J.Spin

Oh, absolutely, I don’t think you’ve ever given that impression at all. If anything, it would be the exact opposite in your case – you literally live up here in the mountains of NNE and see the snowfall trends first hand.

This is why it’s so useful to have more and more diligent observers throughout the mountains of NNE participating in the thread here. You’re literally observing, over the course of an actual season, what the deal is with snowfall in the Northern Greens. That ratios you’re talking about above are literally the type of seasonal snowfall ratios that bump the Northern Greens snowfall up each year relative to the surrounding ranges. Yeah, Jay Peak will sometimes pull off a 60” storm cycle because they got right in the pivot point of a big system and/or sat under a mesoscale snow band, and then the low went and parked itself up in Northern Maine for another 48 hours before departing, but it’s not as if the Northern Greens specifically get hit with more synoptic storms. Getting hit by the pivot point or ending up in some meso band from a big synoptic storm is fairly random, and those sort of things will typically average out over a season or two across the region. But it’s the extra bit of upslope at the end of storms, or those extra one, two, or a few inches from so many bread and butter events over the course of a very long season that really make the difference. The number of times I’ve seen casual/semi-casual observers catch wind of the 300”+ snowfall averages that the local resorts report, and then immediately call it “marketing B.S.”, is too numerous to recall. “Yeah, right, all of the snowiest resorts in NY, NH, and ME get 200” or so of snowfall a season, and these VT resorts are the only ones that get 300”+… yeah, right.” “Oh, and don’t get me started on Jay Peak, the biggest liar of them all, reporting their 350”+ snowfall that they slant-stick from a drift.” Yeah, it’s all one big fat conspiracy. All four resorts along the spine of the Northern Greens conspire each day to make sure they jack up their totals so they can claim to have the most snowfall in the Eastern U.S. Because everyone knows, that’s the main driver that delivers the customers and makes everyone rich. And those so called “snow reporters” like PF, they’re the most culpable purveyors in the whole charade. They’re all in on it. They get together on the phone each morning before reporting to confer on just how much they’re going to inflate the day’s snow totals so that everyone stays nicely in their north-to-south-snowfall hierarchy. Don’t tell on us, and we won’t tell on you. The photos PF takes of the snowfall at the stake every day to try and accurately document the season’s snowfall? Totally doctored… of course.

Yeah, I was both east and west of the spine in my travels today, and it was obvious that the accumulations fell off in both directions. It wasn't as if the full 8.2" from Winter Storm Roland fell in one shot overnight though; that’s a total from back when the system started, representing a span of probably 30 to 36 hours. But seeing the totals drop off away from the spine, and picking up 2.5” in an hour this morning, yeah…

Event totals: 8.2” Snow/0.24” L.E. Details from the 12:00 P.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 2.7 inches New Liquid: 0.06 inches Snow/Water Ratio: 45.0 Snow Density: 2.2% H2O Temperature: 28.9 F Sky: Partly Cloudy Snow at the stake: 24.5 inches

Rates have definitely been impressive here, with 2.5” in the past hour – from the radar it does look like this pulse might be ending though.

You can really see it on the Bolton Valley Base Area Webcam. Even though there’s not a massive amount of liquid pounding down from the sky, with such lofty 50:1 flakes, it stacks up quickly – I just measured 1.3” of accumulation in under 30 minutes, so that’s technically in the 2-3”/hr range. Naturally, it wouldn’t come out that way over the course of hours due to how fast 50:1 snow settles, but it definitely stacks fast.

Event totals: 5.5” Snow/0.16” L.E. I guess those mesoscale models were onto something with respect to the backside snow of this system around here, because we’ve picked up more accumulation with this recent activity than we did from the initial part of the storm. We picked up 0.5” of snow through midnight last night, but I woke up earlier to find very large flakes pouring down and continuing to stack up quickly with impressive loft. The pulses of moisture crashing into the spine are very obvious on the radar: Details from the 6:00 A.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 2.7 inches New Liquid: 0.05 inches Snow/Water Ratio: 54.0 Snow Density: 1.9% H2O Temperature: 12.7 F Sky: Snow (10-25 mm flakes) Snow at the stake: 23.5 inches

Another batch is just coming into the area now:

Event totals: 2.3” Snow/0.12” L.E. Details from the 6:00 P.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 1.6 inches New Liquid: 0.10 inches Snow/Water Ratio: 16.0 Snow Density: 6.3% H2O Temperature: 15.3 F Sky: Cloudy Snow at the stake: 21.5 inches

Of course, as we know, “paltry” and “surprise” are all relative up here when it comes to snow. It seems that any system that gets enough moisture up here for flakes, or even if the lakes just feed moisture in, often just keeps the snow coming until the mountains have wrung it all out. Actually, some of the mesoscale models like the NAM have this system passing through today, another flare up of snowfall overnight into Wednesday, then a band of snow dropping south on Thursday, and that next potential system on Sunday. We’ll see how it goes, but it looks active enough to keep some refreshes going for the slopes.

Event totals: 0.7” Snow/0.02” L.E. This next system had been named Winter Storm Roland, and it was already underway as of observations time this morning. Details from the 6:00 A.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 0.7 inches New Liquid: 0.02 inches Snow/Water Ratio: 35.0 Snow Density: 2.9% H2O Temperature: 8.4 F Sky: Light Snow (3-10 mm flakes) Snow at the stake: 20.0 inches

That seems right on track around here – they have our site in what looks like that sliver of 96-120” darkest red shading splitting the gap between the 120-180” light mauve shading for the Bolton Mountain/Camel’s Hump areas that surround us on the spine. If it’s on track, that light mauve would collapse into the valley here in another couple of storms. I have to think many places in SNE are ahead of average on snowfall at this point, but you still have to get into at least SVT to get into that darkest red shading, so the typical snowfall gradient is certainly in place to some degree. It doesn’t look like there’s sufficient data for the Jay Peak area though. They’re reporting 194” of snowfall on the season, and even if official sources wouldn’t incorporate the resort’s summit area number, there should definitely be some of that light mauve up there like there is for parts of the spine from Mansfield southward. There must not be any co-op or CoCoRaHS sites in the area to give them enough snowfall data?

I just checked my point forecast and they’ve got something in the 2-4” or 3-5” range for this next system, so that would be very similar to the last one.

Event totals: 3.3” Snow/0.10” L.E. Details from the 6:00 A.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 0.1 inches New Liquid: Trace Temperature: 6.4 F Sky: Clear Snow at the stake: 21.0 inches

It had just started to snow when I headed up to the mountain with the boys this afternoon for a session. We had on and off light snow during the afternoon, but it started dumping those huge flakes when we were leaving. Today wasn’t the obvious powder day that yesterday was, but the snow continues to be fantastic. We just had to travel farther afield to get into fresh stuff around the resort today. It really just keeps piling up with each round of snow, making all the untouched areas more and more bottomless. A few shots from today’s outing:

Event totals: 3.2” Snow/0.10” L.E. Details from the 12:00 A.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 1.7 inches New Liquid: 0.05 inches Snow/Water Ratio: 28.3 Snow Density: 3.5% H2O Temperature: 19.4 F Sky: Flurries Snow at the stake: 21.5 inches

Don’t most sites in NNE at elevation have snowpack depths of 30”+ at this point? From the map, it looks like some sites in that area might be in the 20”+ range, but not 30”+ unless they really got hit hard with another storm today.

Event totals: 1.5” Snow/0.04” L.E. Details from the 6:00 P.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 1.5 inches New Liquid: 0.04 inches Snow/Water Ratio: 37.5 Snow Density: 2.7% H2O Temperature: 25.3 F Sky: Snow (2-8 mm flakes) Snow at the stake: 20.5 inches

Actually, I’m just starting to get some flakes here at our site in association with this next system (Winter Storm Quade).

Thanks for keeping us updated on the maps for this next event PF – good use of the NNE thread, because I’m not seeing it really discussed elsewhere.

I saw that Bolton Valley was reporting the same 8” in the past 24 hours, so that seems pretty consistent in this area. We headed up for a session at the opening of Timberline this morning. It was bright and sunny when we got there, but before it clouded up and we got some flakes. For the rest of the morning it was generally cloudy with a bit of snow and the occasional appearance of the sun. My depth checks in the 1,500’ – 2,500’ range revealed new snow depths in the 6-9” range, which was definitely consistent with the snow report. The powder was pretty dry (3-5% H2O) so the new stuff alone wasn’t quite bottomless on piste on steep terrain, but off piste it just bolstered the depth of that already bottomless snowpack that’s out there. A few shots from the morning:

Event totals: 0.1” Snow/Trace L.E. We picked up an additional 0.1” of new snow this morning while we were out on the mountain. It was tough to decide, but I think there’s been enough demarcation between what seemed like the end of Winter Storm Peggy, and the effects from these more obvious LES bands, to break it out into its own event. I can see from PF’s radar image that this area around Bolton Valley and our house was a bit south of the main LES band he was talking about, but there are certainly still echoes out there coming in from the southwest and we’ve had additional flakes flying here at our site Details from the 2:00 P.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 0.1 inches New Liquid: Trace Temperature: 30.4 F Sky: Cloudy Snow at the stake: 22.0 inches

That’s exactly the way I took it as well. I’d say he’s got his priorities straight, and so would renowned ski mountaineer Delores LaChapelle.

Event totals: 7.4” Snow/0.37” L.E. Details from the 6:00 A.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 2.0 inches New Liquid: 0.06 inches Snow/Water Ratio: 33.3 Snow Density: 3.0% H2O Temperature: 16.2 F Sky: Cloudy Snow at the stake: 23.5 inches

Alpine skis generally top out at waist widths of ~140 mm, and these wider skis of 100 mm+ are unquestionably better performers in powder. The extra surface area allows the skier to float higher in the snow, making turns easier, since you don’t have as much snow to push around, and not going as deep means that you have less of that third dimension (depth) to deal with in your powder skiing. From a photographer’s perspective, the fatter skis can diminish the magnitude of face shots somewhat, so that’s always a bit of irony with respect to the advancement of the equipment. There’s a limit to how fat you want to go, because the skis eventually get somewhat ungainly to the point where they’re impractical on any firmer surfaces. The skis will also have varying degrees of reverse camber/rocker to further enhance their performance in the powder: A more rockered configuration is preferred in powder because it keeps the tips of your skis up and out of the deep snow so that you don’t have to be quite as perfect with your fore-aft balance or worry about your tips diving. This makes them somewhat more forgiving compared to a cambered ski where you can get more tip dive if your balance is too far forward. Also, a rockered configuration (much like a whitewater kayak vs. a flatwater kayak) is going to facilitate easier rotation of your skis in deep snow vs. a more traditional cambered ski. The issue is, while the extra width and rocker are really helpful in the soft snow, they’re detrimental to performance on groomed surfaces. Edge-to-edge transition is much slower on the wider skis, and you’re getting less edge contact with the snow and rebound out of your turns if you have more rocker and less camber. Many companies address this issue somewhat by making skis with rockered tips and tails to facilitate easier skiing in deeper snow, but keeping some regular camber in the middle of the ski for better performance on firmer snow surfaces. The bottom ski image in the figure shows this general structure. Expat’s point is a good one though, in that you’ll see many people skiing groomed terrain on skis that are woefully too fat and/or rockered for the available snow surface. Sometimes it’s just that they only have one pair of skis, and they went with something on the wide side because they want that for when they are off piste. Also, people typically think fatter skis are “cool”, and they may have just wanted them and/or the salesperson could easily sell them on the allure of something fatter than they really needed.