powderfreak

Steady light snow eventually adds up. Walked the dog through a winter wonderland this afternoon on the Rec Path: Even the power lines are going white. There's been some combo of fluffy snow that's also incredibly "clingy" to create that true winter wonderland look. Like caking snow.

Stowe Village is just insanely beautiful right now. I can't believe how lucky we've been this week with snowfall.... we missed the big storm but the orographic insurance policy has come through. Still more snow on the ground under 1,000ft than above 1,500ft . I mean we'd spend days tracking this type of snowfall.... almost all of this was un-modeled snow.

Pretty consistent moisture feed into the Spine. We should see it go all night.

About an inch so far at home. Wintry appeal.

The accumulations haven't been all that much, but what a snowy period for literally nothing showing up on the models at all. As of 10pm it is still snowing lightly. Total accumulations with a couple board clearings in the past 48 hours is ~5.75" of mostly non-modeled snow. There's 4" of snow depth (plenty of compaction in the past 24 hours), owing to the fluffy nature of the recent snow.

The past couple days definitely feel a bit snowier here than normal in these patterns. Just the right conditions I guess for dendrites. When we left the roads were dry and got back and they were snow covered except for the wheel lanes. Despite literally nothing on radar we've had some decent periods of light snow and almost like a snow mist this evening. It has to be very low level stuff for the radar to not hit it (under 5-6k feet here).

Just got home to 1” of absolute dust. Can see straight through it. Still snowing lightly.

It’s the “wintry appeal” vibe when there are just flakes falling all the time. Even if there’s no real accumulation it’s about setting the winter mood.

Ha it’s funny you mention this as Killington has been getting hammered in online and social circles for their measuring or lack thereof. The other day when they reported 8” it was more than anyone and on the Live cams there was like grass showing everywhere and people who skied said there was like 3-4” in the woods up high lol. Killington’s numbers have been starting to stand out but I’d be curious on Jen’s take there. She skis it daily. But at times they’ve been higher than Stowe and Jay in seasonal totals. The unopened mountains like Sugarbush/Bolton/Smuggs probably miss some snowfall as it’s hard to get upper mountain reports. We are lucky with a decent snow cam and I also get up a lot for early season snowfall to verify at the Stake and on hill. I agree with everything you said. Jay definitely gets the most and I try to explain to skiers who don’t believe it that on the most basic level, snowfall increases as you head north in New England, all else equal. Jay maximizes orographic lift too. And then when people are like “I don’t believe they would get 50-75” more than Stowe and Smuggs!” I usually answer, but you accept that Stowe and Smuggs can at times get 50-75” more than Sugarbush/MRG? IMO once averages sort themselves out long term, there’s a clear stepwise increase from SB/MRG to Bolton/Stowe/Smuggs... followed by another clear step up to Jay. I do also fully believe Sugarbush should average a clear step up from Killington. Just like Killington should be clearly more than Mt Snow.

No idea, your best bet is to call and often just calling one of the resorts can clear it up quicker than calling headquarters out in Colorado. College passes are always the hardest but in the past (even when I was in college) the ski areas wanted a letter from the registrars office with official school emblem/seal on it showing enrollment. The same proof you needed for a lot of stuff related to college student discounts as I remember it. UVM had an office when I went specifically for that stuff so people could get their proof for the ski areas lol.

Was snowing pretty hard from Stowe to Waterbury this afternoon on the drive, heaviest right near Exit 10 not far from J.Spin. Looked like I had about a half inch at home before leaving. Big huge flakes. It’s mesmerizing driving through it, lol. Hard to focus sometimes. Its by far the most picturesque snow when thousands of those 1/4”-1/2” diameter dendrites just hang in the air literally like a shaken snow globe. Just like giant feathers in no hurry to get to the ground.

Nice to have a couple Advisory events on the Euro through Day 5-6. I think the ski areas do well over the next 72 hours too. That’s got “the look”. Then we have whatever the weekend does.

Yeah hard to tell if it’s a head fake or not... but the Mets here have outlined how it could work. But still at this lead time it could be a cutter again tomorrow, lol. Snow maps are nice from here to you though Day 7-8.

That’s an insane icing look. Overrunning galore.

We take that Euro run all day long. Two Advisory events through day 5-6.

Euro still has a nice little event coming up.

My 400” average remains intact on the GGEM. All joking aside though it had several gradient type events which would fit with NINA DEC and just the overall evolution is good to see and matches with what some of you have talked about.

Time to start shoveling GGEM snow. At least it looks like the next 10 days are trending better.

Normality has been restored with heavier snowfall at the mountain than down in town. Day off today with a lot to get done so haven’t been paying much attention but general flurries and light snow in town has the mountain behind a solid curtain of white. I must say, Stowe Village is living up to the currier and ives look after yesterday’s 4-5”. It’s stacked up on everything like it was placed there on a movie set. It’s pure Hallmark movie going to the UPS store, post office and getting other holiday chores done. Did see the crazy gradient as we went and got a tree this morning on the Morrisville/Stowe town line and I have never seen anything like that... in literally a quarter mile it goes from winter to grass. The line is incredibly sharp. The tree we cut didn’t even have any snow on it, so we were able to bring it right inside when we drove back to the winter wonderland. My wife and I were joking about how perfect it was, no melting of snow off the tree and in a 10 minute trip we left winter and returned to winter. Next up is a trip to mreaves area to get snow tires put on my wife’s new 2021 Subaru at the dealership in Berlin, not far from MPV.

Its definitely a hot topic in the ski industry. I'm torn because as we discussed without really hashing it out again, it continues to add to the idea that skiing is a luxury sport that costs a decent penny (I mean, if you have to pay to walk yourself up the hill?)... my core skier instinct says if you want to earn your turns it should be free. But also seeing the business side of it and being in that environment, there are several reasons for a fee. You are still using snowmaking and grooming, etc. There is also liability involved and a purchase would of course include signing a waiver, and having some sort of legal contract. The popularity of uphill has exploded so it also moves into the supply/demand curve and might serve to limit uphill traffic a bit... though as I well know at Stowe, if you use a price to control demand, you inevitably start moving towards pricing some users out, no matter how small the cost may seem. And maybe that cost rises down the road. The flip side of paying for something is that the ski area owes you a product, so they can't just stop uphill when they want to. You bought it, they have to allow it as the terms of service. That's actually what's stopping a lot of places from charging for uphill.... they want the freedom to shut it down as they see fit. Snowmaking, grooming operations, certain storms, poor icy conditions. If they sell you it, they have to let you do it. If it's free, they can tell you no and not bat an eye.

Ha yeah I was thinking that would be a win if we see that same exact result from the weak system this week. Looks like maybe a quarter inch of water on that one.

Ran a rare water analysis of the snow today. Got 0.23” on 4-4.25” snow. So roughly just under 20:1 which feels about right. Fluffy but not the total air 30-40:1 stuff we sometimes see. Nearing a quarter inch of water is nice though when models had 0.0”, ha.

Ha! “Wow it’s snowing really hard in Stowe.” “I know honey, already seen photos of it.” “What? It’s 7am.” “I’ve got a guy.” Yeah I do think it’s Bolton Mountain peak that triggered that one. So there was one off Mansfield and one off Bolton. I might dig into the soundings and stuff a bit later to try and look into what happened. There’s a solid inversion aloft... to the point that Whiteface in NY and MWN were above the clouds this afternoon. I think the inversion height played into it somehow. Snowfall just picked up again at the house. I cleared the board finally so we’ll see if we get more accumulation. I do think if I cleared at 7am I could’ve added an inch or two more but I wanted to just track the depth.

Ha, yeah a buddy had like 3” right near Exit 10 near Stowe Street... the pictures looked fairly similar maybe a bit less than here. Everyone coming to work or the mountain had stories like yours. One guy was like there was a legit snowstorm going on at Ben and Jerry’s factory but nothing at all a mile north. Then the same thing happened in Stowe and drove out of it at the ski area. Like mini-pockets but stationary of 0.5-1”/hr snowfall. The localized weather from the mountains is incredible. This one takes the cake though. There was a FB thread with photos of people around Stowe and Waterbury... it was all over the map. One house has grass and a skiff of snow, then not far away someone posts a picture of plowing their driveway, lol. I want one of these to happen like in Boston. Some blocks get an Advisory snow mixed in with blocks of flurries.

I can honestly say I’ve never seen it like this. There’s just a dusting at 1500ft... 2” at 1,000ft by the Notchbrook store. Literally the snow vibe increased (trees became white and power lines had snow on them) as you went DOWN the hill. By the time at 750ft here there’s still 4” with fat flakes still lazily fall. Town looks like a Hallmark Christmas movie with like several inches even on the power lines. Every little twig is white and plow piles start to show up lol. What a trip to see snow increase as you go down in elevation. Its no big event but just the absurdity of it all. It’s the talk of town how there’s this in town and nothing at the ski area... because it just doesn’t happen. 4” in town is more often 8-12” on the hill.