snow. I’m just trying to forecast what the High Road stake will show. We’ll see tomorrow. 3-6” with High Road closer to the 6” is my call.

I think we crust. It doesn’t take much, even if it’s snow to sleet to dry slot, that dry slot often is freezing mist/drizzle. It takes so little liquid to crust the snowpack I think we’d need some wholesale changes to that look on Thursday. Even the GFS warm sectors Thursday night after precip shuts off… which there are also varying levels of crust too. Maybe just a zipper that 100 underfoot can take care of.

Mountain snowpack already a good foot above normal and the snowpack is awesome with no rain in January. If the next 2-3 weeks hit we could be making a run at 100” at the stake. 2019 was the last time over 100” depth but it feels primed to take another step up sitting at ~5.5 feet with a potentially active stretch continuing.

First time in like a month we had to kill snow guns due to marginal temps. I think the mountain does another 4-6” tonight. A healthy 6 at High Road would not surprise me.

Snowing big flakes again. Thinking another 3” tonight at home, another half a foot for the mountain after last night’s 4”. If we hit on this active pattern, the mountain snowpack is going to get up there.

Can toss in upstate NY, and rural areas nation wide lol.