Jump to content

J.Spin

Members
  • Posts

    6,128
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by J.Spin

  1. 20 hours ago, powderfreak said:

    Mid-winter vibe up high today despite only 6” of cover.

    90F98DB8-397C-4159-8F58-5E7A4EDCB3CC.thumb.jpeg.437282ca8802c9672c174eafebc74232.jpeg

    463A92DC-BB77-4F8D-B79D-2764DE8CDCE0.thumb.jpeg.4865651f011fa2ae3626a4ce2755274c.jpeg

    Boy, those pictures really do have a midwinter vibe; thanks for sending them along. They give a great sense of how things have been going around here. October was on the slow side with respect to winter moving in, but this first third of November has been solid. Things started right up on the first of the month with that initial storm.  The snow depth at Mt. Mansfield Stake is only slightly above average, but the beginning of November can easily be volatile, so the slow and steady increase in snow depths instead of melting back speaks to some consistency.

    The data from our site in the valley are in line with a strong start as well – even down at this elevation we’ve already had three accumulating storms, and six days with snow. That storm on the 9th pushed the cumulative season snowfall to twice the average, and only two seasons in my records have had more snow up to that point. We’ve already had as much snow as we’d have on average by mid-month. This season’s cumulative snowfall plot for our site shows how things took off right at the start of the month, and we’ve really stayed at or above average since then.

    12NOV23A.jpg.39bd859aa5992d3c400b7ee313c08da8.jpg

    I’ve only seen a few flakes in the valley this weekend, but any slopes above 2,000’ or so are white with the snow, so you get that winter feel with view in just about every direction out here in the mountains. Tomorrow’s system is looking decent for another round of accumulation in the mountains and maybe the valleys as well.

    • Like 2
  2. I received a text alert early this morning that we’ve been put under a Winter Weather Advisory for the next system coming into the area, and I believe this is our first advisory of the season.  Advisory and projected snowfall maps are added below.

    The current system started to give some accumulation here at our site last night when the snow levels dropped, so these systems coming through with modest valley snows have made it feel like a typical early November thus far. The snowfall data speak to this as well; average seasonal snowfall through Nov 8 is 2.0”, and we’re within a couple tenths of that as of this morning’s observations.

    08NOV23A.jpg.8b8943cf658506816db509b339ced933.jpg

    08NOV23B.thumb.jpg.ddf43e1124637e0d39e545879367f276.jpg

  3. 13 hours ago, bwt3650 said:

    Do you have data for 2000-2001?  I think that was a 500" year up here.  Curious how that started snowfall and temp wise.

    Here are some additional dates:

     

    Date of first accumulating Mt. Mansfield snow by season:

    1955: Oct 17

    1956: Nov 9

    1958: Oct 27

    1959: Sep 15

    1960: Oct 23

    1961: Oct 15

    1962: Oct 24

    1963: Oct 30

    1964: Oct 10

    1965: Oct 4

    1966: Sep 24

    1967: Sep 2

    1968: Oct 5

    1969: Oct 22

    1970: Oct 17

    1971: Oct 8

    1972: Oct 10

    1973: Oct 17

    1974: Oct 2

    1976: Sep 22

    1977: Oct 4

    1978: Oct 9

    1979: Oct 8

    1980: Sep 28

    1981: Oct 3

    1982: Oct 16

    1983: Oct 24

    1984: Oct 2

    1985: Nov 17

    1986: Aug 28

    1987: Oct 4

    1988: Oct 8

    1989: Sep 24

    1990: Oct 26

    1991: Sep 21

    1992: Sep 30

    1993: Oct 5

    1994: Oct 4

    1995: Oct 29

    1996: Nov 1

    1997: Oct 1

    1998: Sep 23

    1999: Oct 4

    2000: Oct 8

    2001: Oct 7

    2002: Oct 18

    2003: Oct 2

    2004: Oct 11

    2005: Oct 17

    2006: Oct 13

    2007: Nov 6

    2008: Oct 3

    2009: Sep 30

    2010: Oct 7

    2011: Oct 30

    2012: Oct 8

    2013: Oct 24

    2014: Oct 26

    2015: Oct 17

    2016: Oct 26

    2017: Oct 27

    2018: Oct 13

    2019: Oct 18

    2020: Oct 17

    2021: Oct 18

    2022: Oct 8

    2023: Oct 22

    • Like 1
  4. 21 hours ago, powderfreak said:

    Dumping.  Gusting 50mph too.

    Snow level 2500ft.

     

    20 hours ago, powderfreak said:

    Half inch paste at 3,000ft.  Wind is honking.

    9A6EFF56-8223-4C0F-8F6C-13C49CA9B2ED.jpeg.8bfd38af2d1c5c9956db5ee9ef5cefa6.jpeg

     

    17 hours ago, powderfreak said:

    She loves it.

    It was snowing very low down under 2000ft when I left the hill.  @alex mixing at 1500ft isn’t surprising.

    Good first walk in the snow and winter environment today.  1” at the Stake officially, ha. We are on the board.

    0AEFF95D-AC73-414A-BA75-22C5E940A5B7.thumb.jpeg.29701f9cbbba61f0dca89581c9681b38.jpeg

    4EB07C01-5187-413A-816C-B10A48CC6633.thumb.jpeg.42807a17763b5e2a94b0f0e37d2d2138.jpeg

    6B036A61-D000-4339-9755-491E317DB85E.thumb.jpeg.78371a4e8c38dbeaa8c550859244fee7.jpeg

     

    16 hours ago, powderfreak said:

    Yup.  Looked like 1/3rd of an inch of freezing rain before snow.  Very icy up there.

    B0951B6B-ED42-4B84-BFC7-D1DE608E7FEB.jpeg.95f5318685f9bc41b64f80c48ae476a1.jpeg

    Well, that definitely puts this season’s first accumulating Mt. Mansfield snow in the books, so Oct 22 is the date for the winter of 2023-2024.  The stats for this parameter are below for comparison – this is later than the mean date of Oct 11, but well within 1 S.D., so quite normal in that regard. Assuming a normal distribution, about 25% of seasons will have later first snowfall dates than this one.

    The dates of first accumulating Mt. Mansfield snow for some recent seasons are shown below as well, so this season sits later than the past few, but ahead of most of that stretch in the mid-2010s, which was a surprising run of later October dates.

    Date of first accumulating Mt. Mansfield snow:

    Mean:  10/11

    Median:  10/10

    Mode:  10/17

    S.D.: 15 days

    N:  67

    Most Recent:  10/22

    Most Recent Days Deviation:  +11

    Most Recent # of S.D. Deviation:  +0.732

    Most Recent S.D. % Lower:  76.8%

    Earliest 8/28/1986

    Latest   11/17/1985

     

    Date of first accumulating Mt. Mansfield snow by season:

    2008: Oct 3

    2009: Sep 30

    2010: Oct 7

    2011: Oct 30

    2012: Oct 8

    2013: Oct 24

    2014: Oct 26

    2015: Oct 17

    2016: Oct 26

    2017: Oct 27

    2018: Oct 13

    2019: Oct 18

    2020: Oct 17

    2021: Oct 18

    2022: Oct 8

    2023: Oct 22

    • Like 4
  5. 7 hours ago, powderfreak said:

    I’d honestly have to look at the old Coop data, that has/had the longest reliable data.  Off the cuff I’d say mid-October.

     

    6 hours ago, powderfreak said:

    Yeah it’s such a wide range of dates… we’ve been shoveling snow off the deck at the top of the Gondola as early as like the beginning of October and then I know we’ve also waited till November for the first dustings.  We’ve had a 24-30” pack in late October (I think 2005 or 2006 it was) after a couple big events… or watching grass grow in mild/dry.

    Thats why my gut says mid-October as a mean blend of early and late.  Tons of variance.

     

    6 hours ago, bwt3650 said:

    Oct 10th thru 20th seems to be about right to get these kind of first snows the last few years here.

    2401a2da102cec5552ee0ec5f190c3b5.jpg

    this was Oct 17th 2020 and 2021 was almost exactly the same date. I don’t remember last year, but I feel it was later.

     

    I saw that there were inquiries about the average date for first Mansfield snow, so I updated the slide I have that gives the cumulative 1st snow percentages by month as well as the stats on the date of first snow. On the discussion of dates for the past few seasons, here are the data:

    2008: Oct 3

    2009: Sep 30

    2010: Oct 7

    2011: Oct 30

    2012: Oct 8

    2013: Oct 24

    2014: Oct 26

    2015: Oct 17

    2016: Oct 26

    2017: Oct 27

    2018: Oct 13

    2019: Oct 18

    2020: Oct 17

    2021: Oct 18

    2022: Oct 8

     

    Indeed as bwt showed, it was October 17th in 2020, and 2021 was right there with it on the 18th.

    Last year was actually somewhat interesting – it was on the earlier side with snows down around Sugarbush and Lincoln on September 23rd, and there were a few inches of accumulation in spots like the Battell Shelter.  The Mansfield area didn’t actually appear to pick up snow from that event though – PF provided a firsthand report, and he said it was all ice there. Finally, on October 8th, Mansfield got its first snows.

    The list of first snow occurrences by month on Mansfield is below, and those numbers are used to generate the percentages in the graph.  October is clearly the predominant month for Mansfield’s first accumulating snows:

    August             1

    September       10

    October           51

    November        4

    Sum                 66

    We’re clearly well into the 1 S.D. window for first snows on Mansfield now, since that starts at the end of September, so anything that might come out of this system or that next one would be right on track.

    07OCT23A.jpg.7fdeecfe514bbcb070f1a77e9b018bda.jpg

    • Like 4
    • Thanks 2
  6. Now that we’re into June, snowfall here in the valleys is likely complete, so I’ve put together the final numbers at our site for the 2022-2023 season.

    Overall snowfall was a bit below average, but roughly in the ±5% range of the mean. As shown in the seasonal snowfall progression plot below, snowfall generally lagged a bit behind average pace before finally catching up from late February into March.  The lagging snowfall is not as big a factor once the winter snowpack is in place, but it’s still a knock against the season and would probably push it below a C average in the C- range if a grade were to be given.  I don’t think there’s too much of an argument for a D+, as the snow season/ski season were just too good for that.  The season snowfall rank of 9 puts it smack in the middle of the data set, which is another nod to the average nature of the season.

    The seasonal snowfall progression plot nicely points out several parts of the season with excellent skiing as indicated by the plot areas with the steepest slopes.  The snowy period in mid-November was nice, and offered up some powder turns, but nothing outrageous for November.  Those four periods in mid-December, late-January, late February into Early March, and then mid-March were all excellent.  That mid-December period was especially great because the storms set up what felt almost like a midwinter base below the powder, and it was a period of top notch skiing during the holidays and right into Christmas week, which we haven’t seen too much in the past few seasons.

    Being a rather ho-hum, average season, there weren’t too many records set for the site, but interestingly, this past January’s 14 snowstorms just snuck in for the record ahead of five other seasons with 13 storms.  The 12/31 storm gets that date because it’s when the snowfall technically started, but the bulk of the snowfall and all the snowfall observations were really in January, so it was a January storm in the records.  Interestingly, it wasn’t even a snowy January, but the storm frequency was there.  The only other record set was for latest accumulating snowfall and frozen precipitation on 5/17, which beat out the latest snow from the 2015-2016 season by a day.

     

    06JUN23A.jpg.47068d7b1755106e37a2884074705593.jpg

     

    Total Snowfall: 150.1”

    Season Snowfall Rank: 9 of 17

    October Snowfall: 0.0”

    November Snowfall: 10.4”

    December Snowfall: 30.6”

    January Snowfall: 37.8”

    February Snowfall: 27.9”

    March Snowfall: 42.5”

    April Snowfall: 0.6”

    May Snowfall: 0.3”

     

    Total Days with Snowfall: 104

    October Days with Snowfall: 0

    November Days with Snowfall: 13

    December Days with Snowfall: 22

    January Days with Snowfall: 23

    February Days with Snowfall: 20

    March Days with Snowfall: 19

    April Days with Snowfall: 5

    May Days with Snowfall: 2

     

    Snowstorms: 55

    October Storms: 0

    November Storms: 9

    December Storms: 9

    January Storms: 14

    February Storms: 12

    March Storms: 9

    April Storms: 1

    May Storms: 1

     

    Average Snowfall per Storm: 2.7”

     

    Largest Storm:18.0”

    2nd Largest Storm: 14.0”

    3rd Largest Storm: 13.5”

    4th Largest Storm: 13.1”

    5th Largest Storm: 7.8”

    Sum of 5 Largest Storms: 66.4”

    Storms ≥10": 4

    Date of Largest Storm: 3/13/23

     

    First Frozen Precipitation: 11/13/23

    First Accumulating Snowfall: 11/13/23

    1st 1" Storm: 11/16/23

    1st 2" Storm: 11/16/23

    1st 3" Storm: 11/16/23

    1st 4" Storm: 11/16/23

    1st 6" Storm: 11/16/23

    1st 8" Storm: 12/16/23

    1st 10" Storm: 12/16/23

    1st 12" Storm: 12/16/23

    Last Accumulating Snowfall: 5/17/23

    Last Frozen Precipitation: 5/17/23

    Length of Snowfall Season: 186 days

     

    Start of Season Snowpack: 12/12/23

    Days with >0" Snowpack: 144

    Days with ≥1" Snowpack: 127

    Days with ≥6" Snowpack: 91

    Days with ≥12" Snowpack: 55

    Days with ≥24" Snowpack: 4

    Days with ≥36" Snowpack: 0

    Max Snow Depth: 28.5”

    Date of Max Snow Depth: 2/16/23

    End of Season Snowpack: 4/13/23

    Continuous Snowpack Season: 124 days

    Snow-Depth Days: 1375.5 inch-days

     

    Total liquid equivalent: 26.09”

    Frozen liquid equivalent: 12.59”

    % Frozen L.E.: 48.3%

    Total Snow/Total Liquid Ratio: 5.8

    Total Water Content: 17.4%

    Total Snow/Frozen Liquid Ratio: 11.9

    Frozen Water Content: 8.4%

     

    2022-2023 Winter Storm List

    11/13/22: 0.4” Combination of moisture streaming in from Lake Ontario and coastal low pressure

    11/15/22: 6.1” Developing coastal low tracking over Cape Cod into the Gulf of Maine

    11/17/22: 1.7” Upper level trough passing through Northern New England

    11/20/22: 0.9” Lake-effect snow from Lake Ontario

    11/20/22: 0.3” Strong upper level trough and associated cold front

    11/21/22: 0.1” Weak clipper-type system

    11/23/22: 0.4” Weak upper level disturbance passing though the region

    11/25/22: 0.4” Low pressure system centered over James Bay

    11/30/22: 0.7” Dynamic low pressure system tracking just south of Hudson Bay

    12/3/22: 0.3” Low pressure system over the Great Lakes lifting north of our region

    12/11/22: 1.9” Upper level shortwave traversing our region with weak surface low following

    12/13/22: 1.1” Retrograding and deepening low pressure near Nova Scotia

    12/16/22: 14.0” Winter Storm Diaz - low pressure tracking along the New England coast

    12/18/22: 0.5” Decaying cyclonic upper gyre across southern Ontario with Lake Ontario moisture

    12/19/22: 3.5” Spoke of weak shortwave energy among Midwestern cyclonic gyre

    12/22/22: 7.8” Winter Storm Elliot - Powerful system tracking though the eastern Great Lakes

    12/26/22: 0.5” Upper shortwave scooting across area + LES moisture

    12/28/22: 0.4” Weak low pressure passing north of the international border

    12/31/23: 0.2” Surface low passing through New England

    1/3/23: 1.3” Winter Storm Hudson - system passing from Midwest through Great Lakes with frontal boundary in New England

    1/9/23: 1.3” Trough dropping out of Canada with moderate cold frontal passage

    1/12/23: 4.8” Low pressure from the Ohio Valley tracking through Northern New England

    1/16/23: 0.2” Retrograding storm system over the New England coastal waters

    1/18/23: 0.2” Deamplifying shortwave approaching area from the Great Lakes

    1/19/23: 6.3” Winter Storm Iggy - low pressure passing near Cape Cod

    1/22/23: 4.4” Winter Storm Jimenez - low tracking right along the New England coast

    1/24/23: 1.0” Strong cold front

    1/25/23: 13.1” Winter Storm Kassandra - dynamic, vertically stacked low pressure system moving from Ohio Valley to Great Lakes

    1/28/23: 0.4” Rapidly moving trough/wave

    1/29/23: 1.0” Winter Storm Leona - low pressure tracking along the northern tier of our region

    1/30/23: 1.1” Low pressure system crossing from the northern Great Lakes

    1/31/23: 2.5” Arctic front

    2/1/23: 0.1” Classic, long-fetch lake-effect snow band off of Lake Ontario

    2/2/23: 2.0” Strong arctic front

    2/6/23: 0.1” Weak clipper-type low pressure system passing north of our area

    2/7/23: 0.6” Weak low pressure passing northwest of the region

    2/9/23: 1.9” Strengthening low pressure system passing to the northwest

    2/13/23: 0.9” Upper level trough passing through the area

    2/17/23: 1.5” Winter Storm Nova - low pressure from Ohio Valley tracking through Central VT

    2/21/23: 0.8” Moderately sharp frontal boundary

    2/22/23: 7.7” Winter Storm Olive - low pressure moving along warm front through New England

    2/25/23: 0.6” Weak upper-level vorticity pushing through fast zonal flow

    2/26/23: 7.1” Low pressure from Ontario/Quebec border passing southeast across our region

    2/28/23: 4.6” Winter Storm Piper - Low moving through St. Lawrence Valley with secondary low developing off the coast

    3/1/23: 3.9” Quick moving low pressure system moving across from the Great Lakes

    3/4/23: 13.5” Winter Storm Quest - Strong, vertically-stacked low pressure moving from Ohio Valley to New England coast

    3/7/23: 1.7” Upper level low circulation stalled over eastern Canadian Maritimes

    3/13/23: 18.0” Winter Storm Sage - Strong low pressure curling into the New England Coast

    3/16/23: 0.6” Weak upper-level disturbance

    3/18/23: 1.5” Deep, strong upper low in Northern Great Lakes/Ontario with cold front and Lake Ontario LES

    3/25/23: 1.3” Strong low pressure system passing to our northwest with secondary low off the East Coast

    3/29/23: 0.7” Strong cold front with snow squalls

    3/31/23: 1.8” Winter Storm Uriel - Large, dynamic, vertically-stacked low over the Northern Plains lifting through the Great Lakes

    4/17/23: 0.1” Low pressure over the Great Lakes moving northeastward

    5/16/23: 0.3” Cold front and robust, moisture-starved shortwave trough

    • Like 5
    • Thanks 1
  7. 23 hours ago, powderfreak said:

    Everyone knows they get the most snow and it makes sense to me conceptually.  Just not the amount of difference.  But like I said, I think it's a function of collection differences and how one arrives to their seasonal snowfall numbers.  They absolutely do better on NW flow, but that was lacking this season.

    The NW flow upslope spots did quite poorly.  Underhill spots had 77" and 83" this past year, like 36" less than over here in Stowe Village (because of largely SE flow synoptic).  In like 2010-11 which was huge upslope, those spots did about 200".

    Meso-scale snow was much diminished this past winter, which is why the lower elevations were closer to normal than the summits (J.Spin touched on that nicely).  Much of the lift was mid-level synoptic driven outside of the influences topography and that spreads wealth at all elevations.

    I’m very much on board with all the thoughts you’ve put in your posts on this topic, and I’m glad you were able to add in the 2022-2023 season snowfall from those additional resorts to show where they came in.  I added a couple more that I could find to fill out the north to south list along the spine a bit more.  These numbers get very difficult to find once the season is done, so it’s good to have it here just for reference.

    Jay Peak: 353”

    Smuggler’s Notch: 223”

    Stowe: 221”

    Bolton Valley: 241”

    Mad River Glen: 186”

    Sugarbush: 200”

    Pico: 198”

    Killington: 198”

    Bromley: 152”

    Magic Mountain: 150”

    Mount Snow: 156”

    The thing I don’t get though, which stems from the main discussion I was having with bwt about seeing how the quality of this past winter turned out for Jay Peak, is comparing the total snowfall from this winter to that of the previous two.  Actually, they must have not have had the 2021-2022 season snowfall data available back when I made that post, but they do now, and that season had already halted a potential streak of three sub-300” seasons.  Here are the numbers from their mountain data page:

    2019-2020: 252”

    2020-2021: 291”

    2021-2022: 311”

    2022-2023: 359”

    I get it that people have issues with the rigor of Jay Peak’s snowfall measurements, but their data still indicate that they had a roughly average snowfall season (similar to what BTV observed, and what I observed at my site).  It’s not as if the resort artificially jacks up their snowfall numbers to get them above 300” every season, since there are literally two recent seasons in a row that were below 300”. So, whatever methodology they’re using for measurement, it’s a big leap to assume that suddenly, this season, it ceased to be internally consistent to a massive degree.

    I noted how it was surprising to see Jay Peak coming in with roughly average snowfall when the rest of the resorts to the south were clearly running below average.  It is surprising, but can we really dismiss it?  Perhaps they did get a number of hits that just didn’t catch the resorts farther south. We know that we can’t really see the radar very well there, and bwt sure did seem to have a heck of a lot of snow at his placed based on the images sent in to the forum.  If the images we saw were substantially below average, then imagine what average looks like.

  8. On 9/22/2022 at 9:17 AM, bwt3650 said:

    Below freezing temps, first flakes possible tonight and the return of snow on the GFS clown range.  I figured I'd start the thread from the snowiest place in the east with hopes that leads to a great NNE snow season.  If it winds up being crap, I'll never start one again and just blame phin.

     

    On 9/22/2022 at 12:14 PM, J.Spin said:

    Nice, thanks for starting this up, and well put on the snow stuff.  Your comment on the crap season got me wondering how Jay Peak actually did in that horrendous 2015-2016 season, so I checked the historical data on their website and Tony Crocker’s website.

     

    SNOWFALL (INCHES)

    2020-2021       291"

    2019-2020       252"

    2018-2019       423"

    2017-2018       378"

    2016-2017       491"

    2015-2016       205"

    2014-2015       373"

    2013-2014       317"

    2012-2013       362"

    2011-2012       254"

    2010-2011       374"

    2009-2010       293"

    2008-2009       368"

    2007-2008       417"

    2006-2007       409"

    2005-2006       387"

    2004-2005       334"

    2003-2004       266"

    2002-2003       268"

    2001-2002       305"

    2000-2001       581"

    1999-2000       465"

    1998-1999       305"

    1997-1998       355"

    1996-1997       407"

    1995-1996       389"

    They still broke 200”, and that season had to bring together a seriously impressive collision of factors to really bottom out on snowfall in the Northern Greens like that.  We’ve certainly got the relatively low annual snowfall variance going on around here, and analysis on my data set indicates that 2015-2016 was bottom 1% of seasons.  So hopefully we’ve paid our dues for quite a long time with that one, and Phin is safe.

    Looking at the Jay Peak data, the past couple of seasons have actually been below average, so an uptick wouldn’t be too surprising – based on the data from the past 25+ seasons, it doesn’t like look like they typically see more than two sub-300” seasons in a row.

    I accidentally clicked on the start of this thread and read the initial couple of posts about Jay Peak and the potential for the quality of the winter, and since we’re just about at the end of the typical snow season, it seemed like a good time to follow up on those posts.  The resort reported 353” of snow for the season, so indeed they rebounded from the previous couple of sub-300” seasons and as their track record would suggest, they didn’t end up with three of those in a row.  All in all, their season snowfall wound up within a few % of average.  We were a touch low here at our site with 150.1” of snow on the season, but that’s still probably within 5% deviation from average.  And, the BTV data indicate that their snowfall was extremely tight to their average (I’m seeing 72.8” this season relative to a 72.7” average listed at their site).

    It’s interesting to note that with season snowfall being very tight to average at those three somewhat disparate sites, some locations within the triangle of geography they form didn’t quite reach average snowfall.  Perhaps it’s just the highest elevations of the Bolton-Stowe-Smugg’s stretch of the spine, but the resorts there reported 241”-221”-223” respectively, which is definitely well off their average pace.  I was wondering if that stretch of the spine saw the greatest deviation from average snowfall in the state, but even with some of those larger systems that hit the central and southern parts of the state, those ski areas seemed to come in below their averages.

    It wasn’t an especially upslope-heavy season, so maybe that threw off the numbers in some of the higher elevations.  Perhaps we had enough synoptic snow at our site to make up for the leaner amounts of upslope snowfall, but the lower elevations around here seemed to be closer to average snowfall than what the resorts are reporting.  Unfortunately, I don’t really know the averages for the low elevations sites in the state, but I see that Greensboro 3.9 NNE CoCoRaHS site coming in with roughly 170” of snowfall.  I have to think the average snowfall there can’t be too much higher than that if they’re off the spine, but the CoCoRaHS site information data does indicate the elevation there is over 2,000’, which would probably bump it up somewhat.  If the snowfall there is mostly from synoptic systems, then maybe this was a typical snowfall season in that area. 

    There were actually a number of sites in the state with totals in that 150”-170” range, and plenty of Vermont CoCoRaHS sites over 100”, which probably represents at least a decent season for a lot of them.

    31MAY23A.jpg.f70c05f20ad9562106f2cde2a11b8e0f.jpg

  9. Unlike the previous couple of weekends, there were no real concerns about the weather for skiing this past weekend – both days looked quite reasonable without any major bouts of precipitation expected.  Saturday looked great with clear skies all morning, so I eventually headed back out to Mt. Mansfield for some turns.

    I was torn between skinning and hiking for the ascent.  There appeared to be nearly continuous snow through various routes around The Nose side of the resort, but there were also plenty of areas in which the snow had melted out and dry ground was present.  Since there were some breaks in the snowpack near the base area on Lower North Slope anyway, and since I’d been skinning for the past couple of weeks, I decided to set myself up for hiking on the ascent.

    To generally stay on dry ground, I kept my ascent on trails to the south of the main North Slope/Lord route, and it made the route a bit less steep.  There was still a lot of snow around, so I’d often find myself skirting the snow line on various trails, and I ended up mixing it up with some hiking on the snow as well.

    I set my goal on ascending until I found a major break in the continuous snowpack, but I couldn’t really spot any obvious ones from the route I took, and I eventually topped out by the Octagon/Fourrunner Quad Summit.  The views of the Presidential Range were impressive, and it’s obvious that there have been recent snows in the elevations above tree line.

    On my descent of the main North Slope/Lord route, I did discover that there’s a fairly large break of about 50 feet or so in the continuous cover on North Slope, but I just couldn’t see it from where I ascended.  Coverage is pretty much continuous aside from that break, and the couple of breaks in snowpack down by the base.

    I saw a mix of people who were both skinning and hiking while I was out, and if I was to do it again, I think I’d bring along my skins so that I had them with me.  The snowpack is strong enough in a number of areas such that there are long stretches where skinning is the more practical and efficient approach, and having the flexibility to swap back and forth between skinning and hiking would be a nice option to have for a smooth ascent.

    06MAY23A.thumb.jpg.3cbba735d22d76a50a13dc90e6dae26c.jpg

    06MAY23B.thumb.jpg.367e19cb50aa4716a7c5509507ad67aa.jpg

    • Like 4
  10. Similar to last weekend, Saturday seemed like the better weather day for skiing this weekend, so yesterday I headed to Stowe for some turns on the spring snow.  I visited the Gondola terrain last time, so this outing I decided to get in some skiing on Spruce Peak while the south-facing terrain is still offering some reasonable descents.

    Starting from the MMSC parking lot, I had to hike for roughly 5 to 10 minutes before I was able to start skinning, and then I eventually made my way over to Main Street for the rest of the ascent.  Main Street coverage is nearly continuous over most of its course except for the very bottom down near the base of the Sensation Quad, and up in the flats near the top.  So, I topped out a bit shy of 3,000’ on the ascent vs. continuing on to the summit station of the Sensation Quad.  I was definitely happy to stop where I did though, because southerly winds were absolutely howling ahead of the approaching storm.  Main Street faces directly south with lots of exposure, so winds were sustained up in the 30 to 40 MPH range near the 3,000’ mark.  I actually pulled into the forest to remove my skins and gear up for the descent, and that gave me a break from the constant buffeting of the strong winds and helped avoid the likely frustration of things flapping around and flying away.

    Main Street offered up lots of those steep, buttery spring snow carves that is typically does, and I didn’t spot any major areas of undermined snow that were of any concern.  I was able to get down into the flats above the base of the Sensation Quad with just a couple short stretches of breaks in the snowpack.  Although not quite 100% continuous from the Sensation Quad summit because of the break in the upper flats, the area still offers up quite a good yield of skiable vertical for the investment of the ascent.  Taking in the views across to Mansfield gave me a nice look at the ski options throughout the resort, and there are still numerous ascent and descent routes for great touring.  The snow on Nosedive looks a little more burnt out than I would have expected, but the melt out is different every year, which is part of what makes it interesting.  North Slope and the surrounding trails in that area seem to have some great coverage, so there should be some good options around there for quite a while.

    Near the end of my tour, rain shafts started to show up among the mountains to the south, and I was able to watch the peaks disappearing as the incoming storm moved into the area.  The first spits of rain started to hit just as I arrived at my car, so the timing of the storm was right on with what the forecast had indicated.  This past week has been seasonably cool, and it looks like that has helped to slow down the spring melt.  With the forecast looking relatively cool for the next week or so, that should help to preserve the snow and ski options as we head into May.

    29APR23A.thumb.jpg.f6a36ff8a0e02e01831d22ac49db5a09.jpg

    29APR23C.thumb.jpg.d35de859805cfa2dfe0b5951057b547c.jpg

    29APR23B.thumb.jpg.b39156910539e0d53ffc1ffdcf0359a9.jpg

    • Like 2
  11. Based on the forecast, today seemed like the better half of the weekend for turns, so I decided to head to Mt. Mansfield and make use of all the snow that’s still out there.  A look at the Stowe Mountain Cam this morning showed that coverage still looked continuous on the Gondola side of the resort, and since that area generally melts out faster than the terrain under The Nose, I decided to ski that while it was still in good shape.

    Based on what I’d seen from the webcam and views from the valley, the cloud ceiling seemed to be sitting at around 3,200’ on Mansfield, so my plan was to continue my ascent until I hit the lowest cloud deck, or the snow became too firm at elevation, whichever came first.  Indeed, as the webcam view had indicated, coverage on Gondolier was pretty much continuous from top to bottom.  It turns out that there are a couple of small breaks of a few feet, but they’re nothing substantial that would ruin a top-to-bottom run.

    It remained mostly cloudy today, and not especially warm with temperatures around 50 F, so I was initially worried about the snow being generally too stiff for quality turns.  It was a little tough to tell exactly how it was going to ski during the ascent, but the sky began to brighten a bit in the midafternoon period, and the cloud ceiling started to rise.  The ceiling rose all the way up to 3,600’, and then slowly continued to rise beyond that, so I opted to make a full ascent to the Gondola Summit Station.  The brightening skies probably provided that extra punch of solar radiation to ensure that the snow quality was decent at all elevations, so in the end, the whole descent provided some fantastic spring turns.

    I’d expect some decent gaps to open up on the Gondola terrain over the next week if the weather was going to be mild, but the snow there might actually hold out for a while.  The forecast suggests numerous snow chances over the next couple of weeks, so that could result in some accumulation and decent preservation as we head farther into the spring ski season.

    22APR23A.thumb.jpg.8df8401df1664cf36199a4976067fec9.jpg

    22APR23B.thumb.jpg.639cf2fed1a1d3119b9ce2bcff61489e.jpg

    22APR23C.thumb.jpg.aa755e4e5348551337ebcc9ca97421bb.jpg

    22APR23D.thumb.jpg.c91b64b27b00791547daaddb04fd12b6.jpg

    • Like 7
  12. With systems like Winter Storm Uriel coming through the area, the weather and ski conditions had generally been staying on the wintry side of the spectrum, with no sustained periods of spring warmth.  My boys were up at Bolton on Friday for a session, and the word was that the conditions remained hard both on and off piste.  Saturday was probably a bit warmer, but with valley temperatures topping out in the upper 30s F, that still wasn’t going to cut it with respect to softening the snow.

    Sunday showed more potential though, and I headed up to the mountain for an afternoon session that saw temperatures pushing well into the 40s F at 1,500’ at the Timberline Base.  That was definitely enough to soften the snow into pleasant spring conditions, especially on west-facing terrain with afternoon sun.  The boys were up at the main mountain with friends for some terrain park runs, and I thought about heading over to see them, but it was well into the afternoon so I just stuck around Timberline for a few Telemark laps.  Temperatures certainly cooled with elevation, but the snow was soft enough everywhere to produce great turns.  In some spots with direct sun, the snow was even getting a little sticky since it hadn’t gone over to 100% corn, but in general the snow quality was excellent.  Coverage is still quite good on piste even down to 1,500’, but there are a few bare spots opening up on natural snow terrain at those low elevations.

    09APR23D.thumb.jpg.bdba185a6eab00333b7a40091f85d2a5.jpg

    09APR23B.thumb.jpg.439d27ed36ba0974e6700ea0fe091ad3.jpg

    09APR23A.thumb.jpg.c0b15fa42b8a986547cf694904924140.jpg

    09APR23C.thumb.jpg.acb073b4eeb903db0bb9bb45645f6c5f.jpg

    • Like 4
  13. The system currently working its way through the area has been named Winter Storm Uriel, and it’s actually provided a nice addition to the snowpack so far.  There hadn’t been too much coverage of its snow potential in the forecasts, presumably because it was one of those systems passing well to our northwest with anticipated front end and back end snow, but mixed precipitation and rain in the middle.  I was in Burlington yesterday afternoon when the storm started up, and the snowfall came in with some decent intensity right away.  Temperatures were marginal in the Champlain Valley, so the snow didn’t accumulate very rapidly, but there was probably about a half inch of new snow on the UVM campus when I was heading home to Waterbury.

    I arrived at the house to find that the boys and one of their friends had just loaded up their car and were headed up to Bolton for some runs.  My older son was on his alpine gear, but asked me to bring his Telemark equipment to switch over if I came up to the mountain later.  In my mind, I was certainly not planning to head out for a session.  It didn’t seem worth it to head up to the hill for what I thought was probably an inch or so of new snow atop the spring base that had probably gone through some freeze-thaw cycles over the past couple of days.

    But apparently, Mother Nature was going to convince me otherwise.  It just kept dumping snow down at our place in the valley, and of course, Bolton’s Webcam at their main base showed the exact same thing as we watched it on the TV.  I couldn’t quite get a feel for the amount of new snow from the webcam, but my snow analyses from the house revealed that we’d already picked up a few tenths of an inch of liquid equivalent in the snow we’d had.  Before long, I texted the boys and let them know that I was on my way up.

    I was really curious about the accumulations up at the Village elevations, so as soon as I parked and got out of the car, I headed to an undisturbed location to check out the depth of the snow.  I was surprised to get a new snow depth of 6 to 7 inches, and I figured there could have been some drifting around the parking lot area as there often is, but the measurement was quite encouraging.

    The timing of my arrival was great, and I caught the boys right at the base of the Vista Quad, so we all hopped on together for a run.  It continued to snow steadily, and the conditions were looking really good – folks below us on the trails were making virtually silent turns aside from the usual steep and heavily used spots like the middle of Spillway.  Up at the Vista Summit, I checked the new snow depth in the clearing right below the wind turbine and measured 7 inches.

    The snow wasn’t enough for a full resurfacing of all pitches of course, certainly not the center of very steep, high-traffic trails like Spillway, but the periphery of the steep terrain was skiing really well, and mid-level pitches were great.  Based on my snow analyses back at home, I bet the mountain had picked up a half in of liquid equivalent by that point.  I’d say the quality of the skiing was just a touch below the conditions we had back on Sunday with the 6 to 7 inches of new snow that we found then; that round of snow may have had just a bit more liquid equivalent in it.

    The boys were mixing things up with a bunch of runs through the terrain park on Valley Road, but fresh tracks were easy to get just about anywhere off Snowflake with the continued snowfall.  While riding the Snowflake Chair, we saw a couple of guys skiing some of the unlit Snowflake trails by headlamp, and those were probably some sweet turns because all those trails were essentially untracked.

    31MAR23B.thumb.jpg.398ae7803384ef31ca2d5c065905e86a.jpg

    31MAR23A.thumb.jpg.c78838ea9ae6201f01d864e57e82e593.jpg

    31MAR23D.thumb.jpg.83f5619c167ae3de5f81f00540e6e0a5.jpg

    31MAR23C.thumb.jpg.371497b68963b10cf5ff08534f4e86db.jpg

    • Like 5
  14. We haven’t seen much snow here in the Northern Greens since last weekend, and from what I’ve heard, the conditions on the slopes haven’t been all that remarkable.  A more substantial winter storm started to affect the area yesterday however, and it seemed to hold some promise with respect to putting down several inches of snow in the mountains.

    While the storm had only dropped an inch or two of snow down here at our house in the valley as of this morning, that snow contained almost a half inch of liquid equivalent, and with the temperatures being marginal in the lower elevations, it was easy to see that the accumulations were going to be elevation-dependent.  The Bolton Valley snow report was only indicating a few inches of new snow as of this morning, but that was enough to at least get us to head up to the hill and check out the conditions.  It seemed like a toss-up with respect to whether or not the snow would really be enough to kick the conditions into high gear, but there had to be more than a half inch of liquid equivalent from the storm at elevation, and that’s certainly enough for a decent resurfacing of the slopes.

    We parked at Timberline, and right from the start, we were encouraged by what we saw.  There were 2 to 4 inches of dense accumulation even at those lowest elevations, and as we rode the Timberline Quad and watched and listened to the skiers below, their relatively quiet turns suggested that the new snow had bonded well to the subsurface.  Our plan was to head up to the main mountain, get a good assessment of the conditions at all elevations, and then take it from there.  Up at 2,500’ when we got off at the Timberline Summit, it was immediately obvious that the conditions were going to be good.  The new snow had clearly put down a resurfacing that was incorporated well into the grooming and created a soft, quiet surface that let you cut right into it with your carves.  We next took a trip up the Vista Quad, and the conditions above 3,000’ were even better.  The sides of Alta Vista yielded excellent turns, and my depth checks were coming in with 6 to 7 inches of new snow.

    We’d met up with some colleagues from work and their families, and our group spent much of the afternoon roaming around the main mountain, venturing from Vista to Wilderness, with a lot of time spent on Snowflake.  The boys were having a lot of fun on the jumps in the terrain park, and with the usual low traffic of Snowflake, the trails held plenty of untracked lines.  When we were over on Wilderness, just about everyone hit the Wilderness Woods and had some great turns, and those of us inclined to hit the trees off Snowflake were treated to run after run of untracked powder through some very nice lines.

    We finished off our day with a long run down from the Vista Summit to the Timberline Base, and from that run it was very evident that the main mountain was the place to be today for the best powder and groomed surfaces.  The snow below 2,000’ was still decent, but as we’d seen, the accumulations were a bit less, and the powder a bit denser.  Up on the main mountain was definitely where the best snow was located, and skier traffic was quite light.  It’s March after all, and since this wasn’t an obvious slam dunk storm cycle, I’m sure there were many folks that opted not to make the trip to the mountain for conditions that probably could have gone either way.

    26MAR23C.thumb.jpg.296ec450f77e8fc2cb1fc1c2b07f0e0d.jpg

    26MAR23B.thumb.jpg.1c2c61d7964cde6ef196c89959c79442.jpg

    26MAR23A.thumb.jpg.8fc95324b29876b3773712a252be7dee.jpg

    26MAR23E.thumb.jpg.3fa34addf46065a9529d2810c07e6ddf.jpg

    26MAR23D.thumb.jpg.e6cf0032617af892523262a891a2886d.jpg

    26MAR23F.thumb.jpg.7614fa1a064e49b8fc0c7fe055567342.jpg

    • Like 5
  15. On 3/15/2023 at 8:23 PM, powderfreak said:

    Todays map… up and away.

    Nothing like going from 60” to 90” in one clean rise.

    52DCFB9B-7023-4F9E-974B-3741E116B92A.jpeg.1dcbe7add1944c9bc720b74fc93ad6d7.jpeg

    That’s great to see, and it really shows how the existing snowpack was substantial and consolidated.

    That’s snowpack of course, but when I was updating the data on my seasonal snowfall, the plot had a very similar spike that brought the progression above average.  As you can see from the plot below, we’ve flirted with hitting average a few times throughout the course of the season, but this was the first time we really pushed past the mean since back in November.  We only need about 15 inches to reach average total snowfall for a season here, and the average snowfall from this point out is 20 inches, so it’s certainly possible.

    17MAR23A.jpg.fd77c4acb51d28108022aec015ef2805.jpg

    • Like 1
  16. Winter Storm Sage continued on through Tuesday night, and a resurgence of heavy snowfall came into the area yesterday morning.  So, combined with somewhat limited lift service at Bolton on Tuesday due to power outages, yesterday was an obvious day to get out for turns.  My younger son was off from school for his second snow day in a row, and since it initially didn’t look like any of his friends would be able to join him for skiing, he and I headed up to the hill to catch the opening of the Vista Quad.  Snowfall was probably in the inch per hour range at that point, so the Bolton Valley Access Road was a bit slick, and we encountered a couple of vehicles having trouble on the ascent.

    Areas up around the ridgeline of the resort were getting hit pretty hard by the wind, so the new snow was heavily wind packed up there, but once you were down a couple hundred feet, most areas were fine.  Surface snow depths I measured were generally around 20 inches on the low end, up toward 30 inches on the high end, and that seemed to fit pretty well with the resort’s reported 32” storm total.  While the initial forecasts for Winter Storm Sage looked fairly lean in the Northern Greens, accumulations ultimately approached 3 feet, and the snowpack depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake took a healthy jump up to 90 inches.  Winter Storm Sage wound up being a solid storm cycle up and down the spine of the Green Mountains, with roughly 3 to 4 feet of accumulation.  The north to south listing of available storm totals from the Vermont ski areas tells the tale:

    Jay Peak: 28”

    Smuggler’s Notch: 34”

    Stowe: 33”

    Bolton Valley: 32”

    Mad River Glen: 32”

    Sugarbush: 29”

    Middlebury: 24”

    Pico: 22”

    Killington: 22”

    Okemo: 35”

    Bromley: 36”

    Magic Mountain: 36”

    Stratton: 40”

    Mount Snow: 48”

    At times on the mountain yesterday, especially late morning, we were getting hit with larger flakes for increased loft in accumulations, but there was still plenty of dense snow present as well.  When you’re nearing 3 feet of dense snow like that, the name of the game was still to hit steep terrain for the best turns, so my son and I started off with a run of Vermont 200.  After only that one run, we ran into one of my son’s friends at the base of the Vista Quad, and the posse just continued to grow as the morning went on to include another one of my son’s friend, his dad, and then another friend.  We found excellent conditions on Cobrass, and Maria’s was outstanding – most specifically the initial steep section due to the pitch being a great fit for the substantial depth of the moderately dense snow.

    The Wilderness Double Chair was schedule for a midmorning opening, but it wasn’t until midday or so that it actually opened.  Wilderness offered up the clear highlight of the day in the form of the headwall of the Wilderness Liftline.  That terrain isn’t usually open, because it’s very steep, so steep, ledgy, and exposed to the wind that it rarely holds snow.  I’m not even sure if it’s officially a trail.  Although the very top is usually roped off by patrol, you can access lower parts of it by traversing in from the surrounding trees.  As we passed over it on the lift, it was clear that coverage below the first several yards was excellent, so we traversed in below that point to check it out.  It delivered some classic steep and deep, and more than once I heard some of the boys proclaim that was the steepest powder they’d ever skied.  Ski patrol clearly felt that the entire slope was safely skiable, and by our next run, the rope was opened and everyone was diving in from the very top.  The energy and excitement of the folks on the slope, and those right above you on the lift (the snowpack is high enough that you actually had to appropriately time it to stay clear of people on the lift at the entry) was quite palpable.

    Although the lower slopes of Wilderness are too shallow in pitch to support skiing in 2 plus feet of dense powder, they did offer another highlight of the day.  The parts of the Wilderness Liftline that had been groomed were substantially lower than the surrounding areas of the trail that had not been groomed, so it provided a kicker to use if you wanted to jump into the powder.  The boys started launching powder bombs as they threw themselves off the side of the trail, and eventually everyone got into it and was burying themselves silly.  It was great fun all around and made for lots of hilarious GoPro footage.  Action photography was definitely tough yesterday with the heavy snowfall, but we still our best to document the great outing in one of the top winter storms of the season thus far.

    15MAR23B.thumb.jpg.73780ca1eb5acd7b8ece0bdb90f454e4.jpg

    15MAR23A.thumb.jpg.7f628b89f412d9345aa288121b6c2994.jpg

    15MAR23F.thumb.jpg.207491d749f9aef5230ce835718de5b3.jpg

    15MAR23C.thumb.jpg.7ccfca016b6b7192f639cc1e24864f45.jpg

    15MAR23O.thumb.jpg.e53d41e9b2a12dcd6ceac09d11064c55.jpg

    • Like 4
  17. In Bolton’s early morning report they were indicating 3 to 4 inches of new snow from Winter Storm Sage, but little did they know, by the afternoon the storm would already have dropped several times that amount.  The Winter Storm Warnings from the National Weather Service in Burlington started including counties farther and father to the northern part of Vermont, and that was definitely a sign that the storm was going to have a bit more impact in the Northern Greens than the weather models had initially suggested.  Here at our house in Waterbury, the snowfall really started to pick up in the midmorning period.  We began to get very large snowflakes with diameters in the 3 to 4-inch range, and those flakes were accompanied by very heavy snowfall rates; over the course about 30 minutes, we picked up roughly half a foot of new snow.

    Bolton had clearly been hit with similar snowfall rates, and it was obvious that there was far more than the initial few inches when I headed up to Timberline for a tour this afternoon.  My depth checks from the Timberline Base at 1,500 feet were indicating 12 to 16 inches of new snow.  I wasn’t sure if there was going to be much additional accumulation with elevation, but by the time I hit 2,500 feet, my measurements were in the 15 to 18-inch range.  Bolton’s snow report update from later in the day had their accumulations topping out at 18 inches, so that fit well with my observations.

    The actual skiing itself was rather interesting.  On my ascent it was already obvious that the snow wasn’t at all wet at elevation.  It was fairly dense though, with small flakes falling during my tour.  With those small flakes falling atop the accumulation of the larger ones that would have fallen during that midmorning, the powder wasn’t perfectly right-side-up.  It wasn’t exactly upside-down either, but there was an element of that in the powder, and combined with a foot and a half of new depth, it added some extra challenge.  When you’re on 115 mm boards and you’re feeling like they might not be wide enough, that’s saying something.  While I didn’t personally see anything slide or even slough when I was out on my tour today, I did feel tinges of spookiness of steeper slopes, with part of that coming from the slightly imperfect density profile.  It didn’t come as a complete surprise when I saw the following in Bolton’s updated snow report:

    Urgent Message From Patrol: Avalanche hazard present at this time. If travelling on terrain (especially uphill routes and backcountry) follow appropriate avalanche precautions and gear up accordingly.

    So, be careful if you are riding in potentially hazardous spots in the near future with this current snowpack.  And unfortunately, the best skiing really is on the steepest terrain right now.  I could tell on my ascent that I was going to need some serious pitch to get a quality descent, so I dropped in on the Tattle Tale Headwall, and it certainly delivered.  We’ll see what the back side of this storm cycle does for the snow profile, but for now, you’re going to want at least black diamond pitches for the best turns in undisturbed snow.  Indeed, if you’re planning to head out for turns tomorrow on anything that hasn’t been tracked, bring your fattest boards and hit the steepest terrain you can find. Conditions should be great though, because we’re in the process of getting another massive resurfacing of the slopes, and its already atop a surface that didn’t really even need it.

    14MAR23E.thumb.jpg.ccdd4187cb46a67201aa9816ed9aee44.jpg

    14MAR23I.thumb.jpg.b42acffa1d570c5e2ecad4df5c9aaaaa.jpg

    14MAR23F.thumb.jpg.d84248a4145dfb53507121fb585384e2.jpg

    14MAR23J.thumb.jpg.cc8bba0d16642ae83840475bcf796be3.jpg

    14MAR23H.thumb.jpg.89f6af76a3067282ad98c84f0999f573.jpg

    14MAR23G.thumb.jpg.efaafd2e6a2d208c834f21d92641ff59.jpg

    • Like 2
  18. 1 hour ago, EMontpelierWhiteout said:

    I had great rates like that for a bit earlier this morning, pickin up 4 1/2” in about 2 hours.  Sadly, we seem to be between snow bans right now in E. Montpelier.  Pretty much stopped over last hour.  Hoping for better as afternoon wears on. 

    The BTV NWS actually pushed the Winter Storm Warnings north again as one can see on the updated advisories map.  They also bumped the accumulations on the latest Event Total Snowfall map.  The point forecast here calls for another 8-16” through Wednesday night, so we’ll see how that plays out.

    14MAR23C.jpg.c7e4eaf1c616d59ce766c7ad2cc4a136.jpg

    14MAR23D.thumb.jpg.2349cc06c2fd939a1707f6a299101e0f.jpg

  19. 22 hours ago, EMontpelierWhiteout said:

    I am thinking NWS needs to expand Winter Storm Warnings northward based on latest model guidance spinning this thing a little north of Provincetown.  With that evolution, can’t see how better dynamics don’t get thrown back further north and west.  Anyway, not a lot of NNE chatter, but maybe we should get some going on this. 

    I just noticed that they pushed the Winter Storm Warnings farther north again, so that trend continued as you can see from the latest alerts map.  And, you can see the additional increases in the Event Total Snowfall maps pushing more of that 12-18” shading farther into the Northern Greens.  It’s actually been snowing pretty hard here at the house in Waterbury.  The snowflakes have been very large with diameters in the 3 to 4-inch range, and snowfall rates have been somewhere above 6”/hr.  We picked up 2 inches of accumulation in about 10 minutes, and roughly another half foot of snow came down in short order  Based on the local radar it appears it was from a band that came through.

    14MAR23A.jpg.cc2cf0129cd54292d4fe5332955ce82a.jpg

    13MAR23C.thumb.jpg.a87efdb2617ec1ffb1734137fe9e7a6a.jpg

    14MAR23B.thumb.jpg.20139ae6b7911d129f9080c10c72b1ee.jpg

  20. 3 hours ago, EMontpelierWhiteout said:

    I am thinking NWS needs to expand Winter Storm Warnings northward based on latest model guidance spinning this thing a little north of Provincetown.  With that evolution, can’t see how better dynamics don’t get thrown back further north and west.  Anyway, not a lot of NNE chatter, but maybe we should get some going on this. 

    Your thoughts were prescient, because Alexa just alerted me that we’ve been put under a Winter Storm Warning here in Waterbury, and indeed the warnings have move north a bit.  Our BTV NWS point forecast currently suggests 6-14” of snow accumulation through Wednesday, with additional snow on Wednesday night, so we’ll see how that goes.  I haven’t seen a recent update to the Event Total Snowfall map, but they’ll probably make some adjustments if they are substantial enough.

    13MAR23B.jpg.87a11828aaf009bfb2368afe24c89ee5.jpg

  21. CoCoRaHS likes us to get the liquid equivalent in the snowpack on Mondays, but I only do it occasionally because it’s a substantial amount of extra time to add to the daily routine.  That’s especially the case as we get farther into winter with the way the snowpack typically builds around here.  I had time for the coring and melting this morning though, and the analysis revealed that there’s currently 5.02” of liquid in the snowpack here at our site.  I haven’t run a liquid analysis in over a month, since back in early February when there were only about 3 inches of liquid in the snowpack, but the NOHRSC modeling for our site was absolutely spot on with the numbers as today’s data point and the modeling line show in the plot.  The numbers are that tight despite almost a dozen additional winter storms during that period, so kudos to the modelers as usual.  As the plot projection shows, the snowpack also seems poised to take on another good shot of liquid equivalent in the coming days.  While there was some discussion about it a couple of months ago, I highly doubt that January is going to represent the peak of the snowpack around here this winter.

    13MAR23A.jpg.53ed8c1001e6ddbba2c50118c5e2650c.jpg

  22. With no obvious fresh snow in the past few days for the Northern Greens, there wasn’t a huge extra incentive to head out for turns this weekend, but as PF noted with his report on the conditions at Stowe, the quality of the snow that is out there on piste is tremendously high.  We’ve had a few decent resurfacing events this season, but this most recent series of winter storms including that low pressure from the Ontario/Quebec border passing southeast across the region on the 26th, Winter Storm Piper on the 28th, that quick moving system that came across from the Great Lakes on the 1st, and then Winter Storm Quest on the 4th, has probably been the best.  We picked up roughly 30 inches of snow in the span of that week at our site in the valley, and of course the mountains did substantially better than that.  Moreover, being the late February/early March period, all that snow came in with a strong snowpack in place, more so than any of the previous resurfacing events.  The snowpack at our house currently has 5 inches of liquid equivalent in it, so the mountain snowpack must be absolutely loaded.  Suffice it to say, the past couple of weeks has been a setup for great ski conditions.

    My wife and I found ourselves with some time yesterday afternoon, and the skies were clear with temperatures in the 30s F, so we headed up to Bolton Valley for some on piste Telemark runs at Timberline.  The first thing we noticed was that Timberline was a very popular place for a Sunday afternoon, and that was because the third annual Blauvelt’s Banks competition was taking place there.  My younger son had mentioned that he’d seen them building the course there earlier in the week, and that was an interesting change of pace because they’ve held it up at the main mountain in the past.  This year, the course was on the lower part of Showtime, with an excellent view for those riding the Timberline Quad, and the course looked great.  The placement of the course did mean that access to Showtime and Twice as Nice was restricted though.

    In terms of our ski session, we hit just about everything else that was available off the Timberline Quad.  Even after a number of days without fresh snow, the quality of the ski surfaces continues to be fantastic.  The snowpack can certainly take a beating as we get farther into spring with those seasonal temperature fluctuations, but even with temperatures edging a bit above freezing, the snow just seems to stay beautifully consistent.  Most terrain has soft, winter snow, and even in areas at lower elevations in the sun where the snow was transitioning to a more spring-like surface, it continues to retain that winter-like consistency and softness.  You can just lay into every turn and get a beautiful, smooth, quiet carve out of it.  We stuck to on piste terrain on this outing, but I did check the snow off piste, and it still seemed quite light and powdery, even down near 1,500’ elevation.  It looks like yet another system, Winter Storm Sage, has the potential to affect the area in the next couple of days, and the ski conditions will hopefully continue to be strong because any snow it brings should be going down atop the current quality snowpack.

    12MAR23C.thumb.jpg.97f352ad08bb0cb5c5bd7c0a61717c58.jpg

    12MAR23D.thumb.jpg.0d002c1f58727fcc4d74d429d0065ce2.jpg

    12MAR23B.thumb.jpg.3c3fe4a2070d28996d6a8c0dec12a439.jpg

    12MAR23A.thumb.jpg.9122e8845a0565305d08f60ed9f7dd42.jpg

  23. After a couple of great outings in the new snow on Friday and Saturday, I wasn’t really sure if I was going to ski yesterday.  I figured the snow would be settling or warming, at least in the lower mountain elevations, and combined with skier traffic, that would bring the conditions down a notch.  My older son was still at the house for the weekend though, and when he was eager to get out for some turns, that easily tipped the balance and we decided to head up to Bolton.

    It was late morning by the time we hit the mountain, and they were already running out of parking spots at Timberline, so people were clearly eager to get out.  Once we hit the hill, it was easy to see why.  Winter Storm Quest had departed, the weather was pleasant, and the quality of the snow seemed like it hadn’t changed at all.  There had been some additional snow on the back side of the storm cycle, but even the earlier snow seemed like it was in great shape.  Amazingly, it almost felt like it had dried out a bit more and the powder seemed a bit less dense.

    We had planned on a mellow day on the Telemark skis enjoying the groomed and packed runs, but that plan fell by the wayside a bit when we found that there was still plenty of untracked powder around, and it was of such good quality.  We had a great time touring around the mountain and managed a big loop that hit every lift at the resort and concluded with a big long run down from the Vista Summit to the Timberline Base.  Temperatures were very wintry and chilly up above 3,000’, and remarkably pleasant down around 1,500’, but still cold enough to continue preserving the snow.

    We were most impressed by the durability of the recent snow.  The surfaces just continued to hold up with incredibly soft snow and no signs of ice, even in high traffic areas.  I know that we’re really skiing on snow from more storms than just Winter Storm Quest, but even the packed runs were just so enjoyable because every turn you took, you could rely on encountering only soft, yielding snow.  We’ve reached a point where the quality of the snow is so good that it’s really dropped the difficulty of every trail down a solid notch.  Skiing advanced runs feels like skiing intermediate runs, and you can really enjoy the steeps without having to dodge patches of hard snow.  I noticed this aspect of the skiing prominently on the steepest pitch going into Maria’s, where tight, high-angle, moguled terrain just seemed to flow because you never had to avoid ice or other obstacles.  It was a great day for my son to push himself with his Telemark skiing on challenging terrain, so I’m definitely happy he tipped the scales and got us out for those turns.

    05MAR23A.thumb.jpg.202e7279b6f48dc16e1f7eaaa63a9b97.jpg

    05MAR23B.thumb.jpg.03b493112abccbb022cb9ff1150fa57b.jpg

    • Like 2
  24. I’m not sure exactly when the snow from Winter Storm Quest started up around here, but it was well into Friday night, and I’m not even sure if I saw any accumulation before midnight.  So, waking up in the morning to find over 8 inches on the boards for 6:00 A.M. CoCoRaHS observations meant that the snow must have been coming down in the 1 to 2 inch per hour range.  There were plenty of large flakes falling at that point, and the morning’s liquid analysis revealed that the water content in the snow was 8.5%, or a snow to liquid ratio of approximately 11 or 12 to 1.

    My older son and I got up to the hill just about the time of the opening of the Timberline Quad, and had a great bunch of runs while we waited for my younger son and one of his friends to join us.  During those morning runs, it was quickly obvious that the new snow that had fallen had laid in a massive resurfacing of the slopes.  The snow was actually on the dense side due to fairly small flakes, and I’d say it was running a bit above 10% H2O up there.  The snow was dense enough that you wanted terrain on the steeper side to really have a good flow on the descent, and that was fine, because in terms of coverage quality, it didn’t matter how steep the terrain was.  On piste, off piste, it didn’t matter; just pick the steepest lines you could find, ski as aggressively as you wanted, and you weren’t hitting the subsurface.  We tested many of the steepest lines available on Timberline like the Spell Binder headwall and the Tattle Tale Headwall, and they skied beautifully.  We hit steep off piste lines that I don’t usually find to be that great because their pitch is often too much for the quality of the snow or achieving bottomless skiing, and it just didn’t matter.

    In terms of surface snow depths, our checks in the 1,500’ to 2,500’ elevation range were about 15 inches if we had to pick a best estimate, but it was really hard to tell exactly how much snow came from just this storm.  The new snow was sitting atop snow from other recent storms, and it all just continues to stack and set up excellent surfaces.  It continued to snow all morning, so that kept piling on new snow to the accumulations as well.  Total snowpack depth is 40 inches or more above 2,500’, and the snowpack depth at the Mt. Mansfield stake being over 60 inches speaks to that.

    Later in the morning we met up with my younger son and his friend, and we just went around hitting some of our favorite steepest off piste lines all over the mountain.  Timberline had no lift queue for essentially the whole morning, but after about midday, the temperature at those lowest elevations seemed to creep up toward freezing and the snow became even a bit denser.  It was somewhat subtle, but you could tell when you skied a run that the powder in the lowest elevations was a bit thicker than it was above 2,000’.  After most of the morning at Timberline, we focused on the main mountain for the early afternoon where everything was above 2,000’, just in case Timberline continued to warm and the powder got wet.

    We joined up with another one of my son’s friends and his dad for a final run on the main mountain before making a big long run all the way down from the Vista Summit to the Timberline Base.  Temperatures clearly hadn’t gotten too high to really ruin the powder because it was still fine all the way to the Timberline Base at 1,500’.

    It continued to snow most of the day, and after a bit of a lull around midday, the snowfall picked right back in the afternoon to the level it had been in the morning, so we knew there was definitely more accumulation on the way.  Back down at the house at 500’ that afternoon we could see that temperatures had definitely gone above freezing because some of the new snow had settled, but the mountain elevations seemed to fare quite well with respect to any melting or settling.

    04MAR23A.thumb.jpg.0764efad2281f999ff83e201bec65ac5.jpg

    04MAR23C.thumb.jpg.3570d4a7d24271da0ebd3ac0b496d726.jpg

    04MAR23B.thumb.jpg.1701d1ea7d19066bf1cb4f31679cb864.jpg

    04MAR23D.thumb.jpg.78799c537272068f572316e0988b94b9.jpg

    04MAR23I.thumb.jpg.ff83239eb10de52c822e37d31e40d18f.jpg

    • Like 5
  25. On 2/28/2023 at 11:04 PM, powderfreak said:

    Just added it up, within an inch of 80" for the season.  J.Spin appears to have cruised past 100".  Averages for a season are like 115" and 140" respectfully?  It would take a healthy run to get to average, but even a slightly below average total this winter would be a win given the temperature departures. 

    The season snowfall average seems to be around 160” here according to the data, although it’s a few inches shy of that with the highly anomalous ’15-‘16 season in the small data set.  That’s gradually getting diluted though.

    Here’s the snowfall progression plot for the season thus far at our site:

     03MAR23F.jpg.8b1cf6bb1b3486b27be394af02af5fd2.jpg

    This certainly hasn’t been a standout season on the high side of average, and it’s of course been running behind average pace for snowfall, but it’s certainly been OK.  In just my small data set of 16 seasons, there are five seasons that had less snowfall to date than this one.  We’re only about a foot behind average snowfall pace, and with a decent storm in the forecast, we’ll probably make up some ground toward average.  We’ve had 45 accumulating storms thus far, the snowpack has been in place continuously since early December, and the snowpack depth is at 17”, which is right around average for the date at this site.

    There were certainly a couple of slow stretches in the first half of January and the first half of February as the plot shows, but the snowpack was in, and there was skiing through all of that (even if the skiing was sub-par).  It would take a healthy run to get to average, but the data say we’re well out of the basement seasons at this point.

    • Like 1
×
×
  • Create New...