powderfreak

I mean those progs are pretty cool relative to normal.... now whether anyone's skin feels that as "cold" or "chilly" or what not is another matter. I agree a sunny -5 day can still be pretty damn nice out this time of year. I'll take sunny and 52F as a win. The tune from a few in here though would be MUCH different if that was showing +5 to +10 departures. I'm pretty sure the word "torch" would be involved in that.

Sick, wonder who the photographer was. I’ve got a couple guesses, ha. Still a lot of snow above 2,000ft. 70” at the Mansfield Stake.

Today was absolutely beautiful. Mid-60s in Northern Vermont and sunshine... we take that all day long. Good diurnal range, indicative of a great day... mid-20s to mid-60s. Fantastic stuff, went for a few hour walk up an old road to 2,400ft. Doesn't get much better than this for late April with sunshine and 55-65F depending on elevation.

Yeah maybe it’s just certain summer months...I swear I remember a discussion with Tamarack about how hard it is to get 80+ at his site once the leaves are out on the trees.

Tamarack knows something about that I bet, ha.

I'll have to look for the storm summary map, but it was a big upper level low that brought widespread snow everywhere and then transitioned to a monster upslope event I think. @klw was living up in the Northeast Kingdom I think at the time, I remember he had like 14" or something? Peacham maybe? Funny how we remember that stuff, ha. Couldn't tell you anything else about him except I remember how much he got in a snowstorm a decade ago . I just seem to remember the set-up went from widespread heavy precipitation across the northern third of NNE as something traversed across, then the backside NW flow really added it up from the Spine back towards BTV. It had to be a frigid air mass though to get 5.5" at BTV this time of year.

Crazy as we had full sun up here and CLR skies this morning.... up to 49F at MVL while you are getting catpaws. Sun comes out and the temperature immediately corrects to about 50F even with sub-zero 850s.

Crazy looking through my photos though of how much green was around on the trees. Most trees had small leaves at least.... this year absolutely nothing. Barely getting a red haze of buds on some of the canopy. Like in that photo look at the trees behind that house, the crowns have some leaves. But yeah it wasn't paste, all those trees are still standing even with snow on them. We are still stick season in full this year.

Remembering 10 years ago.... biggest event of the winter I think for a bunch of folks up here. Even BTV pulled 5.5" down at pretty much sea level, lol. 700-800ft had 18". Still had snow cover on May 1st, ha.

Went for a walk up into the Notch on the closed RT 108.... same road I live off of, just in a totally different world, ha. Snow on the road started right at 1,500ft but what was interesting is the snow at that elevation was only in the bottom of the valley with slopes on both sides fairly snow free for several hundred vertical feet. Can tell the cold pools in the bottom of the valley where the road is and leads to longer preservation. Once up a little higher the snow was in the valley around the road and on the north facing slopes. South facing slopes are burned out by sun up to like 3,000ft. The other cool part was the absolute thunderous crashes of ice falling off the Notch walls. It was crazy. Every few minutes you'd hear another loud boom and crash echoing off the walls. Sunshine and 50F temps were doing a number on the ice that had formed during the past stretch of cold/snowy weather. I've got a video of the sound but can't post it, too big. It was enough to scare the dog at times. Extremely loud. At one point higher on the road we actually saw ice chunks about the size of bowling balls ripping through the woods all the way to the road. The nose was pretty eerie. Larger chunks would die pretty quickly on impact but then these bowling balls of blue ice would skip down the hillside towards the road. Some of the larger chunks that would break off on the south side (not pictured) were refrigerator-sized, it that would shatter on impact into a lot of small rocks of ice.

Yeah I posted this in the other thread, but you know where this is... by the corn maze on Mtn Road... that field with the first great view of Mansfield. Judging from my car odometer, it was two tenths a mile to that road the house is on. The snow growth is so great that these massive flakes are very efficient at reducing visibility... this is about 1/4 mile +SN. Crazy to get this type of snowfall with the radar echoes in clear air mode. Interesting note, the dark soil of the freshly turned farmer field was really struggling to accumulate despite the snowfall. Sun angle is still there behind this stuff.

Flow is definitely pretty unblocked... seems to be extending quite a bit downwind of the Spine. You can see this where the radar can "see" through the Winooski River Gap and I-89...showing good echoes all the way into Montpelier area.

Backyard scenes.... almost noon in late April. Mid-20s and perfect fluffy snow growth like its Currier and Ives season. Even the rooftops are bare because the dry powder is getting windswept off it. Fun little weather day.

JSpin, snow machine switched to on. 3/4ths of an inch to maybe an inch now at 11am.

Florida is f*cked in that case.

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.

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.

JSpin, is Bolton still allowing uphill? I had heard they closed it. Of course that means different things at different mountains... here it was heavily influenced by Stowe PD and the town to keep people out of town from coming in to skin. Police have been making the rounds up there, so skinning just isn’t worth the looking over your shoulder mentality. Im sure Bolton doesn’t have that issue with no local bored police force ha.

Measuring table with 1.75” this morning... bet the mountain picked up a good half a foot. Had temps been below freezing that was probably 3” last night... but alas mostly fell at 33-34F.

Best Radar look so far. Must be crushing at the ski area with constant 30-35dbz. Snowing furiously at home right now. Big fat upslope flakes.

Don't know but it didn't really happen on the hill. Heaviest was definitely north. 1,500ft only had 2-3". Meanwhile two towns north in Hyde Park, VT had 5.5" at a lower elevation. There must've been a very sharp gradient last night.

Interesting, yeah there was about an inch when I woke up and it's still been snowing but I don't think the depth is increasing that much. I'll probably check again at noon.

Snow mixing in down in Stowe Village. Took a drive up to 1500ft and while snowing, not much accum besides a slushy whitening.

Exploring the higher terrain in some nice steady snowfall today. Ended up with only a dense half inch coating on colder surfaces at 1,500ft but a few inches up higher. Yesterday had some serious freezing rain though... pure icestorm with 1/2" of ice above 2,500ft.

Nice J.Spin! I was thinking at least 2" in a half hour with that band. BTV and MVL both reported the extremely rare M1/4 visibility as it is very tough to get those automated stations to show "under 1/4 mile" in heavy snow. Looked like MVL and MPV put up 0.17-0.22" water in that band.