powderfreak

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.

Ended up with 1.5” in Stowe Village.

J- I agree, it's been a weird winter in that regard. The lower elevations seem to be doing better relative to normal than the higher elevations. We've only had that 214" at 3,000ft High Road area, compared with say 2016-17 when we measured 375" by closing day at that location. I think when I really look into the various winter's on the mountain, it all revolves around the "bread and butter" events. The 2-4"/3-6" per day type stuff. And not just for a week, but like months of that stuff every couple days. In that 375" winter, we did like 100" in 3 weeks without any huge events that January into early February. It just snowed 1" or more like 21 out of 24 days. Those to me, are how we get our averages in the mountain sites while down in the valleys we rely on more synoptic events and supplement with upslope nickles. Your location is different and more tied to the mountain orographics, but this season I feel like we have certainly been missing a large amount of "refresher" events for the ski area. The two week long periods of flakes, or the 5-day cycles of moist NW flow. Not huge events but just days where it's like 2", 4", 1", 6", 3", etc. We really need that stuff as I've always thought of the average snow up here as 2" per day. Anything below that (14" per week or lower) is below average. The Mansfield COOP reported less snow but still had an average daily snowfall of like 1.5-2.0" per day for the heart of winter. This year has had a ton of 7-day totals in the 5-10" range.... weeks of it. Even some weeks below 5". We lucked out in the valleys with synoptic events but I think the prevailing pattern of primary upper level lows going northwest of us is a poor pattern for the northern Greens because you don't get that cyclonic backside flow. We can work with cold air damming or synoptic snow to mix then dry slot type storms, but most of those events don't have much difference from valleys to peaks because it's mid-level warm air lift. But without those higher variance NW flow events on the backside where the mountains gets 6-8" more while town sees 1-2", I think we haven't had that huge snowfall variance we usually see. A lot of it has to do with the orographic snows, IMO, and the prevailing pattern this winter of upper level lows staying back west.

Yup, this weekend looks cold enough up north to keep it icy and firm. Today may have been the worst day of the season with the solidly below freezing temps after rain and warmth. The top snow layer has melted back to the glacial base (still very deep, but it's packed ice essentially) and there isn't much groomers can do with that when its 15-25F. This weekend with more rain coming Friday and then colder weather Saturday/Sunday that won't break freezing in the Northern Greens will lead to some real rugged skiing. We are at the point where the temperature needs to be above freezing for it to be worth skiing, unless it snows, which doesn't look likely anytime soon.

Agreed on the mountain. Snowfall has been sub-par on the whole, even with a rouge high-end event.

Perfect!

Someone posted this elsewhere on social but figured it’s worth a share... I’ve never seen a photo of the original Mansfield COOP set up. Here you can see the thermometer house and snow/precip bucket.

I think I’d put this more rare than JSpin’s cycle summaries, but then again maybe not? It really comes down to what a cycle is though...can easily get 40” in a snowy week that’s a “cycle”. Then again we’ve had some whoppers lately, we were 50”+ at High Road during March 2017 “Stella” and then last March was 30+ I think over a couple days. Any substantial storm that has a big upslope response over a couple days can get there. I think this one felt more like an event to me where we’ve sometimes wondered “what would happen if a big 30-40” lake effect event happened on a mountain and not the Tug Hill?” I bet we got 1” of water for the first 10” of snow, then 1” of water for the last 30” of snow.

Sad news from the search and rescue last night. The backcountry terrain around here is no joke, sounds like they were from CT and familiar with Stowe. One skier found deceased under cliffs and his friend found alive on top of the cliffs. CASE#:20A101038 RANK/TROOPER FULL NAME:Det. Sgt. Jacob Metayer STATION: Williston CONTACT#: 802-878-7111 DATE/TIME: 18:40 02/29/20 INCIDENT LOCATION: Cambridge, VT - Smugglers Notch State Park VIOLATION:n/a VICTIM: Name of the victim is being withheld pending notification of next of kin AGE: 36 CITY, STATE OF RESIDENCE: Connecticut SUMMARY OF INCIDENT: On 02/29/20 at 18:36 the Vermont State Police-Williston barracks received a 911 call reporting two skiers had gone off of the trail at Stowe Mountain Resort. They were lost and one of the two skiers had fallen off of a cliff and was injured. Members from the State Police, Stowe Mountain Rescue, Colchester Technical Rescue, Cambridge Fire Department and several members of the Army Mountain Warfare School responded to begin searching for the skiers. After a search lasting over 2 hours, the two skiers were found. One of the skiers, a 36 year old male from Connecticut, was found at the base of a cliff deceased. The other skier was a 35 year old male also from Connecticut. He was found to be uninjured and was assisted out of the woods by rescue personnel. The two skiers were reported to be avid skiers who were familiar with the Stowe Mountain Resort. The names of the involved parties are being withheld pending notification of the next of kin.

We finished with a 40" storm total at the High Road Snow Plot. This is high-end. Andre and I are big fans of documenting events and a 40" storm total sounds outrageous, but that's what it was at the regular High Road Plot at 3kft on the east slope of Mansfield. This is the same location we measure all winter and have used for Stowe snowfall over the past decade. It is certainly not a drift. This was one of the more freakish events I have ever seen at the mountain. Along with that, the 25" stack that Andre found yesterday morning is one of the single largest stacks we have ever seen there, though it was a full day of accumulation due to the previous day wind hold.

I am still in disbelief that it did it again last night. Look at that firehose... with lake effect those yellows are like 2"/hr on the hill. Like 30 hours of this lake effect streamer being aimed in the Mansfield direction. Finally down to just a few flurries now and even a couple breaks in the clouds.

9" more at High Road Stake this morning. 39" total at that location on Mansfield. This is getting out of hand. 5" more in the parking lots at 1,500ft...almost two feet now at base level.

Here we go again. The ski area is in the firehose again.

Lake effect band moving south again. It’s been going slowly as it moves back south, spending 60-90 minutes in a location...I bet dropping a quick 1-3” to areas just north of us.

And just like that, 15" above the normal level. This one was memorable for how it happened from a skiers perspective. I may never have runs like the past couple days again. Yesterday was pure untracked sweetness in Tres Amigos with literally no tracks in huge swaths, for several laps. Today the Quad opened at like 1pm after wind hold all morning. Folks were tired or started leaving thinking the Quad and Sensation wouldn't open today. Then bam at 1pm everything popped open as the wind abated. All that snow sitting there for a couple days of very low to no traffic/lift access in spots...you don't get that lucky sneaking out for runs at 2pm ever.

It was a very memorable event. This place can still bring those high end surprising events but the signs were there... you'd just never forecast it. The long duration Lake Ontario band was aimed somewhere in this region and most models had a huge streamer even getting to NH/ME. That type of moisture with fantastic snow growth mixing with the orographic lift? Bonkers. Froude numbers were around 1.0 which is pretty much perfect for the east slope on Mansfield. The best lift is right over the crest and then you have the strong westerly flow that is able to blow those fluffy dendrites pretty far downwind. Town rarely gets into stuff to that extent, too. 10" out of this was quite the surprise. It's already settling as the last few inches was pretty much pure lake effect, stacking high on trees and powerlines with fluff. The first round was wet paste and then ratios kept increasing from there. Overall, this wasn't as much an upslope event, it was a Lake Ontario event that got a pretty substantial bump when it interacted with the Spine. It was like 10" of dense synoptic snow, then 20" of blower lake effect on the mountain.

No it didn't... but it really spaced itself out in this lake effect band. It just must be snowing harder up in the cloud? lol. That high elevation just fluffs snow in upslope/lake bands. I dont' know if the flakes are bigger or what. If it's 1"/hr at the base it's 2"/hr at 3,000ft in these meso-scale situations. It just snows so hard up there.

Finished with 10", just got home. 18" at 1,500ft and 30" at 3,000ft. Nice gradient.

They seem reasonable. Were saying 20" this afternoon at Jay. The lake band has migrated up there now.

30" total as of 4pm. Here are the two readings... first stack was 25" at 11am and then 5" from 11a to 4p.

Stake is now a few inches under the 7 foot mark... probably right around 80".

It's waist deep on the level. I'm getting consistent 24-30" measurements and that's with settling.

I've put all my obs in the actual thread... but man it's still snowing out. Skiing (photos in the storm thread) was obscenely good.

I'm about to head out skiing for the afternoon... buddy Dylan from the skivt-l days reporting that its skiing deeper than it seems. Nice dense snow, that stuff skis so well when you can power the turns with no regrets.

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.