powderfreak

Even over here my Stratus is overflowing so it's 1"+. Models didn't have anywhere near this amount of rain here. This was just the 12z EURO showing about 0.60" here through 11pm/4z. We will at least double that. The 12z GFS was even worse.... like 0.30-0.40" through 11pm. The local PWS are at 0.30/hr right now lol. Huge fail.

It would be incredible to feel that change in an hour at some point in my life, ha. It's hard to mentally process a 50-degree swing in 45 minutes.

Crazy thing is there is some 4000ft terrain to his immediate NW that also looks to be affected.

18-24” BTV and local area up here in that one. Think BTV had like 50” that month, Dec 2003. My first winter up here and everyone was like you’ll be screwed in the Champlain Valley... then two 18”+ events and a 10” thundersnow paste job later... I thought those events were the norm lol.

We decided to close for tomorrow, reopen on Wednesday.

Mansfield is 34F and 70mph gusting 93mph. We are shutting down lol.

What dreams are made of! The morning was actually kind of nice but it went downhill real fast 12-1pm. Torrential wind-swept rain outside now at 1500ft, lol. The radar image of skiers dreams.

You hit it and Will was sort of on the same page. I think it’s two different comparisons. It CAN be cheaper and relatively cheaper for what are known as the “core” group of skiers... the users who go a lot and rack up days, find the shortcuts, know what to do and not do. It is an expensive sport for a very large segment of the skiing public who average 3-5 days on slopes per year. Skiing gets cheaper with usage on a per day basis. You get more use out of the equipment, you find frequent customer benefits (ie. passes), you learn not to buy lunch, etc.

Yeah I agree. I get what J.Spin is saying and there are ways to make it "cheap" but on the whole as a family it's certainly an upscale activity compared to the US population as a whole. Maybe upscale isn't the word to use... but it's for financially comfortable families if that makes sense. You can do it cheaper and there are plenty of ski bums who ski 100+ days a year making $22,000 a year at an entry level job... but I think it's still expensive on the whole when compared with a lower income lifestyle (compared to what they might normally spend on leisure activities, if any at all). I think the barometer is where do you draw the line between "upscale" and "low income" and what's the gray area between that. This isn't like a sport like tennis or where you buy a $60 racket at Dicks sporting goods that lasts years and can use municipal tennis courts to play. I mean if you are willing to earn your turns, skiing can be pretty cheap with a ski swap set-up and the right bindings... you could ski all winter for like $200 but that's now what most people think of when they think of skiing.

So here's the historical data... day ticket prices are up $23 from pre-Epic Pass and the season pass is cheaper by $1,324. Okemo is the same... day ticket up by about $20 and season pass cheaper by $1,000. The last year of AIG ownership... Stowe lift ticket $124 with a season pass of $2313. Last year... $147.34 vs. $989.00 for season pass.

What? Someone is paying $200-300 more per day to ski now? Stowe pre-Vail was the most expensive ticket in the East Coast and the adult season pass was $2200. The Stowe day tickets have not risen appreciably since VR took over and the pass dropped by like 60%. We see a LOT more first timers and beginners than we ever did before. I'd say it's getting a lot more people into the sport here at least that never skied Stowe before. Again, even 5 years ago a day ticket here was like $120 I think and we have never done cheaper non-holiday or mid-week tickets. It's always been the same rate be it a random Tuesday or a holiday Saturday once it switched out of early season rates.

I thought tests were free? My wife and I didn’t pay a dime and the local hospital said it was “written off” as their words. Or are you talking like private testing locations? The admin’s words were “how can we expect to stop the spread of people have to pay for them?” I was like ok sounds great I’ll be back lol.

Good to hear man. Mild cases? My sister and her family have been cleared. Bad headaches and head colds were their main symptoms but have passed now.

C’mon, this is America (where we all have a dose of entitlement, myself included, like it’s baked into our DNA)... nothing will stop a lot of people from their expensive leisure vacations, lol. First world problems on the whole. I did have a good chat with a commercial real estate developer from Boston who said if he lost the ability to spend his money on expensive trips where he wanted to go and buying pointless consumer items along the way (his words lol), what’s the point of building wealth? He almost honestly seemed concerned with his work ethic slacking if he couldn’t spend his money how he pleased. Like his effort at work was directly correlated to him doing whatever he wants in his free time.

I think Stowe sold out to capacity on Wednesday and again today. From what I saw it is not deterring many people... or if it is the more limiting factor is the capacity restriction. Exactly how summer and fall foliage was. The demand was still larger than the capacity allowed, even with 99.9% of the US population having to quarantine for two weeks to visit.

That was a serviceable run through Day 10. Lots of mess-scale snow chances in the upslope areas. I feel like any snow we get in the next 7-10 days though is going to be of that nature over synoptic snow.

Maybe global warming? I think another met was opining about how warm it was despite low heights last night. <duck and run>

To be fair everyone told him it would be like living in the Chugach Range of Alaska for snow. But it’s still New England lol.

Special pattern just for your first winter.

That’s my buddy Dylan, but yeah I think he’s got shifts for bindings.

I find myself drawn to looking at it despite the time range. Always fun to see exotic solutions.

Though all things considered.... not often you see a prog of a 959mb low just north of KRUT. Guess it does cool pretty decently from the +3C to +9C 850s in the beginning.

I don't really get it either, that track seems like it's rain in early December anyway you slice it. I'm not sure having the antecedent air mass -0.5C colder would matter. Hard to argue AGW moving the needle that much with H85 temps of +3C or even more.

Ended up with a couple inches of snow above mid-mountain this afternoon to give it a wintry vibe up there. Lower mountain was spring like mashed potatoes and soft bumps. 2.5 ways down right now... 3 upper mountain that funnel to 2 routes lower half (plus a few beginner lifts and trails over at Spruce). Full on bump runs this afternoon from the soft snow and traffic. Not time to "Shut 'em Down" yet up here. We'll see after a couple rainers, ha!

Had to go up above 2,500ft to find some actual winter over white rain or wet parachutes on top of mud at 1,500ft. Picked up 2" at 3,300ft stake this afternoon. The world looks so much better with snow around. Below 2,000ft looks like Maryland in February after a rainstorm.