J.Spin

I’m not sure it would make any difference with respect to what they’re calling a “storm” though – the sort of systems that become a bit more challenging to break into discrete events don’t even come up on people’s radar as either events or non-events; they’re for the most part ignored as snow showers, or end up being nothing at all outside of the mountains. I use the BTV NWS forecast discussion to assign the specific storms exactly as they describe them, and I’ll only occasionally have to go to the models to dissect the situation myself if they don’t detail the specific breakdown of the systems in the AFD. I generally break down storms into the smallest definable units possible, so if anything, that would bias the numbers toward smaller events, not larger ones. You can see from the list below that I pasted in my response to wxeye – the vast majority of those storms were quite well defined, and over half of them were even notable synoptic storms that earned a name at the national level. The least defined storm in that list is maybe the 11/15/2020 one? But even that one had a defined surface low. The example you provided above would never be defined as an individual storm in my view, in that I’d never just group multiple days of similar “pattern” snows into some sort of system. There would at least be a defined upper level low creating the precipitation, and more than likely there would be discrete shortwaves involved, and they would each get defined as an individual system if at all possible. Most places just don’t get winter weather like we do here, where it actually does snow for days and days, and one system often blends into the next. It’s dramatically different from the sort of systems they typically seem to get in SNE and father south along the coastal plain, and I can understand why Phin says it requires a change in mentality. You can see the list of all this season’s storms delivering greater than 3.5” at our site below though, and I agree that it’s surprising that wxeye would have missed out on all of them post 12/17? I’m not sure how he records his storm data, but I don’t think anyone limits an actual full storm total to simply the 24 hour segments broken up by arbitrary observations times. That would obviously break many storms in half artificially if the bulk of their snowfall happened to span the observations time. 12.2” 1/16/2021 Winter Storm Malcolm - Midwest low forming triple point low over New England 10.2” 2/2/2021 Winter Storm Orlena - slow moving system along Northeast coast 8.4” 1/21/2021 Weakening low pressure tracking through southern Quebec 8.2” 2/9/2021 Winter Storm Roland - weak wave of low pressure passing south of the region 7.7” 2/19/2021 Winter Storm Viola - low SE of benchmark with multiple shortwaves in deep SW flow 7.4” 2/5/2021 Winter Storm Peggy - deep, mature cyclone moving north through the Great Lakes 7.1” 11/1/2020 Surface/upper-level trough + upslope from low departing near Northern Maine 6.0” 3/2/2021 Well-defined shortwave trough moving into the area 5.9” 12/26/2020 Lake-effect snow band extending northeastward off Lake Ontario 5.8” 1/1/2021 Winter Storm John - low to our west redeveloping over Gulf of Maine 5.5” 11/15/2020 Broad trough with surface low passing through central Quebec + backside LES/upslope 5.3” 11/2/2020 Clipper/upper-level shortwave 4.9” 12/17/2020 Winter Storm Gail - coastal storm tight to NJ coast heading eastward 4.5” 2/15/2021 Winter Storm Uri - low pressure moving through New England with mixed precipitation 3.8” 1/26/2021 Winter Storm Nathaniel - low pressure tracking south of New England 3.8” 12/5/2020 Winter Storm Eartha - compact coastal storm tracking near Cape Cod + departing upslope

I do recall a period a few years back when PF was monitoring a stretch where hadn’t had a warning-level event for quite some time, but I’m not sure if I’ve ever looked into periods without hitting storm totals of a certain threshold the way you guys have this season. It could be due in part to the snowfall climate over here in the Northern Greens – I’m just used to recording very frequent, modest storms. I think it would probably take a long time before I noticed something like that. It might come to mind though in a season that was way behind average snowfall though, being curious about what was missing. Looking into my data for the season, we’ve had 16 storms with snow totals >3.5” this season, and most of them are post-12/17. We may be somewhat behind average pace on larger storms this season though, in that we typically average one storm of ≥20”, and two storms ≥15”, and we haven’t had any storms hit those thresholds yet. We also average three storms of ≥12”, and we’ve only had one that just barely made the cut. We seem to be roughly on track (±1) for storms in the 6-10” range though, so perhaps even around here it’s just one of those seasons where the snow comes in more modest doses than usual. We can still get some very large storms in March though, so we’ll have to see if Mother Nature does anything to fill that in. 12.2” 1/16/2021 Winter Storm Malcolm - Midwest low forming triple point low over New England 10.2” 2/2/2021 Winter Storm Orlena - slow moving system along Northeast coast 8.4” 1/21/2021 Weakening low pressure tracking through southern Quebec 8.2” 2/9/2021 Winter Storm Roland - weak wave of low pressure passing south of the region 7.7” 2/19/2021 Winter Storm Viola - low SE of benchmark with multiple shortwaves in deep SW flow 7.4” 2/5/2021 Winter Storm Peggy - deep, mature cyclone moving north through the Great Lakes 7.1” 11/1/2020 Surface/upper-level trough + upslope from low departing near Northern Maine 6.0” 3/2/2021 Well-defined shortwave trough moving into the area 5.9” 12/26/2020 Lake-effect snow band extending northeastward off Lake Ontario 5.8” 1/1/2021 Winter Storm John - low to our west redeveloping over Gulf of Maine 5.5” 11/15/2020 Broad trough with surface low passing through central Quebec + backside LES/upslope 5.3” 11/2/2020 Clipper/upper-level shortwave 4.9” 12/17/2020 Winter Storm Gail - coastal storm tight to NJ coast heading eastward 4.5” 2/15/2021 Winter Storm Uri - low pressure moving through New England with mixed precipitation 3.8” 1/26/2021 Winter Storm Nathaniel - low pressure tracking south of New England 3.8” 12/5/2020 Winter Storm Eartha - compact coastal storm tracking near Cape Cod + departing upslope

I was just checking our BTV NWS point forecast here, and it’s got close to 2-5” for tonight’s edition. They had 1-2” here for last night’s system, which seemed right on track, so maybe they’re seeing something that makes this next one a bit more robust in our area. Our forecast for this next one is through Sunday night, so it may be the duration that helps. The summit point forecasts are in the 5-9” range up near Jay Peak, but that’s a bit more than they suggest in their discussion. Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 649 AM EST Sat Mar 13 2021 NEAR TERM /THROUGH SUNDAY/...Next embedded shortwave trough in northwest flow arrives tonight with strong 700-500mb height falls noted. Should see widespread light snow shower activity develop after 03Z Sunday, and persist through the overnight hours. Orographic ascent and developing shallow daytime instability should allow scattered snow showers to persist thru Sunday across the higher terrain, especially for the central and northern Green Mtns. Should see snowfall amts of 0.5"-1" across valley locations, with snow-to- liquid ratios a fluffy 20:1. Orographic ascent brings 1-3" snowfall to the higher terrain, and possibly locally higher for the summits from Mt. Mansfield to Jay Peak (3-5") by late afternoon on Sunday.

Whoa, whoa… whoa… pump the brakes there Mr. slantstreaker. Your neighbor reported back-to-back 6”+ snowfall days on 2/2 and 2/3, so “soon to be two months” is a bit of a stretch. Also, he just reported 2.2” in this morning’s CoCoRaHS submission, so unless it really fell off over toward your place, you’re going to have to stop bragging about your fancy schmancy snowfall streak to all the SNE guys.

Event totals: 2.1” Snow/0.06” L.E. Details from the 6:00 A.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 1.3 inches New Liquid: 0.03 inches Snow/Water Ratio: 43.3 Snow Density: 2.3% H2O Temperature: 21.0 F Sky: Mostly Clear Snow at the stake: 10.0 inches

Event totals: 0.8” Snow/0.03” L.E. Details from the 12:00 A.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 0.8 inches New Liquid: 0.03 inches Snow/Water Ratio: 26.7 Snow Density: 3.8% H2O Temperature: 28.8 F Sky: Flurries Snow at the stake: 9.5 inches

That’s awesome, and that is just about where we are right now. Thankfully our road is paved, so “Mud Season” isn’t really a thing in our immediate area, but it certainly is throughout the state for many. I’m not sure about that “Actual Spring” though – I guess we can get a smidge of that depending on the year, but I’m not sure what “Actual Spring” is out here in the northern mountains. To me it often feels like we’ve got this “Post Winter” season or “Spring Stick Season” that lasts through much of May, and then Bam! – summer comes at some point in June. They are missing the actual fall “Stick Season” though. The definitely need to update that, and I guess it would go right after “Actual Fall”? For now though, I guess it’s back to our regularly scheduled “Third Winter”.

Yeah, those events are both shown on just about every model, and I’ve added some of the related BTV NWS discussion below. It looks like we’ll get back to a bit more March reality for a while, with some additional snow potential shown into next week as well. Unfortunately, after a full thaw-freeze cycle like this recent one, it takes a good shot of L.E. for a decent resurfacing, or else you’re still stuck in that winter/spring hybrid period with only hard surfaces to show for it. But something in the 4-6” range will typically set up low angle stuff for nice turns depending on the snow density. Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 654 AM EST Fri Mar 12 2021 .NEAR TERM /THROUGH SATURDAY/... As of 649 AM EST Friday...Mostly sunny conditions across the North Country will persist until secondary front approaches from sern Ontario late in the afternoon into the evening hours. Remainder of the forecast is on track, including potential for snow showers and embedded snow squalls 00-03Z this evening. .SHORT TERM /SATURDAY NIGHT THROUGH SUNDAY NIGHT/... As of 333 AM EST Friday...Transitioning into Saturday night, we will see a cold front sweep southeastwards across the region as a lobe of vorticity advects across the region. Good low-level convergence along with a suitable amount of moisture should promote snow showers overnight, especially across higher terrain of the northern Greens. Activity should wane as the front progresses southwards. However, by afternoon, temperatures climb into the 30s and diurnally driven instability should allow for another round of scattered snow showers, which will be well-timed with the base of the upper trough pivoting southeastwards during the day.

I suspect it’s more likely that this being the first day with warmth of this magnitude, the snow just hasn’t actually cycled to corn snow yet. If you’re starting with actual powder snow (vs. something heavily consolidated), it takes some rounds of freeze thaw to get to legitimate corn snow status. When the powder first warms, it just goes to mush, and then it really can take a number of cycles of freeze thaw to get to form large enough crystals to get to a respectable ski surface. Manmade or heavily skier/machine-packed snow can actually get there pretty quickly because much of the consolidation has been done. When I lived out in Montana I learned that it was typical among many backcountry skiers in the Northern Rockies to essentially stop skiing for April and much of May because of this issue. Spring is one of their snowier periods, and for the higher elevation spots that continue to get snow, there’s not usually enough time and/or the right temperatures between snowfalls to actually get beyond the mush. Once later May and June come around, the weather pattern will finally support the formation of good snow, and they start skiing again.

People are on track with the comment about winter lasting until May in the mountains of NNE though; it’s just what you plan on. What I’ve generally seen on this forum is that people start pining for spring way to soon. You can see it in the main thread now, where lots of folks want to jump right to sunny and 70s, and then it’s just a gripe session about how crappy the weather is all through March and April in SNE. I think you mentioned that you were heading south at some point anyway, but if you’re around at your NH place, I’d still plan on cold-weather activities right through May, even if we’re not necessarily getting snow. I seriously don’t plan on warm-weather activities around here until the Memorial Day/June 1st timeframe, because that’s typically the reality of how long it takes to actually get to consistently warm temperatures for outdoor stuff anyway. Fortunately, the snow is generally around until that point, so we can just keep skiing. I typically keep the ski racks on the vehicles through May, and then switch over to the bike racks at some point around that May/June transition. There were some good points made in that conversation about your site though - from everything we’ve see in the data, it looks like you’ve had a roughly average snowpack once it was set down. So somehow you got there, even if snowfall seems to be on the low side. Maybe this was a season with a bit lower snowfall, but better preservation than usual, and it averaged out with respect to snowpack? Coastal’s point was good to - maybe we don’t have a feel for the exact climate there yet with just 11 seasons? I think it’s clear that your site gets in on the typical NNE mountain upslope, but probably less than over here in the Northern Greens, and maybe less than Alex’s site as well? NW upslope seems to be the most common/everyday type of upslope due to the prevailing winds, so sites that maximize that effect probably get more of it on average. Maybe your site is more dependent on synoptic storms than some of the mountain areas around here, so if there’s a dearth of those, it affects the snowfall more in that area. The resorts around here in the Northern Greens are behind average pace on snowfall, but it seems like there are areas of NH and ME (especially based on snowfall numbers we’re seeing form the ME guys in the forum) that might be more off their usual pace because of fewer synoptic storms affecting that area.

Event totals: 0.1” Snow/Trace L.E. Last night I checked the boards before heading off to bed and found 0.1” of graupel, but that’s all I’ve seen for accumulation for this event thus far at our site. The models suggests the chance for a bit more precipitation today, but it’s also warming up, so I don’t expect there would be too much additional accumulation. Details from the 6:00 A.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 0.1 inches New Liquid: Trace Temperature: 30.2 F Sky: Cloudy Snow at the stake: 16.5 inches

That’s really interesting to hear about the March precipitation and temperatures. I don’t track temperatures here at my site, but my records show 3.97” of liquid for the month, which is about average. What I am seeing in my data is that there was almost no precipitation of any kind before the equinox – just 0.15” of rain. To go 20+ days here in March with almost nothing in the snow or rain department just makes me think of a sunnier/warmer regime than usual. It was certainly above freezing to a substantial degree during that period because the snowpack went from over a foot on the 1st, to nothing by the 15th. The snow we did get seems to have come from a long-duration event (or events) from about the 22nd through the 26th, and it’s got the look of a lot of moisture with minimal snow due to a warm system, perhaps with just some slushy accumulations down at this elevation. That is the period when NH-CS-10 picked up a similar amount of snow and liquid (so it must have been very warm), but they’ve also got another snowstorm on the 15th that brought 8.5” of snow from 2.12” of liquid. I recorded just the 0.15” of liquid over here during that one, so it must have been something off to the east that was almost a non-even here.

It would have been great if that second upslope system had delivered more than an inch or two, but putting that on top of the 9” from the midweek event has definitely kept the off piste conditions respectable at Bolton. I see they’re reporting 11” in the past week, and the bulk of that must be the sum of those two events. Not surprisingly, that powder has settled a bit, and that actually helps out somewhat with respect to how it skis. When that first round had fallen on Wednesday, it really was so incredibly dry that you sank right through it and got down to that relatively firm subsurface, but the settling, and the addition of a couple more inches that wasn’t quite as dry, gives you a bit more underfoot to cushion things. I was hearing noise from skiers and riders even on low angle groomed terrain today, and it wasn’t as if it was horribly icy, but the noise revealed that there was at least something firm there. It could just be a traffic issue on the groomed slopes – I’m not sure how much L.E. the mountain ultimately got from the two rounds of snow, but it probably wasn’t more than a quarter of an inch, and that’s only going to hold up so long with on piste skier traffic. Like you, I focused my time in the trees today, and I found the conditions there were far superior to the groomed terrain. I spent my time exploring more of the sidecountry off Wilderness that I’d visited last Saturday. There was plenty of snow for good powder turns on low-angle terrain, and even moderate and steep terrain weren’t too bad where people had skied and sort of packed the new snow into the base. The trees were the place to be though – the snow was protected from the wind in there, and I’d say there was plenty that had been blow off the trails as well. Temperatures were in the mid-teens F when I was out this afternoon, which is certainly nothing to complain about in terms of cold, but there was plenty of wind around, especially up high. We had some peeks of sun, but in general it was cloudy with some light flakes in the air, and it just sort of had the feel of a hum drum midwinter day. Being in the trees meant that I was out of the wind, but as others have been expressing, I could certainly use some warmth. I definitely found myself missing the nice temperatures up around the freezing mark that I encountered last Saturday, even if that storm did bring a touch of mixed precipitation. I’ve got a few shots from today’s outing below – I definitely like how the shot of the BV Hotel reveals the numerous layers in the snowpack from the past couple of months of winter storms:

Yeah, March 2010 is the lowest March snowfall I’ve seen here as well, with just 2.1” of snow, and the only other one in that neighborhood was March 2016 with 5.7” of snow. You really need a March that is mostly sunny and mild to get low numbers like 2010, and it has to be low on storms in general too. At this latitude, and especially in the mountains, March is a wintry month. Even if the storm takes a track that puts us in the warm sector, we’ll often get some accumulation on the back side, and it only takes a few of those to at least pull together several inches. Those two months are pretty good examples of the different possibilities I mentioned – that 2.1” of snow for March 2010 came in just one accumulating storm, so that really had to be a month that was either super warm and/or bereft of storms. On the other hand, the 5.7” for March 2016 came from five different storms, and it looks like it was just sort of a warm month with some storms that tracked to the west of us and gave minimal snowfall. This month hasn’t felt like either of those at this point, reinforced by the fact that I was skiing in the teens F up at the mountain this afternoon. We’d also already surpassed the total snowfall for both of those months here at our site by March 3rd. This month just hasn’t seemed like those types of Marches, at least up to this point. I grabbed the CoCoRaHS snowfall data for Phin’s neighbor and pasted it below, and even in those poor Marches, that site pulled in at least double digit snowfall. That’s really impressive. And look at the March and April averages for that site – they indicate that you’re looking at close to 50” of snowfall still to go in an average winter. Phin, It’s probably hard to imagine that sort of snowfall when you’re looking at the models for an obvious, synoptic, all-snow system that’s going to dump on your place. But I step through the operational run of the GFS and see seven systems with chances for snow. And yeah, things aren’t going to play out exactly like that so far out on an operational run, but it looks pretty active. Do watch out though in the main March thread – it can kind of bias one’s outlook at this point in the season if the tenor remains SNE-centric. Most of them want to be done with snowfall at this point unless something fairly big pops up, and they’re generally looking for warmth to melt the snow and move on. March Snowfall at CoCoRaHS site NH-CS-10 Year Snowfall 2010 16.8 2011 52.8 2012 21.1 2013 36.8 2014 34.4 2015 18.1 2016 12.8 2017 43.5 2018 52.2 2019 32.4 2020 16.7 2021 ??? Mean 30.7 S.D. 14.6 April Snowfall at CoCoRaHS site NH-CS-10 Year Snowfall 2010 24.9 2011 26.4 2012 7.3 2013 8.8 2014 5.2 2015 17.2 2016 9.0 2017 19.7 2018 19.3 2019 12.8 2020 37.7 2021 ??? Mean 17.1 S.D. 9.9

We had a few areas of blue earlier, but it’s clouded up a bit more as of late and we’ve got some snow falling. That low pressure is still around up there in NL, so apparently waves of moisture will still affect the area: Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 743 AM EST Sat Mar 6 2021 .NEAR TERM /THROUGH SUNDAY/... As of 658 AM EST Saturday... This weekend will feature quiet and cold weather. Upper level low over Newfoundland will remain parked through early Sunday morning. Will have several waves of moisture drop south across our area, bringing mainly an increase in clouds but also some light mountain snow showers, especially in western facing slopes of Dacks and Greens as flow is largely out of the west.

It’s not an everyday setup to get our snow involving wraparound from a low way up there in NL, but clearly a lot of the guidance was missing something in this one. In the BTV NWS discussions yesterday, they talked about some of the factors: Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 936 AM EST Fri Mar 5 2021 .NEAR TERM /THROUGH SATURDAY/... As of 931 AM EST Friday...Latest forecast soundings and observations continue to show a plethora of dry air within the lowest levels of the atmosphere. In addition, the 12Z NAM no longer shows a moisture saturated DGZ with very weak lift residing within the DGZ. Given these trends, we have continued to lower snow totals across the region with less than 1 inch expected below 1000 ft, 1-3 inches between 1000 and 2000 ft and 3 to 5 inches above 2000 ft. If the dry air continues to hold strong, which is quite likely, snowfall amounts will be reduced further with the early afternoon update. When the spine disappeared and that first pulse hit the mountains on Thursday afternoon, it seemed like it was the start of typical upslope event, but that first portion of the storm from Friday into Thursday was the only one that gave us any measurable accumulation here at our site. From Friday into today it was just an additional trace. I find that the BTV NWS is reasonably conservative with respect to putting out their alerts, so for them to put out some Winter Weather Advisories means that they felt the potential was there. There’s still moisture around this weekend for some potential flakes, and then the next impulse in the stream seems to be in the Tuesday timeframe. That’s pretty marginal at this point because it’s only on some guidance, so we’ll have to see what the trends are with that: Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 743 AM EST Sat Mar 6 2021 .LONG TERM /TUESDAY THROUGH FRIDAY/... As of 324 AM EST Saturday... a weak shortwave trough moves through the early morning hours on Tuesday and looks to bring maybe a few flakes across the area. Models disagree on if the bulk of the precipitation stays across the international border, but either way this looks to be a rather minor event.

We picked up a couple tenths of an inch of accumulation last night at our site, which was certainly in line with the small flakes I’d seen falling. I figured we were just a bit too far east for the moisture the radar was showing last night, and I’d see more accumulation this morning on my drive through the western slopes to BTV, but at least in the valleys, there wasn’t anything more notable than what we picked up.

Event totals: 0.2” Snow/0.01” L.E. Details from the 6:00 A.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 0.2 inches New Liquid: 0.01 inches Snow/Water Ratio: 20.0 Snow Density: 5.0% H2O Temperature: 10.8 F Sky: Cloudy Snow at the stake: 17.5 inches

I didn’t see any notable changes in the BTV NWS alerts map, but there was definitely a bit of a bump in the event total snowfall map. There’s more of that 8-12” shading in the Mansfield area now, and I see that the point forecast there through Saturday is in the 8-18” range. Down here at our site there was a small increase in the point forecast to roughly the 3-7” range.

Driving home from BTV into the mountains on I-89 is always nice because you get those expansive views of the spine from the Mansfield area down through Bolton Mountain and on to Camel’s Hump. Today was one of those days where you got the extra treat of watching a storm roll in during the drive, and I could literally see the spine get enveloped in snowfall from north to south and top to bottom. Then you start to see flakes through the windshield, and the intensity just continues to increase as you push into the mountains. I stopped off at Richmond Market for some groceries, and the snowfall was already picking up with a very wintry wind that had the feel of an incoming system. The snowfall intensity often continues to increase as I head east toward our place, but today it stayed fairly consistent and even dropped off a bit, and I can see on the radar that the moisture is still focused in the CPV and western slopes with a northerly flow. We’re getting some flakes here with a bit of accumulation, but I bet the western slopes are doing better based on the radar.

Ha, that was great! I went through a bunch of their reports over the past month or two, and it looks like a fun cast of characters. How long have they been doing those reports?

With those snow ratios, and the temperature cycling that the existing snow had seen, I knew it was going to be pretty much a “dust on crust” setup out there as you indicated – but with a half foot of snow, at least it’s more of a “Northern Greens” sort of dust on crust experience. I had just a bit of time to stop in at Bolton for some turns on my way in to Burlington yesterday, so I visited Timberline to see how the conditions were faring. My plan was to hit some low-angle stuff on my fat skis, and that was indeed about the only terrain that offered up bottomless turns. Anything above that angle and you were hitting the subsurface – and that subsurface snow on anything that hadn’t been groomed is indeed loud. Moderate angle turns were still decent with that new snow to push back on, but the low-angle powder was the best. I had some nice turns on the mellow inclines of Villager and Spur in the fresh snow. Groomed terrain was also pretty nice where they’d been able to till up the old stuff and get some new snow into it, although that depended on the time they’d groomed. Some spots were groomed before the new snow fell, so it was powder on top of that. The resort was being cautious and hadn’t even open the ungroomed terrain yesterday, and that was probably wise, since the powder made it dangerous in some cases by simply hiding the moonscape below. I think they had reported about a half foot of new snow in the morning report, but I was generally finding 6-8” in my depth checks in the 1,500’ – 2,500’ elevation range. I see they’re reporting 9” in the past 48 hours in this morning’s report. My boys headed up for some turns in the afternoon, and my younger son said it was pretty hilarious in that “It was like skiing powder, but still skiing on the base.” We were talking last night at dinner about how what they skied was literally the antithesis of “bottomless powder”. I guess one could call that “bottomful powder” in that line of terminology. “Dust on crust” also gets that point across, although I typically don’t think of 6-8” of snow when I think of dust. In any event, it was a good aesthetic refresher for the pack both down at the house and up on the hill, and hopefully we’ll have a bit more to add in the next couple of days. A couple images from yesterday:

The BTV NWS felt the impact was enough to put up some Winter Weather Advisories up in parts of the Adirondacks and western slopes of the Northern Greens: Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 932 AM EST Thu Mar 4 2021 .NEAR TERM /THROUGH FRIDAY/...Overall, total snow accumulations between 7 PM tonight and 7 PM Friday will be 3 to 6 inches across the aforementioned locations, with 6 to 8 inches possible at elevations above 1000 ft. For such reasons, a Winter Weather Advisory is in effect. Due to the fluffy nature of the snow, blowing snow will also be a concern during this time. We’ll see how it plays out, but the map’s got that general 6-8” shading along the spine, and a touch of 8-12” shading up near Jay Peak. The point forecast at our site in the valley is in the 3-6” range, which looks right in line with the event total snowfall map.

This is a perfect example of where those higher annual snowfall numbers come from for the resorts of the Northern Greens. I’ve mentioned in before about how many a casual skier assumes it’s some sort of ski resort marketing BS. “Yeah, right, resort X reports 100” of extra snowfall compared to any of the resorts to the north, south, east, or west of them. – they’re so full of sh!t” The reality of the situation is that when these smaller events happen over the course of 6 to 8 months during a winter season, they simply add up. Obviously the folks in this thread are aware of the snowfall because they see the forecasts and reports from around here in real time, but it won’t stop the typical Monday morning quarterbacks from throwing up the B.S. flags because Jay Peak is somehow reporting a another 300” season when nobody else appears to be close to that number. It’s March now, so many skiers farther south have already checked out and will be oblivious to the fact that it’s still snowing.

Event totals: 6.0” Snow/0.18” L.E. Details from the 6:00 P.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 0.8 inches New Liquid: 0.04 inches Snow/Water Ratio: 20.0 Snow Density: 5.0% H2O Temperature: 28.4 F Sky: Light Snow (2 to 5 mm flakes) Snow at the stake: 20.0 inches