powderfreak

It’s been snowing steady paste at the mountain. Only about an 1” today so far but I bet it’s under 10:1 ratio. Pacific NW style stuff. White rain down in town. Mountain dodged a huge bullet... never rained above 1,200ft or so. About 3” of cream cheese skiing today.

Holy crap Gene. I'm so sorry you are going through that. That's insane that pneumonia can do that. Best of luck and will be thinking of you.

I doubt it’s all rain though. Wet snow/ZR for the higher terrain is my bet. Won’t crack freezing up high on east slope.

Most interesting part of the day was seeing what looked like wood smoke, stuck under an inversion in the lower elevations as late as noontime. It was like summer-time fog elevation right in the immediate river valleys. That look of smoke going up and hitting a short ceiling is pretty cool to see at midday.

Posted it in the main thread but probably belongs here instead. It's nearly 30F in Burlington this morning while it's low single digits in the RT 100 corridor on this side of the mountain. Even in the 20s on the summits. Look at that warm corridor on the VT side of the Lake where temps are 25-30F, while interior valleys and hollows are near zero in spots of NY/VT/NH. Good luck trying to forecast these temp ranges. Some 20-degree spreads even in very close proximity to each other.

Driving to Morrisville to get some stuff from NAPA Auto Parts and saw the NOAA techs checking in on the MVL ASOS. Keep doing God’s work and keep the observations coming, ha.

Figured I'd share the recovery efforts from Mother Nature after the big thaw. At the High Road Plot at 3,000ft we recorded 23" of snow in the past week. The Mansfield stake depth recovered 22" during that time (from 18" to 40"). I like to post these from time to time to show that yes, someone is actually measuring the snow in the mountains. We started with 2" of dense stuff before the first storm that brought 12" (7" and 5") and then the second storm brought 9" on the level.

Yeah J.Spin... same thing at Stowe. I would be very cautious under 2,500ft. It's do-able and I felt pretty confident above that mid-mountain level, but lower down it's still tread lightly. A snowboarder got dragged out of the Notch by Stowe Mountain Rescue over the weekend after shattering his tibia on a rock. I know I say it a lot, but I'm very happy we have one of the top technical rescue teams in the state right here in Stowe. The local terrain and need for that sort of rescue makes for one heck of a municipal rescue team.

Crazy that Chittenden County has a temperature range that could go from the upper teens in downtown Burlington near the Lake, to -5F in the elevated hollows along the western slopes. Even the airport and downtown seem to have a 10F to 15F difference right there on the lake boundary.

d The 3,000ft plot snowfall this week.

Final measurement today was 9" at 3,000ft. Previous storm was 12".... 21" from the past two events and 24" this week total (last 5 board cleanings of 1", 2.5", 7", 5", 9") . Not a bad recovery from last weekend's torch.

5.8” at home, 7” at 1,500ft and 8” at 3,000ft with this event. Still some -SN out there but should add much more than a dusting.

I’ve thought those big 10+ numbers were on the high side. I went 5-8” for the ski areas (best bet IMO for covering the majority of terrain. Of course could be locally higher at the summits and snow pockets but I think 5-8” was a good range of where this ends up for the majority of terrain.

Good event region wide in NNE it seems...cool

I bet they can for sure. There's another 2" of just absolute fluff here since 4pm....up at 7.5" here and the narrow band that has been crushing Mansfield this evening is moving back north.

Started looking like winter after 2.5" of dense snow this morning... about half fell before 6am and half between 6-9am. It was heavy dense snow, almost sand-like with mixed precipitation mixed in. Made a huge difference in ski conditions....had to be a good shot of liquid, maybe 0.25-0.3" as I bet it was under 10:1 ratios.

Usually not unless its a meso-scale upslope snow where the ratios are often higher anyway. Most synoptic snow though has those Kuchie maps wayyyyy too high.

We had some snow reporting issues last winter that got fixed the 2nd week of January... I've got 96" for monthly snowfall last January. Smuggs had 127". My gut said we under-reported (ie missed) some inches in the first week of January but got it sorted out and Andre and I were on the run again. That was a big month. Good old Northern Greens style. Hard to run a January better than 100" of snowfall along with 100" snow depth to enjoy it on. We had like 50" on the ground in the base area later in January there, ha.

Yeah got around 0.9” on the high snow board. At least whitened things up a bit.

This was quite the thaw. Pretty high end but not quite to levels like in Jan 2008 and or Jan 96. I think the summits saw the worst of it. The valleys drained low level cold in last night near freezing...but up at 3000ft+ it was 45-50F all last night with 1-1.5” rainfall across the Spine here. The Mansfield Stake is down to 18” of pack. It has the slickness of pond ice and the durability of a concrete foundation. Last year we hit 100” of depth in January for comparison.

That's an awesome set-up dude! Hockey Night in Canada type vibe.

Most of that was untouched from this week’s snow... so they are turning in about 12-18” of consolidated powder. Plenty deep! We just finished a nice run of 19” in 5 days. Hunt the untracked and it skied like over a foot. But yeah, the speed at which these guys ski the woods is what makes photos. Fluffy snow and high rates of speed make that stuff explode.

What a day!

Thanks Diane! Got some fresh pow turns in. Bluebird and beautiful. Can’t believe it’s all but a dream in two days.

Another excellent day. 18" in past 4 days on the mountain. And this photo was before the heavy squalls hit this afternoon.