powderfreak

12z ICON and GFS not buying those much colder solutions.

Yeah for sure. At some point our luck should break right... maybe not luck but climo will eventually kick in at some point. Or maybe climo is the reason we've had so many days of snow cover in a shit pattern despite it not being deep. I feel like 66% of the days since Nov 1st have been at like 1-3" snow depth, lol. The other reason this might go our direction is the calendar year is no longer 2020 but 2021 when this hits

Getting interested again after the 6z Euro and 12z NAM lol.

Finally saw some brief blue skies this afternoon, after a day of snow showers and even some brief 1/4sm vis bursts. Cold, winter weather finally.

It vastly over does QPF in its mountain grids sometimes. Almost like it mistakes rime or some sort of QPF trigger in the algorithm. The synoptic set up doesn’t support these values... MVL here isn’t getting 0.40+ water and the mountain 1+... MWN isn’t getting 2”+ QPF. Especially with such a sharp drop off around all precip maximums. You’ll see that a lot with the 3km NAM. You gotta average the highs and lows but often it’s a flaw in the model for the high QPF dots over the mountain grid points.

Down to 6F at 9pm at the ASOS near here, the snow cover certainly helps, even if only 2-3” of now crusty snow... no grass blades exposed certainly helps wring the cold out. The top of the ski area is 3F, with a stiff breeze. 44G48 wind speed for a wind chill of -26F right now at the top of the chairlifts, ha. This afternoon and evening is the first time in a long while it’s felt legitimately winter cold.

Yeah the beam is just too high in that area... because we can't use the 1st tilt as it's blocked by terrain and need to go up to higher degree scans. Composite works best up in your areas but still overshoots the upslope usually. I generally do what you do and you can infer what's happening based on the signature further south towards Mansfield. If echos are building in the northern Champlain Valley and adjacent western slope areas up there in Richford, you can be sure it's also lighting up over the Jay area. I've never really looked but it just occurred to me you might get better coverage out of the Canadian radar sites. I'd assume there's one in Montreal or near there. Ground is really flat around there so it might get a decent sample around Jay. The big limiting factor is higher terrain near the radar sites (ie BTV). Like GYX out of Gray, ME actually samples Phin at the same elevation overhead as BTV does here, despite me being only being like 20 miles from the radar site and Phin 60 miles from the GYX site. Both of us get sampled at around 5-6k feet elevation.

It’s *almost* like you do this for a living. Almost.

Radar never really shows Jay in the low level precip as the beam overshoots it, but I bet you’re doing well in this regime. We actually have some sun coming out down south here now after some good pulses of snow.

Ha nothing but dollar bills evaporating off those heated walkways. Just straight steaming at this point.

Snowing borderline heavy now. Visibility is probably 1/4 mile.

Still shoveling that GGEM snow. Looks like the coldest and best possible solution with good front side snows and good upslope...Mansfield Medley in between.

That's always been my thought process. The Lake is too narrow to really get any pure lake effect going with the exception of those due north winds that can sometimes bring pure lake effect into parts of Addison and northern Rutland County. But at the same time having a 7 mile wide body of water in a basin upstream of the Northern Greens certainly can't "hurt" by any means. The best lake effect/upslope combo IMO is usually MRG and Sugarbush area... they can get some actual streamers going once upslope gets factored in.

A few tenths overnight in town but 3” on the upper mountain in the snow belt. About 1.5” at 1500ft. Snow cam looks like it happened fast.

That is 2015, just for the record. Not sure if it matters but it's at least white and wintry looking on the view.

Yeah it’s not idea but in an odd way it keep visitations down which is a good thing given state guidelines and companies guidelines. It’s not as bad as that photo from 2015 but it’s crazy to think about how (relatively) crowded it would feel in a COVID season with everyone trying to run safely. Starting to drift off-topic but let's hope we see some change or shake up to get things more winter/active.

The only thing that makes it ok is that the yard has had a surprising number of days of snow cover (not depth) for such an overall sh*t start to winter. Several unexpected snowy days, but no big storms since Nov 2-3 when 10" fell. That's almost two months ago at this point. But then again there is this photo from the holiday period in 2015 when we opened the summer attractions (zip line tours actually launching from 3,600ft). That winter of 15-16 is still tracking to be much worse, ha.

Yeah we have light rain in town but light snow is falling up the road. Great snowball snow tonight as the fluff has compacted to 2-3” of wet snow now...my dog loves chasing snow balls. Good replacement for a tennis ball.

BML... 42F MVL... 40F MPV... 39F BTV... 41F Mild evening in some NNE ASOS sites.

That is true... even if we get a Grinch storm, it seems like after heading into early January we get some blast of arctic air mixed in there. The lack of great snowmaking weather has been very noticeable at the ski areas. Even if it doesn't snow, there's usually some arctic shots between them. I don't think the general public likes arctic air between warm ups, but it usually leads to good snowmaking and terrain expansion. This season it's like hey, after each cutter we'll give you 36-48 hours of decent but not fantastic snowmaking temperatures before having to shut it off again. Snowmaking generally needs wet-bulbs of 25-26F to get appreciable accumulation, and this is the summit station with the near 850mb temperatures. Often warmer below that.

What's worse: rock solid frozen bare ground at 0F while BWI to PHL get a couple big snowstorms, or bare ground at 40F while it doesn't snow anywhere?

Yeah your area does really well in CCB's... same with the Green Mountain Spine (J.Spin and ski resorts) and western slopes. When you can get that solid mid-level lift to overlay with strong NW orographic flow there's like a seeder-feeder mechanism on crack. It can wring out some big QPF. Anytime you can get upslope flow going on underneath strong synoptic lift it's going to be a good time, ha.

That is 100% true in every single event, ha. Synoptic storms have so many more variables than just "wind flow, moisture, mountains".

Agreed, that front side should favor your part of NNE and backside upslope probably more likely to be productive over this way. Locally, I’m always hesitant with a warm tongue aloft that it will be more mix and less snow than models show. Or it could be like some of them that show just straight ZR to RN on the front end.

Yeah, some snow to ice to rain back to snow. Better looking backside upslope signature too.