powderfreak

It's been the weenie reflex every time there's a big lake effect event to comment on how fast it disappears (I guess it makes us less jealous, ha), but man there's something about even seeing a day with 6 foot mushroom caps on top of houses in a suburban development. The photos from that event are absolutely insane regardless of what happens afterwards. I found myself reading that thread last night for whatever reason when I couldn't sleep, and we were all in there jacking it to it, ha. Even Ray was ready to up and move to BUF lol.

This is all we want, right? Some random photo from the November 2014 lake effect storm in the BUF suburbs. That's the dream right there.

This is pretty crazy. 1:45 into it is getting about to conditions most of us wish we could experience. The noise of the shattered glass at 2 minutes in is crazy to me...then that same place getting destroyed at 3:00 minutes.

Do you have one? More oaks to fall for sure.

You’ve got the right attitude dude. It’s one winter in a global pandemic...people are eating at restaurants in their parking lots and under tents, schools don’t know what to do with children, makes sense that ski season won’t be the same. It’s a season where you try to enjoy the little things, explore something different. Things will be functioning but not ideal or “normal.” It’ll be what people make out of it. I do think it’s important for the communication to start now to adjust expectations.

For the reservations,. it's going to be a challenge but there's a belief that once early season limited terrain/lifts moves into more mid-winter operations that reservations likely wont be needed at some mountains. I can't disagree with the idea of developing procedures now that can be dropped if they aren't necessary... vs the other way which is get caught with your pants down and overrun with crowds and then have to implement controls in-season. Better to prepare for it, communicate it, and then if need be, you can scrap it at some mountains. This was from Katz on that: “This season we will be implementing a reservation system across each of our mountains. It is possible that at some point in the season, as we evaluate the dynamics of our operations, we may decide that we no longer need the reservation system at certain resorts. However, with so many uncertainties, we believe it is only prudent to have this system in place now.”

I think that's the point. They need to really curb it back this winter. Ski Resorts out in Colorado were the source of their out-breaks last March and the Gov forced them to close. They need to stay open so they can't run that risk again, and how do you manage the demand when hotels and indoor spaces can only be 50% occupied or whatever? It's certainly not a normal winter.

I agree with you. Did everything I normally do in a summer, tons of outdoor time and daily dips in the river or pool. More humid than I would like but the big NNE heat first half of the summer was actually historically noteworthy... if it’s going to be hot, might as well do it like this up here with several monthly and station record max temps.

I thought it was just “Awakening”?

This didn't do it for ya?

Yes! It got really cold and fast once that pattern changed. February was frigid. I still remember that Valentines Day storm thread, we actually had several posters in BTV at the time. It started snowing at 0F and we got like the first foot of snow at temps of like 5F. It was so, so cold. Coldest major snow of my life and the BTV obs show it. I think it eventually rose into the mid-teens at some point (but that's still a cold air mass for 2+ of QPF)... but that's just another reason why that storm was so great. I do remember late January and the first half of February in 2007 didn't have much synoptically until Valentines Day... but we did have a big increase in upslope snows with the arctic air masses starting to come in. I remember the snowpack didn't grow all that fast (outside the 2,000+ foot elevations) despite the snowfalls because of how cold/fluffy it was, but it was nice to see regular snow at that point and it was still serviceable for skiing. After Valentines Day the snowpack was set for the rest of the season. What you describe sounds like the classic Northern Greens though... like when I've got 4-6" on the ground at my house with 1.5sm -SN at MVL and then you drive a few miles up the road and there's a couple feet on the ground at 1,500ft+ with SN+ wind-whipped blizzard style.

One of the greatest flips I’ve ever witnessed too. It was looking real bleak and then one day it snowed in January...then it snowed a bit more...then we put together a couple decent weeks, before Valentines Day storm hit (still my personal number 1 favorite storm). After that it was just deep winter, biggie on St Patrick’s Day too followed by crazy upslope. April snowed a lot up high, some storm in there gave two feet of paste followed by rain lol.

August 1st is the traditional skiing New Years Day anyway. The official start of the new ski year for those who count their days and ski on glaciers all summer, ha.

Wishing for this on a very humid evening...

This was another one of those "fluke" systems that over-performed in a big way. It was lake effect coming all the way from Lake Ontario mixed with the orographic lift... something that to forecast was a nightmare. I remember thinking that a lake band amid a general lighter upslope snowfall might give someone a 12" total amid a larger 3-8" upslope shield. Didn't think 40" storm total... but this storm started as a heavy wet paste elevation event, with like a foot of paste before 30" of blower. The real weather weenie observation is noticing the wind shift throughout the cycle, shown by what side of the pole the snow stacked up against.

And to show how localized that above "storm" was... here's the CoCoRaHS map from that morning on the mountain. All the lower elevations got a 1-3" fluffer but talk about localized snowfall... those photos show that it dumped 12+ of fluff overnight. I've got the High Road snow plot photo somewhere too, gotta find that, maybe external hard drive. It's hard to comprehend how localized it can be. Even now if I wasn't looking at the photos and the camera file data, I would think this was the wrong morning.

A pow shot for some stoke... this was a "surprise 14 inches" that fell overnight from some squalls and then ended right before opening bell with blue skies coming out. I still think the N.Greens are one of the few places you can get a surprise 14" in 12 hours followed by bluebird. I remember this morning well as I was off, Andre was doing the snow report (guy in the blue jacket)... I get a text at 5am from him that's like "Bro. Wake up. Now. Grooming says they've got 14" of new snow since 4pm." I remember looking outside, seeing like an inch or two on my car and being like "Stop sh*tting with me dude." "No, really, they say they have 14 inches on upper mountain. They said it was snowing like 4 inches an hour around 3am." I was out of bed so fast... made it to the office to grab my gear and head up with Andre right after Patrol gave the ok on line-check. Just pure cotton candy that fell in windless squalls and stacked up big. Probably 30-40:1 ratio blower on this morning.

My head kinda hurts from this afternoon trying to process the whole thing, ha. But it’s funny my buddy at Killington had the same reaction when I asked him as ORH did... “I wasn’t looking for it but if someone came up to me to give me crap for NY plates he might just get punched and we move on. Unfortunately they all seem pretty nice though I wasn’t looking for hostility.”

Yeah if a person for that matter, don’t care where they are from or going said anything to me I’d flip ‘em a bird and keep moving... but it sounds like it’s not happening in person, she says everyone seems nice in person but they are saying stuff online about out-of-staters. I just think if you don’t read that and go by your in-person experiences, you wouldn’t know? Like reading the most vile stuff on the internet at 4Chan and then saying all white males are complete assh*les despite them being really nice in person. I don’t know, I just hope we don’t have to have this convo all winter about postings on a Killington group.

Jen, I would truly stay away from that toxic social media environment and just believe your friends when they say they are so glad to see you. I just feel so bad that the online Facebook stuff has gotten to you so much that even in person you have friends that say they are so glad to see you when you arrive...but you still feel you aren’t welcomed because of FB posts in a group. Just concentrate on the real life interactions and push the rest out. Don’t let the vocal minority internet bullies ruin your winter.

What an eastern chute! Looks damn steep to be an old surface lift.

What you described is always what I’ve noticed. I had NY plates even while working for Stowe marketing... I never had an issue. When we got married, my wife bought a vehicle off my parents and were lazy about registering it so she had NY plates for a good year. Your experience Phin is what I’ve seen in NNE. We try to be good. I was willing to drive to Jay Peak to take photos of a property for you, someone I’ve never met. Maybe Randolph has a closed FB page where all the locals can bitch about you? From what I’ve gathered most of the issue seems to stem from Facebook not actual in-person interactions. I text my buddy who MTBs at Killington and he said he has no idea, he was there two days ago and then got beers on a patio with NY tags. He did say something interesting though “I wasn’t looking for it though, maybe if I was actively looking for hostility I could find a mean glare? Lol.”

You got your taser in one hand and your iPhone in the other checking the JFK/LGA gusts?

Facebook has become the most toxic social media venue out there. I've gone mostly to instagram almost entirely for photos. It is amazing how much extra odd stress disappears without reading toxic FB arguements. It's like the outlet that people take all their anxieties out on. But I agree, if things posted to Facebook start changing your perceptions of a place, it's time to go. If I look at any of the Vermont news stations like WCAX and read the 500 comments posted under a headline on FB, I would not believe that is the same Vermont I live in (and an outsider reading it might be like, "this state is supposedly progressive?"). It's just all hate all the time, on everything. People just shouting at each other. The best idea is to just go out and live.

What's a non-violent tornado? A fakenado?