powderfreak

Time to Shut 'Em Down. That's going to do it for the continuous snowpack season at the fabled Mansfield stake. I went up with the dog to get today's reading and called it 3" though it becomes very tough this time of year. Yesterday's record heat just absolutely eviscerated the remaining snow and the snowpack is now fractured with bare spots. It's really 0-24" up there but the official ruling is to go to a "Trace" once the snow no longer creates a full circle around the stake tree. Today was certainly the last day for that as the little 1-2" bridge in front of the stake won't make it through tonight and certainly not through tomorrow. So tomorrow will go down as a Trace. One helluva impressive snowpack drop the past two weeks, but that's what 9 days averaging +14.1F will do. Yesterday was a whopping +26.5 in the means. Hard to pull daily means greater than +25 in the warm season.

Posted this in the May thread but good info for this thread too as it moves at a slower pace. With the snow melting fast, I'm trying to get up there every 48 hours or so now for stake readings. It's a walk for sure, 3.5 miles each way with 2,600 vertical foot gain just to get a snow depth reading... but who am I kidding, the dog and I love it. I called it 30" today on my report to WFO BTV. It gets hard this time of year with the melt ring to narrow in on a certain inch. Its in free-fall now... lost 11" in the past 48 hours alone. The summit isn't cooling off at night like the valleys. The valleys are getting down to frost levels in the low to mid 30s at night but the summit has now been 48 hours in the 50F to 70F range. Not good for snow preservation when you don't drop below 50F, ha. Stunning weather though to wander around in the mountains. Not a cloud in the sky for like the 5th or 6th day in a row, ha.

With the arrival of sustained 70-80F temps in the valleys and 50-60F+ at the summit, we are finally on our final descent at the Mansfield Stake. I hiked up there today to get a reading to pass along to the NWS, lots of water pouring out of the higher elevations as they release that high SWE.

I wouldn’t do satellite. From folks I’ve known that have tried that route it doesn’t seem to be as reliable as they make it seem, not as fast as advertised either. If you have good 4G cell reception I would utilize that over satellite.

You’d be able to get some ridiculous time lapse loops from there. Big sky view to watch Tcu explode in July over the Presidentials. Fast moving squalls in the winter where it’s partly sunny then 0 vis then partly sunny... great potential there for weather vids.

When’s the high-def web cam going live?

Took the dog for a walk yesterday and ended up at the Mansfield stake. Even after the heavy rain and high dews, still a solid 4 feet or a touch more up there.

Hard to believe this is the scene in the Green Mountains on May 12th... The Western Slopes got crushed...certainly more over there than on the East side. Nice day for a weenie drive. A view looking at Trapp Family Lodge of "Sound of Music" fame....

Whiteface in the Adirondacks, 14F.

You are in a snowy spot man. I visit your type of climate almost every day but I don't live in it. The local mesoscale differences even within towns around NNE is pretty nuts, you are in the "snowier" inhabited zone. Good moisture from better low development the further east you get, and a blocked flow given the tilting in the atmosphere, this was a great set-up for you tucked in on that NW slope of the Presidential Range.

Fukkin' May and there's a coating of the snow on the ground there... I don't know the climo as much down there but I have to think these types of snow squalls are on a pretty decent return time.

We knew this air mass wouldn't be denied. Squalls all over the place.

I might even try to find the twitter thread of this Cranky fellow.... what a terrible way to go down swinging by trying to minimize this. Need some good entertainment, I’m assuming Twitter has lit the guy up. Not sure what’s more impressive, the air mass or the fact that a weather personality thinks this is run of the mill.

Squalls up here this time of year, pretty cool and impressive. But squalls like your photo, in the time of max diurnal temperatures, along the Long Island Sound is absolutely bonkers for this time of year. Guess that’s what happens when 850mb and 500mb are near the minimum climo values on the NAEFS ensemble.

Squalls are fun. Localized whiteouts moving through an otherwise bluebird day, ha.

Crazy that a couple spots like 40 minutes from ALB woke up to 8-12" too. I'd expect it more up that way in maritime bomb cyclone land. Just an awesome day weather wise all around.

These squalls have been going pretty much consistently for like 8 hours now. Pretty impressive to have this steady stream of snow showers and squalls under the cold pool for so many hours on end. Sun then snow then sun then graupel then sun then snow, etc.

It's obviously worked for Tolland for a while. I mean if you have a State barracks in the town, that pretty much covers it. Troopers always going to and from the barracks is enough to keep enforcement up in a small town.

Had some massive graupel on my hike... stuff was like the size of BBs. A general 4-5” fresh inches above 1800ft made it through the day with no melting. Still getting snow showers at home and some snow has made it through the whole day on the north side of barriers. Crazy to get an inch and a half to not fully melt out everywhere at this elevation in May.

Holy shit! Hope they were ok. That has to be terrifying. Also noticed the State Trooper is the only one with a mask on...those guys don’t fuk around, they are all business.

These squalls are nuts! Even have anvils like thunderstorms. Viewing them from high country is impressive. Just walls of white moving across the landscape.

Just slightly below average right? Nothing like bouncing around between 30F and 33F at midday with snow showers at only 750ft of elevation in New England on May 9th. I don't think it can be understated how obscene it is to drop to 30F when snow showers roll through down here in the valley at 1pm the 2nd week of May. Plenty of mid-winter days that look like this screenshot. So today is really just like a mild January day.

The reported snow accumulation map BTV put out is pretty telling in those meso-scale details. There was the larger mid-level fronto that went from NY State, up through Central/Eastern VT and into Northern New Hampshire. But within that fronto band, the two really enhanced areas are areas that would do well on blocked NW flow... upstream of the southern Greens high country and then again upstream of the Whites. So there's this general 2-6" snowfall within that better mid-level frontogenesis but underneath that two areas really looked to get lit up from blocked NW flow under that mid-level lift. That same set-up sort of shafted us in the RT 100 corridor up here at 0.5-2.0" from Jay Peak down to almost Sugarbush on this east side, as we were too far NW for the meat of the frontogensis but since we are east slope and the flow was blocked, we also missed out on an assist from that last night.

Best looking lawn though for sure, might be the sun but the green is really popping. Looks almost fake, like someone sprayed foam on the bushes and stuff.

Oh I wasn't being serious. Is that a real thing? Its all just water that falls from the sky.