powderfreak

1-1.5” of wet snow at 1,500ft. This is power outage snow if an inch of QPF falls today.

A pasted quarter inch on the trees. Very wet it seems. This forecast for the mountain seems aggressive. Today Snow. High near 31. Breezy, with an east wind 19 to 24 mph becoming east 6 to 11 mph in the morning. Chance of precipitation is 100%. Total daytime snow accumulation of 8 to 12 inches possible. Tonight Snow. Low around 27. Light west wind increasing to 11 to 16 mph in the evening. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New snow accumulation of 4 to 8 inches possible. Sunday Snow. High near 27. Breezy, with a west wind 17 to 20 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New snow accumulation of 3 to 7 inches possible.

A friend described it accurately as an atmospheric tide going inland on SE flow (well up into Ontario/Quebec), and then getting blown out on a WNW flow. The moisture will go one way, and then back the other way out to sea. Those different motions will result in different precipitation patterns too.

Yeah, that freezing drizzle has to be all low level stuff... you are primed with moisture and ready to go. Once the deeper mid-level lift moves in, bet that’s good dense flakes.

I think those elevations get smoked pretty good down south. 10”+ possible. They do well with enhanced lift on the eastern side of the southern Greens.

Yeah I wasn’t sure how that spot would do if it was more SSEly at all levels like two days ago when the low went up the CT River Valley. I generally think if he’s real windy, he’s getting some better mixing as that’s usually what happens around these parts. Hard to get big gusts when the low level flow is upsloping. The QPF numbers though are fairly obscene for that thump. Could be a high end event. I think back here the mountains will put up some decent totals but it’ll take 36 hours or so as it usually does between front end and upslope. I could see Mansfield doing 12-18” total if it breaks right. Still some sneaky warm layers floating around though at 750-850mb tomorrow, tough call.

I think you'll do better with your elevation. Just like I think that's overdone for Stowe down at 750ft.... but upslope could get there. Your house at 1,100-1,200ft should do nicely as I feel like those highlands around there get good SE upslope flow.

I think you're plot there is in for a good dump. You'll come home to some solid plow piles.

Yeah that was right before 100” fell in a month, lol. Maybe that needs to happen this year too.

Not all Bostonians though based on the thousands that arrived in town today. No doubt VR knows what they are doing too. I bet it’s a similar play as last year... sometime in the spring to early summer they’ll come up with a refund program based on number of days skied. It’ll be right around the time the next year’s pass goes on sale and people will then turn around and buy next years’ pass with that money. I don’t know of anyone doing a straight refund at this time of year, but say IKON you can roll it over to next season if you can’t ski a single day this year. That’s what VR will end up doing IMO. They will try to figure out how much of it is COVID related and how much of it is just a really poor snow year and now people see a way to get money back. Still don’t get though why people thought the travel restrictions would lessen, I mean VT has had these guidelines since last March. That wasn’t a surprise for the guy who acts like this was a new thing. I didn’t know that you can’t go to NH from MA without quarantining on return though. I figured the NH areas were fair game.

You back up north early? Good choice.

I like that. Fair guess. Could go higher if it’s a full blue bomb, could also go 4-6” if it’s too wet and sloppy.

I honestly can't believe GYX doesn't have even an Advisory out for Coos County, population or not. Feels like the bust potential is there for like a heavy cake tonight.

I love the daily J.Spin-isms, getting Phin into the North Country mindset. In a year his name will change from Phin to Phish.

When the skiers and snowboarders write the AFD: "Froude numbers support blocked flow Saturday night with additional accumulations of 3-5" likely along the western slopes, then unblocked for Sunday with 2-4" on the lee side of the northern Greens. By the end of the event, elevations above 2000 feet look to get the snow we need with totals of a foot or more."

Hills gonna get a good “shot” of snow?

Probably 0.50-1.00" south of I-89/Winooski Valley.... 0.25-0.50" to the north of 89 on the front side? The NW cyclonic flow should add more to the north than the south as the event goes on. The 18z EURO was juicy. Upper slopes on the Spine should see a decent net gain in total.

That strong SE flow should bring forced parcel ascent as it hits the terrain. Some upslope cooling. I like 6-10” above 2000-2500ft in S/C VT. Snow maps are overdone spatially.

This gives me a warm fuzzy feeling... 12-hour total on Sunday for upslope. Synoptic part is likely a let down and then we let cyclonic NW flow do it’s thing. Snow growth zone is pretty deep too on Sunday, vs the much more narrow -12C to -18C layer on Saturday.

I was wondering if anyone noticed that. 18z HRRR and RGEM get a lot of snow into western SNE.

Ha no it wasn't dumb, I get what you were saying. IMO there's a stepwise gradient that often is most noticeable in 500ft jumps. Like 1000ft, 1500ft, 2000ft, etc. That 1500-2000ft zone is a snowy one for roadways and inhabitants.

I’m curious how your new house does with a more southerly wind flow, vs the NE flow in that other storm. I know you won’t be there, but should be interesting to see how wind flow going over the highest peaks may differ from coming in from the east in a very marginal air mass.

I mean it is but it’s also all relative. It just happens to be the higher end of inhabited elevations... like 2000ft will be better than 1500ft. 2,500ft would be even better, ha. It’s just that 1500-1800ft is usually like upper inhabited elevations on the whole. Down in SNE the 1,000ft level is usually talked about. Not because 1500ft wouldn’t be better but it’s sort of a relevant elevation. Like every time in Stowe I’m like wow, 1500ft did well... it turns out 2kft did even better ha. But it’s kind of a benchmark type elevation.

Everyone has roughly 5 inches OTG as an average it seems, ha. Highest is only 8" at 1,000ft near Jay Peak. Pretty crazy how uniform the snow depths are. Even only 14" at 4,000ft.

I have to imagine it might be close up in other parts of NNE here too. Not once have I gone outside this winter and been like, wow it’s cold out. Another morning here where the the temperatures at like 6am are warmer than the normal maxes for this time of year. 22F at the picnic tables this morning, normal is near 0F lol. But the snow isn’t melting, ha. So many days rotting at 20-32F.