powderfreak

October vibe in the neighborhood before sundown. Being along the river, walking the dog, it's fake cold prone. While the upper ski slopes face E/NE and are shadowed during the max diurnal heating time of day (excellent snow preservation on that eastern slope of Mansfield)... we see some decent afternoon sunshine in the valley. Once we lose that insolation, it drops fast. Local PWS and MVL are 30-32F this evening. Looks like SLK, HIE, BML ASOS are below freezing already. It's kind of crazy that ORH is at 50 degrees right now.

Some scenes from yesterday…

It was legit. We got 14-15” in two days. Settled to 12” on the ground.

I was just looking at the Mansfield Stake Coop data... the earliest 12" or greater depth was ironically this same date October 16th, back in 2010. From what I saw, it looks like official depth should be 12" on today's report. The mean says November 20th. The latest it's ever hit 12" or higher at any point was back in January 4, 2016 (that was the only year with 0" on Christmas Day). Records back to 1954. There are a lot of bigger storms grouped in the October 25 - 31st time frame. But the 16th is early. It is interesting how warm the ground is and how much that was eating into snowfall from underneath. The elevated snow boards and things like that deck and table that are elevated and not exposed to warm ground seemed to accumulate more like 14-16". But ground cover of 12" sounds right.

This is nuts. Gondola open for summer rides. Folks are like WTF. I’ve seen some big snows later in October, but for October 16th, this is impressive. Not seating outdoor at the Cliff House today.

Snowmobiles and snowcats are out to try and open the Gondola for “summer/fall ops” ha. From Lift Ops…

Good grief.

It’s a team effort to preserve the observation.

These two photos from today show the elevational change in weather conditions… of a Gondola/lift that spans 2,100+ vertical feet. Multiple seasons and climates in a 12 minute ride. Start in autumn, end in winter.

This weekend will feel real nice and warm. The past 48-72 hours is a taste of what’s to come for winter. Almost 7” now at the plot. 10” 2-day total.

Closing in on 6” (5.5”) today at 3,000ft. 3” in the last 2 hours. The clock is wrong by three hours, ha, but the image is current. Storm total would be 9”.

It’ll all be gone in a couple days, definitely by the weekend. But October snows never stick around, even up at the picnic tables. A couple of you have said it, but nice to see things happening when they should, high elevation snows in October. At least a couple good troughs getting through the forcefield.

Nice! That's always exciting. I posted that screen grab from Stowe 27 minutes ago and it's over 4" now. That's 1-2"/hr. It is cranking into Mansfield right now and the best upper level support is still back up in Montreal. Wonder if the top gets blasted by like 8" tonight.

Upslope machine is up and running. Peaks could do well tonight. Closing in on 4” today. 3” fell yesterday.

This interaction is hilarious. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Kev say it’s a good foliage year, there’s always something wrong.

About 2,500ft. 3,600ft.

I will always love snow, but also understand that things are changing. Sure, minimum temperatures continue to rise, but we are far enough north that it won’t matter as much… especially at elevation. I hate saying it as it gets categorized as political. It’s not. We just want to be above the snow level.

Snow levels dropped fast this evening. Even catpaws down at 750ft here in Stowe village. Big ol' white rain splatting on the windshield. Accums down through 1,300ft now. Snow looks fluffy up high on the cam, ha. Down to 26F at 3,600ft. I love the warm and sunny weather, and will enjoy it after this event, but the snow puts a little hop in my step. It was exciting today at the ski area. High fives and fist bumps throughout the operations crew and other staff. People get excited with the first real snow. A shot out of the real camera of the 3" outside Stowe's Cliff House.

Yeah highs at the summits back over 50F it looks like. Should be a real nice weekend.

Winter.

Yore.

2" at 3,000ft with steady snow falling on the remote snow cam. Will be heading up a bit later.

Oh for sure, I think a foot at the summits by Wednesday AM is in play. That was just a knee jerk reaction by me (my bad) as I see the 3KM shared so much on social media with people dropping pins right over the mountains and seeing 25" Jay, 20" Mansfield and then asking why forecasts aren't calling for two feet. I like the HRRR's precip scheme... however that resolves the terrain looks a lot more like reality than how the 3km NAM resolves the terrain. Check out these side by side comparisons for a 12-hour QPF total. The HRRR on the right looks more like what usually happens. Maxes over the peaks but not like 1.0" QPF next to a trace. Upslope can be pretty stark differences over short distances, but the HRRR precip spread looks more like what often happens.

That 3k is almost un-useable for the ridgelines. It turns rime and fog into into a lot of precip. I hate that model for the ridgelines . It’ll show like 3 feet of snow, the globals will show 6” and the mountains will get 12” and everyone is like see the NAM knew. No, the NAM showed 3 feet, lol. Panels like this are usually very bogus IMO…. and it all adds up fast in the like aggregate. Maybe a tenth in 6-hours but not like 0.30-0.50” on the ridges.

Yeah saw flakes on the Rt 242 VTrans camera.