powderfreak

I don’t think that would happen again unless for some reason it gets so off the rails we go into “Stay at Home” orders again. That was what brought about those closures, to literally try to pinch off any attractive reason to get in your car and drive somewhere. I think that ship has left the port though and not coming back. But temporary closures of operations is certainly in play if there are local outbreaks or staff outbreaks, IMO. Having uphill gear will come in handy at some point and allow for more options, as maybe now you *really* want to avoid ski areas during the holiday periods even if they are fully open. Most locals avoid that time or plan differently, but maybe now is when you take a couple extra trips to the Cold Hollows, Eden/Belvedere, Gilpin Mtn, etc.

These two points cracked me and had me laughing. J, your family is not like most families. I've seen them skiing pow in photos for what seems like over a decade. I wonder how many shops have had people tell them renting from Nov-Apr isn’t the full season, ha (most seasonal rentals are picked up in Dec and returned in like mid-March before little Johnny starts little league practice on April 1st). And yeah forget AT or Tele, most places won’t have that for adults even, outside very specialized shops. Whenever someone asks about seasonal rentals though I’ll have to keep the J.Spin families in mind, ha...I usually answer the question in the frame of mind that most parents just want a pair of skis that allows their kid to slide downhill maybe 1-2 dozen times a winter. If that’s accomplished, big win.

This season will be frustrating I think. The only way to go into it is to think any skiing is good skiing and this winter is a bonus. Season passes may be the way to go, I think there will be some severe restrictions on day tickets sold at times to reduce crowds. No one knows what’s going to happen though. There’s like Plan A through Plan F. Heck they don’t even know what kids are doing for schools in one month, much less do ski areas know what 4 months away might look like. If local communities or ski area staff get an outbreak it’ll be done for a bit. I bet a dozen ski area employees texting positive could close a mountain pretty fast. Like the Marlin’s in MLB, ha.

There’s no way normal swaps happen where it’s a packed high school on like an autumn Saturday. Kids seasonal rentals are usually the way to go. Can be done pretty cheap and stores will even swap out boots if your kids feet grow during the winter.

People get excited for surge in New England? That probably effects and is seen by less people on here than upslope snow, lol.

Ya’ll climbing back up the rope to get on the bridge again.

Tropical moisture and orographic processes make for some interesting combinations sometimes. This is mildly concerning. If that track holds with the PRE ahead of it, certainly could do 3-6" somewhere. Some very strong H7 fronto that pivots right through N/C VT there. Would be quite a 6-hourly dump of water.

You’re a hard read these days, haha. Zzzzzz or yawns with maybe a wind threat and isolated tornadoes.

Ha what changed from this morning for you? You were telling ORH/Will that making any determinations today was way too early... then like 2 hours later it's completely done and over with? I get the "post traumatic drought disorder" that's going on right now, but the UKMET, EURO and GFS lit the swath of heavy rain pretty much over you today.

Extremely confusing, ha. Models paint heavy rain swath right through SNE.

Every model gets you pretty good. Euro was like 2.5”.

"It's going to be meh." "It's going to be meh." "It's going to be meh." "Goddamnit! It's actually going to be meh. What the hell do we have to do to get a good storm!?"

Looks like winter. Trying to figure out if it's going to go up the Hudson Valley, CT River Valley or will it head to BOS/PWM and ME coast.

Yeah that would be a huge winter here. We had 150-160" here in the village between 2 sites in 2010-11. That seasonal snowfall map looked like a NW flow model prog when it was all done. 2000-01 would probably be at that level of 175" locally at this level, with over 400" in former ski area measurements. It's a huge season.

Yeah that sounds about right. In my head I sort of lump you guys in with up to Dryslot's area, as I bet Dryslot has more in common with ORH snowfall than he does with Vermont at the same latitude. The snowfall climatology in the northeast seems to run in SW to NE axis, mirroring the coastline. Like up here we often share storms that deliver NW of ALB, more than we do with say far N.NY or Massena despite the similar latitude. I know you know this, ha, just speaking out loud. The main point though is what you made, if one region really does well, the other normally does pretty good too. Relative to normal as a percentage, I still think SNE often gets the nod in those "good/great" winters. Like 120% snowfall up here is a huge winter and I bet when that happens, it's not uncommon for BOS/BDL/ORH to have at least 120% of normal, maybe more. That's probably a pretty poor metric though to compare, as standard deviations would be more useful. Maybe that's where I'm stuck at, looking at it as a percentage of normal snowfall... it's hard to beat the non-immediate coastal SNE stations in that metric during a good winter.

Ha, of course. That’s not what I meant with jackpots. I’m talking like I feel like in a slightly warmer regime we have less of a chance of getting 2-3” of sand while other folks get 18-24”. Not necessarily jackpots but just being even in the game in individual storms vs a season long slow build up. Sometimes you just want a good CCB dropping 1” QPF in 6 hours... I liked 2010-11.... that January while SNE was cleaning up we were at least doing 8-12’s in those storms. It does seem though like NNE gets above normal snows residually when SNE gets smoked, but it’s sort of like HubbDave “mehing” 2015’s 100+ inches at his place lol.

That’s an appropriate description, ha. Whenever you think winter is going bad, just let me break open the photos from 15-16 and you’ll suddenly feel all warm and fuzzy with only 4-6” on the ground.

Hahaha, making the rounds. Come and do snowmobile burnouts in our brown lawns as a thank you.

Haha, yeah. Old timers hanging outside the ski bars... shaking their mugs like begging for coins. It truly is amazing for that spot to be so snowless. Especially the Christmas time period. We opened the summer zip line down from the top of the Gondola for Christmas break! That's one you tell the grandkids someday.

Welcome to Christmas in the NNE Mtns that year, Phin. Only time since 1954 without even a trace of snow at the Mansfield COOP. I honestly never thought it was possible to do before 2015. I mean, at 4000ft there isn't even ice bulges on the cliffs, nothing at all. Not even a drift. Just bare ground straight to the summits. It might as well have been mid-October. We'll never see anything like that again is my guess.

In the past 25 years at Stowe, there hasn’t been another winter within even 75” of that one. We got 154”. The next closest contestant in 25 years is like 2011-12 with 246”.

Ha I'm with you. I've been on the +1 train for a while but Will has always been able to show that as a wrong assumption with BTV data, but their climo definitely probably favors cold in the valley. Maybe the difference is we tend to "jackpot" more in a +1 to +2 or something regime because we are on the gradient line.... maybe it's snowier on the whole in a colder regime? But I still think we have a better chance of being in the sweet spot of storms in a bit warmer pattern.... ie last winter. But last winter's overall snowfall wasn't great, but we jacked in quite a few storms, haha. Even got a couple CCBs which seem rare up here. It probably has more to do with a jackpot or sweet spot of individual storms vs. overall seasonal snowfall total.

My college girlfriend was from Boxford... I remember spending a bunch of time there over 3 years. They got absolutely pummeled in a few storms around 2005 time frame. It seemed like every single big storm the Topsfield/Danvers/Boxford/Ipswich was 24-36" for a time there from like 2003-2005.

Put that map next to the one from ALY and that is probably one of the more underrated storms ever in the northeast, haha. The rest of the winter will forever over-shadow that event.... but 18”+ from the Boston suburbs all the way past ALB into the Mohawk Valley is big. Also looks like the lower elevations of CT River Valley did well (20s near Springfield) and Hudson River Valley got crushed with 20-26” in the ALB area.... rare to see a long duration storm like that not screw the valleys. But again I think the rest of the winter will over-shadow that storm in the memory banks.

I really forgotten how big that storm was. That's a legit large scale zone of counties with widespread 18-28". That's no isolated deform band jack or something... that's a large chunk of terrain buried under 18"+.