J.Spin

A few days back I saw that the depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake hit the two-foot mark, so I’ve added this year’s data to my plot of dates for snowpack hitting 24” each season. I find this data useful because reaching that depth at the stake is decent estimate for when the initial off piste/tree/backcountry skiing begins in the Northern Greens on appropriately maintained slopes. It’s not a perfect metric because the composition of the snowpack plays into it as well; a snowpack that is 24” of fluff isn’t quite going to cut it, whereas a super dense pack will allow you to get by with less. I wouldn’t say this season’s mid-December snowpack was super dense, but it certainly beat out the need to reach the 24” mark at the stake. Winter Storm Diaz was the clear tipping point, with even some fairly steep off piste terrain getting into play as of December 17th, and the local snowpack had only hit about 20” at that point The mean date for hitting 24” at the stake is December 14th based on the current data set, so having the off piste skiing get going on the 17th isn’t actually too far off from that, even if the actual 24” depth wasn’t hit until the 27th. While reaching that 24” snowpack depth on the 27th of December is certainly later than average, it’s a bit more notable this season because it’s the earliest it’s been in four seasons. I’ve highlighted this in the plot by coloring the data points for the past three seasons in red, while the data point for this season is labeled and in green. We’ve definitely had a run of slow Decembers in the past few seasons with respect to getting the local mountain snowpack going, and the plot clearly shows this. So if anecdotally it’s felt like getting off the manmade snow has taken forever the past few seasons, that’s actually been the case. We weren’t just on the later side of average in recent years - the dates for the past two seasons were well past 1 S.D. beyond the mean, and even 2019-2020, the best of the bunch, was right at 1 S.D beyond the mean. Here are the dates for reaching 24” at the stake for the past four seasons, and what the stats say about their relative occurrence: 2019-2020: January 2nd (bottom 16% of seasons) 2020-2021: January 17th (bottom 4% of seasons) 2021-2022: January 7th (bottom 11% of seasons) 2022-2023: December 27th (bottom 25% of seasons) In any event, it was nice to get a break from that infamous trend this season, even if things were still later than average. Getting that date back into December and into the holiday week was a substantial change (and the off piste skiing actually took off ahead of the holiday week due to its composition as I noted earlier, so that made the change in date even more evident). This was definitely one of the best holiday ski weeks in a while, with some really good skiing through just about all of the period. That’s pretty impressive considering that there wasn’t much snow at all during the first half of December. The snow data here at our site tell a similar story to what the mountains experienced. December snowfall at our side was 30.6 inches, which is definitely below average, but a bit of a highlight because it was the most snow we’ve seen in December in five seasons. That again speaks to just how slow Decembers have been with respect to snowfall in recent years. It’s pretty remarkable that we got to even that level of snowfall, because almost all of it happened in the second half of the month; the first half of December brought only 3.3 inches of that total.

I wasn’t exactly sure where on Bolton’s network today’s backcountry ski tour was going to take me, but my plan was to start with an ascent up to the start of the C Bear Woods, and then go from there. I haven’t toured in that part of the network yet this season, but the ridgeline there tops out around 2,400’, so starting in the lower Village, it would give me a good sampling of the snowpack in the 2,000’ to 2,400’ elevation range. For my tour back on Monday on some of the lower sections of the Network I topped out around 1,800’ and generally found 6 to 12 inches of powder, and the tenor of the powder skiing was that something with a bit more pitch would be appropriate for the snow depth. With continued rounds of accumulations over the past couple of days (and an additional 2 to 3 inches reported in the past 24 hours at Bolton as of this morning’s update), I figured the powder might even be a notch up from where it was. It was midmorning by the time I arrived at the Village, and temperatures were very comfortable in the lower 30s F. Being the big holiday week, the resort was really humming, and they were already parking folks in the lower Nordic Center parking lot. That worked out well for me though, since it’s right on the Broadway Trail that links in nicely with the heart of the Backcountry Network. Around 2,000’ in the open areas of the Village, the depth of the surface snow was quite variable between the effects of the wind and sun, but in general I found 5 to 6 inches of powder over a consolidated base. There wasn’t any obvious rain crust, but there was a denser layer below the powder. That layer generally wasn’t present in the trees, so I assume it was from wind and sun. Up at 2,400’ I’d say powder depths were about the same as what I found in the 1,500’ to 1,800’ elevation range on Monday, so between additional accumulations and settling, I guess things roughly held pat at that level. The pitches near the top of the ridge there are up in the black diamond range, and I think the uppermost parts of the ridgeline were a bit windswept because the snowpack wasn’t sufficient for confident turns in that area. Noticing that, I headed southward to the right of the main C Bear Woods entrance into some other areas of glades to shallow out my overall run. Intermediate pitches offered nice turns, and the snowpack easily supported that type of skiing. The best turns of that descent were in the lower slopes among the moderate and lower angle pitches as I got back toward Brook Run. I’d left the option open to extend my tour up toward some of the Bryant Trail terrain, but it was approaching midday and the powder was already started to get denser and a bit sticky as the temperatures pushed above freezing. As I headed to the main base area, it was turning into a fantastic day with breaks of sun and temperatures moving into the 30s F. That’s a pretty nice combination for the holiday visitors to have comfortable temperatures and some decent snowpack, and it will be interesting to see how this holiday week plays out overall for visitation at the local resorts. It’s been pretty sweet to have some daily refresher snowfalls recently to bolster the snowpack, and the snow reports I’ve seen from the resorts around here have indicated that it’s been allowing them to continue to open new terrain and expand the trail count. Visitors to the slopes should generally be treated to some comfortable temperatures for the remained of the holiday week, which I think many would take over the subzero spells that can often occur around the start of the new year. It looks like anyone going out on Sunday might have to dodge a bit of rain though based on the current forecast. This may be one of the nicer holiday week’s we’ve had recently in terms of the quality of the skiing. Looking at my notes, I’ve had a half dozen backcountry ski tours in about the past ten days, and that’s pretty decent because sometimes the backcountry doesn’t even get rolling until January or February. On average, it should get going (at least on low and moderate angle terrain) in mid-December here in the Northern Greens, but the past three seasons haven’t hit 24 inches at the Mt. Mansfield Stake until January. Technically, the stake only hit the 24-inch mark for the first time this season on Tuesday, but it’s been hovering in the 20-inch range since mid-month when Winter Storm Diaz hit, and the snowpack came together in such a way that those 20-ish inches were sufficient to put a lot of the local backcountry terrain in play for quality turns.

I hadn’t been out to the mountain since Winter Storm Elliot finished up, and although it was a mixed system in terms of precipitation, I was encouraged by how it played out for the local snowpack. The storm brought roughly 8 inches of snow to our place down in the valley, and represented a net gain in both snowpack depth and snowpack liquid equivalent. Bolton Valley was reporting 12 inches of new snow from the system, so the mountains must have fared at least as well as the valleys. With some rain during the middle part of the system, I was wondering about the condition of the snow surfaces, so yesterday I decided on a relatively low angle tour on the Bolton Valley Backcountry Network to get a feel for how the new snow had settled in. I started at the Catamount Trail access point on the Bolton Valley Access Road, which is down around 1,200’, and toured up to around the 1,800’ elevation a bit above Caribou Corner. Those are relatively low elevations overall, and 1,200’ is below even the Timberline Base, so it would certainly be a challenging stress test to speak to the quality and utility of the snowpack. At 1,200’ at the parking area I found about 4 to 5 inches of powder above the base snow, and most notably, I couldn’t really find a rain crust. There was a clear demarcation between the consolidated base and the surface snow, at least around the parking area where the snowpack is a bit more exposed to snow maintenance and sunshine. The depth of the powder quickly increased as I ascended, and by about 1,500’ I was easily finding 6 to 12 inches of powder. It became hard to judge the depth of the surface snow though, because I typically couldn’t even find an interface between the new snow and the underlying snowpack; the wetter precipitation from the storm must have either drained well or transitioned smoothly to snow. I’d say total snowpack depth was probably around 10 to 12 inches at 1,200’ and 12 to 16 inches at 1,800’, but there’s plenty of substance to it, so it’s quite skiable up to moderate angles in maintained areas, and obviously it’s going to be notably deeper up above 2,000’. In terms of the skiing, the powder was actually too deep for the lowest angle sections on the tour, and I’d have to use existing skin tracks or other skier tracks to maintain or pick up speed. The next tier of pitches skied great with the snow though. I typically like that tour up to Caribou Corner when there’s about 4 to 6 inches of powder over a consolidated base, so this really was a bit deeper than that, and I’d say folks should move on up to moderate angle terrain for the best backcountry turns, especially with additional snow falling over the next couple of days. There was light snow falling during my tour in the form of those big fluffy flakes, and I see that the resort reported an inch of new this morning. Despite the usual doom and gloom in the main threads (sort of the typical SNE winter situation unless a big storm hits there I guess), the season seems roughly on track in our area as of Christmas. Snowfall to date on the 25th was 40.1” vs. a mean of 40.4”, and snowpack depth at 10.5” was a few inches above average. The SDD for the season were a little behind average pace at 146.5 SDD vs. the 162.2 SDD average. I can see in the data that the SDD deficiency is largely due to that slow first half of December, because we were still ahead of average SDD as of the end of November, and then the pace started to fall off before picking up again in the second half of the month.

On Wednesday I went for another solo tour on the Bolton Valley Backcountry Network, and I decided to check out the Gotham City area since I hadn’t been there yet this season. Prior to that point we’d been pretty spoiled with fresh snow every day since the start of Winter Storm Diaz, so you could detect just the subtlest bit of settling/aging to the powder and snowpack in general. That’s splitting hairs of course because the powder was still deep and bottomless, and you’d probably only notice if you’d been paying very close attention to the feel of the snowpack over the preceding days. There were also a few more tracks around since there hadn’t been that fresh dose of powder to cover them up. Yesterday we decided to do some lift served skiing for a change of pace, and my wife joined my older son and I for some Tele runs in the afternoon. Bolton has opened a number of additional trails due to all the recent snow, but the main route off the Vista Summit is still Sherman’s Pass, and we started with that since we wanted to warm up with some mellow terrain. The manmade snow on Sherman’s was pretty typical and firm, but we did venture over toward the lower slopes of Wilderness to check out the natural snow options. There was plenty of coverage since those lower slopes of Wilderness are only up to moderate angle, and the quality difference in the snow was night and day. At Wilderness you had nice chalky snow were it was skier packed, and powder off to the edges – it was soft and quiet snow, and unlike the terrain with manmade snow, you could really sink your edges in easily. That was unquestionably what kept us coming back for more, and if we could have gotten to that terrain more easily by just riding the Mid Mountain Chair instead of the Vista Quad, we certainly would have done it. Today we had Winter Storm Elliot come through, and it’s going to be interesting to see how the skiing changes with this one. There was rain during the middle of the system, so we can’t expect that perfect unblemished snowpack that was present before the storm, but this system has likely substantiated the base to a new level. We’ve already had 7 to 8 inches from the storm down here at the house, and the snowpack in the yard is now deeper than it was before it began. The snowpack must contain more liquid as well, with almost 2 inches of L.E. from the storm here at our site. The temperatures we’ve had over the past week or so have been another feather in the cap for this stretch, with highs just getting up to near 30 F to give you comfortable conditions without deteriorating the snow. Tomorrow’s forecast suggests a change of pace though, with highs only in the teens F.

Thanks PF, that’s right where I was going with those. We’ve obviously had numerous great Decembers and great December periods of skiing in the past, but this stretch has been really fun in the way it sort of went from zero to sixty in just one storm – and it was timed really well to put down a fairly substantial valley snowpack heading into the holidays. The current snowpack at our site as of this morning’s CoCoRaHS report is 11 inches, and while that may not seem like a lot for the winter solstice, it actually is at our site. The mean snowpack depth for December 21st here is only about 7 inches, so the current depth is definitely above average, and in fact it’s close to 1 S.D. above the mean. It’s been 14 seasons since the snowpack has been this deep at our site on this date, and you have to go all the way back to those La Niña seasons of 2007-2008 and 2008-2009: 2022: 11.0” 2021: 6.5” 2020: 4.5” 2019: 3.0” 2018: 9.0” 2017: 6.0” 2016: 5.0” 2015: 1.5” 2014: 7.0” 2013: 7.5” 2012: 3.0” 2011: 0.0” 2010: 7.0” 2009: 8.0” 2008: 13.0” 2007: 20.0” It reminded me of bwt’s comment from Thursday, which I quoted above. I don’t think this December is really going to compete with the top contenders because it didn’t turn into something notable until mid-month, and there aren’t any obvious storms in the forecast over the next week or so that would push it into the upper echelon of Decembers (that would probably require another 30 to 40 inches of snow in the next 10 days), but this has definitely been a solid week in terms of snowy vibe and ski quality. The thing that’s added that little extra notch of excellence to the skiing on natural snow terrain is that the base that was in place before this last storm was really not that hard, yet it was somehow substantial enough to do the job – so it’s got that feeling of skiing with a snowpack that’s never seen a thaw/freeze. In any event, it’s been a quality week for skiing, and this has got to be way up there on the quality scale for some of the SVT resorts that don’t typically see this much natural snow at this stage of the season. Another factor that I think helps is that this December is on track to have more snow than the past two, so it’s feeling like a notch up after a couple of slow Decembers.

After discovering such impressive snow coverage when touring at Wilderness on Sunday, my last couple of ski sessions have actually been on the Bolton Valley Backcountry Network. Part of Monday afternoon was spent clearing out a tree that had come down in the yard during Winter Storm Diaz, and after that was done I had just enough time to hit the backcountry network for a quick exploratory tour. I wasn’t absolutely sure what to expect, but I was going to be touring entirely above 2,000’, and unless the conditions over at Wilderness were a fluke or something due to aspect, the adjoining backcountry was likely in similar shape. The backcountry snow report didn’t even have any notifications about poor coverage or closures, it just indicated that coverage was variable. I was still planning to be conservative in my initial explorations, and my time was limited with dusk approaching, so I opted for a quick tour with a descent of the Telemark Practice Slope. On my ascent though, it was immediately obvious how good the coverage was in the surrounding glades, and with just a few tracks here and there in the relatively deep powder, it was too good to pass up. I ended up skiing some of the glades to the right of the Telemark Practice Slope, and they skied beautifully. I was initially not expecting such a sublime ride, since we’d really needed at least black diamond pitches on Sunday to avoid getting bogged down, but there must have been a bit more settling of the snowpack by that point, and the addition of the upslope fluff was really just icing on the cake that added a little cushioning with minimal resistance. The resulting snowpack came together to provide just the right speed for the glades, and it was obvious at that point that a lot more of the gentle and moderate terrain was going to be in play for some excellent powder turns It's continued to snow over the past couple of days, and we’ve had another 3 to 4 inches down here at the house that’s come in with an average density of around 4% H2O. The back end of the storm cycle had already topped off the snowpack with some dry upslope, so we expected that these additional rounds of snow should just represent more quality stuff that’s topping off the upper layers of powder that are already present. My older son and I headed out for a tour this afternoon that took us a bit above Bryant Cabin, and we skied a good variety of different glades that really solidified just how good the skiing was. The shallowest slopes are still a bit slow with the depth of the powder, but very nice of you want a gentler pace that lets you work in and out among tighter trees. As we’d already experienced before though the steep and moderate slopes are skiing great. It’s amazing how one storm simply brought the backcountry conditions from very early season stuff that I hadn’t even contemplated skiing, to something that skis like a top notch midwinter snowpack. And it’s not as if this last storm cycle was a 3 to 4 foot monster. The snowpack we were skiing is only in the range of about 20 inches, but apparently it’s just laid down so well that it does the job. I’m sure there are steep slopes out there with lots of big obstacles that are nowhere near ready, but the typical glades we skied on the backcountry network today were in great shape.

Below I’ve added the north to south listing of available snowfall totals from the Vermont ski areas for Winter Storm Diaz based on what I found on the various ski area websites. The highest totals were down in Central and Southern VT, although Jay Peak did seem to catch a decent amount of snow on the back side of the cycle. Jay Peak: 22” Burke: 12” Smuggler’s Notch: 14” Stowe: 14” Bolton Valley: 16” Mad River Glen: 24” Sugarbush: 22” Middlebury: 12+” Saskadena Six: 16+” Pico: 25” Killington: 25” Okemo: 27” Bromley: 28” Magic Mountain: 25” Stratton: 24” Mount Snow: 20”

Since Winter Storm Diaz dropped another good shot of snow overnight, our plan yesterday was to head up to Bolton for more lift-served skiing. Making a final check on the snow report before heading up though, I discovered that the resort had lost power like a lot of other spots around the area. With that news, and the announcement that the Wilderness Uphill Route was open, we switched our plans over to ski touring at Wilderness. When we got to the resort, power was back on and the lifts were running, but since we’d already taken the time to gear up for it, we stuck with the ski touring plan since it held the potential for a lot more untracked snow anyway. With the existing base snow from ahead of the storm not entirely consolidated, it was tough to get a sense for how much new snow the resort had picked up specifically from this cycle. But, we were able to get total snowpack depths, and with repeated measurements from multiple people we came in with total settled depths of 16” at 2,000’ and 20” around 3,000’ The resort updated their storm accumulations and reported 12” new at 2,000’ and 16” new at 3,000’, so that fit perfectly with what our measurements were suggesting. The skin track Wilderness Uphill Route was nicely set from previous traffic, and there were actually two tracks that let us skin side-by-side for easier conversation. Traffic on Lower Turnpike had been moderate, and we counted about 20 descent tracks. I wasn’t sure if we were going to go all the way to the Wilderness Summit depending on how scoured the upper elevations were, but with a lot of the flow with this event coming from the east, there was essentially zero drifting even at the highest elevations, so that set up some potentially great skiing on the upper slopes. The snow from this storm cycle certain fell right-side-up, and there was a lot of substance to the lower layers, but it skied DEEP. We quickly discovered that even on 115 mm fat skis, low and moderate angle pitches just didn’t cut it. You had to hit black diamond pitches or higher, and once you did, the powder skiing really rocked. We hit the steepest pitches we could find, like the upper slopes of Peggy Dow’s and the Cougar Headwall, and even when we tried to test the limits of the snowpack by attempting to get down to the ground on turns, you just couldn’t. We picked up about 1.30” of liquid equivalent from this storm down at our site in the valley, so the mountain must have had at least 1.50” of liquid atop the previous base. I’m not quite sure how this storm brought the slopes to an almost midwinter feel in terms of substance and coverage, but the combination of liquid equivalent, right-side-up snow, and whatever existing base there was, just hit the sweet spot to make that happen. When we were about halfway through our first descent and only had moderate and lower angle terrain below us, I suggested we stop the descent there, and hit the Wilderness Summit again to try Bolton Outlaw for our next descent. Bolton Outlaw is quite steep with a lot of obstacles, and it often gets scoured and/or skied enough to make coverage an issue, but from what we’d seen of it, and what’s we’d experience with the skiing up to that point, it seemed like it might be just the ticket. And it was – it had just the pitch we needed, and coverage was just too good to be true. Each time I’d come over a rise and over a ledge I’d expect to hear a rock, or a log, or something… but that just didn’t happen. We’re of course talking touring levels of skier traffic here, but whether you were skiing packed or untracked snow, you just didn’t break through to whatever was below. It’s still hard to figure out how the coverage got so good without a real consolidated base below, but I’d put it right up there with some of the best runs we’ve had on Bolton Outlaw during any part of the season.

I decided to wait until the afternoon to head up to Bolton today, figuring I’d let the snow depths continue to build up through the morning, but my younger son and his friends hit the mountain around opening time. They stayed until midday, and said that they enjoyed some nice soft conditions. When we asked which way to lean in terms of ski width, the word was to go on the wider side. My older son and I headed up toward midafternoon, and temperatures were right around freezing down in the valley with the snow accumulations on the dense side, but temperatures dropped right down into the 20s F in the Bolton Valley Village. The Bolton Valley Access Road was just wet in the lower elevations, with easy driving up to about 1,500’, and above that point it was snow covered. With only so much terrain open, the main center portions of the runs had a bit of the new snow, but there was enough traffic that you were generally skiing on the base snow. The sides and lower traffic areas of the trail held plenty of soft snow though – places where the snow had either been untouched or pushed there by skiers would definitely get you off the subsurface. The snow was of course much drier than what we were getting down in the valley. We were quickly reminded it was a storm day in mid-December when the night skiing lights started coming on not too far after 3:00 P.M., and it was getting dark enough that it was nice to have the lighting assist at that point. I didn’t really make any attempts at officially measuring the new snow, but my son and I both estimated the accumulations at the mountain as of this afternoon were somewhere in the 6-12” range. I’m surprised to see the mountain coming in with a report of 4-6” new, since we’d already had 6 to 7” down at the house by this afternoon, so I’d say that’s a conservative snow report based on what we encountered. While we were up there the snowfall rate was close to an inch per hour based on what we found on our car, but nothing outrageous in terms of what the mountains can get for snowfall intensity. The snowfall was definitely more intense up there than down the valley at our place, as the afternoon period had lighter snowfall than the morning.

Checking out the updated maps from the BTV NWS as of this morning, I see they’ve got some of that 18-24” red shading now along the spine in this area, so that now lines up better with the text-based point forecasts. The latest advisory and projected accumulations maps are below.

It’s funny, when I was reading the BTV NWS forecast discussion and saw the following: Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 634 PM EST Thu Dec 15 2022 .SYNOPSIS... Travel will be very difficult on Friday, with both morning and evening commutes affected due to heavy snowfall rates. And then I read the details on each time period in the discussion, and I though… there’s no way most schools are going to try to open tomorrow – heavy snow during just one of the commute periods would be enough to close, so with both it’s got to be a slam dunk. After that I texted the family that I suspected schools will be closed tomorrow, and it wasn’t long before we got notifications from my wife’s school and my younger son’s school that they were closed. Based on the timing of anticipated periods of heavier snowfall, it seems like a no brainer.

I took a quick look at the map and saw that it looked similar to before, so didn’t think much about any changes until I saw what you wrote. Once I actually checked online, I see that the point forecast numbers went up substantially here at our site – projected accumulations are in the 10-20” range through Saturday night, and the local mountains run in the 16-26” range for the period. That still generally jives with the 12-18” on maps down here in the valley, although the higher elevations would really be hitting that next shading level of 18-24” along the spine. I think the jump in the numbers is from a bit more confidence for some heavier snow in that second phase of the storm that’s anticipated later on Friday. They have been talking about the 700 mb frontogenetic forcing in the discussions, but since it’s had staying power they must be incorporating that potential: Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 634 PM EST Thu Dec 15 2022 NEAR TERM /THROUGH FRIDAY NIGHT/... Then as we head into Friday early evening, short term mesoscale guidance are showing elevated instability coinciding with 40 units of omega in the favorable dendritic snow growth region. This is due to the 850-700mb circulation deepening and closing off over southern New England. Both the NAM and RGEM continue to depict an impressive banding of moderate to locally heavy snowfall possible Friday afternoon into evening, associated with a nearly stationary area of strong 700mb frontogenetic forcing.

Thanks for passing those along – very neat presentation that I haven’t seen them use before.

I see they bumped up the forecast snow totals around here in the update, but the first map covered a 36-hour window and the new map is for a slightly later shifted 39-hour window, so that could be part of the difference. This new one goes six hours further into the storm cycle, so that would probably incorporate more of the potential upslope on the back side. In the initial map were in the 8-12” zone here in the valley, and now we’re in the 12-18” shading. Our point forecast suggests 7-13” through Friday, so the 12-18” range covering through midday Saturday would be reasonable depending on the backside snow. In the higher elevations around here, the point forecasts have totals of 9-17” through that period, so that certainly fits the 12-18” shading. We’ll of course have to see what the snow ratios are down here in the valley to determine total accumulation, but I am seeing in the range of 1 to 2 inches of liquid around here on most of the models with upslope incorporated. Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT SHORT TERM /THURSDAY NIGHT THROUGH SATURDAY/... As of 350 PM EST Wednesday... Bumped up the precipitation values especially on Friday afternoon across much of the Green Mountains to account for the impressive low level speed convergence from the 50 kt easterly low level jet. When it`s all said and done, the ADK and Green Mountains, especially away from the shadowed west slopes, should get 12 to 18 inches of snow with localized 2 ft possible.

For the local valleys around here, this shouldn’t be considered that anomalous. Here’s the snow depth at our site in Waterbury on 12/10 for the past several seasons: 2007: 10.0” 2008: Trace 2009: 8.0” 2010: 7.0” 2011: 1.0” 2012: 0.5” 2013: 2.0” 2014: 7.0” 2015: 0.0” 2016: 3.0” 2017: 1.5” 2018: 9.0” 2019: 2.0” 2020: 3.5” 2021: 3.0” So out of those 15 seasons, there’s one with no snow, one with a trace, and one with less than inch at our stake. The mean snow depth here at our site for 12/10 is 4.1 ± 3.4”, so having 0.0” at the stake is 1.21 S.D. below the mean; thus the data indicate it should occur in 11.2% of seasons. That’s basically once every 9 or 10 seasons that we should see bare ground on 12/10, and there are roughly one to two of them in our 15-year set of data (the trace value can sort of go either way – there may not have been snow at the exact location of my stake, but a trace means there is at least snow on our property somewhere). So, it certainly happens. It began snowing here around 12:30 P.M. today though, and with temperatures well below freezing it started to accumulate immediately. If the temperatures stay cold as the forecast suggests, there would probably be at least a trace at the stake for tomorrow morning’s reading. This early part of the season can really be inconsistent for snow cover in the valleys, even in a fairly reliable snow spot like ours. We did just have our 7th white Thanksgiving in a row this year though, so that’s an example of the early season snowpack variability in the other direction.

I was up at Bolton Valley for some turns yesterday afternoon, so I can pass along some observations. After some initial frozen precipitation at our house in the in the morning, we’d had on and off rain in the valley heading into the afternoon. It had been steady at times, but nothing too heavy. I got a bit worried when I encountered a couple of downpours while driving through Bolton Flats, because the thought of skiing in the pouring rain wasn’t all that enticing. I was happy to see that the rain changed over to snow around 1,500’ at the Timberline Base, so that alleviated the concerns about having to potentially be out on the mountain in a downpour. The drive up the Bolton Valley Access Road definitely gave its usual introduction to the local temperature profile – the temperatures ticked right down at a steady pace and dropped from the lower 40s F in the valley to the lower 30s F by the time I hit the base village. I was getting concerned that the snow surfaces were going to be quickly tightening up as colder air moved in, but the lower mountain seemed to be just enough around the freezing mark that the snow remained soft. I could tell it wouldn’t be too long before the surfaces would be getting firm though – the wind had really picked up as the back side of the storm system was pushing through, and the Mid Mountain Chair appeared to close early because of it.

Adding a few shots that I didn't have the chance to put with yesterday's report:

Excellent, thanks, I definitely hadn't visited that section of the website before.

I was up at Bolton Valley this afternoon, so I can pass along some observations. Here’s the snow depth profile I found in the midafternoon timeframe: 340’: 2-3” 1,000’: 3” 1,500’: 4” 2,000’: 6-7” 2,500’: 7 3,000’: 8-9” The settled snow depths depended heavily on the underlying surface – grassy areas that insulated the snow from the ground tended to have a couple more inches of depth, so it really seemed like there was some consolidation/melting due to warm ground. Even at 2,000’ in the Bolton Valley Village area it edged above freezing this afternoon, and it was somewhere in the 2,700’ elevation range where temperatures finally dropped below the freezing mark. The snow above the point was much less consolidated, so he snow below that elevation is actually better set up to serve as a base. Liquid equivalent thus far at our site for this storm is 0.70”, so the mountain should be somewhere in that range or higher. The most notable jump in accumulations was between 1,500’ and 2,000’, and perhaps somewhere between there was when consolidation jumped a lot due to the temperatures. The increase in depth was really quite slow above 2,000’, and it was hard to see much of a change until I hit the freezing line around 2,700’ – the depth got a bump there because above that point it was still quite dry and hadn’t seen any consolidation. The freezing line was dropping as the afternoon wore on, and backside snows had started up rather vigorously when I was heading home. That snowfall appeared to be confined to the higher elevations around here though, because I haven’t seen any back side snows yet here at our site.

PF, where do you go to get BTV NWS 72-Hour Snowfall Forecast maps like that? Those sort of longer duration maps would be great for around here with the way we get so many of those multi-day events. What you’ve posted is a perfect example with back side snow showers possible with this event.

I received a phone alert that we’re going under a Winter Weather Advisory tonight, so I’ve added the latest BTV NWS maps below. The point forecast here suggests something in the 4-8” range for snow accumulation through Thursday, with 5-10” or so in the higher elevations.

I just looked outside and it’s snowing here at our site, so the snow line has hit the valley floor in this area.

The comment about recent pathetic winters got me curious about the past several seasons in that respect, so I went to the data to check. Maybe it’s been different over in New Hampshire (I think there was a recent season where New Hampshire over into Maine especially, was running relatively low in terms of snowfall compared to the rest of the region). It doesn’t feel like any of the past few seasons around here have really been way down at the pathetic level. Last season saw the least snowfall of the past four, so maybe that plays into the perception, but the average snowfall from the past four seasons here is 157.6”, which is right around average for our site. The 2020-2021 season was about average for snowfall, and I can’t remember the specifics from 2018-2019, but snowfall pushing 200” around here in the valley is definitely solid. Even the 145.7” average from the past three seasons isn’t horrible. If I go back even a couple more seasons, the snowfall numbers were again solid. The mean snowfall from the past six seasons actually ends up above average, and I’d argue we really haven’t had a dud since that infamous 2015-2016 season. Maybe we’re “due” for an uptick after the past three seasons, but if we look at the past six seasons in aggregate, I’m not sure – maybe we actually owe Mother Nature a bit. Hopefully we don’t owe her anything because we paid our dues in 2015-2016, and we’re slowly recovering back to our real snowfall averages. 2021-2022: 134.4” 2020-2021: 160.6” 2019-2020: 142.1” 2018-2019: 193.2” 2017-2018: 167.2” 2016-2017: 186.5” I do recall a recent season where it seemed like valleys around here did better with respect to their average snowfall than the mountains did. It would be good to hear from PF about the mountain perspective from the past few seasons – I know we had that recent season where the mountain snowpack was running along at pretty low levels for a while, but I’m not sure if the season as a whole stayed down in the pathetic zone. Snowpack and snow depth days can certainly play a part in the overall winter feel, if retention is especially poor for some reason, but as a single metric for a winter, I think snowfall trumps everything else. You can’t melt snow that you never receive, and snowfall is what equates to the highest quality ski days for most of the season, whether through contribution to powder days, or just the routine refreshers to keep surface quality up. I do agree about that early snow in recent years though – as Tamarack said, we’ve sort of been spoiled in that regard. In the past four seasons we’ve had some absolutely outrageously early (as in early November in a couple cases) starts to the winter snowpack in the valleys, and we’ve also had snow on the ground at our house for the past six Thanksgivings. We’ve obviously got a good shot of having white Thanksgivings around here, but Novembers can’t maintain an early starting pace like that every season.

There’s nothing obvious in terms of snow on the ensembles for the next week or two, but your point is noted about November and that quick transition to winter. In October, you definitely have to have those bouts of below normal temperatures to get into the snow, but at least in the mountains around here, it’s not as big a deal when you get to November. The mean average temperature for November on Mt. Mansfield is 29.8 F, so even at that point of the season we’re talking below freezing in terms of the mean. By the end of the month that temperature is down to 24.7 F, so there’s even some room for above average temperatures. If the pattern is simply clear weather and above average temperatures (which Novembers can occasionally do), then not much is going to happen in terms of snow, but fronts coming though typically give us some shots below freezing. In terms of starting behind, we’re still in that “it doesn’t really matter” stage that I’ll hear many of the SNE crew talk about down there in November and December, since it’s too early to really matter in terms of affecting the winter snowpack. The mean snowpack start date for Mt. Mansfield is November 16th though, so at that point it’s time to start thinking about the potential for starting behind. We’ve been a bit spoiled with some of these early November starts in the past few years as Tamarack mentioned, so that can play into the perception as well.

I saw the conversation about December vs. March as wintry months and found it very interesting – it was surprising to see March coming out on top in some parts of the region. While I wouldn’t say the two months are absolutely night and day, December clearly wins with respect to being wintry in this area. Average December snowfall is in the 30-40” range, whereas March is in the 20-30” range, December has an average of 11 to 12 accumulating storms, while March averages 7 to 8 storms, and I have to think December easily wins in terms of colder average temperatures. March would probably win in terms of snowpack, and maybe frequency of larger storms, but I’d have to run the numbers on those. December actually tops all months with respect to number of storms, and until a few seasons ago, it was the month with the highest average snowfall here at our site. The run of relatively poor snowfall Decembers as of late (only one December that was modestly above average in almost a decade!) has seen February pull ahead of December in terms of average snowfall now, but it will be interesting to see where that race goes in the future if we can see a return to some snowier Decembers. Regarding some of the other parameters that were discussed, the mean date for the start of permanent winter snowpack here at our site is December 2nd, so on average, snowpack will be present for essentially the entire month. With the level of sunlight at that time of year, it’s just really hard to get rid of snow once it’s down. Sunny days are sparse to begin with at that time of year, so it’s not the sun taking out the snowpack, it’s most likely an especially potent warm system that does it. Thanksgiving is typically a bit too early for the start of the permanent winter snowpack down at this elevation, but it’s happened four times in the 16 years of my data set, so that percentage is at 25.0%, or a quarter of the time. Average occurrence of white Thanksgiving is obviously much higher, and that currently sits at 68.8%, so around 2/3 of the time.