powderfreak

To me the biggest surprise from this winter has been that we are lucky to have had a fairly consistent snowpack (until the past couple days) this winter considering the departures. I think the winter has been better than the departures would make one think. I know that sounds like trying to find something to be happy about during this winter, but we've had at least some winter weather and snow on the ground for many in NNE. It has been a poor winter but this could have been an absolute record dumpster fire if someone just lays this out to you: Local departures at MVL ASOS: November... -0.2 December... +7.8 January... +8.1 February... +8.4 That is wild. First five days of March are averaging +12 to +13F at BTV, MPV, MVL, 1V4 (the main climo sites) too. That string of departures Dec/Jan/Feb could have led to a much worse winter IMO. But I don't have any stats to back that up, ha.

Golf is a great analogy, ha.

Savannah is a beautiful city next to the coast. Feels like old money, Spanish moss covered trees in areas, on the coastal river with some serious ships floating by into the Port of Savannah. I found myself surprised to enjoy it, ha.

You can pretty much bank on it. Temps in November and April will be near normal with a bunch of +8s between it lol. Just enough so it’s like 6 months of November climo.

It’s a tough time to try and go against warmth relative to normal.

Picking up right where the past 3 months have been… average here is 34/11 and we can barely get down near the normal max for a low temp. This has to be the warmest winter I can remember in terms of departures.

Ginxy not here for it.

Is this your first time on the internet in several days?

You know the severity of winter storms is just different out there. A place where they cancel/downgrade a Blizzard Warning because only 8-14” (lolli 20”) is left and winds have decreased to 45mph (120mph at the ridges)… it reads like, things are improving, only a foot of snow with 45mph winds are expected at lake level for the inhabited areas. No biggie, just some brief periods of poor visibility are possible.

Yeah me too… obviously huge amounts of snow but 2015 probably wipes out whole villages back then. Colonial times and 5 feet on the level sounds like a problem.

Theres nothing like a spring day on snow to get folks pumped. The vibe is always festive, one of the reasons I love any spring skiing. Even mid-winter, ha.

That is insane.

Weird day… bright sun and blue sky, then fog and mist, then back to sun. A lot of moisture trapped under the inversion. Soft spring conditions though… definitely slow in spots.

Saw this of an AirBnB at Donner Summit near Lake Tahoe….

11” depth increase in 3 hours at Alta’s automated mid-mountain plot. About 0.75” water in short order at temps of 23F to 10F as the front moved through. 13” of depth increase in short order. 142 to 155 inches.

Bucket list experience.

It looks grim. I’m a positive person but think setting expectations is a valued trait. The next 5 days are going to hurt. It will snow again, but is the damage already done to the ski season up north? Snowmaking trails last a long time, but the naturals are in trouble.

For sure, wasn't looking for sympathy as I know you guys have been porked all winter long while there's been at least some winter weather above. To me it's the fact that climo now is turning and +8 could sustain some wintry weather up here in mid-winter, but as we flip to March those departures become inhospitable to snow. Normal daily average right now is 22F... +8 to +10 is now at freezing when it wasn't in the previous months.

Turned into a miserable 30s and rain afternoon and evening up here. Yikes, this is brutal. It was like 32.5F rain on the mountain. 37F rain here in the valley.

Makes sense a little bit, but in what world would a forecaster term 18”+ snowfall in a period as “snow showers?” It happens a lot out there. I guess the question is why would you say snow showers at 2-4” accumulation and then use the same at 24-36” in a given period? What differentiates them?

Love that first comment… Eric @A321200 · I look forward to the day when we are able to know the weather outlook in advance.

But you can’t see the ground? Those forests are super dense.

Not trying to be a dink but how can you tell what’s on the ground on that mountain?

Even up here I don’t think of as an ice spot. I almost think BTV is better as they can get some intense low level cold to funnel down the Champlain Valley. Here we get sleet or snow or rain. Obviously there’s transient icing events, and a 1998… but mostly here the depth of the cold is either as high as the ridges (several thousand feet thick) and we get sleet (mountain can get ZR while we IP). But having a set-up where it’s warm enough at the summits to not re-freeze drops before they get down here, and us holding prolonged surface cold… just not really a thing. The foothills and interior coastal plain of ME/NH and the Champlain Valley or anywhere else (St Lawrence Valley) with an easy feed of super low level cold is best.

Instead of "Heavy at Times" it should just be "Heavy all of the Time." On an aside, I've always wondered why most of the western forecasts use "Snow Showers" instead of just "Snow".... maybe @OceanStWx can shed some light on how the grids are populated out there verses the Midwest and East. Because it does not matter the accumulation, most of the mountain forecasts out west all use "Snow Showers" as the description. Today: Snow Showers. Four feet worth of Snow Showers.