powderfreak

Nice J.Spin! I had about 4.25" from the event total (early morning and this afternoon)... depth at 9" You definitely looked to take the brunt of that squall. Looked like the core went right down I-89.

This is some truly heavy snow. Wow. Can’t even see from one end of the hotel to the other.

I'm hearing reports of thunder in BTV with that squall.

It just keeps cranking.

Another couple inches since 5:30am at the mountain. Pulses of moisture moving through but speckled with 30-35dbz at times produces some pretty healthy rates for short durations.

It just keeps snowing. Gotta enjoy it while it’s here. 14” in 4 days at the ski area, all at 2-3” every 12 hours. 1.5” on the car at home and 2.0” in the parking lot at 5:30am up at the office. This stuff feels denser. But it’s literally been 4 days straight of nickel and dime snowfall. We’ll take it as a substitute.

Haven't posted some photos in a while... here's the past two days on Mansfield:

I just saw that! NEK got crushed by that “little critter” as SNE says. Widespread 4-6” on Cocorahs.

It's interesting that in these smaller events I do feel like the mountain gets higher ratio snow and I think it's something that happens along the Spine. J.Spin gets more liquid on the whole but I do think we get lower ratio snow (say only 20:1 vs 40:1) and I noticed it again this morning on CoCoRAHS. When these little fluffers move through the Spine seems to really tap that snow growth and get huge fluffly flakes while in town they are still fluffy but not quite the same. Sometimes it seems like there isn't a huge difference in moisture, just higher ratio snow. But you can see the 0.03-0.04" water and then look at the snowfall differences. I tend to find that J.Spin difference at Mansfield too, where its not always just more moisture but that the flakes seem much larger and stack better. There was around 2" at the mountain by the end of the day today and it was pure air... had to be 40:1 northern stream fluffernutter stuff.

Some decent light snow today. About an inch on my car in 2-3 hrs at the ski area and still coming down steadily.

Pretty good upslope flow going on this morning. Moisture getting wrung out rather efficiently right now. Big wind blow flakes at the mountain.

The radar certainly supported Sugarbush getting more today. Overnight it could dry out and the northern spots may catch up with upslope on half the liquid. I do think SB/MRG got the best QPF.

The Sugarbush web cams looked real nice this afternoon. I think SB jackpotted today. We are up to 3” at high elevations but only 1-2” down around the base area.

Pure butter (or buttah as they say) this morning with above freezing temps and thick high ratio snow groomed out... I love this surface condition. GP crushing it down Gondolier today. 3-6" or 4-7" type event coming up for the hill from noon Saturday to noon Sunday IMO.

Swim? Ha.

Looked very similar here a couple days ago. Still fully white and crunchy depth. Only 2-3” now though. Bare ground under the pine stands.

On my phone I can only find this one from 2015... but I have another one with the past 3 years in it at work. The average is down to around 304” I think with 156” in 2015-16 and 375” in 16-17 and 286” in 17-18 and low 300s last winter.

Measurement locations and method of collection. I don’t think Mansfield gets more but you’d have to do an equal comparison. Not all locations are the same. I think of summit snow as like measuring snow on your roof vs your yard. Sometimes the snow stacks on the roof nicely, other times the roof is blown clean. It would certainly be a bit different than the snow in the yard.

Yup. Like even Mammoth is wind swept rock up top of the ridge but where they ski and then measure down lower in the trees gets 400-500”. I bet MWN averages a LOT more than their reported snowfall, they just can’t collect it. But a lot of flakes fall up there. Johns Weather in NNH gets almost as much as MWN at times and he’s at what 2kft? No, MWN gets A LOT more snow to fall they just can’t measure it. Mansfield COOPs best samples were either heavy wet snow (they would get pretty accurate snow totals in summit blue bombs) or the rare calm snowfall. As soon as ratios went up or wind went up the snowfall amounts were no where close to what the rest of that upper elevation band would see. Measuring snow in elevated precip cans on summits will drastically under report, IMO from what I’ve seen. Whether it all piles up on only one side of the can, or the flakes get shattered hitting the can and trying to fall in, it’s certainly the least accurate way (but only way) to do it in those environments. It’s like if Scooter put an 8-inch diameter by 2-feet deep narrow bucket on the top of his roof in a blizzard and then compared the flakes that made it into that thing with the snow depth in his yard. My bet is the can would have about 60% of what his yard has.

The Mansfield COOP data is no MWN either. It was a once a day reading of what found its way into an 8-inch diameter precip can. The worst time possible at 4pm after any day time heating... it drastically under reported early/late season snows sometimes because of that. There’s also settling. At the ski area we do ground based snow board in a protected spot and twice a day. Twice a day vs once a day makes a decent difference even at airports, it does on mtns too. Also upslope snow seems to come in best at night...not sure if it’s the nocturnal inversion or what, but solar seems to disrupt it. Morning measurements are maximizing upslope snow vs late afternoon in my experience. MWN does 4 readings for every 1 that was done on Mansfield in the COOP data. That plays a decent role. Its not all apples to apples. And I have no doubt if I showed any of you around and the differences, it would become obvious very quickly. That’s how I gathered trust with BTV...you send them photos of the study plot and snow board set up enough, and they see it too.

I don’t have time right now but I can show the last 20 years or so of snowfall at Stowe....it’s right around 300”. I mean folks can take it or leave it but I measured it for a solid decade now after another dedicated ski area personnel did it prior to that for about the same number of years. The Mansfield COOP snowfall is an absolute joke. It’s collection method is similar to MWN if not worse...the elevated precip can under-catches on the ridge significantly and flakes get pulverized so the COOP ratios were often 10:1 even in huge fluff events. Often times the can would be in error so they would use the 24 hour snow depth change too. If the low elevations at 500ft like JSpin can get 150-200” fairly regularly, it’s not hard to imagine 3-4000ft belt getting 300”+. I’m sorry but you don’t get 100” snow depth with rain events and melts and such on the snowfall amounts of the COOP. The depth to snowfall ratio makes no sense in the longer record given a lot of fluffy snow. Once family leaves and holidays are done I can put together a pretty damn good compelling argument with photos and stuff of collection sites and differences. We measured at 3000ft because it’s a much calmer environment and it can fart 4” of almost air overnight there while the ridge precip can gets 1” of pulverized flakes. Measuring snow on a rocky wind swept ridge is an effort in futility. The rocks are bare all winter long, no wonder the snow amount is low. Go measure snow on the terrain that builds depths to 6-10 feet where people ski and snow actually falls straight down.

Going to pow town on the mountain. Finally feels like NNE winter out there.

At the mountain when it hit we had to pretty much stop skiing. Pure whiteout in all senses of the word.

Good 3” so far in the Stowe Base area this afternoon.

Some incredible snow growth with these blossoming snow showers. Like 1” diameter fluff flakes. Stacking up like potato chips in a bag...half air.