powderfreak

This looks interesting tonight... maybe some snow in SNE? NAM also has some decent snow showers rolling through west to east tonight. Pretty much tracks like it’s following the Mass borders. o

Keep getting occasional snow showers. The type of things you see in October during the first cold shot. The flakes almost seem to be going upwards more than downwards at times lol.

We’ve had some off and on flurries too. Radar has a bunch of light returns across the North Country.

That was a pretty good ECM run for you guys. That would get it done.

It actually verbatim looks pretty elevation dependent. Like 32-33F for you and 35F for BDL/IJD. Assuming it happens as the Euro is peddling.

Starting to come around to the idea? 6z EURO was another 6-spot for you. Looks pasty. -1C at 925mb and 32-34F surface.

Ha, I almost missed it. Didn’t even bother to look outside, the sun’s burning it off fast already. MVL was under 1 mile visibility, so had to be a nice burst. METAR KMVL 150920Z AUTO 00000KT 3/4SM -SN

ECM for ya...

Not bad on the NAM.

Great diurnal timing.

Backside cold air advection heading SW through New York at this time. Mountain has been NW50G70s for wind, higher than the SE portion (that low level jet missed us well south, congrats guys). It is still incredibly warm up here in the mid/upper 50s at 9:30pm... a bit humid too. At least your skin can feel it, not a dry air mass.

Having beam heights allowed me to see why the 2.45 degree scan (#3) is the one that best represents my home precipitation rates and the general eastern slope. That scan passes the Spine right around 4,300ft and is only blocked by the very summit of Mansfield (which leads to a one pixel miss in Morrisville) but is the first scan that shows me my local area... that beam hits 5,000ft over my house (I'm assuming the height given is height above the radar site level, which is at 300ft asl). Also shows why the base 0.5 degree scan is useless around here... it hits the Spine at like 1000ft elevation and even gets blocked in the Champlain Valley by the 500-800ft hills just outside BTV in Williston, Jericho, Westford, etc. The 1.45 degree scan I used to use more, hits at 2,600ft so it does shoot the gaps, but is bocked in some large blocks of the Spine, especially as the shadow of those mountains expands out into eastern Vermont. It's all sort of what I assumed based on experience, but nice to know it for sure.

I'm sure most Main-ahs are just fine without a high wind event right about now, ha.

I completely agree with you fully, as I had been skinning daily but do to my job in social media and snow reporting for the mountain, I wasn't posting about any of my adventures. I didn't want to lure anyone else to the mountain through "stoke" so I thought it was a good balance of skinning/skiing on your own without promoting it to others. However, it just became too much at Stowe. Jay Peak was the first to barricade their lots, posting photos of those jersey barriers blocking the Stateside parking lots, and I won't lie, I thought it was a bit extreme. But then after several weekends of watching it happen at Stowe it was easy to see that this just wasn't going to fly. I mean they cancelled the school year and most of the town is unemployed right now, they are obviously serious enough that they aren't going to let weekend tailgate parties go on. I think it was a couple weeks ago, SkiVermont put something out saying All Uphill Access at All Vermont Areas was now closed, so that's how I found out about Bolton. From what I heard from folks working there, it was the same sunny Saturday that pushed Stowe over the edge. It's a shame that one sunny day can do it, but it sounds like Bolton isn't enforcing it so I"m tempted to head up there for some turns.... though it's outside my 10 mile bubble (at least by driving, as the crow flies it might be close, lol). I obviously can't skin at Stowe as I don't want to get seen out there as I'm the one who recorded the uphill hotline and snow phone messages asking the Stowe Family to respect the closure for the time being. I'm still hopeful that we will get back to uphill here in a couple weeks as I think the town and ski area just wanted to break the cycle and get people to not travel to Stowe to hike. Once it gets later in the season and things become more patchy, less inviting, I think it'll relax. The shame was that it was the first time I thought Stowe really got the uphill policy "right".... just proceed at your own risk, this point is where you make the decision to continue or not (like a western backcountry gate), and if you are ok assuming all risk, enjoy the hike.

Pretty much loop the 925mb max winds and that’ll tell the story.

Yeah only 63MPH that I can find at the picnic tables at 4kft/875mb up here. That wind speed was at the surface in SNE. Whiteface Summit though got to 95mph at 5kft.

Wait you can get beam height at different distances? Lol.

63/58 at BTV. Thats humid for this time of year. Wheres the Dew Clan?

Some of the road in there is like a tunnel among hardwoods. Not much room on either side of the road from trees.

Due south up the valley.... bet they do well on southerly flow like this. Similar to like BTV up here, just cranks up the valley. BTV is gusting 40 out of the south...lowest elevation site the windiest lol.

Yeah was that the one that leveled acres of white pines up here and snapped power poles across town? I think it was right after I said we don’t get big wind from the SE... then we lost power for like 3-4 days.

For sure. It's an incredibly snowy zone. I would think they get nailed with NW flow. The NE flow topography that Dendrite pointed out was eye-opening too. As for the local plot, that is an amazing open, free air area that is mid-slope.. what a view. Southern facing zones and open areas at that elevation can be breezy/sun affected, but it snows a helluva lot. Around here that sort of area stays better mixed too. A good wind spot, which also leads to scouring or wind-packing. Bizzard like conditions whenever squalls and FROPAs, or any low level jet rolls through.

Yeah we hit 42F with some afternoon sunshine. Still could get flurries at those warmer temps because of wet-bulbing from decaying showers, but it melted fast at 750ft. 1,500ft is another world this time of year (like in the fall)... this system had the QPF of 1-1.5" around here as models suspected, but it spent a lot more time as accumulating snow up in that mid-slope elevation band. Base of the ski resort looked pretty buried.

The afternoon sunshine and temps hitting the 40s torched the valley snow here around here pretty fast (it was only 1-3" depending on surface). But one of the more interesting parts of the melt was while the sun/temps were torching the ground, all the snow remained vertically pasted to the trees. Very odd look to have grass but the tree trunks still stuck with snow.

That Stowe policy is the COVID-19 policy. Uphill was fair game for 3 weeks until the huge crowds caused the Dept of Public Safety in the town of Stowe pressured the resort to close access. The parking lots are gated and locked now with Stowe Police electronic sign warning you by Stowe Mountain Lodge as you come up 108. We lost uphill access the same Saturday that Bolton closed theirs due to high traffic (I think they announced it on social media). Smuggs followed shortly after that and then MRG and Sugarbush issued a joint closure of all uphill due to parking lot crowding. In Stowe, that final March weekend it was sunny and Stowe Police documented several hundred cars there (it was busier than most April days the resort is open, lol) along with tailgate parties. Apparently it put them in an uncomfortable position as the State was advising law enforcement to disperse any gathering of cars not at essential businesses. Recreation apparently is supposed to be from your house or at the most within 10 miles of your home and they were seeing like 30-40% seemed to be from out of state. This is the normal Stowe policy and there were signs out stating this before it got too much attention from the town... which this is how uphill should be: your decision and you own all risk if you go up. We enjoyed 3 weeks of it before getting shut down.