powderfreak

There's something to be said for December snow before the holidays. I still think that time of high anticipation is a good one to get smoked. Just for shits and giggles, does the winter appeal change if nothing fell at all through now, and then you got December's snow this upcoming March?

It certainly has been leaner on snowfall and January torched, but somehow we survived up here. Snow depth has lagged all year but has had periods near normal, currently below normal snowpack but that is still 2-5 feet of dense, settled snow at the mountain depending on elevation. In town we've at least been walking in paths from the snow for quite a bit this season. I'd rate it below average but is it weird that by the end of a season like this, I feel like I can't let the winter grade get influenced by snow results elsewhere?

This is real bad in your area and over to Kev's and southward... for sure. You guys lucked out in 2015-16 and were still in that pattern of any coastal low will smoke SNE, despite the really bad pattern. 2015-16 was MUCH worse up here by a factor of probably 10, as we didn't have snow on the ground like most of that winter it seemed. This winter we've kept snow cover for pretty much the entire winter still. But down by you guys, I have to imagine this one is up there with 2011-12 and 2001-02. Those winters I think had warmer temps but if it won't snow, that probably makes it better?

Some rowdy skiing today at Stowe by two friends who wanted to try this shot... the entrance was a bit too sporty for me and this photo doesn't do it justice... it's basically like a cliff that holds some snow, a fall here could be real bad.

Not if you forecasted persistence after December’s good start...

GGEM bombs you and Tamarack with like 15-20" lol.

Pretty evenly split by Mother Nature of NNE and SNE.

Up to low-20s at MVL/MPV... but BTV is already 15 degrees warmer 37F. Holy crap.

What a freakin day shaping up. Holy cow, euphoria on the slopes... bright sunshine, mid-winter snowpack, cold start but temps should rise fast.

Another chilly morning... 8F out there. Lots of single digit and below nights this month.

I don't know where he is but I'd bet a good dense couple feet in that pic? We've been pretty steady lately with 12-18" on the ground in the lower elevations surrounding the "mountains" while once 1,500ft and higher it's more like 18-36". Champlain Valley is less with 8-14" in general.

That's always a common idea during a snowy December it seems. If it snows early, everyone starts "wondering" if that is how winter will go.

Still finding fresh untracked lines at Stowe despite the holiday week crowds. Anyone telling you that you can't find fresh lines hasn't looked hard enough

Nice! I've always wanted to go there. A 4.5 mile loop sounds awesome and I've seen a lot of friends post photos from there over the past few years. One thing I notice there is despite the very warm departures at times this winter, the NNE climate still supports winter. Lakes are frozen solid, with snow on the ground even with a +5.9F to +7.4F month of January in the northern half of Vermont. What we have had is a good supply of very cold nights this past month though. Days have warmed nicely but some of these nights are pretty high end cold.

Could be at Alyeska, Alaska.... 50" storm total and 613" so far this season.

-21F this morning... yikes.

That really would really be a feat. I still think you guys get an advisory event at the least going out, always the chance of a hail mary in SNE too. If anyone can rip out a big solid surprise spring snowstorm, it's you guys in the interior/hills of SNE. Random bombs is what you do, just get some transient blocking...even a quick hitter.

Wind-blown chalky snow up here. Base is solid and snow is fun but those 80-100mph winds did some wind-packing for sure. Blew a lot of the snow out of the trees too. From looking at the Mansfield Chin, the wind really scoured things and moved that snow down into the snowfields. Nice lower elevation transport in this wind.

Shouldn't have moved to ORH... ORH was the home of big snow bombs until MPM moved to town.

Yeah can’t rationalize that, haha. Great visual.

Yeah and southeast flow really downsloped that area. Not that it upsloped on the east side but being on the edge of the precip shield AND downsloping really dropped totals off fast east of the Spine... from like 2" to a heavy dusting. We had the worlds smallest flakes yesterday up here... looked like arctic sand type snow you'd get when its -5F but it was actually in the 20s. The squalls this morning probably doubled the "storms" totals, lol.

They have their daily climate summary maps which could fill that void...

Yeah you know your local climo. I’m always hard pressed to call anyone out around here knowing how vastly different the snowfall can be in very short distances, like 1” wouldn’t even be a red flag. But you know your area... heck I’m at a higher elevation than JSpin by 250 feet but 30” behind him and he’s the next town south. But it’s legit. Even if someone two miles from me said they got a couple inches more in a synoptic event I’d believe it, ha. Even in those with strong low level jet there can be decent orographic changes.

6 observations between 4.0" and 4.5" and then 1 observation that's 1+ inch more than the rest. It does sort of stand out... it's not *that* bad but all the others are so close within a half inch there.

Ahh missed it. Will have to search. I went down the rabbit hole reading up on it this morning.