powderfreak

Yeah this air mass is finally more normal or even a tick below. Low of 6F last night is the coldest in weeks it seems like.

Yeah agreed. I don’t want people to think I want it -10F.... just interesting to see just how above normal it has been so far. Like in October this look on a seasonal model for 2-M temps would be fiery red over NNE...and yet we are still keeping snow on the ground.

Life goal is to live in the Alps for a bit, my wife would totally be down. Those villages are so damn cool and while they don't get the most snow, they get monster dumps. The culture and mountains are just incredible. The cool weather is just the icing on the cake.

Ah that makes sense. No cases traced to skiing itself but many to the ancillary aspects of close proximity for more than 15 minutes (travel, eating, times without a mask). Hopefully it's just mild. Sorry to hear your neighbor is in the ICU. Stay well Mark!

It is a great exercise in showing just how cold the climate is in these parts. Relative to average, it has been ridiculously far above average but yet still cold enough to hold snow on the ground and stay below freezing. I flash back to every autumn when the seasonal projections and models come out, precipitation is likely what we want when these types of departures can still be sufficient to keep snow around (we just need it to fall). I think the temperature departures though are reflected in the lakes and rivers that remain unfrozen in January. The water is what really responds to the cold high pressure systems with minimal wind flow and crisp temps. Also, I hear ya on the today felt chilly. A high of 22F in the NNE mountains in January should not feel chilly, ha. We should ride the chairlifts in the single digits and teens on average at this point. 20s is a nice day and below zero is a cold day. I bet in a normal winter, your spot is seeing lows near zero as a normal baseline right now. There should be at least a couple days per week where you consider not skiing because of how cold it is, or you are riding a lift above 3,000ft while curled in the fetal position, ha. So many people up here haven't realized how warm it has been or at least really processed it. It goes back to the snowmaking discussion, where an average temp of 20F is great snowmaking on the whole, but averaging 27-28F is a problem. Folks were worried about booting up in the parking lots and resorts were worried about not having enough indoor space at the summits due to building capacity limits. Not once have I felt the need to go inside to warm up at the Picnic Table level this winter and people shouldn't feel comfortable day after day getting dressed in the parking lots at 1,500ft+ in mid-winter in NNE... those are the little sensible things that show how warm it has been even without looking at numbers. But it also is a positive during a COVID winter (Disclaimer: not trying to turn it political in any means, just tying in the weather with expectations).

I mean it's pretty crazy how warm it has been to be honest. Add that in with lack of snow and it's some combo of 2011-12 and 2015-16. I've still enjoyed snow falling and had plenty of fun ski days, but the first half of winter is quietly racking up some bottom bucket numbers on the whisker plots. So far to start January we are running a cool +10.1 at MVL and +12.6 at the Picnic Tables. Following a +5.8 at MVL and +7.2 at the Tables for December. It's borderline bizarre though how many days the grass outside has been covered by snow though from November 1st onward despite those numbers. What a weird winter. It's almost like someone from down south moved up north and posted a lot about how excited they were for a deep winter like Eyewall did moving from North Carolina, then it took two years to recover to normality .

That's been our mantra all along... you are getting a first hand look at why precipitation is always the worry over temps. Even despite the absolute blowtorch we've been in this winter. It's crazy to me that the normal low is 6F right now... at least half of the days should be getting to that level or below. This year it seems like days like today are an arctic air mass when it gets into the teens, lol. A balmy +10.1 so far for January at MVL.

The general temperature pattern should be the same though, no? Warmest day of week won’t change and the departures would be the same if you always ran X-degree variance from another station. Crazy warm start to January, borderline blow torch in the means. Crazy a radiator site like TAN only has gone below 32F on what 3 of the first 8 days of January?!

Final day of Inversion Week at Stowe.

Crazy, feels like one of the coldest days in a while, lol. Barely hit 20F up here in the valley so far. Finally getting some ice going. Coldest day of the week in fact.

Gene, the crystals are actually pretty decently sized even above the cloud and at the top of the cloud. It literally is like a science project floating through a snow producing cloud, ha. There’s ice crystals of varying sizes on the top and above the cloud... the sparkling stuff with very little moisture. I’d imagine then once in the cloud the crystals are gaining weight and moisture because once on the lower end of the cloud the crystals are actually falling...vs just being suspended and floating around on the top of the cloud. Here’s a friend’s shot entering the cloud today. You can see the sparkling ice crystals suspended.

That's awesome, the rime has been ridiculous under the cloud layer here too... seems like up to a couple inches of pure rime on the trees. That view of MWN is sick though... you can see the narrow moisture zone and you can also see the lack of rime up top on MWN. A mid-slope rime where trees look darker/non-white higher up. How high is Bretton Woods at the top? Wasn't poking out?

They are good in the morning and skied off in the afternoon. Pretty classic evolution right now. There's still snow though for the groomers to put down each night, this morning had some great runs... legit packed powder IMO. Afternoon scratchy. Need more snow for sure.

There’s no real ice on the River behind my place either, it’s been absurdly warm. Normally it seems like 1-2 feet thick with just a small narrow channel of moving water. It still looks like November.

It's real shallow.

And this is what's happening above the snow this morning. Just chillin' at the picnic tables in the sunshine.

Been sunny all week up high lol. MWN with 100+ mile visibility. Skiing this morning was wild, sunny up top and beautiful, freezing fog in the mid-slope and then snowing in the base area.

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.