powderfreak

Some epic Ginxy blowing and drifting today. The fields are just huge plumes of last nights powder blowing everywhere.

They are getting crushed. Some of the photos from this morning in the foothills were impressive, can’t imagine now.

No f'in way man. That's amazing. I mean truly special shot.

Snow growth has definitely been maximized when the snow showers and squalls move through. Extremely high ratio snow.

The restaurants around here have taken the brunt of it, and sounds like also up there when you were going to eat lunch. Definitely the maskless act of eating out seems to be hitting restaurant staff hard. It’s been literally every restaurant around here in the past two weeks or so.

I think we just avoided it for so long and can’t be blamed on any one thing. But since President’s Week in February it’s been straight out with tourism. Folks letting their guard down and re-entering society. So many people who haven’t traveled since last year based on what they have said. Party houses via AirBnB also a huge increase... multi family vacations again, that stuff. It’s been a challenge getting folks to wear masks again (everyone was on the mask train for the first few months of winter but now you get a lot of push back from some guests. “Oh we are still doing that?” Is a common response. It’s everyone though, not tourists or locals... just a general vibe of let-it-rip all the sudden for whatever reason. I think people have definitely let their guard down and are relaxing again... and cases ballooned locally.

Powder morning on the hill. Around 6” but with wind it’s like 2-10”. Mansfield Magic last night.

Only 8-10" depth, with 2" of new cotton candy. Love the frequent snows more than anything here... evenings watching it snow? Love it. The snow growth has been great and we should maximize any QPF that falls. We melted a lot in the past 3-5 days, but now getting some refresh. Fresh snowfall look to cover up the brown snowbanks along the roads. The mountain has to be getting crushed.

Jay is favored for snow totals in my opinion with energy moving in from the NNW. Good vort max moving from Jay to the Whites again.

It’s snowing hard. We’ll be at 2” down at 750ft soon. Looked like the mountain elevations passed 2” a little bit ago.

Just found out my brother-in-law's father is in the ICU and on a ventilator with COVID... he's in his upper 50s. Been worsening steadily each day. No real known health issues prior. I feel for what my brother in law and sister are going through... definitely the closest COVID has hit me so far. Also heard my car mechanic in town was on a ventilator and then passed away in the past few days. Pretty much every restaurant in town has been closed at some point in the past couple weeks due to COVID positives. They've all been very open about it on social media, explaining the closures. The department of public safety had a free pop-up, drive-through COVID testing site at the Stowe High School last weekend due to the high numbers of positive cases locally.

Here we go. Flake size is great. It's saturating but in another 10-15 minutes we should be seeing the full extent of it. Radar looks pretty good for a solid pulse. Composite shows the best echoes west of the Spine but the fall out of precipitation lower down in the atmosphere is definitely further eastward as per usual upslope radar. Good downwind drift as you lower the scan level of radar.

18z GFS, lol. I’ll eat my hat if MVL comes anywhere close to half inch QPF in this next upslope round. 18z Euro looks more like reality with 0.25” QPF of arctic fluff.

Yeah dude, chilling up top at the picnic tables on the Octagon deck in the sunshine at like 5pm before skiing down last run is awesome. Love that late sun on the mild days on the mountain. Hoping for some fresh snow over the next 24 hours though... models have some decent squalls with the incoming upper level energy and CAA. They’ve got a few inches in the zone forecast and gusty winds. Winter is back. Tonight Snow showers likely. Snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches. Lows in the lower 20s. West winds 15 to 20 mph. Chance of snow 70 percent. Sunday Cloudy with a 50 percent chance of snow showers. Total snow accumulation of 3 to 5 inches possible. Blustery with highs in the upper 20s. Northwest winds 15 to 25 mph. Gusts up to 40 mph in the afternoon.

Yeah it’s been nice seeing twilight on the horizon when I get to the mountain at 5:15am. No more. But I’d rather have light in the evening over morning on the whole.

I saw in the Boston news that this is the last day the sun will set before 6pm until next October. Can’t believe it’ll still be this light out at 7:20pm tomorrow.

There was that time when Eyewall had just moved up here that BTV went 2 years without a warning level event around the 2015/2016 time frame. I also think regarding event totals, some folks might break "events" up differently... I know you can tally an "event" for several days if it's the same trough or upper level low, right? Thinking of an event in a way that's different than looking at a list of individual CoCoRAHS 7am totals. Like an event may span several different morning reports... if you get 3 days of snow showers at 1.7" a day but it's all the same general pattern, that "event" may be registered as 5.1".

Nice yeah models highlighted that area well.

1,500ft... looked like a couple inches overnight. At least a fresh white look again. Only an inch in town with the wind basically just filling in the footprints.

Good squall.

These squalls are legit. Windexy. KBTV 130259Z 31019G39KT 1/4SM R15/1800V5500FT +SN FZFG BKN005 OVC060 M01/M03 A2999 RMK AO2 PK WND 32032/0255 Burlington Airport with 19G39 winds, 1/4 mile visibility in +SN. That's a solid squall. Snowing hard here now.

KBTV 130259Z 31019G39KT 1/4SM R15/1800V5500FT +SN FZFG BKN005 OVC060 M01/M03 A2999 RMK AO2 PK WND 32032/0255 Burlington Airport with 19G39 winds, 1/4 mile visibility in +SN. That's a solid squall. Snowing hard here now.

Crowds have been ramping up steadily since Presidents Weekend. Folks are getting the vaccine, feeling the end goal coming near, and a good deal of people are openly traveling for the first time in a year. I talk to folks all day long, many say they skipped Christmas and earlier vacation periods but are finally heading out for some leisure time now. It feels right too, long days of sunshine coming out of the dark days. People are upbeat for a reason and they are traveling again.

Always go with spruces. Smaller evergreens always look best in the snow, IMO. Great training squall there (I think you are east of the 302 marker where the county line bends back south?).

We had the appetizer snow showers but we'll have to see what happens when the actual FROPA gets here. Gusting to near 40mph at the airfield ahead of the line.