J.Spin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We're now into that window of time discussed earlier in the thread, and as you can see from the BTV NWS forecast discussion below, it's really just a chance for a few snow showers (and it sounds like some have been hitting northwest Vermont thus far). The trough is coming through as expected, with those sub 0C 850 mb temperatures capable of delivering snow, but there’s really no low pressure present off to the east of us that would have set things up for more notable snows. It looks like what we’ve been getting is thanks to good “ol’ reliable” Lake Ontario and friends, putting some moisture in the flow. The upper level low just sort of sat around in the Great Lakes before moving this way, and generally seemed to petered itself out, but I did see some reports of up to 18 inches out there when I was watching TWC. So it’s certainly a trough that brought some nice early season snows, and that’s even without the benefit of elevation that we have around here. The next window for potential snow seems to be around the end of the month based on the runs of some of the models. There also seemed to be a bit of a blip of a window around the 23rd or so, but it looked like that was just something to do with that potential coastal system. There’s nothing too pronounced at this point, but we’ll see of anything develops in the next couple of weeks; snow windows are certainly increasing as more troughs come through and temperature normals continue to decrease. Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 1052 AM EDT Wed Oct 19 2022 .SYNOPSIS... Upper low pressure continues to bring lake effect showers along the St Lawrence Valley with instability showers over and adjacent to Lake Champlain as well as mountain rain and snow showers in the Adirondacks into Thursday. .NEAR TERM /THROUGH THURSDAY/... As of 1032 AM EDT Wednesday...Light showers have be ongoing over northern Chittenden and southern Franklin counties; at times, producing light snow pellets. Large closed upper low continues to spin over the Great Lakes and North Country with our region under dry air intrusion aloft. The cold core of the low will be infiltrating into the Adirondacks and Vermont bringing 925-850mb temperatures down to/below 0C supporting chances for higher elevation snow showers.

That’s interesting about that CoCoRaHS station – it’s funny because the same thing happened to me a few weeks back. You posted a map with the personal weather stations, and I learned that our neighbors down at the end of the street have one. That’s literally 2 to 3 houses away, so there’s remote data online that will be essentially representative of our site. It obviously won’t be able to do snowfall, but it’s been pretty nice to check on temperatures and liquid. The liquid catch has been right on with our Stratus the few times I’ve checked, but it doesn’t look like it did so well in the case of this storm. On that note, this system pushed rainfall past 40” on the calendar year here at our site, and with that, we’re about 3-4” behind average pace. I do see that there’s another 0.20” in the gauge now, so it looks like 2.87” liquid will be the storm total unless something else pops up before we clear out. It does feel like we’re getting into the more reliable orographic season now though, vs. the “hit or miss” convective season.

That signal for snow has actually been on the GFS for at least a week now, and that’s pretty impressive work at 2+ weeks out for a deterministic output if it remains steady and comes to fruition. The key factor is of course that overall trough moving through the area, which the ensembles show. If you’ve got a trough bringing reasonably cool air into the area, and a surface low that sets up shop in (or even just passes through) the Maine/Maritimes region, you’re certainly talking snow potential at this time of year in the Northern Greens. As a skier, I generally find the GFS great with these northerly systems around here that don’t require complicated phasing or lots of other marginal nuances. I guess every model is going to be better with those setups vs. the more complicated ones, but the GFS ease of accessibility, output, robustness, and reliability just puts it out front for me when it comes to scheduling. Two weeks out is a lot to ask, but we’re getting into the realm of one week, where one can certainly start checking their schedule to accommodate the potential. Sometimes it ends up just being a dusting or a coating, but with the potential there it’s good to plan ahead. The couple rounds of snow we’ve had so far this season haven’t really been at the level to think about getting the boards ready, but this next one is a different setup as currently shown. We’ll see which direction this heads over the next week, but the BTV NWS does have the possibility noted in their most recent discussion: Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 1026 AM EDT Wed Oct 12 2022 .LONG TERM /SATURDAY THROUGH TUESDAY/... As of 325 AM EDT Wednesday ...higher terrain snow possible early next week as the cold pool aloft and upper trough drop into the area.

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.

It looks like that first potential shot of snow is still on track for tonight based on the BTV NWS forecast discussion, with snow levels anticipated to drop to the 2,000 – 2,500’ range: Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 425 AM EDT Thu Sep 22 2022 .NEAR TERM /THROUGH FRIDAY/... Once the front moves through, we`ll enter into a chilly northwesterly flow regime, which will keep some showers and clouds over the northern Adirondacks and higher elevations of Vermont. Temperatures today will cool throughout the day, and most areas have already hit their daily high temperatures early this morning. Relatively strong cold air advection is expected throughout the day today, with 850 mb temps falling to below 0 deg C by this evening. Post-frontal winds will be breezy from the northwest with gusts between 15 and 25 mph this afternoon. As we head into tonight, the cold air advection continues in earnest as 850 mb temperatures drop to between -2 and -4 deg C. Overnight lows will be in the upper 30s to low 40s for most locations, except in the low to mid 30s over the northern Adirondacks. Mountain showers will linger into tonight, and as the cold air advection continues snow levels will drop to around 2000 ft in parts of the northern Adirondacks, and around 2500 ft in the northern Greens. Thus, any mountain showers still persisting early Friday morning above these elevations could fall as a rain/snow mix or light snow at the summits.

The Bolton Valley Village is up above 2,000’, so I’d estimate annual snowfall at 200”+ based off of what they report for annual snowfall from the summit. One way to get an estimate of snowfall at some intermediate elevations would be to make use of the numbers we actually have and do some simple linear interpolation. The most precise numbers I’ve got would be the 154.0” mean annual snowfall from the 16 seasons of data I have from my site at 495’, and the 312” annual snowfall I’ve seen reported by Bolton Valley. That’s presumably at the Bolton Valley summit elevations, so we’ll call that 3,150’. Linear interpolation off those numbers with elevation as the independent variable and snowfall as the dependent variable uses the equation y=0.0595x + 124.54, and with that you can just plug in any elevation you want for x, and it will spit out an annual snowfall as y. There are of course some potential caveats with a method like this, since my observations site is along the Green Mountain Spine, but just slightly east of it, the Bolton Valley Village is at elevation, but slightly on the west of the spine, and the Bolton Valley summit areas are literally on the spine. The method also assumes a linear relationship between elevation and snowfall over all those elevations, which may not be the case with all the factors like summit areas being scoured, snow transport, leeward areas accumulating more snow, etc., but it’s probably close enough for some estimates. One can even extrapolate with the equation, which is always dangerous as well, but there’s no specific reason to assume the trend wouldn’t hold. I added a couple of extrapolations in the list below, but the calculated numbers are of course all going to be approximations. Anyway, here are some annual snowfall estimates for some spots in the Bolton Valley area using the equation, rounded to the nearest foot: Base of Bolton Valley Access Road (340’): 145” J.Spin’s observations plot (495’): 154” Timberline Base (1,500’): 214” Bolton Valley Village (2,100'): 249” Base of main mountain lifts (2,150’): 252” Top of Bolton Valley Village (2,300’): 261” Bolton Valley Summit (3,150’): 312” Ricker Mountain Summit (3,400’): 327” Bolton Mountain Summit (3,700’): 345”

Thanks for all the updates PF – based on the way the snow was starting to break up on Main Street, I’ll probably be checking out the Mansfield side for my next Stowe outing. Today I actually headed to Bolton for turns, since it might be the last weekend for practical/productive touring there. Based on what I saw on my last Bolton outing a couple weeks ago, I figured the lower mountain would be discontinuous at this point, but the amount of snow on Spillway was obviously going to last a while. I decided to hike today vs. skinning, and I think that was the right call. The bottom half of the mountain has some decent areas of snow, but it’s discontinuous enough with plenty of dry ground for walking, that hiking is the more practical option. Above Mid Mountain, one could skin up Spillway, but that’s really steep, and they’ve plowed Sherman’s Pass most of the way to the Vista Summit, so I used that for a lot of my ascent today. The snow on Spillway is still continuous, and it was skiing great. There must have been some productive freeze/thaw cycles recently, because it was the best corn snow I’ve skied during this April/May period. Spillway is quite steep, so you get some of those nice fall-way turns, which are so much fun in good snow. At Mid Mountain on my way up I met a couple that was on their way down. They said that “Spillway was about as frosty as it’s been in a while”, and they weren’t kidding. It’s fun traveling around the area right now and taking in the views as spring begins to make its presence known. You can see that greenery is appearing in the lower mountain valleys, and it’s just starting to make its slow creep up the mountainsides. A few shots from today:

Over at Spruce on Sunday was really deserted when I was there in the afternoon, so here’s a quick update and a few photos: While Friday turned out to be a bit too cool and breezy to really soften up the slopes around here, and Saturday didn’t seem much better, Sunday saw more warmth and sunshine as the forecast had suggested. Mother Nature wasn’t messing around at that point, with temperatures moving up into the 60s F, a cloudless sky, and the disappearance of those persistent winds. There was no question about whether or not the snow was going to soften up today, so I decided to head to Stowe for some afternoon turns. I hadn’t been to the general Stowe area in a while, but the usual views of Mansfield started to appear as I headed through Waterbury Center, and the alpine terrain was certainly lit up in the May sunshine. I’d hoped that the south-facing terrain of Spruce Peak still had enough coverage to provide some nice uninterrupted turns, and indeed as I approached the resort I could see that the Main Street area and surrounding trails still had nearly continuous snow down the base of the Sensation Quad. With the route I took on the lower part of the mountain, I ended up hiking about 1/3 of the ascent, and then skinning the final 2/3. I was initially questioning my decision to bring skins as I navigated the lower slopes, but once I hit the point where I started skinning, it was definitely the right choice in terms of efficiency; the upper slopes of Main Street have so much snow that it would take more effort to find dry areas for easier hiking. In terms of the skiing, it was far superior to what I had experience on Friday. The warmth and sun took care of getting the spring snow into something that was definitely worthy of turns. It wasn’t perfect, because there were still some sticky areas from recent snows on terrain that hadn’t seen the sun and/or skier traffic, but those were generally avoidable by skiing the sunnier sides of the trails. With such a gorgeous day, I was surprised that I didn’t see a single other skier out there during my entire tour on Spruce. I did see two other cars when I first arrived at the MMSC Clubhouse parking lot, but they were just hikers. I saw them finishing up their hikes while I was ascending, and the entire parking lot was empty when I got back to my car. Everyone must have been skiing over at Mansfield! A few shots from the outing:

Oh, just an FYI about that most recent storm that I noticed as I was entering data from it – that was our 60th accumulating snowstorm of the season here at our site. I doubt it will contend for top spot in my records, which is 2018-2019 with 64 storms, but it’s second on the list, and still quite notable when the mean and median number of storms for a season is in the 50 to 55 range. It looks like Jay Peak also sailed past the 300” snowfall mark on the season with this last storm, so while it’s presumably going to end up below average in total snowfall, the average or near average behavior over the past couple of months has helped to keep it well ahead of some of those really poor seasons. And, checking out the Matt Parrilla plot, Mansfield snowpack is actually ahead of average now, so hopefully that sets us up for a decent May.

As it’s been for the past few days, it was quite windy yesterday in the Champlain Valley, but with partly cloudy skies providing some sun, and the temperatures getting into the 50s F, it seemed like there might be enough warmth to make the slopes worth a visit. That thought was tempered somewhat as I headed into the mountains on the way home; the skies became notably cloudier, and the temperatures felt several degrees cooler, even at valley level. At that point I was definitely questioning if there was sufficient warmth at elevation for softening the snow, but it still felt like it was worth the quick trip up to Bolton for some turns. On the way up the Bolton Valley Access Road, first signs of old snow snowpack were at ~1,400’, and first signs of the new snow left from our most recent storm appeared in the 1,800’ – 1,900’ elevation range. I’d contemplated skiing at Timberline if the snowpack was continuous enough, but it’s too broken up down at those elevations to be worth it. As expected up at the main mountain, there’s still plenty of snow for top-to-bottom turns on the main routes like Beech Seal and Spillway. Sherman’s Pass seems close to continuous, but there’s at least a break or two in the snowpack there. While the quantity of the snow is looking quite good, we’re still going to need some more warmth and temperature cycling to get the snowpack to some quality corn. Even with Bolton’s western exposure and afternoon sun, a lot of terrain still needs some rounds of softening. The combination of temperatures, which I guess were somewhere in the 40s F, and the cooling breeze that we’ve had the past few days, just isn’t enough to really soften the snowpack. Granted, I was out on the mountain in the later afternoon period when the sun angle is getting lower and temperatures are starting to drop off, but it was obvious that only areas in direct sun had seen much cycling of the snow to get to appropriate quality corn, and even those areas still need work. Heck, most of terrain above 2,000’ that was not in the direct sun, still had snow from our most recent storm earlier this week. I toured up to about 2,500’, but didn’t push above that elevation that because it was only getting cooler and windier as I ascended, and the quality of the snow just didn’t seem to be worth it. So while spring snow conditions weren’t quite there yesterday, the recent snows and good preservations we’ve been seeing do bode well as we head into the next several weeks of the season. Today’s forecast around here seems sort of similar to yesterday’s, so I wouldn’t expect primo ski conditions, but tomorrow is supposed to kick things up a notch with temperatures around 60 F and more sun. That might be enough to get some of that south-facing terrain into good shape. A couple of shots from yesterday at Bolton: