powderfreak

I’ve had this discussion about the Whites with a few people, and there seems to be a thinking that the Mount Washington Observatory is more the unofficial forecast office for that zone. Their discussions and forecasts can be fairly in-depth at times for the mountains, and they issue on a regular cadence. It’s an interesting side angle to have another well renowned weather office (not NWS) covering those mountains. I think of it like out west, the NWS offices will issue watches/warnings and grids for the mountains, but they let the Avalanche Centers really take over the nitty gritty details. For example I think the Utah Avalanche Center is actually in the same office area as the SLC NWS. This is a great resource: https://www.mountwashington.org/experience-the-weather/higher-summit-forecast.aspx

Yeah I guess my point was people remember the weather they experience, not what the stats or pattern show. I get Kev’s point... no real snow to show for it, pattern is meh. Just like folks saying snowbanks aren’t melting, not a warm pattern. It all boils down to sensible weather.

It's like the obscenely mild pattern, people don't believe it because of the daytime highs don't feel that warm. People recognize the weather for what they experience. A good pattern that doesn't materialize is like a torch that isn't hot in the afternoon. ORH now at 25 days straight without a negative departure. Can they do a full month without a single below normal day?

True, but I doubt they are talking Berlin and even North Conway. NH looks very similar. The vast majority of readers will experience what they said IMO. It's likely not even worth reading for the area north of the Whites to be honest.

They didn't say that for your area though as I read that. They called out COOS county as an exception. I bet after the event as modeled though that 75% of their population is without snow cover, the majority of the area... not all of the area. We'll see what the Maine/NH posters have for snow cover after this, it could just be you and Alex which fits with the AFD.

See I'll disagree, I don't really see any issue with this discussion. Seems to lay it out that to the vast majority of their snow lover population this won't be a big net gain. I think the disco lays it out pretty honestly... for the vast majority of their population it will be a net loss, with the only exception being the few folks living in Coos County like Alex and Phin. For most snow lovers who live outside the sparsely populated areas, it won't be a good event...I actually think the AFD would be misleading if it was the other way around, advertising this as a positive event for the bulk of snow lovers, ha. .LONG TERM /FRIDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY/... ...Potential for a Moderate Impact Event This Saturday... Model guidance remains in good agreement for the first significant system in a few weeks it seems. A rapidly developing surface low on an approaching closed 500mb trough in the Ohio River valley will tap into Atlantic moisture on Saturday. IVT values are in the 90th percentile with a descent atmospheric river signature, but the signature if brief. Pattern recognition and longevity of this quick moving system most likely support a 1" widespread rainfall event on the coastal plain, with 1.5" across the southerly favored upslope areas. Most of the rain will fall in a quick 6hr burst moving from the south to north through the day. This is definitely an all rain event south of the mountains except for a brief period of snow to mix across the Lakes/Foothills Saturday morning. Overall, this will be a snowmelt storm for the majority of the area, so bare ground for mid-January looks to be the case by this weekend. The only exception will be the higher terrain of the mountains, where the snow could hang on a bit longer, but expect a changeover even here all the up to 3K feet. The only area we have to watch for a potential wet snow event would be Northern COOS county if things trend just a little cooler. Overall not a good event for snow lovers.

If the low goes west of you there's a pretty good surge of low level jet transporting moisture from way down south. If the low goes east of you, then for sure you won't have that warm conveyor belt slamming into the Whites.

Awesome! Nice work on filling in the data. Well done on that project, hats off. Yeah I'm bummed that we lost almost 4-6 weeks of data last winter after the COVID shut down. I was able to hike up there and get the end of season melt-out data but we did miss a lot during pretty much the entire month of April.

A different type of super-spreader event...

@froude do those snow depth data factor in missing data, ie on days when there’s no snow depth reported (early season had a bunch when the NOAA camera was down)? You probably could fill in some of the gaps as a baseline. I think this year the stake missed that big upslope event in early November that left 16” or so of depth. It probably wouldn’t alter the numbers all that much but I’ve always wondered how much some of the missing data days affect SDD up there. Last winter had a lot of missing data days when the camera went down in January. If myself or Andre didn’t get up to check it, the values aren’t there and don’t get added in to SDD. Then COVID closed the ski area and we missed a LOT of snow depth daily reports. Edit to say it’s still a terrible snowpack year up high so far, was purely just curious.

18z NAM not ideal. Lot of green precip there.

Hopefully we can use coldest climo time of year to produce something, but stepping back and looking at the overall set-up. We don't usually get big snows with an ULL going from Toronto to Watertown, NY. 12z NAM

12z GEM goes up the Champlain Valley. Not what we wanted to see there. Closer to the NAM solution. I will say, I find the 12z GFS east and weak more suspect given the larger scale upper level pattern. The 5H plots with a trough axis in like the Great Lakes looks like a cutter set-up, but somehow the GFS punts it east. The upper level winds are just like screaming almost due south to north at even 250mb.

Gotcha. I could just easily see the idea being drop that trail from the grooming plan as we hope to make snow on it tomorrow. As soon as I read the report that was my initial thought. Makes sense in an Ops meeting. But that really only works for the guest if you actually make snow on it, ha.

Will you be back up north for the weekend? The only advice I can give is it will snow at some point. The law of averages works out. Might be really crappy and as a first timer pouring over records all summer I get what the expectation was, figuring you'd have warning snows once a week. What'll happen is we'll get 20" in May or something too. The snow season is long, April is definitely a snowfall month in the mountains, some Aprils can be huge. There's plenty of time to at least get some good periods going. And if not, well then we try again next year. Eventually it likes to even out, in the past 5-10 years I've definitely changed from angst over a bad winter to just letting the process play out and see where the cards fall. Eventually climo will win out.

Haha there ya go! I just picture Phin in his log estate just blasting Phish and jam band music through thousands of square feet.... tossing out green plaid flannel to the kids and telling them to channel their inner mountain chill. Breath in with Mr Madison and nature, out with the mid-Atlantic.

It wasn’t snowing here and then I saw the ASOS was ripping 1/2sm moderate snow at MVL, ha. Radar had a real narrow band probably only a couple miles wide going right through the ASOS. METAR KMVL 131305Z AUTO 00000KT 1/2SM SN FZFG BKN013 OVC035 M03/M04 A2997 RMK AO2 P0000 T10281039

Yeah you can see the 925mb temps respond well to wind flow in VT/NH. Cooler values switching from east side to west side of the terrain with the wind change mid-storm.

Real marginal air mass. Might be a summit blue bomb and rain below 2,000ft based on the soundings.

The ol’ 998 over GFL.

I think we just need more chances, it’s been a dry stretch and a few weeks of climo without a good run of shortwaves producing weather. I think you’re right, get the flow “excited” and see what happens. Anything other than dry and boring from a weather enthusiast perspective.

If it’s a little east it’s big snow in ME. A little west it’s big snow in N.NY. It’s a whack-a-mole with the west side of the track seeing some snow.

18z ECMWF last panel. The mid/upper level wind flow is pretty much completely meridional, wherever the low tracks it should be a sharp south to north sling shot. 18z EPS frozen QPF.

Where'd you hear that? Just curious. Saw on the report they didn't groom it but were planning to make snow on Polecat. That's pretty standard practice to drop a trail from the grooming plan if it's on the snowmaking plan. Grooming normally isn't a job that struggles to get interest in rural areas, there are usually a plethora of Carhartt wearing heavy machine operators available (I love Carhartt for the record, wear it daily, not a dig). Many operate excavators in the summer and then grooming machines in the winter, usually one of the few jobs that ski areas don't have trouble filling.

It's just weird all around, but starts to dabble in politics if the discussion goes any further. It just grabbed my eye as it's Ryan Maue and we all know his work.