J.Spin

Event totals: 0.3” Snow/0.02” L.E.

I found 0.3” of new snow on the boards this morning with ongoing light snowfall activity.  There was some additional accumulation this morning that I’ll roll into the next round of observations.

Details from the 6:00 A.M. Waterbury observations:

New Snow: 0.3 inches

New Liquid: 0.02 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 15.0

Snow Density: 6.7% H2O

Temperature: 31.5 F

Sky: Light Snow (1-3 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 22.0 inches

Temperatures definitely warmed up yesterday relative to Saturday, so my wife and I headed out to the hill for an afternoon session.  We spent our time at Timberline, since it’s only been open for about a week, and it allowed us to check out some of our favorite areas for the first time this season.  Conditions continue to be excellent, although the trails are getting pretty tracked up at this point, so we had to head a bit farther off piste for fresh tracks.  In line with the observations from my tour on Saturday, we found powder depths at around 20 inches, even down to the 1,500’ – 2,000’ elevation range.  We were hoping for some afternoon sun, but we only had it very briefly before clouds moved in from the west and the light got flat.  This made the action photography more challenging, but we still managed to get in some good sequences.  It was a good ending to the weekend that Mother Nature really turned into quite an extended weekend – many school’s like my younger son’s had a four-day weekend with both Thursday and Friday off due to the storm.

With yesterday’s highs expected to be in the single digits F at elevation, touring seemed like the far better ski option, so I hit the Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry Network and can provide some snow updates and pics.

I toured in the 2,000’ – 2,500’ range yesterday, and I’d say total snowpack depths at those elevations are in the 2 to 3 foot range.

In terms of surface snow, we’ve got enough different layers in the snowpack now, and they’re blending together enough, that it’s getting a bit tricky to actually decide what constitutes surface and subsurface snow/base.  If you’re very delicate with your measuring, you can find a bit of a dense layer about 16 inches down.  I think it’s safe to say that top section of the snowpack is the settled powder from Winter Storm Landon.  The dense layer below that is presumably some denser precipitation, perhaps from the start of the storm when temperatures were coming down and there was a mix of rain and snow.  Based on PF’s observations from Thursday, it doesn’t sound like there was too much rain at elevation, and since that layer is rather subtle, that would argue for that and/or a very good transition/blending with the drier snow above.

Past that denser band, you’re into another 6 to 8 inches of powder before you hit something more solid that can really serve as a potential base.  That’s typically where I’d find my poles could finally gain purchase, and it sounds like that’s similar over at Bretton Woods based on Alex’s comment yesterday here in the thread.  Having backcountry baskets would probably help a little bit in that regard.

There are a couple of other dense bands down in the snow there that I could detect when probing carefully, but I’d say the solid base is down there in the 22 to 24-inch range for those low to mid elevations, and I’ve got a shot of my pole hitting that approximate depth below.  So if you’re first on an ascent and breaking in the skin track, plan on a good workout.  Thankfully, most of the route for my tour had seen some previous traffic, and I only had to break one section with perhaps 100’ of vertical, but it was a good deal of extra work.

Right now in terms of the backcountry skiing around here, I’d argue that you really need black pitches or greater to have a reasonable descent without getting too bogged down or simply having to straight-line it too much.  I was on 115 mm skis that I’d just waxed, and I still had to seek out those pitches if the snow was untracked.  As long as you get the right pitch though, the powder skiing is excellent as one would imagine.

Event totals: 16.4” Snow/1.70” L.E.

The skies are really starting to clear out, so this morning’s snow might represent the final accumulations for Winter Storm Landon.  It’s interesting how close this storm’s total has come to Winter Storm Izzy from a couple of weeks back, which ended with 16.5”.  So this storm is just a tenth of an inch behind at this point.

Details from the 12:00 P.M. Waterbury observations:

New Snow: 0.2 inches

New Liquid: 0.01 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 20.0

Snow Density: 5.0% H2O

Temperature: 16.2 F

Sky: Partly Cloudy

Snow at the stake: 25.0 inches

15 minutes ago, bwt3650 said:

Great shots…I think I rode the tram with that guy last week.  I remember the jacket and him explaining his videos.

I bet you did – he’s been working on Smugg’s and Jay Peak in the past week or so, but he has to go back to both of those I believe because of terrain/lift closures or other timing issues that didn’t let him get everything he needed.  He also said he has to get back down to Okemo because they’ve got some new lifts that weren’t there previously and they need to update their review.

A number of us were up at Bolton yesterday to catch the snow from Winter Storm Landon, so I’ll pass along some images and snow updates.

Hearing about this storm being focused on NNE, our friend Dave came up from Boston for a visit and the usual local ski country food and lodging.  It’s been a couple of years since he’s been able to visit for one of these trips, but his schedule lined up well for this one.  He actually skied Killington on Thursday and said that he almost bailed when he arrived in the morning to find it raining.  Thankfully, he found that it was much more wintry up high on the mountain, and the conditions just got better as the day went on.

There were no concerns about rain for Friday at Bolton though; everyone in the north was over to 100% snow by that point, so the only things to wonder about were snow density and snow accumulations.  Winds weren’t strong at all, so there were no wind holds, and the lifts seemed to start right up at their planned times aside from the usual smaller delays of getting the later lifts rolling on a storm day.  It was chilly out there on the mountain, with temperatures probably in the 10 F range.

The new snow was undoubtedly a solid resurfacing of the entire mountain at all elevations.  We’d picked up 1.40 of liquid equivalent down at our house by the morning, so the mountain would have had at least that much.  The snow had started out quite dense at the very initial stages of the storm as temperatures were still coming down, and then it seemed to settle down to roughly medium-weight powder for the bulk of the overnight accumulations.  My 6:00 A.M. analyses revealed snow density at 9.4% H2O, which is solidly in that medium-weight powder category.  There hadn’t really been any fluff at that point to set up an impressively right-side-up powder accumulation, so you were generally riding in that medium weight snow, and we found the best skiing on steeper terrain.  Low angle slopes were just a bit on the slow side with the available snow density.  Thankfully, with that 1 to 2 inches of liquid equivalent down, it was game on for even the steepest terrain, and steep areas that we hit such as Vermont 200, the Spell Binder headwall, and the Tattle Tale headwall all delivered.  You could attack those pitches as aggressively as you wanted, without concern.  Another great example of the resurfacing was hitting Cobrass on our second run to find that even the usual ledges and ice bulges were covered.  Initially, I’d gone in with the usual strategy of negotiating those obstacles, but quickly saw that they were irrelevant, and I was able to ski like they weren’t even there.  That’s the sign of a solid resurfacing.  With depth checks, I was generally finding settled accumulations of about a foot at that stage of the storm, which I think was right in line with what the resort had noted in their morning report.

We actually skied with an associate from PeakRankings.com who was getting info for his report on Bolton Valley, so we showed him around for a few runs.  His ski jacket has something like “WE RANK PEAKS” written in huge letters on the back, which quickly gets your attention and lets you know what he’s up to.  I had to head out around midday, but Dave and my wife did catch up with our younger son and his friends out on the mountain for some skiing.  I have to give the boys a hard time for not getting out right at the start of the morning, but one of my son’s friends did pull off a classic dual resort move to really maximize a powder day.  He headed to Stowe first thing for the typical “hour of power”, where you can get some good fresh runs before it’s all tracked up and the lift queues grow, and then he headed to low-key Bolton where you can enjoy powder for the rest of the day in peace.  I’d say he’s wise beyond his years.

With the overnight snows, there were some additions to the storm reports for the Vermont ski areas, so I’ve got the updated north to south list below.  MRG seems to buck the north to south trend the most with their update to 23”, but they specifically state it in their snow report as their upper mountain storm total (“…tacking on another 1-2″ from last night brings the storm total to 18-23″ since Thursday.”), so that’s the current value in the list.

Jay Peak: 26”

Smuggler’s Notch: 22”

Stowe: 17”

Bolton Valley: 18”

Mad River Glen: 23”

Sugarbush: 18”

Middlebury: 15”

Pico: 17”

Killington: 17”

Okemo: 14”

Bromley: 8”

Magic Mountain: 5”

Stratton: 3”

Mount Snow: 1”

Event totals: 16.2” Snow/1.69” L.E.

We’ve still got some light snow falling out there, so I guess this system isn’t quite finished yet.

Details from the 6:00 A.M. Waterbury observations:

New Snow: 0.7 inches

New Liquid: 0.02 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 35.0

Snow Density: 2.9% H2O

Temperature: 9.5 F

Sky: Light Snow (1-2 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 25.0 inches

Below is the north to south listing of available snowfall totals from the Vermont ski areas that have been posted thus far for Winter Storm Landon.  It looks like storm totals dropped off rather precipitously south of Killington, which would suggest that somewhere at that latitude was the point where mixed precipitation was more prevalent.  Mount Snow was apparently far enough south that they hadn’t received any snow as of their most recent report, so that’s quite the differential from the north end to the south end of the state for totals from this storm.

Jay Peak: 21”

Smuggler’s Notch: 19”

Stowe: 16”

Bolton Valley: 16”

Mad River Glen: 16”

Sugarbush: 16”

Middlebury: 15”

Pico: 17”

Killington: 17”

Okemo: 6”

Bromley: 2”

Magic Mountain: 4”

Stratton: 3”

Mount Snow: 0”

Event totals: 15.5” Snow/1.67” L.E.

During the 6:00 A.M. to 2:00 P.M. period today we picked up 1.9” of snow, which contained 0.18” of liquid.  That snow density was 9.5%, and that was right in line with the density from the previous collection period.  This evening's snow has definitely dried out more, coming in at 6.4% H2O, or a 15.6 to 1 snow to water ratio.

Details from the 8:00 P.M. Waterbury observations:

New Snow: 1.4 inches

New Liquid: 0.09 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 15.6

Snow Density: 6.4% H2O

Temperature: 9.7 F

Sky: Light Snow (1-3 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 24.5 inches

Event totals: 12.2” Snow/1.40” L.E.

Details from the 6:00 A.M. Waterbury observations:

New Snow: 5.2 inches

New Liquid: 0.49 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 10.6

Snow Density: 9.4% H2O

Temperature: 12.9 F

Sky: Snow (2-15 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 21.5 inches

Event totals: 7.0” Snow/0.91” L.E.

Snowfall came in right at a 1.0”/hr. average for this evening period, although the bulk of it fell in the last half of the period, when the average snowfall rate was probably in the 1.5-2.0”/hr. range.

Details from the 12:00 A.M. Waterbury observations:

New Snow: 6.0 inches

New Liquid: 0.53 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 11.3

Snow Density: 8.8% H2O

Temperature: 19.0 F

Sky: Heavy Snow (2-5 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 17.0 inches

1 hour ago, bwt3650 said:

If Mansfield is 111 on the season, then 141 is not ridiculous.  I skied both mountains the same day and there is a difference in coverage.  They pulled 5 out of their ass last Friday and it was deep in the woods.

1 hour ago, PhineasC said:

I am simply saying I watch the models and radar pretty religiously in the winter like most of us do, and I just have no clue where all that came from.

Must be many evenings where it's quiet everywhere else in NNE but hammering some good fluff at 4,000' at Jay. Could be. You'd have to be there to know. Nothing on radar, which doesn't mean it didn't happen.

1 hour ago, MRVexpat said:

That's the thing. Jay does pull snow out their ass at times which is where some of that confusion comes from those who haven't experienced it. Like I've witnessed on more than one occasion skiing there or the immediate BC where point forecasts show 20-30% pop and "less than an inch" per BTV and then bam 4-6" comes flying thru with nothing appreciable on radar. No doubt the Jay cloud is real. It's when these kinds of differences are reported during a synoptic storm that make me think a bit haha. Place is so rad though. Love skiing there. 

What I typically observe is that people do a spot check on Jay Peak’s reported snowfall, either at some point during the season, or at the end of the season, and the number is substantially larger than they expect, and often substantially larger than anywhere else east of the Rockies, so something seems off.  Yes, we all assume that the mountain is measuring in a high elevation spot (or spots) that is absolutely optimized for collection.  Beyond that though, the numbers are just the result of what happens when you measure snowfall in that climate every day.

With the climate there, it’s just not possible to grasp the snowfall unless you either monitor what they report every day, measure it yourself every day, or experience it every day.  The pulling 5” out of nowhere that bwt commented on is exactly what happens.  It’s a snowfall microclimate within the Northern Greens already prodigious microclimate.  You can’t monitor the area by radar or the models, you seriously just have to be there to measure the snow that falls.

Actually, I’d say the higher elevations of the Northern Greens are a bit behind the valleys at this point in the season (relatively speaking of course) based on the current numbers report from Stowe and Jay.  Based on my current season snowfall of 73.2”, Jay should be at 169” on the season, and Stowe should be at 148” on the season.  That’s behind average pace of course; if snowfall was running about average, Jay should be at roughly 201” and Stowe should be at roughly 175”.

Event totals: 1.0” Snow/0.38” L.E.

We had some rain here in the valley earlier today, but around midday the precipitation switched over to all snow.  It started out quite dense as it transitioned, and even afterward was still composed of generally small flakes.  Flake size has increased a lot since earlier though, so we’ll see what the next round of observations indicates for snow density this evening.

Details from the 6:00 P.M. Waterbury observations:

New Snow: 1.0 inches

New Liquid: 0.19 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 5.3

Snow Density: 19.0% H2O

Temperature: 25.5 F

Sky: Snow (2-15 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 11.0 inches

1 hour ago, alex said:

I have lots of respect for the BTV office, but those decimal point forecasts are just silly. I like GYX approach of using ranges a lot better 

50 minutes ago, mreaves said:

They have a chart for that.  They actually have quite a few different graphics for winter weather

https://www.weather.gov/btv/winter

To be honest, I’m not sure I’ve even taken full notice of those individual numbers at the sites.  I assume they’re just their deterministic point forecasts for those specific locations.

I think people would treat them like any deterministic snowfall forecast; it’s not going to be the exact number for the snowfall, but it gives you an idea of what the forecast suggests.

Listing the ranges in text for each site seems practical for a more probabilistic forecasting approach, but as I look at them now, it has me thinking, what’s the point?  If the shading already gives the ranges, and then the text just has those same ranges listed for each site, it’s sort of redundant information.

I’ve got the latest BTV NWS maps below.  Winter Storm Warnings are up for their coverage area, with accumulations topping out in that 12-18” band.  Our point forecast has projected accumulations in the 8-18” range, which generally fits with the map shading.

24 minutes ago, mreaves said:

Disappointed that BTV only gives me a 2% chance at 18"

That’s because the map only represents the time period through 1:00 P.M. on Friday.

37 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

Where's @J.Spin?

This event looks to crush all of us across NNE.

I’m here in Waterbury, as I am most evenings.

mreaves had already posted the BTV NWS Event Total Snowfall map here in the thread, so there was no need to do that.  I thought about posting the alerts map, but it was at the stage of Winter Storm Watches, and I figured I could wait to post an updated map when we saw how the conversions went down.  Here’s how it stands at the moment though – Winter Storm Watches blanketing the north as of this evening’s update:

My wife and I headed up to Bolton for some turns yesterday, so I’ll pass along some snow updates.  There wasn’t much more than a trace of new snow around here from the coastal system, but Bolton did pick up an inch or two from the cold front on Friday.  That was nice to freshen up the surfaces a bit, but more notable was the fact that it was the first day of lift-served skiing at Timberline.  A bit of touring traffic was all the Timberline area had seen up to that point, so it was pretty much a bonus powder day for that entire section of the resort.  The snow wasn’t quite on par with a fresh powder day, since a lot of the powder had been sitting and settling to a degree, and some exposed areas had taken on a bit of wind crust.  Areas that hadn’t seen any wind certainly had 10-12” of dry powder that had been well preserved in the arctic cold.  The opening of Timberline also meant that the resort finally had 100% of its lifts running for the first time this season.  The resort put down manmade snow for the main Villager/Timberline Run route, and that surface was fine, but the rest of the trails were running on natural snow and even the packed surfaces were far softer than the manmade route.  There are still a few of the steepest wind-scoured spots like the Tattle Tale headwall that will need one more large synoptic-level event to be fully opened.

On 1/27/2022 at 8:33 AM, bwt3650 said:

Another -20 plus morning.  I’m new up here, but I don’t remember many at all last year and this has to be 5-10 times this season we’ve been 20 plus below.  Anyone @J.Spin have temp anomaly stats for January around here?

I saw this post the other day but forgot to respond.  During the winter, I typically report whatever my thermometer says in the notes section of my morning CoCoRaHS observations, and I’ll include the temperature when I report on snow accumulations here, but that’s about it – I don’t do any continuous temperature monitoring, so I don’t have any stats for deviations.

On 1/27/2022 at 8:33 AM, bwt3650 said:

Another -20 plus morning.  I’m new up here, but I don’t remember many at all last year and this has to be 5-10 times this season we’ve been 20 plus below.  Anyone @J.Spin have temp anomaly stats for January around here?

I saw this post the other day but forgot to respond.  During the winter, I typically report whatever my thermometer says in the notes section of my morning CoCoRaHS observations, and I’ll include the temperature when I report on snow accumulations here, but that’s about it – I don’t do any continuous temperature monitoring, so I don’t have any stats for deviations.

On 1/29/2022 at 9:57 PM, powderfreak said:

Only a dusting this evening in Stowe. Just arctic air moving through the ski town. Great winter sunset as earlier mentioned.

I saw some flakes here at our place on Saturday night as well, but nothing that reached the 0.1” threshold, so a trace was all that was reported for our site with that system.

I actually found some measurable accumulation on the boards this morning though – I’m not sure when the precipitation occurred, but checking back in the AFD, the BTV NWS says the scattered snow shower activity in the area is from a weak boundary with interacting vorticity embedded in the mid/upper-level trough across the Northeast:

Area Forecast Discussion

National Weather Service Burlington VT

651 PM EST Sun Jan 30 2022

.SYNOPSIS...

A weak boundary will produce scattered snow showers across northern New York into Vermont late tonight into Monday afternoon. Snowfall accumulations will be a dusting to 2 inches in the most persistent snow shower activity, mainly over northern New York.

.NEAR TERM /THROUGH MONDAY NIGHT/...

As of 641 PM EST Sunday... Water vapor shows mid/upper lvl trof acrs the ne conus with several weak embedded 5h vorts. First weak s/w is approaching the Ottawa Valley this aftn, with secondary vort located btwn Hudson Bay and the northern Great Lakes. These disturbances in the jet stream winds aloft wl interact with a weak sfc boundary to produce periods of light snow shower activity acrs northern NY into the mtns of northern VT late tonight into Monday.

Event totals: 0.2” Snow/Trace L.E.

An additional tenth of an inch was all the accumulation I observed at our site from yesterday’s activity, and I’d say that’s the last of the snow associated with this cold frontal passage.  We actually had a solid period of snow yesterday in BTV – I’d say it was close to an hour of moderate snowfall with some big flakes and lots of wind.  On the radar, the flow of that moisture seemed to be directly from the north, and it never really pushed east of the mountains in our area enough to add anything substantial.

Details from the 6:00 A.M. Waterbury observations:

New Snow: 0.1 inches

New Liquid: Trace

Temperature: -1.3 F

Sky: Cloudy

Snow at the stake: 12.5 inches

11 hours ago, Angus said:

@J.Spinskied Lost Trail today - wow, outstanding. Lapped chair 4 all morning. Between that, chutes off chair 1 and Hollywood Bowl area - just tremendous terrain.

Great to hear it - both those spots you mentioned are local favorites!

Event totals: 0.1” Snow/Trace L.E.

I found a light accumulation on the snowboards this morning, which the BTV NWS indicates is from a surface cold front crossing the area.

Details from the 6:00 A.M. Waterbury observations:

New Snow: 0.1 inches

New Liquid: Trace

Temperature: 23.4 F

Sky: Flurries

Snow at the stake: 12.5 inches