powderfreak

I don't know. Aside from snowmaking which I'm sure few care about, I feel like it would be much worse if we were below zero the entire time. But to run no measurable precipitation for 10 days in spots... that's a snoozer. Didn't even look that close either.

Is this the summary of "10 Days in January", ha. What a snoozer.

Snowing in town this morning and up to about 1,500ft.... Grooming team on radio telling me they have clear skies above about 2,500-3,000ft. "It's been snowing about halfway up the hill at times tonight and then you drive out of it." It's crazy how good the snow growth was this morning driving in for coming out of a cloud that's only like 1,000ft thick. Only a dusting but those were legit big flakes, the type when you hit your high beams it looks like you are driving a space shuttle. This inversion has been bonkers this week.

Sweet day out there. Packed powder. chalky bumps with bluebird overhead and a Notch filled with clouds from the trapped low level moisture.

If it's going to be low-tide, at least it's still a post-card most of the time. The daily views remind us of what a world we live in.

Rare Kelvin-helmholtz clouds, series of waves traversing the ridge line. Checking all the boxes these past few days with awesome clouds.

Way behind...

Pretty awesome wave-breaks going on this morning. Caught this one while riding the Gondola. Just big waves rolling in and curling into the mountain.

Another solid inversion morning. Absolutely bonkers gradient right now on the summit at Stowe... 3,600ft... 15F top of FourRunner Quad 4,000ft... 25F at MMNV1 The MMNV1 data is jumping all over the place, 5 degree swings in the 5min data. A couple hours ago went from mid-teens to mid-20s... but still bouncing right at the inversion level. It's either mid-20s above it or mid-teens below it. View from Whiteface in the Adirondacks this morning:

Time lapse I took this afternoon. https://www.instagram.com/p/CJt1W0pB3An/

The 5 days to start January have been almost hot relative to normal. It just goes to show how low normal is this time of year than it can be so far above average and still snow... still keep snow on the ground. BTV is a quick +10.5 over the past 5 days to start January, and Mansfield summit at +12.5. Low diurnal changes likely the culprit. Mansfield normal temps the past few days are 18/3... the actual 29/17. Pretty impressive actually! With a strong subsistence inversion those summit departures won't get much help through the first 7-10 days of January.

It has really been a blow torch over the past two months. Terrible for snowmaking weather but also shows just how cold the NNE climo is that we can be *this warm relative to normal* and still keep some form of snow cover. It has been pretty high end warmth in the mountains though. Higher elevations seem to be the worst but it's been extremely warm in the means everywhere. +7.3 for a monthly departure at Mansfield for December and +5.3 at MVL. I do think the valley has been cooler relative to normal compared to the high slopes due to radiational cooling kicking in at times. This recent pattern though has been pretty rough relative to normal. Getting a snow event out of it has definitely hidden the warmth. It's masked the just absolute torch this winter has been so far. On a 2011-2012 level at this point up here as far as temperature departures go... even going back to early November 2020. Here's the 60 day departure.

Yeah that's the disclaimer statement to the public.

It's like he's realizing something that many mets realized a decade ago. It doesn't matter to the masses unless it's realized at the SFC level. Still is very useful information for the science, but the perception and verification is what happens on the ground.

Here's another one from a friend (not my shot but similar view). Mountains make weather really so much more interesting when you can actually see the atmospheric profile in the vertical.

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.