powderfreak

A very 2011-12 type winter so far. Temps are almost identical to December 2011 in the mountains (this year might be a tad warmer). Snow depth on the cam is hard to read due to a foggy lens but seems to be around 5” down from 13” yesterday. So now under 2011 too.

That one storm will be a difference maker most of this season lol. Okemo with 51” so far this season... and 44 of them came in a 24 hour period, ha.

Yeah agreed but that’s a pretty bleak look right now. Head up into the mountains and it’s yikes. I feel like valley snow is well ahead of mountain totals relative to normal right now. Mansfield at 55” at 3,000ft and Jay Peak only 67”. Sugarbush at 39” up top. Smuggs at 44”. Those might be only be 50-60% of normal heading into the New Year with zero natural snowpack. It’s sneakily been one of the worst December snowfall totals I’ve seen but will check some numbers in coming days as we approach January 1st. Mansfield is running +5.5 for temps in December before this torch. It’ll go down as a 2011 type December (this will likely be warmer this year actually).

It's really hard to go 16 days of model fantasy in mid-winter and actually have a part of NNE where there is literally not even a tenth of snow printed over a two week period. And 1-6" max in most of the mountains during a 16-day period too.

Well if the Euro is right we do it again in a week. Going to be real impressive if we go a week or two in NNE mtns in heart of winter with bare ground. I don’t even see much snow shower chances. Then a warm heavy rainer again.

Wow, Tannersville, NY (near Hunter Mountain) came in with 5.70" on CoCoRAHS so far. They get incredible upslope though into the 4,000ft Catskill summits on south/east flow.

Yup, same over this way. Still some natural cover but it's patchy on the hill with the waterbars showing across trails now. Snowmaking takes a lot more energy than this to melt though.

Better to have loved and lost, than not loved at all right? Flood warnings flying across central New England.

Same to you Ginxy! Merry Christmas all!

In Mountain Operations Center alone on Christmas morning (first one in at 5:15am) and the roof sounds like it’s about to lift off. The whole building is creaking in the wind as rain slams the windows sideways. 52F at 1500ft and 47F at the summit (tied record high so far). Winds gusting up to 50mph in the base and 80mph on the upper mountain. Torrential rain. “Merry Christmas, don’t go outside” is the report from up here.

Same depth as the top of Mount Mansfield probably, ha!

It was really inverted here for a while, the upper mountain was ripping south winds. Even at 7am recorded wind gusts of 58mph and 53mph were seen by the Quad top and Gondola top stations. Down below 2,500ft it was pretty much calm as the wind stayed up high. This afternoon though it started breaking the inversion with a few gusts developing between periods of calm at 4pm down low at 1500ft. All day has basically been 30G50+ at the MMNV1 station. Well modeled though as it increases to near 70kts+ tomorrow morning.

It takes a lot of energy to melt a good frozen mass. I think some are under-estimating the staying power of 1-2” of water equiv. This is a legit torch storm, but many areas have some respectable frozen water for their climo areas in December.

The crazy thing is how little river ice there is, even in NNE. It's been warm. There's some ice but nothing like most years even for Christmas. Rivers in the mountains by this time can have some pretty thick ice with just a narrow channel of moving water visible. No real threat of ice jams with this one it seems.

And the rain has started. Happy Holiday's to the weather crew here.

Yeah you guys actually get surrounded by water and have it come inside. Living along a flashy waterway can be interesting.

8-10” for MWN? Models love to jack up the low level moisture over the peaks.

Horse drawn sled... so Norman Rockwell and also so Vermont.

I only take comfort in the fact that I've already experienced my Christmas nirvana. That storm on Christmas Day 2002 that dropped two feet in like 12 hours. A very similar storm to the one this month where a deep interior band just maxed out with snowfall rates over 4"/hr. I'm never going to see anything like this ever again on Christmas Day, just like winning the weather/holiday lottery. "By the end of the event, Albany, New York, received more than 24 inches of snow. With most of the snow falling in a 12-hour period, the storm is widely remembered for its quick and disruptive nature."

More than everyone else. CAD zone and 2" water equiv of frozen mass... this is a bad cutter but not that bad to overcome that.

I feel like at some point the CT electric companies will figure this out.

Last clear view today looking south from Mansfield before the clouds rolled in.

The Grinch storm has started as a decent burst of moderate snow with the warm air advection. Almost a quick inch in the past hour at the ski area. Gotta pad those stats before it gets washed away, .

Yeah it was snowing pretty hard all the sudden at the mountain. Now snowing down in town, took a bit to saturate.

We’ve seen time and time again there’s humor behind the science professor with JSpin. He always subtly drops some of the funniest sarcasm on the forum.