powderfreak

Yeah you are starting to see how the snowfall up here works. It doesn’t always translate to the ground in the sense that you see with coastal plain snowfall that has a defined beginning and end, and is usually much shorter duration. Like you can keep adding 0.7” or 1.6” or 1.3” every 12 hours and it all adds up in the cumulative sense, but you could always just have 1-1.5” on the ground the whole time despite a 36-48 hour total of 4”. Exactly like you say, you’ve got 10” on the annual total and never saw more than 3” on the ground at once. It’s a nickel and dime pattern built in among larger systems. But consider that if 200” cumulative falls there, the max depth is still usually like 35-40”, maybe briefly higher unless it’s a true QPF bomb. Meanwhile in Maryland 2010 they get 40” on the ground out of 70” cumulative.

The sleeper 10” storm on the mountain in 48 hours plus some snowmaking... looks nice.

Best air mass of the next two weeks happening today?

12z GFS has some front end snow on Sunday evening... like an inch in Vermont but this is Phin's time to shine as it looks like he'd pick up 2-3" on the front side on this output before the warmth over-rides it.

At least there’s snow on the ground for this cold, even if it’s just 2” at home vs the 6-7” up at 1500ft. Its frigid. 22F at MVL, 18F at base of ski area, 8F at the picnic tables. Winter vibe today from the ASOS... snow globe conditions where it's just non-stop flakes but nothing overly heavy.

Yeah a little gnome may have access to a stake camera up there, and he told me there’s 9” at that stake right now . Today’s report should double yesterday’s depth. Still snowing, ha.

Another 1.5” since 8am at 1500ft. Still snowing. This will end up being like 8” of fluff up here. Wild.

Ha several people at Stowe that also go to Okemo for regional work have been stopped there for barely going over 30mph. There was even an email last year warning people traveling for business to Okemo on RT 100 that you will be stopped in Plymouth for next to nothing so be on your game. They average almost 7 traffic tickets a day in a town with 600 people in it... it’s a pure bilking of ski resort visitors. Population: 619 Tickets issued: 2,352+ Total issued in traffic ticket fines: $415,620+

Still snowing surprisingly well. About 4-6" depending on wind around the base area. It is frigid though at 16F and windy.

6" on the snow cam at the mountain before it flipped this morning at 6am. Looks like another inch since then. Mansfield should be around 9" total for this event just by that board that usually is a little lower in total than the ground based board.

Pencil in 8-12" there for every SWFE and call it a day. Like once you see it on the models at day 3, you can just stop watching and go with climo there. And then once it goes below freezing it'll never warm above freezing again until April, lol.

Absolutely amazing! Nice work on this, ha. Just got back in from the headlamp walk with the dog and since I got home at 5pm, there's an inch of fluff on my car in that 5-8pm range. 1" in 3 hours snow shower rate... and it is fluffy. We are in 30:1 fluffernutter land now.

I love those photos, think I am or was friends on FB just to see his 30 foot piles in his front yard while the rest of the neighborhood is green lol. Some of the shots are ridiculous, in an awesome way.

Ha yup. On the old list serve archives. I’ve known J.Spin online since like the late ‘90s through the old UVM List-Serve called SkiVT-L. It was an Email list serve skiing group as I started reading it before I went to UVM. The archives go way back into the early ‘90s I think with ski/weather discussion. J.Spin used to produce these ski videos on VHS too (I think I bought one a couple decades ago), before DVDs became a thing. But that was a great community when the internet was just starting to really reach people and AOL was in its full glory. Most of my usual ski buddies (and great friends in general, like we’ve been in each other’s weddings and stuff) were met on that list-serve and we started skiing together back in like the early/mid 2000s when I went to UVM. So the internet isn’t all bad I guess.

The best part is he had no idea about it when he bought his place, IIRC. Like we just happened to find a very dedicated observer who happened to purchase a spot in like a 3-mile wide band of absurdity for the low elevation. He lives like 5 miles away in any direction and we'd never know the reality except when you drive through and are like, hmmm it always seems to be dumping in this section of I-89.

It's that whole zone... like 1,500ft at Stowe is the same as J.Spin except 1,000ft higher but the lift aloft is likely very similar. He's not going to lose much to evaporation in that final 1,000ft but his precipitation is getting maximized. So if the profile is cold enough, he's going to rack up the inches. Like if someone burrowed a hole in Pinkham Notch so the elevation at the top of the pass was only 500ft but smack between some big terrain with no ability to get downsloped from any direction because of the terrain. Every direction is just lifting air over head. His only negative is temps if its marginal but if it's cold enough, he's going to snow with maximum lift, which also often feedsback into lower snow levels right around him too due to precipitation intensity.

So good to see the snow globe shaken up. Now keep shaking it.

Both. They have their own compressor on-board. By running them they don't impact the capacity of your snow plant unless you are maxed out on water (which is rare but happens in very cold outbreaks with a lot of guns running). Normally the limiting factor is compressed air for the reason why a ski area can't fire up more guns. But by running those, you don't suck air capacity from your plant and it can be sent to other guns... so you'll often see those things run all the time if you have the temps. They also pump out up to 10 times the amount of water at full throttle. You'll get like 300 gallons per minute out of one of those vs. 30-50 gallons a minute out of a tower gun. Which is why they are great in the base areas, high traffic spots, wide areas with a lot of terrain to cover.... spots where you just want to dump a sh*t ton of cubic feet of frozen water. The more expensive versions are the fan guns on towers... a fan gun that's mobile (wheels or can be dragged around) and ground based will be the lower end of the spectrum. Installing one of those on a tower 30 feet in the air with 360 degree automated motion is where you get into that $50k range.

Yeah it’s a lot. A giant fan gun (looks like a snow canon) can run $30-$50K a piece. That’s before the cost of electricity and pumping. When you see like 10 of those fan guns lined up it’s a cool half mill just before you fire it up. The tower guns that are more plentiful run $5-7K. You’ll often get a bulk buy discount if you get a bunch of them lol.

Yeah the plows are out at that height over this way, and this is our bread and butter ripping out a few inches when there’s no synoptic system. Also closer to the Great Lakes moisture. I can’t believe JSpin at 500ft pulled 2” in 30 minutes. My yard is white at 750ft but it’s more like a wet half inch coating with grass still visible.

Finding around 3-4” on the ground leaving work. Its a special world up at 1,500ft.

Ha that’s awesome. Love squalls... from yard work to whiteouts.

Snowy day up here in the mountains. About 3" new snow at 1,500ft. Heated sidewalk rage has me searching out the islands of snow among the pavers.

Been snowing pretty much all day but visibility is mostly in the 1-4 mile range -SN type stuff. Occasionally it'll dip to a mile or less very briefly. Estimate 2.5" or so now out of the wind... grass blades have finally been fully covered up. This is a classic snow globe style day.

I can safely say without the Gov't shutting them down, that Stowe will be open. Too much money has been put into it already in planning, hiring, protocols, buying PPE and making infrastructure changes to help social distancing, etc that there's no way the company will just close it. Too many season passes sold, etc. But again, it's all geared towards like 30-50% normal business... these ski areas cannot operate within COVID procedure parameters and get 75% or more of their normal visitations... the guest experience would be absolutely horrible. That's why reservations and such will work to control crowd levels so as to not degrade the experience to just waiting in lines to do everything from using the lift to getting inside to go to the bathrooms. I mean you're still waiting in lines everywhere, but hopefully not like 30 minutes or longer lines. Personally I still think weather is going to dictate this to start a lot more than COVID. Pattern is not very favorable into December.