J.Spin

The BTV NWS has been going with about half those amounts in their past couple of updates, but you can see they’re using the “For now” qualifier in their wording, so they’ll get a bit more aggressive as we get closer if need be. Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 636 PM EST Tue Nov 4 2025 .SHORT TERM /WEDNESDAY NIGHT THROUGH THURSDAY/... Snow level should lower 1500ft agl by Thursday morning. For now, the forecast shows a slushy dusting to a inch around 1500ft, 1 to 3 inches from 2000 to 3000 ft, and 3 to 5 at summit level at Mt. Mansfield and Jay Peak. Either way, it should be another round of snow on top of what’s there from the weekend system. The Friday/Saturday system continues to look like the warmest of the lot with less opportunity for snow, but they are already talking about the Sunday/Monday system as having the potential for snow down to the lower valleys, so certainly an opportunity for more accumulation. .LONG TERM /THURSDAY NIGHT THROUGH TUESDAY/... The next system for Sunday-Sunday night looks like the more interesting one for snow lovers as a rain to snow event is possible as a longwave trough develops with its axis over the Great Lakes region.

It certainly wasn’t our deepest early season dump by any means, but the snow is reasonably dense as you mentioned, and thus far it’s had plenty of staying power. I was watching The Weather Channel this morning, and they had the Sugarbush Gate House Plaza View Webcam playing on the side of the screen during one of their segments as they often do – I was surprised to see how low the snow line was on Spring Fling. Since the base area there is just a bit below 1,500’, that snow on Spring Fling looks like it’s persisting below 2,000’, and it’s obviously even more substantial higher up as the still image below shows. A quick run through the GFS shows a pattern that looks pretty similar to what it was depicting a few days ago, with approximately 6 storms in the queue out through roughly the 19th of the month. They would all have some snow potential to varying degrees. This morning on TWC, Jim Cantore walked through the modeling for the next week in our area and talked about the systems. That Friday/Saturday system looks like it’s the warmest, with the least snow potential, but the BTV NWS is talking about the general pattern in their discussion – you can tell they see the queue of potential storms as well with the wording ”No less than 3 discrete systems are on track to cross the region during the period…”: Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 147 PM EST Mon Nov 3 2025 LONG TERM /THURSDAY THROUGH MONDAY/... As of 138 PM EST Monday...As mentioned last night, our area remains in an active weather pattern in the late week time frame as the mean core of the northern stream westerlies continue their seasonal migration southward into the northern tier of the country. No less than 3 discrete systems are on track to cross the region during the period, the first coming Wed/Wed night, with the others swinging through Friday/Friday night and again by next Sunday/Sunday night. The general idea is to run with higher, 60-90% precipitation probabilities with each system, the dominant p-type falling largely as rain in the lower elevations. A mix of rains/wet snows at elevation is more likely on the back side of these features, especially Wednesday night and potentially by next Sunday night as deeper meridional troughing digs across the eastern third of the CONUS. Temperatures to remain seasonably cool through the period, with diurnal variation somewhat tempered by an abundance of typical November cloud cover. Now that we’re into November, we’re hitting the point where “seasonable” means snow, so all these systems should be of potential interest. With the recent snowfall persisting at various elevations, the active pattern, and no huge systems expected to go barreling up through the Great Lakes to our west, it got me wondering about the start of the winter snowpack. I knew we were a bit on the early side to start the snowpack, so I went to the data to see what the actual numbers said. With the available data from 68 seasons, the mean start date for the Mt. Mansfield snowpack is 11/16, with the median date at 11/15, the mode at 11/18, and the S.D. at 14.5 days. So if the snows from Oct 31/Nov 1 were to persist, it wouldn’t be all that unusual. The snowpack should start by November 1st in about 15% of seasons. I was surprised to find that the snowpack actually starts in October in roughly 13% of seasons. It’s also interesting to note that the past three seasons have helped push the median start date for the start of the continuous snowpack on Mt. Mansfield forward in time. The past three seasons have had very respectable start dates for the Mansfield snowpack (11/14/22, 10/30/23, and 11/12/24), which represent start dates of 2, 17, and 4 days ahead of the mean, respectively. Obviously the 10/30/23 start date was the heavy hitter here with respect to any movement in the mean. The addition of those dates didn’t budge the mean start date from where it was at 11/16, but they did move the median from 11/16 up a day to 11/15. It’s far from a “lock” that the recent snow we’ve had would be the start of the snowpack for the season (who knows what will happen with these upcoming storms, and what will go on in later November and December), but the current situation is such that it will be interesting to watch and see how it plays out. I guess I hadn’t noticed it before, but when averaged out as shown by the black line in Matt Parrilla’s plot below, the “average” snowpack start is back in mid to late October. Those data average out all the starts and stops that the snowpack has in a real year though, so that’s where you get the difference in that ~10/22 snowpack start vs. the actual 11/16 mean for the start of the continuous snowpack.

As forecast, the snow levels with this most recent storm began to drop yesterday evening, and the higher elevations picked up some decent snow accumulations by morning. The views from Bolton’s Base Lodge Webcam seemed to suggest just an inch or two of accumulation at 2,000’, and their Vista Summit Webcam was covered in snow, but the Allyn’s Lodge Snow Stake Cam at Sugarbush suggested that there were some decent accumulations around 3,000’. So, I decided to head up to Bolton Valley to at least get in a hike in the snow and check out the actual accumulations in person. The snow levels with this storm definitely didn’t make it down to the lower valleys, and even the local 2,000’ peaks surrounding the Winooski Valley in this area didn’t seem to have any visible accumulations. Those observations left me wondering just how high the snow levels had been, but it was clear as I ascended the Bolton Valley Access Road that the spine of the Greens had done better than some of the other surrounding areas. On my ascent toward Bolton Valley, I saw the first traces of snow around 1,200’, and up at the main base at 2,000’, accumulations were definitely more substantial than what the webcam had suggested. There was plenty of wind with this storm, and while exposed areas may have only accumulated an inch or two of snow, areas out of the wind held 3 to 4 inches of dense coverage. I started hiking the Wilderness Uphill Route with my skis on my pack, but within a couple of minutes I pulled out my skins and started skinning. It was clear that there was more than enough coverage to be skinning instead of walking if you wanted to, and there was a skin track in place as well. Accumulations increased all the way up to near the 3,000’ elevation range, but much like what the Sugarbush webcams had shown, where the 3,125’ stake had 5 inches of snow and the 3,900’ stake showed less than an inch of snow, accumulations sort of fell off as you hit the ridgelines above 3,000’. It must have been those winds – they really pounded and scoured the upper elevations relative to those middle elevations. Here's the snow accumulations profile I observed today in the Bolton Valley area during my tour in the midday period: 1,000’: 0” 1,200: T” 1,500’: T-1” 2,000’: 1-4” 2,500’: 4-6” 3,000’: 7-11” The forecast today suggested that at above 2,000’ the temperature was never going to go above freezing, and I’d say that’s what I observed. The temperature at 2,000’ was right around freezing and the snow there was a bit denser and softer, then in the middle elevations it was denser and colder with some upside-down consistency, and them up around 3,000’ the temperatures were well below freezing and the snow was notably drier. It was still on the denser side, but it didn’t have that upside-down feeling of the middle elevations and turns were easier. When I finished my ski tour and got back to my car, I saw that I’d missed a call from my younger son, so I called him back and he said that he and his crew from UVM were just at the base of the access road on their way up. So, I hung out for a bit, met them when they arrived at the base, and gave them the beta on everything I’d found on my tour. They subsequently had quite a fun tour of their own based on the video footage I saw later when they swung by the house, so it was great to see that everyone had a safe outing, and they kicked off their ski season with style!

Indeed – he was there getting pictures of his bike in the snow when I was checking the cam for accumulations this morning, so I had to grab a still with him in it. It’s such a great Vermont change of seasons vibe, and you can’t help but imagine him in that pose standing there going “Huh.” It’s so on point though – I literary changed out my bike rack for my ski rack on the car today before I headed up to the hill.

There’s nothing visible on the Bolton Valley Vista Peak Cam yet because it’s still covered in snow, but at a roughly equivalent elevation of 3,125’ at Sugarbush, it looks like about 5 inches of accumulation on the Allyn’s Lodge Snow Stake Cam. In line with what PF was saying with respect to the winds, there’s actually less accumulation on the Heaven’s Gate Snow Stake Cam at 3,900’.

From the Bolton Valley Main Base Live Cam view this morning, it looks like they picked up an inch or two around the 2,100’ elevation from this storm. The summit cam looks like it’s covered in snow, so no views from up there yet.

Well, if the NNE Cold Season thread is back, then we really must be moving into snow season. I know we had those first snows back about a week ago, but it’s been fun to see some of the comments from the BTV NWS crew as this next event has approached. You could really feel some of the “pro snow” mentality in yesterday’s discussion: Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 216 PM EDT Thu Oct 30 2025 NEAR TERM /THROUGH FRIDAY/... Trends have been our friend if you are looking for snowfall with changeover occurring in the central/northern Greens btwn 8 PM and 11 PM Friday evening. Snow level look to drop to around 1000 feet by 12z Sat, as progged 925mb temps drop btwn -2C and -3C, while progged 850mb temps are in the -3C to -5C. The ingredients look favorable for a period of upslope rain and snow showers on Friday night with good 850 to 700mb rh >80%, strong 850mb winds of 35 to 45 knots, and moderately strong caa. This wl help to enhance precip with highest pops/qpf acrs the favorable upslope areas of northern Dacks and central/northern Greens. Snow accumulations range from dusting to 2 inches btwn 1000 and 2000 feet and 1 to 3 inches btwn 2000 and 3500 feet and up to 4 or 5 inches above 3500 feet by mid morning Sat. I have tried to highlight this thinking in the latest storm total snow grids. Did utilize the NAM3KM hourly temps in grids to show cooler air moving into the area faster, especially acrs the higher trrn on Friday evening. SHORT TERM /FRIDAY NIGHT THROUGH SATURDAY NIGHT/... As of 216 PM EDT Thursday...Upslope rain and snow showers wl slowly taper off on Sat with blustery and chilly conditions prevailing. Highs generally in the mid 30s to mid 40s, except only upper 20s summits. Could we see the guns fire atop Killington this weekend? Otherwise a general drying trend is anticipated by Sat night with lows back in the lower 20s to mid 30s. Actually, after a really pleasant stretch of fall through much of September and October, it looks like we’ve had quite a shift in the level of weather activity in this last third of the month. Here at our site there’s been rain on 10 out of the last 12 days, and it pushed us past 5 inches of liquid for October. That’s still a bit below average, but it’s definitely a shift from earlier in the fall. The pattern looks like it continues to be active well into November. If one includes this current storm, a quick run through the GFS and other medium-range models out through mid-month shows 7 to 8 systems coming through the area, and all of them have the potential to offer some snow. It’s not especially cold for November, but those 850 mb temperatures spend plenty of time at or below 32 F. It looks like a lot of systems scooting through in the northern stream, and we know what that means around here.

Indeed Tony’s great with this stuff. He’s retired from his regular work, but as I believe PF knows, Tony was involved in actuarial science, so all the statistics stuff is right up his alley. One of the cool aspects of his material at bestsnow.net is where he built models for percent chances of a powder day (which he chose to define as 6”+ of snow, but he also ran numbers for 12”+ of snow) using just monthly snow totals and the associated frequency of meeting the required snowfall threshold. He has a page describing that methodology: https://bestsnow.net/pwdrpct.htm An interesting note is that although this past ski season wasn’t outrageously high with respect to its overall score as I discussed in my previous post, it was quite high on the powder day scale. This 2024-2025 season had 18% for its powder score, which is second only to the 2000-2001 season’s 21% powder score. Those numbers suggest that on average, 1 in every 5 days was a powder day. Since the modeling is based on monthly snowfall data, this season’s strong powder score must come from some decent monthly snow totals distributed throughout the season.

With the conclusion of the lift-served ski season around here, I put together the north to south list of available 2024-2025 snow totals for the Vermont ski areas: Jay Peak: 475” Burke: 176” Smuggler’s Notch: 368” Stowe: 362” Bolton Valley: 375” Mad River Glen: 248” Sugarbush: 281” Pico: 233” Killington: 252” Okemo: 138” Bromley: 168” Magic Mountain: 127” Stratton: 166” Mount Snow: 145” The resorts along the spine of the Northern Greens all reported 350”+ of snowfall on the season, with Jay Peak approaching 500”, so it was certainly a solid performance up here. It looks like snowfall totals were in the 200”-300” range for the Central Greens, which is probably in the decent/average range, and then season totals were in the ~150” range for the Southern Greens. It’s a bit tougher to find season totals for ski areas in other parts of the Northeast, but I did find that Whiteface reported 191” on the season, Cannon reported 174”, and Sugarloaf reported 167”. Many resorts either don’t post their season snowfall total or don’t have it available once they switch the website to summer mode, but everything else I found in a quick search had totals <150”: Wildcat 113”, Attitash 84”, Mount Sunapee 68”, Crotched Mountain 59”. There may be some areas out in the western New York lake-effect zones that had some decent season snowfall totals, but nothing popped up in a quick online search Along with all his data on resorts in the western U.S., Tony Crocker’s website has a specific page for scoring the quality of the ski season in the northern half of Vermont. I put together the powder-adjusted scores for the A-tier ski seasons over the past couple of decades to put in perspective where this past season sits. In the list below, the first number is the overall powder-adjusted season score, and the number in parentheses is the number of A-tier weekends. This past season was around the middle of that pack with respect to its score, and it’s not too surprising that those other three snowfall seasons for which I’d been plotting our site’s snowfall data for comparison (plot posted below) are all in the list as well. All three of those seasons beat this past season in terms of overall ski season score though, with 2007-2008 being the standout. In terms of A-tier weekends, this past season did seem to punch a bit above its weight with 9 of them, and that’s clearly a nod to that stretch of winter weather consistency from the beginning of January right through the beginning of March. In Tony’s full table, you can clearly see all 9 of those A-tier weekends stacked together as a solid block during that period. 2000-2001: 70 (13) 2007-2008: 62 (9) 2014-2015: 56 (11) 2010-2011: 56 (10) 2002-2003: 54 (7) 2018-2019: 54 (8) 2024-2025: 49 (9) 2012-2013: 47 (7) 2013-2014: 47 (7) 2017-2018: 46 (7) 2016-2017: 46 (7) Looking at Tony’s full table of Vermont snow conditions, it was interesting to note that this past season was the first A-level ski season in quite a while – that stretch of five seasons prior to this one is actually the longest period in his records without an A-level result. Checking the snowfall data for my site, it’s not that snowfall was really all that low during those seasons (the mean snowfall for that stretch was within 5% of average), but presumably the winter weather consistency just wasn’t there for A-level status to be obtained. Using the snowfall data for our site as a reference point, A-level ski seasons can certainly be achieved even with snowfall dipping as low as ~10% below average, as revealed by the 2012-2013, 2013-2014, and 2014-2015 seasons. So, consistency in wintry temperatures can apparently go quite a long way. If you can combine both decent snowfall and solid temperature consistency, that’s when you get into some of those really high scoring seasons.

…and then December just continued to deliver.

The winter/ski seasons all blur together for me, which I think is in part due to our climate here in the Northern Greens. While we certainly get memorable storms, the majority of the winter features day after day with light to moderate snowfall events, which don’t stand out as easily from one season to the next. In any case, it’s a good climate to maintain high-quality snow surfaces for skiing and riding, and it’s one of the reasons that I really like having the reports from my ski outings to refresh my memory for specific periods though. I was curious about that strong start you mentioned for the 2023-2024 season, and indeed it does pop up on the plot for the Mt. Mansfield Stake data – the snowpack depth hitting 40 inches in the first half of December is a great place to be, and it quickly gets a lot of off-piste terrain in play. I checked my snowfall numbers and saw that our site in the valley only picked up about a foot of snow in the first half of December, which is below average and certainly not a standout performance. After looking a little closer, I realized that November 2023 also brought us 20 inches of snow in the valley, and that was a big help in priming that great start to December. I hadn’t caught that the first big rise in the 2023-2024 snowpack plot is actually from the end of November, but I see in my data that we had 6 snowstorms in the valley in the last 10 days of the month. On my Bolton outing on the 28th I measured the snowpack depth at 20” at 3,000’ and then on the 29th it was up to 24”. The skiing was great even before the calendar hit December.

The data I’ve seen indicate that snowfall was decent at most low and high elevation sites around here for the 2023-2024 season, and it looks like it was just the valley snowpack that was on the lean side. The 2023-2024 mountain snowpack appears to be fine based on the Mt. Mansfield Snow Stake data. The black lines on the plot below are for the average snowpack depths and the 2023-2024 snowpack depths, and the red line is for the data from the current season. The 2023-2024 data certainly has its ups and downs, but it comes out pretty close to the average overall. At least for the Northern Greens, it wasn’t really the snowmaking that made it a decent ski season (snowmaking only covers a tiny fraction of a resort’s total terrain anyway, so it can’t really turn an awful season into a good one). In this case it seems that there was sufficient natural snowfall and snow preservation to make for a decent mountain snowpack, which goes along with that additional elevation temperature buffer that PF mentions.

I don’t really track temperatures, but in most snow related parameters, the 2023-2024 season was decent at our site. We sit at ~500’ elevation along the spine of the Northern Greens near the bottom of the Winooski Valley. We’re directly between the BTV and MPV sites, just about halfway in fact (~18 miles from BTV and ~16 miles from MPV). -Season snowfall for 2023-2024 was 156.7”, which is close to average, and that total was higher than either of the two previous seasons (2022-2023 snowfall was 150.1” and 2021-2022 snowfall was 134.4”). -The duration of the continuous snowpack season was fairly typical: Nov 19th was the start of the continuous winter snowpack, and that was on the earlier side vs. a mean snowpack start date of Dec 1st ± 14 days. Apr 11th was the end of the continuous winter snowpack, which is just a couple days ahead the average of Apr 13th ± 10 days. -As mreaves noted, the depth of the winter snowpack was on the low side, however. The maximum snow depth at our site for that season was 16.0” vs. a mean of 26.4”, and the 768 snow depth days was about half of average. So at least in the lower valleys in our area, the winter snowpack was present for a typical duration, but its depth didn’t seem to be as robust as usual. If the results above really came from a +7-8 F December through February period, that potentially bodes well in a warming climate though. If the lowest valleys can pull off a decent season in that situation, then the mountains should have no problem doing that with even greater temperature anomalies. Jay Peak reported 369” of snowfall for the 2023-2024 season, so it was similar to our site with respect to running about average.

That’s always an interesting comparison, and a big factor in the difference is the very disparate snowfall climatology between the two areas. The two prominent components that go into that SDD/snowfall ratio are the density of the snowfall and the snowpack preservation. Snow preservation here at our site doesn’t appear to be an outlier in either direction locally; between the west side climates and the east side climates along the spine of the Northern Greens, our site’s snow preservation seems to be relatively average. But the east side climate areas, and moving beyond Vermont, areas just east of the Appalachians in general, hold onto cold air the longest and that can help to maximize snow preservation. At our site I’d say it’s the snowfall that has the biggest impact on the SDD/snowfall ratio. And it’s not as if there’s some sort of outrageously high average snow ratio here at our site; it seems right in line with what studies report for the area (see the map and further discussion below). It looks like the high snowfall/SDD ratio here at our site arises from a combination of the area having reasonably strong average snowfall ratios to begin with, and those ratios being elevated even more in seasons with decent amounts of LES/upslope snow. The Northeastern U.S. does represent one of the more dramatic gradients in average snowfall density as one can see from the map. With 6 to 7 snowfall density zones across the region from west to east, the gradient around here is almost as extreme as it is along the west coast of the U.S. There are various studies and maps out there that compare average snowfall ratios across the country, but Weather.com has a nice discussion bringing in data from the 2005 study by Marty Baxter of Central Michigan University, and that’s where I grabbed the map posted above. The mapping of the results from that study shows how the bulk of the BTV NWS forecast area is in that mauve pink shading, which is the 13-14 to 1 range for snowfall ratios. For the period of record in my data set, the mean snowfall ratio is 13.7 ± 1.8, and the median is 13.3, so those data represent what appears to be a strong, normal distribution that is exactly in line with the snowfall ratio range determined in that study. This is the first time I’ve checked on the ratio numbers in a while, but that comparison does give me strong confidence in the methodologies I’m using for both snowfall and liquid equivalent measurements here at our site. The snow to liquid ratio for this past season was 16.6 to 1 (i.e., the water content was 6.0% H2O), which is higher than the average, but quite consistent with this season feeling like we had a decent amount of upslope snow relative to some seasons. If you look at the map, that’s a solid Montana/Northern Rockies style winter right there, with snowfall ratios corresponding to that large area of orange shading. The highest snowfall ratio we’ve recorded here at our site across an entire season is 17.25 (5.8% H2O) in 2020-2021, and the full data set for seasonal snowfall ratios is listed below. Season: Snowfall Ratio ’10-’11: 14.54 ’11-’12: 14.20 ’12-’13: 16.41 ’13-’14: 13.44 ’14-’15: 13.26 ’15-’16: 11.53 ’16-’17: 13.26 ’17-’18: 13.08 ’18-’19: 11.45 ’19-’20: 13.05 ’20-’21: 17.25 ’21-’22: 13.60 ’22-’23: 11.92 ’23-’24: 12.28 ’24-’25: 16.58 Mean: 13.7 ± 1.8 For mountain areas with continental or intermountain snow climates that see minimal melting or winter rainstorms, I often think of the 3 to 1 snowfall to snowpack ratio that I’ve seen PF use for Mansfield (i.e., 300 inches of snowfall produces a snowpack depth of ~100 inches). I’d think a maritime snow climate would be more like 2 to 1, but I’m sure it can vary a lot. This past season, PF recorded 362” of snowfall at his Mt. Mansfield snow plot and the snowpack reached a depth of 103”, so that’s a ratio of 3.5 to 1, which is certainly in that 3 to 1 range. In winter seasons around here without heavy rainstorms, the snowfall climate seems quite intermountain/transitional, but the average snowfall ratio I recorded here at our site this past season would certainly be pushing well into a continental climate. These snow climate classifications are really dialed into the ranges of the western U.S., so there’s not going to be an exact fit for the specific climate of the Northern Greens, but they’re helpful for discussion. We get more rain and temperatures fluctuations here than in the highest elevations of the western U.S., but many of the mid to lower elevation mountain areas out there can get rain and temperature fluctuations above freezing as well, so that’s still part of the climate. These different ratios of snowfall to liquid equivalent, SDD to snowfall, snowfall to snowpack depth, etc. don’t all correlate to each other exactly of course, but they’re still informative. Below was an interesting Reddit discussion I found about the snowfall to base depth correlation – I think some of the people’s numbers are way off from reality, but it sounds like some of them are from personal experience, so that’s potentially useful: https://www.reddit.com/r/skiing/comments/1hi5rr8/how_does_snowfall_translate_into_increase_in_base/ https://avalanche.org/avalanche-encyclopedia/weather/snow-climate/

Following up on the 2024-2025 winter summary, I’ve put together the season’s storm list for our site. The number of storms was above average, but below the 64 storms we had in the 2018-2019 season.