powderfreak

Yeah their written obs are gold but you can tell he’s paying attention around the clock. I found one that they had 6” of snow and it even said “only a dusting down in the valley at RT 2 but we were plowing up on top of the hill.” Thats what made me look up his lat/lon and he takes a weenie zone to its max at pretty much 1800ft lol. That’s almost the elevation of the base of Bolton Valley up here. It definitely explains the difference between the towns under 800-1000ft as even a baseline.

Sweet ridge cloud this morning. 37F for a low.

Ha yeah those dirt roads get canted and you can easily go into the ditches/snow banks on the side if it’s not level. But regarding the snow numbers there, the elevation makes sense. Looks like the observer is near the black dot (those contour lines are 40 foot intervals) and up on that shelf between the 1760-1800ft lines... I bet that’s even decently snowier than down in the river valley at 1200-1300ft (I bet that area radiates like mad though down by the pond lol). Just thinking about it at the ski resort here, there’s a pretty noticeable difference from 1300ft to 1800ft, much less an elevation like Gorham at 800ft. It gets *really* snowy around here at 1800ft, that’s where you get the 4-6 foot snowpacks in big winters. That elevation is about equal to the highest inhabited elevation here in Stowe at like the Kellogg family mansion lol.

I still don’t understand how Berlin/Gorham average that little, it seems the mountains are pretty tight in there...I would’ve guessed 115” at least. Whitefield makes sense, it’s a larger open area removed from the mountains but Gorham is tucked in pretty good. I guess looking at the topomaps, the Randolph CoCoRAHS measurements are coming from around 1,775ft elevation, and Gorham is down around 800ft or even a tad below... so that is definitely a huge difference all else being equal. Thats practically 1800ft, way the hell up there, lol and 1,000ft higher than Gorham. I don’t know why I was thinking CoCoRAHS was down in the RT 2 area at like 1200-1400ft. For sure once you get near 1800ft it’s going to get really crazy snowy. I know around here it seems to even double in snowfall/snowpack going up say 800ft to 1800ft, so it makes sense in that light.

That’s 2010-11, just as a map example, ha. And that winter was more along the lines of 330” on the ground based snowboard at 3000ft. That reading was the COOP’s, measured in an elevated precipitation can up on the ridge. It’s no longer in service but was extremely prone to drastic under-catch due to high winds. But yeah last year by mid-May was probably in the 260-275” range but hard to say final numbers with COVID halting measurements in the first half of March.

On the flip side there are maps like this one that always stands out to me as the exact opposite, it tried so hard to isolate the real snowy zone that it diluted the vast majority of land as all one color that fell into a 52-inch range of 73-125”. This type of map is like the flip side of the ones that lack detail in the higher snowfall zones. It seems very difficult to capture all of the variations in a visually appealing way and be accurate.

That said, I do think that’s one of the better ones I’ve seen. It highlights the “snowy climate” zones even if the numbers might be broad. 120”+ gets the message across. Those things will never nail in the higher ranges up to 300” at the summits, but I liked that map more than others... many just stop at 100”, ha.

This is scarring to DIT... every single May and/or June going forward that has a period of even 7 days without rain will throw him into a panic that it may not rain again for 4 months.

Without looking at anything, you thinking south coast and Pike northward?

Ha all I could think of when I saw that was the “back to the river” calls from someone when E.Mass would be getting the focus. Back to the river dammit!

Agree, shaping up for a stunner for you guys under that cirrus with western edge clear...great recognition Gene. Could see it all day over in NH from Mansfield.

Yeah it’s getting there day by day. It was really nice this morning, now hazy/smoky yellowish sky.

Holy sh*t.

Yeah we got the tropical storm in August with 2+ inches that day...that certainly helped that month’s rain total. I’m only at 0.35” for September to date. I don’t think I can ever remember any month under 1”, or even 1.5” since I’ve lived here.

Crazy how fast it happens. August was the wettest month of the summer. Guess 3 weeks of dry is all it takes for some wells.

For DIT... firing burning in the root system of trees near Killington for 3 days now. https://vtdigger.org/2020/09/21/killington-forest-fire-burns-underground-for-three-days-and-counting/

Pretty crazy Satellite right now... there's a lot to unpack in this with the tropical storm, the smoke getting drawn in, the valley fog in central NY and PA, etc.

Eh, the growing season has ended in a lot of counties in New England the past 5 days per the NWS, with frost in another tier. BDL with 36F then 34F then 33F is pretty impressive for the third week of September. IJD with back to back sub-32F hard freezes. CON and MPV with 3 straight record lows. This was a pretty solid cold shot for a good chunk of New England.

You guess? lol. Its like seeing a ghost... the ghost of lawns past.

28F, some light fog too. Might even be a hint of rime ice on the trees or it’s just my eyes playing tricks.

I’m sure they can be adjusted but honestly, I’m pretty sure those bindings would be on the indemnified list...meaning no shop will adjust them. Every binding manufacture puts out a list of binding models each year that are indemnified and insurance companies of shops/ski areas won’t touch those for liability issues. Shops typically take it very seriously. You can certainly still make the choice to ski them, but no one will work on them (ie adjust them for you). It may be time for new equipment. Look at fall ski swaps (though who knows how those happen in COVID times) for used equipment, or I bet there are still a decent amount of places sitting on used demo equipment from last year that they couldn’t unload at the end of last winter because of COVID closures during that normal sale time in the late spring. For example at Stowe you often can get used demo skis for $150-$250 with bindings... when that gear new is like $700+ set ups. Here’s a quick run down on indemnified bindings: Each season the ski industry releases a list of “indemnified bindings” by manufacturers. This means there are actually bindings each year that, according to the manufacturers, cannot be skied anymore due to safety issues. Bindings simply wear out.

lol, looks like he’s 200ft surrounded by 400-500ft hills. I’m sure he’ll be fine. Probably gets some nice natural A/C in the summer nights.

People have been coming all summer without following the guidance, not sure why it would change this winter to be honest. Weekends have been jamming around here.

Get every American to pay an additional half a penny annually to the federal govt for ECMWF data for all.