powderfreak

Good grief... on a Sunday evening none-the-less. What the hell happened on 89 in the western BTV suburbs. VSP HAZARDOUS TRAVEL ALERT: Travel remains treacherous due to snow and ice on Interstate 89, especially along the corridor between Richmond (exit 11) and Burlington (exit 14), although hazardous conditions persist along much of the highway and secondary roads. Traffic is reported to be stopped both northbound and southbound from exit 11-14, with as many as 30 or more slide-offs and other crashes.

In Stowe alone, RT 108 closed due to accidents at Harlow Hill just by the XC Center at the ski area.... took folks leaving the mountain almost an hour at 4pm to get out as Stowe PD shut the road down until it could be plowed/salted. Apparently it was so slick you could barely walk on the pavement near the cars that ended up into the guardrail there. Barrows Road was also closed for a bit near the High School due to an accident and RT 100 was shut down for a time by Gregg Hill Rd near that wood carving place. A friend who left the mountain at 5:45pm just got home to Burlington at 8:30pm. Said I-89 was a pure skating rink with snow on top of it and every highway board was just flashing "CRASHES DRIVE WITH CAUTION".... 5-15mph the whole way from Waterbury to Burlington with occasional periods of full stoppage. There's a FB video I saw of folks getting out of their cars to stretch, and then sliding on the black ice even standing there. High impact event.

Ha, Mother Nature has given SNE the winter taste after last season, and that won't be satiated for quite a while. But good for them, they had it really rough last year while we were piling up feet in the hills. I'm glad we put down almost 2" in squalls at home today... grass covered again and looks like winter with blowing snow, comes with the benefit of very little shoveling too. It's always odd to me that I check the models all the time on little events like Tuesday but then you get some squalls and it delivers probably more snow than the highly tracked event. Regarding Tuesday... certainly not feeling all warm and fuzzy, the convective looking stuff after that event though might be interesting.

I don't know when the site changed but the airport location is definitely a snowier spot than lake front. I know the 60s and 70s were snowier, along with recently in the 2000s... big storm frequency is also up. It would be interesting to compare various sites around New England.

One of the better squalls you'll see at this low elevation. Pretty solid. The snow squall warning seemed justified...you certainly wouldn't want to be driving in this.

It is absolutely ripping. This visibility is extremely low for this elevation.

Someone is getting a good squall. Jay Peak likely hitting it best tonight.

We were overcast and even had some flurries float down, but must've been just enough clearing to the SW over the southern Champlain Valley for the sun to sneak some rays under the OVC deck and above the Spine. Very narrow window there, ha.

Man what a sunset. Out walking with the dog but Elmore Mountain and the entire Worcester Range just went bright pink....upper elevations plastered white going pink with alpenglow is one of the best scenes in the mountains.

It is nuking at the mountain still. Huge flakes!

Best office in New England... sorry Legro . By far the most skiing and riding discussions in the AFDs of any office. Warms the heart.

Life in the snow globe. Another one converted to upslope way of life! Stacked up on every little twig today. Such a beautiful drive through town to the mountain. Hollywood movies spend a million dollars to recreate these scenes with perfect dendrites fluttering down and stacking on everything.

Last night was pure air. About 3” at home in the past 24 hours.

Nice snowy evening and the upslope flow seems to be doing it's thing. Up at the ski resort there was around 3" on the ice rink and it was coming down steadily when I left. Down in town found ~2" at home. Not the deep snow of SNE but wintry vibe with snowy evenings several times this week.

Sunny Spruce Quad opens tomorrow with more terrain but I don’t think they dropped any other major ropes today. Got 1-2” throughout the day and still snowing this evening.

Good luck this afternoon dude. Gonna be a bit too far south for up here.

That's a big part of the NNE mtn climo... flakes in the air. It's especially awesome early season with the holiday lights and mood from Thanksgiving to Christmas. Keeps things looking fresh. This little upslope event over the last 18 hours is finally going to snow itself out soon, but it's still snowing steadily on the slopes per friends. Moisture was certainly lacking but this seemed to maximize what precipitable water there was.

Great stuff out there today on Mansfield. The upslope machine brought 6" to the mountain throughout the day and while cold powder, it had some density to it. A lot of small flakes and even graupel at times. Patrol was dropping ropes throughout the day. The base from the November snow set-up perfectly and despite nothing exciting for snow depths, it skied really good. Someone else caught a rare photo of myself heading down to set-up for a photo from below. The natural snow pitch of the Upper National Headwall is one long sustained ramp and it was so fun to just crush it in huge GS turns on an all-natural snow base. We completely missed the big storm but man was this some good skiing. Upslope "bread and butter" snow came through.

1.5” at home or so today and 4” at 1,500ft with 6” up high. Great day on the slopes.

In the beta testing phase of a snow cam at 3,300ft location. 1” this morning before the board dumped at 6am...then another 3”....4” running total so far. Need to get some denser mesh or even just board up the fence to stop wind flow. It’s still hit or miss but seems to be capturing this event well so far.

Summit Stake is 15-16” now it looks like. Might climb another couple by later today.

Coming down nicely. 2” in the base area now.

Flow is blocked pretty well as it’s backed all the way into BTV. Like an interstate pileup of cars, that pile up of air that can’t get over the Spine has made its way west so the best lift is closer to BTV than the mountains.

Coming down steadily at the mountain. Had 1” at 5:30am to put on the snow report (I see Smuggs put 1” too) but by the time the lifts open it’ll be more at this rate. The stuff in town seemed very fluffy but up here it seems denser with small flakes. Should ski really nicely. We’ll see what we can pick up today.

HRRR is pretty robust for tomorrow along the Spine... 18z GFS hammers Jay...