J.Spin

It’s March now, and this is Vermont, so…

We had 0.14” of L.E. here from the event as of morning observations, and now that most of the CoCoRaHS reports for the morning are in, I’m seeing 0.10” to 0.20” of L.E. in general around the area. It’s certainly not a solid resurfacing yet, but it should be enough to up the fun factor of turns a bit. We’ll see if Mother Nature decides to keep working on it over the next few days.

I’m seeing an additional 0.6” here since the morning clearing, so nothing like last night’s rates, but there’s still a nice steady snow coming down out there, with medium-sized upslope flakes topping out in the 1 to 1.5 cm range. The BTV NWS AFD does mention an increase in moisture tonight though, so we’ll be able to see what transpires during that period. I suspect that in many locations in March, the “good news” they start off with could easily be taken sarcastically, but you know in this case with the BTV NWS, it’s not: Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 619 AM EST Wed Mar 3 2021 NEAR TERM /THROUGH THURSDAY/... As of 608 AM EST Wednesday...Good news more energy arrives toward 00z this evening with better moisture, so anticipate another round of light upslope snow showers to develop. Temps warm into the mid 20s to l/m 30s today with winds shifting to the northwest by midday.

Event totals: 5.2” Snow/0.14” L.E. Details from the 6:00 A.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 2.3 inches New Liquid: 0.10 inches Snow/Water Ratio: 23.0 Snow Density: 4.3% H2O Temperature: 14.7 F Sky: Light Snow (2 to 15 mm flakes) Snow at the stake: 20.0 inches

You can see a couple of solid pulses crashing into the spine on the radar grab below, and those obviously held some moisture, but the snow growth and huge flakes is what put down such quick accumulation as the ratio shows. The flakes were certainly pouring down at analysis time – it was the sort of snowfall where I dump and reset one board, then go and take care of another, and after you come back to the first one, it’s already got a half inch of new snow on it. The real accumulation started at roughly 11:10 P.M., so that 2.9” that fell was in about 50 minutes. Phin did say we’d be racking up 3 to 4 inches in this area, so we’ll see what’s on the boards in the morning.

Event totals: 2.9” Snow/0.04” L.E. Details from the 12:00 A.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 2.9 inches New Liquid: 0.04 inches Snow/Water Ratio: 72.5 Snow Density: 1.4% H2O Temperature: 15.3 F Sky: Heavy Snow (4 to 20 mm flakes) Snow at the stake: 19.0 inches

That really ramped up fast once those stronger echoes came in – we’ve got classic huge upslope flakes falling and we just picked up 1.3” in about 20 minutes, so it’s probably somewhere in the 3”/hr range at this point. I’m planning to run an analysis at midnight, so we’ll see where things stand then. If we’re getting hit that hard down here, the mountains must be getting blitzed.

Ha, great timing on bringing this up – I had just checked that latest GFS run and it’s definitely been bumping up the snow from that moisture being thrown back from the Newfoundland/Labrador low. It’s certainly increased from the 00 Z run back 24 hours ago, but it’s been up and down over the past several days, so it’s definitely something to watch and the next potential one in the pipe after this current system. The GFS has had it for a while, but other global models are also showing it. We’ll see what the BTV NWS is thinking in their next discussion.

There are some stronger echoes appearing on the composite radar now, so we’ll see if they produce anything over this way:

We’ve got snow falling out there now, and it probably started up fairly recently based on the radar:

The BTV NWS AFD indicates that this is a decaying clipper, so it may just be petering out as it heads east: Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 632 PM EST Tue Mar 2 2021 .NEAR TERM /THROUGH WEDNESDAY NIGHT/... As of 558 PM EST Tuesday...moderate, steadier snowfall after midnight driven by significant warm air advection evidenced by veering wind profiles within an increasingly moist, deep layer ahead of a decaying clipper sliding through southwestern Quebec.

Checking the Mansfield point forecast, it’s got 3-6” through tomorrow night, which is very much in line with those numbers. The Jay Peak point forecast is closing in on the 4-8” range, and they’ve got both spots in that 4-6” darker blue shading on the BTV NWS expected snowfall map. The latest BTV NWS AFD focuses a lot across the lake, where’s there’s a potential hotspot of accumulation and some enhanced Adirondack upslope precipitation associated with a mean 30 knot 925 mb westerly wind. It certainly looks like there’s some decent bread and butter potential via the latest output from various mesoscale models, so we’ll see how it rolls through.

February Totals Days with new snow: 23 Accumulating Storms: 12 Snowfall: 47.2” Liquid Equivalent: 2.75” SDD: 559.5 I’ve put together my numbers for February, and it looks like it came in as a solid winter month in the average range. Liquid equivalent was about a half inch low relative to average, but everything else was pretty solid.

Well, 0.40” of L.E. is bordering on moderate resurfacing territory for the slopes, so that’s definitely worth watching to see if the accumulations call for some turns. This is how it can be done around here though if there aren’t any major synoptic storms in the immediate future.

Thanks for the great summary with the maps PF. This March/April time of year can be when the refreshers are needed even more. If temperatures either stay cold, or stay/get warm enough for corn it’s fine, but if you cycle through warm then back to cold, you end up with hard surfaces without a refresher. Did you see that next potential refresher on Friday/Saturday? It doesn’t look like too much, but it seems to be from that low pressure up near Newfoundland/Labrador that throws some moisture back this way. It looks a bit out of the norm, and I actually have to go form CONUS view to North American view on the maps to get a feel for it. The GFS has been showing it for a number of days, but I’m seeing it on other models as well now. The BTV NWS AFD makes note of that stationary/retrograding low pressure up there, but mentions it more in the context of upcoming winds and temperatures later this week.

Event totals: 0.5” Snow/0.04” L.E. Details from the 12:00 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: 9.3 F Sky: Flurries Snow at the stake: 16.5 inches

Event totals: 0.2” Snow/0.02” L.E. Details from the 6:00 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: 26.8 F Sky: Light Snow (2-4 mm flakes) Snow at the stake: 16.5 inches

I think that would fall on deaf ears for the most part in the main threads, but it’s nice to see that you’re watching for those northern/upslope systems. This is the thread in which to discuss those. I just took a spin through the latest run of the GFS, and there are 6 to 7 potential systems on there that could affect the area through mid-month. One sort of unique source that’s been on there for several days is that low pressure up near Newfoundland/Labrador that backs up a bit and pushes a little precipitation down this way. I don’t see any of those big synoptic storms you want yet, but it looks like there are plenty of systems that could affect the area over the next couple of weeks.

Following up on the seasonal snowfall averages I noted above, I’ve got the plot for this year’s snowfall progression with respect to average at our site. We had that strong start with a couple of storms in early November that put us well ahead of average for a while, but that surplus gradually languished through both December and January, since both those months fell below average on snowfall. It got to the point that in mid-January, we’d actually lost those early surpluses and fell behind average pace on the season. Although January overall did come in below average on snowfall, the second half of the month through about mid-February brought some modest synoptic storms that helped us get back a bit ahead of average, and then we ran around average for the rest of February to at least hold onto that bit of surplus.

Thanks for the additional detail – that’s great to get that intermediate snowfall number for Killington to know where they stand. It’s nice to know that they’re ahead of average pace with their current snowfall and are having a decent season in that regard. Unfortunately, it’s rare to get that sort of number from the resorts to see where things stand during the season – they’ve got the data of course, and probably have those sorts of numbers for in-house discussions, but it’s just not worth that extra work of trying to post that all the time on the website. It’s also probably not great for marketing when places are way behind average pace. Thankfully, I at least have a rough idea most of the time where the resorts up here in the Northern Greens stand with respect to their seasonal snowfall progress, since I’ve got my running average seasonal snowfall numbers for each day, and they generally run right around 50% of theirs.

Below is the north to south listing of available season snowfall totals from the Vermont ski areas: Jay Peak: 235” Smuggler’s Notch: 175” Stowe: 178” Bolton Valley: 154” Mad River Glen: 146” Sugarbush: 132” Pico: 186” Killington: 186” Okemo: 116” Magic Mountain: 107” Stratton: 132” Mount Snow: 143” The totals will typically go from highest to lowest, right down the spine, so if you see substantial deviations from that trend, that’s something to note. I don’t think any of the resorts are quite on average snowfall pace at this point, aside from those SVT areas like Stratton and Mount Snow – possibly because they got in on that big banding storm? In a relative sense, the Killington/Pico area is clearly doing well if they’re ahead of every resort up north except for Jay Peak. Killington/Pico and Jay Peak are probably close to average pace for snowfall? I still think they’re a bit off of average, but closer than most resorts aside from the SVT ones I mentioned above. I’m not sure what happened at Magic, except that they must have missed that big banding, and that’s where seasonal snowfall would be for the SVT resorts if they hadn’t gotten in on that? I think I recall Okemo getting the brunt of some big storm at some point this season? So the fact that they’re reporting only 116” for the season suggests that they have been pretty far off the pace for the most part. There’s clearly been some disparity between average snowfall in the valleys vs. the mountains this season up here in NVT. We’re a touch ahead of average snowfall pace here at our site, but in general, the resorts of the Northern Greens run just about double our snowfall here. Therefore, they should be running around 270” at this point if they were on track with our site. Even if they were just running at an average snowfall pace, they should be at 240-250” by this point of the season, and none of them, even Jay Peak, has reached that point yet. All the resorts of the Northern Greens are definitely behind average snowfall pace for this point in the season (the below average depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake doesn’t prove that, but it’s at least consistent with it). Skiing hasn’t suffered horribly though in the past couple of months around here though for at least a few reasons: 1. We’re above the traditional 40” off piste skiing threshold depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake, so essentially everything is well covered and in play. 2. There’s plenty of liquid equivalent in the snowpack, even if the depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake has been running behind average. 3. We’ve gone through many weeks with no thaws, so there haven’t been any losses to the snowpack, and the snow quality has stayed very high. This is a great example of how those sub-300” and even sub-200” snowfall areas out in the Rockies can provide high-quality skiing most of the time.

I saw that folks were discussing where locations stand on snowfall/snowpack, so I’ve got my numbers below. Mean seasonal snowfall through 2/28 at our site is 121.3 ± 30.7”, and 118.4” is the median value. Snowfall for this season is currently at 135.6”, so about a foot ahead of the mean value, but certainly well within the 1 σ range. Mean snowpack for 2/28 at our site is 15.6” ± 9.5”, and 13.8” is the median value. Snowpack is currently at 18.0”, so that’s very close to average for the date.

My wife just alerted me that she heard pinging on the windows, and we've got some sleet falling here at the house, so there's definitely some colder air up there.

Boy, Stowe’s night skiing was pretty fantastic though – 2,000’+ laps off the Mansfield gondola had to be tops in the state with respect to vertical and quality of lit terrain. You’re right about the cold though; winter days up here can be cold enough, and winter nights are even more brutal. There’s something about the lack of sunlight that just makes the cold even more impactful at night. We’d typically go to Stowe for night skiing when conditions were just right – if there was a storm coming in during the day and into the evening to provide fresh powder, and temperatures were up around 30 F to be able to ski comfortably. We always have unlimited night skiing with our Bolton passes, but we still practice the same approach for night skiing now. The thing about night skiing at most areas from our perspective is that terrain is so limited compared to what is available during the day, that you need something to really up the ante to make it worth it (such as fresh snow and comfortable temperatures, and minimal wind, etc.). Otherwise, we’re just going to ski during the day when the entire mountain is available and temperatures are warmer.

I saw this in the March thread, but it’s more on topic for a general thread. The answer to your question is neither – we just drive over it and pack it down. We’d seriously be shoveling almost every day if we dealt with each round of snow. Also note that the snow is typically extremely dry, so for an inch of snow with just a few hundredths of an inch of liquid in it, you just crush it to dust under the tires or you can let it sublimate and disappear.