J.Spin

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

When you got hit by that first batch, you could see that the incoming moisture wasn’t one big wall that we sometimes get with upslope, it was more disorganized. That’s why I made that comment about the potential changes as it moved east. We had just a trace here because the moisture (atypically) sort of dried up before it hit the spine. There were some streamers in there, so certain spots saw more snow if they got under those. I can’t say exactly how much we picked up in BTV, but it certainly could have been a fluffy inch overall from the various snowfall rates I saw. In any event, these past two systems have delivered nicely in the bread and butter format. The next potential one of these looks to be in the Friday timeframe: Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 625 PM EST Tue Jan 25 2022 .SHORT TERM /THURSDAY THROUGH FRIDAY NIGHT/... As of 415 PM EST Tuesday...Quiet but cold early Thursday as ~1030mb high begins to shift eastward ahead of our next clipper system on Friday. Chances for snow increase towards Friday morning as surface boundary enters our far western New York zones. The best upper level dynamics remain north of the border, but enough moisture in the snow growth zone along with some modest surface convergence should allow for widespread snow showers during the day on Friday. Soundings are fairly unimpressive, so do not anticipate heavy snow showers, but an inch or two of light snow is possible area wide by Friday night as activity largely comes to an end.

Sort of similar here in BTV – but the snowfall rate has certainly picked up with the approach of those 30 dB echoes on the radar.

Assuming the snow growth parameters producing the snow you’ve seen continue to be present, that should be very interesting to see. Things can change as the energy moves east of course, but there’s always lots of potential when areas of deeper moisture run into the spine. I’m not home at the moment, but we’ve got our snow stake webcam running, and that typically provides a decent real-time visual of what goes on at our site in terms of snowfall rates.

We’ve got some snow starting back up here in BTV.

Event totals: 2.5” Snow/0.06” L.E. Details from the 6:00 A.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 2.5 inches New Liquid: 0.06 inches Snow/Water Ratio: 41.7 Snow Density: 2.4% H2O Temperature: 16.7 F Sky: Cloudy Snow at the stake: 15.0 inches

We were out for a couple of sessions this weekend in the Bolton Valley area, so I can pass along some snowpack and conditions updates. Saturday was the chillier of the two days, so we hit the BV Backcountry Network, starting our tour all the way down at 1,200’. From my Tuesday outing, I found a total snowpack depth of ~18” at 1,500’, and I wouldn’t say it was much less at the 1,200’ elevation. Depth checks on the powder revealed 12-13” above the base, and overall coverage was absolutely fine for the low and moderate angle terrain we were skiing. The powder has obviously settled a bit since the period immediately after Izzy, but the cold temperatures have probably minimized the settling somewhat and/or some sublimation/drying is keeping the powder reasonably dry. On Sunday I was up in the 2,000’ – 3,000’ range at the main area of the resort for some lift-served skiing, and I focused on the Wilderness area since this weekend was the season debut for running the Wilderness Double Chair. The overall snowpack is deeper up at those elevations of course, you can easily tack on another foot up around 3,000’, but a lot of the difference is subsurface snow/base – the powder depths weren’t all that different. On piste surfaces were excellent packed powder aside from areas that were wind scoured or steep, but of course Wilderness doesn’t have snowmaking, and until this weekend the only traffic had been ski touring, so that’s left the snow quite pristine overall. The depths I’m report were all ahead of the Sunday evening system and this one that’s currently coming through the area, so these will certainly top off/replenish those powder depths, even if they aren’t major contributors to the total L.E. of the snowpack. On piste, I’m sure these little systems will soften up spots that aren’t icy due to snowmaking, steep pitch, or high traffic. A few shots from the weekend:

I see that we’ve got some snow falling here at our site now, so any dry levels in the atmosphere must have been saturated.

The BTV NWS point forecast here has fluctuated between 2-4” and 3-5” from what I’ve seen, so the thoughts above seem right on track. I’m currently seeing 3-7” shown for the Mansfield point forecast. I think folks will post some observations when the flakes start to fly, but I’d say we don’t need too much fanfare yet - for now it seems like good ol’ NNE…

Event totals: 1.5” Snow/0.03” L.E. Details from the 6:00 A.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 0.2 inches New Liquid: Trace Temperature: -8.7 F Sky: Clear Snow at the stake: 13.5 inches

Event totals: 1.3” Snow/0.03” L.E. Details from the 6:00 P.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 1.3 inches New Liquid: 0.03 inches Snow/Water Ratio: 43.3 Snow Density: 2.3% H2O Temperature: 20.3 F Sky: Light Snow (2-12 mm flakes) Snow at the stake: 14.0 inches

Thus far today I haven’t seen anything at the house, and I was up at Bolton for a midday session and didn’t see any flakes there either. I have seen some flakes this afternoon on the Bolton Webcam, and I’m starting to see some snow crash out around the local peaks. PF is seeing flakes, so maybe this next wave of moisture will have a little more oomph to get flakes down to the surface.

I hadn’t had a chance to post any images from my Tuesday ski session yet, but after the backside snows from Winter Storm Izzy, it was down in the single digits F, so touring seemed like the call. I ended up touring down at Timberline because the snowpack is pretty substantial even down to 1,500’. The parking lot hadn’t been plowed, but there were several cars in the lot from others who were touring there, and the traffic had packed down the snow enough to get around reasonably with 4WD/AWD. I checked the snow depth in various spots on both the ascent and descent, and my best estimates of overall settled snowpack depth at that point were ~18” at 1,500’, ~22” at 2,000’ and ~24” at 2,500’. I’ve got a few shots from that outing below. We actually toured today starting all the way down at 1,200’ and even that was fine. I’ll pass along some images from that session when I get a chance.

Actually, the 12Z CMC run does show some improved bread and butter pacing – there are potential systems coming through for tomorrow, Tuesday, Friday, and then Monday. With those four systems over that span, that’s getting pretty close to that every other day sort of interval we see when the northern branch is active and sending through the moisture. I find that the GFS is better than the CMC in terms of giving the best prognostication for these systems at relatively long lead times, and the models don’t really agree on the latter two systems (probably because of some potential phasing and/or pacing differences). So, one can’t put much stock in those latter two systems yet, but seeing what the CMC shows suggests some potential with our favorite jet stream.