powderfreak

We've got more inversions coming the next couple of days. The views and photos have been stunning. Today was day 3 of this inversion business... coldest air in the base area and it was evening snowing today (and accumulating a bit) on the lower mountain out of this low level cloud deck. Crazy to have it snowing in the base area but sunny and warm at the summits. I generally use about 875mb for the summits around here. Can easily see the inversion on RH and temp plots. Thursday looks golden for beach weather at the summits in blue sky and light mild flow, ha.

Yes, just having flakes falling so much of the time gives that winter vibe. It keeps the top of the snow looking fresh (because honestly if the top layer is fresh, it all looks fresh) and it’s worth something when you love snow to not have to wait long periods of time between seeing flakes fall.

What about MVL? That one sucks with recording precipitation. It didn’t sample even a tenth of that last frozen event that was 0.50”+.

Whole-heartily agree. Just can’t hang your hat on the outcomes.

I don’t want to diminish the work of monthly forecasts, because I am not a long range guy. But the models struggle with events at 36-48 hours. Weekly or monthly stuff is purely a guess and it’s nearly impossible to know how actual snowfall totals turn out IMO. Weird and minor permutations can change the course of winter quickly.

Thanks, New England probably scores a huge widespread event with that confidence.

Last run at Stowe today. Punched out of the inversion, warm breeze up here in the sunshine. Colder and damp once into the cloud and dark below it.

Here's a great example regarding the snowmaking. This is the last few days of Mount Mansfield temperatures. This the summit and usually the coldest spot on average. See how it just rots for days at 20-30F? It's been doing this all December for the most part in the means. Heck it's even just above freezing now this afternoon. Now imagine that you shut it down at 26F-27F and in order to fire up the snowmaking system you want to have a good 8-12 hour run time to make it worth the effort. And these temperatures were cold enough to deliver a decent snowstorm but yet was generally unfavorable for significant snowmaking. Production is very minimal on the whole for the past three days with this temperature graph. The guns have been running except for this afternoon but you aren't getting much return for it and therefore terrain expansion is quite slow. Hopefully this stuff makes sense but it really is the temperature patterns have been unfavorable in the means. This summit station should be seeing highs in the teens at this point... not minimums in the upper teens. We should see several days a week with temperatures single digits up top too.

It's been real tough and I still think it's definitely the temperatures on the whole. I mean if we are running +5 to +8 over normal December temperatures in the mountains, that difference between averaging 20F (perfect for round-the-clock snowmaking) and averaging 27F (just above that snowmaking threshold) is IMO what is making it seem like ski areas aren't making as much snow as they can. It's been cold enough for some snow preservation and for natural snow and for comfortable winter recreation... but we should be seeing sustained mountain temperatures in the teens at this point. The temperatures have just been awful for snowmaking on the whole, despite being just cold enough for snow.

I feel like we've blown a good amount of snow at Stowe too given what's going on. System has been maxed out a lot on water and set the resort record for number of guns running at any one time earlier in the year. And regarding the land frame guns there, we do have a bunch of those still that get utilized but the definite shift has been towards fixed equipment (tower guns). Those land frames are good guns for warmer temps, just a pain to haul around and set up/break down everywhere.

Yeah so the old land frame snow guns (those jet engine sounding tripods) that used to get dragged around all over the place at ski areas and set-up to blast you at about head height can make snow at high temperatures pretty decently. That equipment is very good at high temperatures and high moisture but it's largely not used anymore except by like Killington early season up high. Really the sweet spot for snowmaking starts at a wet bulb of 25F and lower. You usually fire up at like 26/27 degrees and falling to come into it... on the upside you usually start shutting down at those temps on the rise and aim for full shut down by 28F. The production curve starts to bend sharply at that 26F type level on a lot of the energy efficient equipment. Like you can make snow at 29F but it really is a waste of time per acre foot of production. You are spending a lot of money to put down like an inch in 12 hours when say at 26F you can do that inch in an hour (not exactly but you get the idea of a sharp curve). The actual prime snowmaking temperature is actually 14 degrees per HKD company's tests... they found production actually decreases due to evaporation and losing water to the air or the parcels aren't heavy enough to fall to the ground. So like arctic air gives that large snowmaking clouds that float around in the air and it's just wasted water to be honest, ha. Snowmaking is fascinating to me.

Yeah I see that now. That's impressive for Cannon to be honest. We have 40 trails open at Stowe. I'll have to reach out to my buddy.

For sure at Wildcat it might be a possibility, I was more speaking generally about eastern ski resorts. I do think the weather factors into it more right now just because of the threshold of average temperatures and what constitutes a "good snowmaking run." With employee safety COVID protocols and the accountant side of it, I would agree that less money would be spent on shorter windows of snowmaking which is probably the right combo of weather and money. You won't burn start up money to charge the system if it's going to be turned off in 4 hours anyway. You're right on that side, I bet no doubt the shorter windows are impacted and this month has had a lot of up and down temperature swings with very short snowmaking windows.

No for sure it makes sense and for sure the budget is lower. But snowmaking budgets work a bit differently as more like when they run out, they run out. You would still dump all your money into as much early season snowmaking as possible. If you run out of it in late January, then you are done. But no one would pass up a snowmaking opportunity at this point to save money with the idea to allocate it to a later date. They would do it once the budget runs out (which happens even in good years). It's one of those things where the faucet is turned on full blast until the well runs out, vs. trying to save some water for later in the season. And more terrain, more lifts spread skiers out for social distancing and all that stuff. The goal is to spread people out this year. I know from being in the daily snowmaking meetings that at least locally it's a weather, transport, and labor issue at this point instead of trying to save money. The idea in snowmaking is to spend your money as fast as possible and get those dollars on the ground in the form of sleet, ha.

No I bet everyone is trying extremely hard. The casual skier has been ripping the ski industry for "not trying" but I think it's more of a lack of understanding of snowmaking too... or at least an educational piece. Places really need sustained 25-26F or below to make snow. Days rotting at highs of 32F and lows of 24F really are just a waste. We've gotten hammered by people wondering why it's 28F but there's no snowmaking. Most of the energy efficient equipment now does need lower wet bulb temperatures. The old school land frames that like Killington drags out in October can make snow at 28F but most of the newer stuff (energy efficient!) needs colder temperatures. The large fan guns we have shut themselves off at 26F. The main system at resorts can take hours to sufficiently charge too. When charging the system, it takes a decent time to get sufficient water pressure up 2,000 vertical feet of terrain. Resorts are pretty nimble, but in general snowmaking isn't going to fire up for 3-4 hours of temperatures during the early morning hours. So like a brief low of 22F doesn't really do any good. It needs to get down low and stay there for 6-8 hours at least to be worth firing up. The temperatures have been very warm too. Looking at the Mansfield COOP data for the Summit (ie. coldest place around).... December 2020 was +7 to +8F above normal. And here's where it impacts snowmaking: Normal December... 22F Max and 8F Min This December... 29F Max and 17F Min The mean temperature this month was 22.5F (at the summit, coldest place on the hill) compared to 15.3F normally. That's actually an extremely significant difference for our snowmaking. Normal December temperatures are just cold enough for round the clock snowmaking on average, but if all elevations average 5-8F higher than normal we are crossing that threshold where it's very unfavorable. MVL ASOS down in radiation-ville was +5.3... a significant positive departure. In my semi-education opinion on snowmaking and weather, I think this start to the ski season has been a perception issue where the temperatures haven't been cold at all. It's actually ridiculously warm for departures to be honest. But it also has rotted for days and days of temperatures that are just cold enough to preserve snow or get natural to fall, but NOT be cold enough for decent snowmaking if that makes sense. This month crossed the threshold with temperatures relative to normal where it has drastically impacted snowmaking operations at a lot of resorts. The constant start up, shut down, start up, shut down, is a huge amount of human capital too. The labor and time to do that over and over and over all month is not ideal. Also with COVID restrictions, you used to be able to put a dozen snowmakers into a Bus Cat (Snowcat with transport cabin on back of it) and drop them off all at once. Now snowmaking teams at area resorts need to transport each other one or two at a time. Can't fill 12 seats in a Bus Cat and drop everyone off in one run, now it can take hours to get a full crew out where they need to be. Lots of behind the scenes stuff, but hopefully it sheds some light on the snowmaking challenges so far this season with regards to average temperatures and how a warm month of this magnitude can affect it.

Yeah it just came with Peak Resorts (Mt Snow, Hunter, Wildcat, etc). A good friend of mine is the GM at Wildcat now, worked with him for a while here at Stowe. There’s often a lot of challenges behind the scenes too... who knows what the equipment is like or if there’s a larger infrastructure issue with snowmaking. Could be staffing, or just perception too, lots of things. I highly doubt it’s because they just aren’t trying lol.

Crazy there were some 8-13" amounts in PA from this one. Decent deform axis of Advisory snows through NY up into Rutland VT area and eventually up into Upper CT Valley.

1.5" was the total at home this morning from last night's burst when I measured at 7am. See some pretty decent totals in spots... a couple 3-4" range in the Upper CT Valley west of Alex and then 3-5" in Rutland County.

Pretty sure we picked up 1" of fluff in about 30 minutes while out on the evening dog walk in Stowe Village on the groomed Rec Path. This is what people remember when the spend the night in a ski town and 40-50% chance of snow turns into a nice period of moderate snow. Weakening on radar but also slowing over the area. Hopefully we can deform for a bit.

It's been ripping snow in this band. Pretty sure we picked up 1" of fluff in about 30 minutes while out on the evening dog walk in Stowe Village on the groomed Rec Path. Eyeballing about 1.5" total since the band rolled in. Snowy evenings FTW and total weenie just enjoying a walk in winter. Weakening on radar but also slowing over the area. Hopefully we can deform for a bit.

Awesome, looks just like a wall of snow moved up through central VT. Really snowing out here now. Seems very high ratio stuff.

For sure, won't amount to much, maybe a 1-2 inch dusting. But damn if I don't love anything more than a snowy evening. Literally one of my favorite things is watching the flakes fall in the flood light out the big windows in the living room. Snowy night with the dense snow cover... finally looking like winter. Snow growth is phenomenal, zero water falling from the sky, ha.

This looks pretty interesting all the sudden. Those are some solid returns coming up from the south for this great snow growth. I bet J.Spin is now seeing 1"/hr rates at least as it just moved over the Interstate/Winooski Valley corridor.

Had a great time yesterday with some snowfall finally. Saturday semi-holiday weekend for the New Year but no matter what anyone tells you about crowded mountains, there are always places to hide. Had Big Spruce all to myself yesterday. This was 1pm on Saturday at Stowe. Nice surprise to take truly empty laps with only a handful of over people skiing/riding the zone.

This looks pretty interesting all the sudden. Those are some solid returns coming up from the south for this great snow growth. I bet J.Spin is now seeing 1"/hr rates at least as it just moved over the Interstate/Winooski Valley corridor.