J.Spin

Since we just finished up with December, I figured I’d update the season snowfall progress plot for our site. Since that late November/early December burst pushed us well above average snowfall pace, the season snowfall progression has generally been able to maintain itself at slightly above average. As the plot shows, there were those snowfall lulls in mid-December and late December that have kept things generally in check. With respect to December snowfall, it was decent overall. With 45.1 inches of total snowfall, it was a bit above average. To speak to how Decembers have been recently, it was the first above average snowfall December we’ve had in 7 years, and you have to go back 12 years to find a December with higher snowfall (December 2012 with 49.5 inches). Between Great Lakes moisture, northwest upslope flow, bread and butter clippers, the occasional coastal system, etc., strong Decembers around here are in the 50, 60, or even 70-inch range for snowfall when Mothern Nature is firing on all cylinders, but we just haven’t had a full month of that in quite a while. The first 10 days of this month was a bit of a callback taste of what Mother Nature can do though – we picked up more than 30 inches of snow in those 10 days, with no major storms, just a bread-and-butter pattern of clippers and the usual stuff that the Northern Greens do. Keep that up for 30 days and of course you’d get a really solid month. December 2024 snow numbers and storm data: Snowfall: 45.1” Total Liquid equivalent: 4.32” Number of storms: 14 Days with snowfall: 25 Storm List: For the local ski resorts in the Northern Greens, I’m seeing the following seasonal snowfall numbers as of today, from north to south: Jay Peak: 151” Smuggler’s Notch: 113” Stowe: 114” Bolton Valley: 105” Based on my numbers, Bolton Valley appears to be just a few inches ahead of average pace, and Smugg’s and Stowe are probably in roughly the same place. Jay Peak is the odd one out at the moment, running at about 133% of average snowfall, and a good chunk of the extra snow seemed to come from that lake-effect period earlier in December, and now probably a bit from our most recent/ongoing storm (28 inches in the past 48 hours). This is well down from when they were running around 200% of average pace earlier in December though. On a related note, my younger son is off skiing at Sunday River for a couple of days, so we checked on their snowfall to date at their website. I seriously did a double take when I saw the number: 36 inches. 36 inches? I’d recorded 36 inches of snowfall here at our house by the first third of December. Now of course they’re probably using a 24-hour collection interval and will preserve it much better than we will down here in the valley, but it still seems crazy compared to what the local resorts around here have picked up so far this season. Sugarloaf doesn’t list their season snowfall to date in their snow report as far as I can tell, but presumably they’re slightly higher. I assume the Maine resorts suffer from the same sort of thing that much of SNE snowfall does with respect to dependence on coastal systems, but it’s still hard to understand how mountains that far north don’t get more snow.

Our anticipated long-duration storm system began in the area yesterday with some light snow accumulations for the mountains and valleys, but snowfall really picked up overnight, so I decided to head up to Bolton today for some turns. As of this morning, Bolton Valley was reporting 7 inches of new snow from the storm, and snowfall has continued today. Their reported storm total seemed like a good amount for some ski touring, so that was my plan if I was heading up to the mountain alone. My younger son didn’t work until the afternoon, so he was planning to head up for a morning lift-served session with a friend, and my wife had the day off due to school closures from the storm and she was thinking of going as well. Those plans fell through though – the winds were so strong that the Vista Quad Chair was on wind hold before it ever opened, and even the Mid Mountain Chair quickly went on wind hold in the morning. The only chairlift running by mid-morning was the Snowflake Chair, and with most of the Snowflake terrain not open, we generally felt that it wasn’t worth heading up for such minimal terrain. That brought me back to my original plan of ski touring on Wilderness. Down at our place in the valley we’d picked up 4 to 5 inches of snow from the storm at that point, but the contrast in accumulations was stark as I dropped down into Bolton Flats on my way to the mountain – the snow accumulation there looked like an inch at most. Accumulations were the same at the base of the Bolton Valley Access Road at 340’, and I had to get above 1,000’ before I really started seeing accumulations of at least a few inches. Up in the Village parking areas, it was impossible to find a sheltered spot to get a reliable measurement of accumulations at 2,000’, so I had to wait until I got into the relative shelter of the Wilderness Uphill Route to really check the snow depth. Once one the ascent though, I checked the snow depth along the sheltered edge of Wilderness numerous times, and the measurements were all between 8 and 9 inches, with one measurement of 7 inches. At 2,500’ I was measuring 9 to 10 inches of accumulation, and I never got any reliable measurements higher than that, even up above 3,000’. I stress “reliable” because the winds had wreaked havoc on the snow in many areas. Some spots were scoured down to the old base, and some places had 5-foot drifts. Up at the Wilderness Summit at 3,150’ the winds were absolutely howling – they had to be in the 50 to 60 MPH range at times. Finding a sheltered spot to pack up my skins was a huge challenge. Thankfully, temperatures were in the 20s F, so there wasn’t frigid cold to go with those winds. Photographs of gentled-settled powder snow were difficult to come by today, but if you wanted to get images of drifts… they were everywhere. Here’s the snow accumulations profile I saw as of midday in the Bolton Valley area for this ongoing storm: 340’: 0.5-1” 500’: 1-2” 1,000’: 3-4” 1,200’: 3-4” 1,500’: 4-5” 2,000’: 8-9” 2,500’: 9-10” 3,000’: 9-10” The skiing turned out to be excellent though. As long as you avoid any wind-scoured areas, there’s been a really decent resurfacing from this storm so far. We’ve picked up ¾” if liquid equivalent from the storm at our site down in the valley, and the mountains should have had at least that much, so an inch of new liquid equivalent up there seems very reasonable based on what I experienced today. The new snow our there certainly wasn’t fluff; with all the wind, it was actually feeling like typical 10% H2O synoptic snow, and out of the wind, the new snow was substantial enough to even resurface black diamond pitches. So, while it wasn’t sublime champagne powder, it was decent medium-weight powder, and it was much more what the slopes needed with respect to resurfacing. We didn’t get too much accumulation (about an additional half inch) during the day today here at our site along the spine because as forecast, the Froude Numbers went well above 1.0, but they may have come back down a bit because we’re getting some decent accumulation this evening with these more recent bands of moisture pushing through.

I just received a text alert that the Winter Storm Watches here in Vermont had been converted – Winter Storm Warnings along the spine of the Northern Greens, and Winter Weather Advisories in the surrounding areas. The updated Event Total Snowfall map from the BTV NWS is similar to the previous version, with areas of 12”-18” along the spine and a few pockets of 18”-24”. In the mountain point forecasts I’m generally seeing 1 to 2 feet of snowfall in the forecast at elevation as was mentioned earlier, and we should get their latest thoughts when they put out their next AFD.

I see they expanded the Winter Storm Watches as they had considered – they’ve added them here in the Northern Greens and down into the Central Greens. The latest BTV NWS maps are below:

I hadn’t realized that temperatures would already be coming down in the mountains this morning with that last batch of precipitation since it was coming in from the southwest, but I guess it was still supplying cooler air: Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 633 AM EST Mon Dec 30 2024 .SYNOPSIS... …gusty southwest winds will help to slowly push cooler air into the area with rain changing to snow showers over the Adirondacks by tonight. I looked into the discussion because I was seeing snow falling today on the mountain webcams, and the point forecasts indicate that temperatures at elevation don’t really move much above freezing from here on out. The BTV NWS is certainly discussing that snow potential for the coming days – it doesn’t look outrageously potent in the modeling to me, but it seems like the duration is an important aspect; most of the models seem to be in the range of 1 to 2 inches of liquid equivalent for the Northern Greens before things wind down late on Sunday: .SYNOPSIS... Another storm system will impact our region on Wednesday into Thursday with the potential for a long duration accumulating snowfall event for the mountains of Vermont and northern New York. Much cooler temperatures develop on brisk westerly winds for Thursday into Friday. .SHORT TERM /TUESDAY NIGHT THROUGH WEDNESDAY NIGHT/... As of 356 AM EST Monday...The center of a deepening low passes over southeast New England and into Maine on New Year`s Day and into the night, taking an ideal storm track for widespread snowfall. The only problem, despite being January, there will be no antecedent cold air, so the precipitation will only start as elevation dependent snowfall. .LONG TERM /THURSDAY THROUGH SUNDAY/... As of 356 AM EST Monday...The low that passes through on New Year`s lingers over Quebec for a few days and causes persistent cyclonic flow into the weekend. Saturated low and mid levels of the atmosphere past 10,000 feet will lead to almost continuous upslope snowfall in the mountains.

As we get closer, the BTV NWS is starting to cover it more in their AFDs, but with that cyclonic flow and potential assistance from lake moisture (both mentioned in the bolded text) it does have the look of snow from Wednesday right through Sunday. Most of the modeling shows it to varying degrees. It’s not really a clipper-style bread and butter pattern for the Northern Greens, but that cyclonic flow is often part of it as well. Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 131 PM EST Sun Dec 29 2024 LONG TERM /WEDNESDAY THROUGH SUNDAY/... As of 355 AM EST Sunday...As additional s/w energy rotates acrs the Mid Atlantic States on Weds, secondary coastal develops occurs over southern New England. This area of low pres is progged to deepen with both 850/700h circulations becoming closed off as the system lifts toward Maine. This cyclonic circulation wl help to advect cooler 925mb to 850mb temps acrs our cwa on favorable upslope flow on Weds into Thurs. As both 925mb and 850mb temps fall below 0C by 00z Thurs, expect snow levels to drop to the valley floors. Still some uncertainty on how quickly this system becomes closed off and if the circulation slows down per the CMC/ECMWF or remains progressive and quickly lifts away from our cwa per the GFS. For now have continued with likely/cat pops for most of the area on Weds, but confine the highest likely pops to the northern Dacks/western Slopes for Weds night into Thurs, before tapering off to chc by Thurs night. Several inches of snow is likely for the mountains during this time frame with increasing snow ratio. Deep cyclonic flow prevails into next weekend with favorable upslope flow, continued llvl caa, and some lake moisture interaction, helping to keep the threat for scattered mountain snow showers going. Progged 850mb temps drop btwn -14C and -18C by Saturday, supporting highs in the mid teens to mid 20s with lows holding in the 10 to 20 degree range due to clouds/winds.

With warming temperatures in the forecast today, I figured the slopes would be softening up, so it felt like a good day for some lift-served skiing. Temperatures were still well below freezing this morning though, so I was unsure how quickly surfaces would soften, and I decided to sharpen the edges on my mid-fat Telemark skis. Last time I had need of edges, I found them sorely lacking, so it felt like it was time. I can’t recall the last time I sharpened the edges of those skis, but it has to have been at least a couple of years. Out on the slopes I found an interesting mix of conditions. We’ve had some mountain temperature inversions in place recently, so I actually found some of the softest conditions up high near the summits, while groomed slopes with manmade snow were notably firmer on the lower mountain. While there was nothing that was outrageously icy, it was nice to have the extra sharpness to my edges on the manmade snow. One exciting thing I saw in the Bolton Valley Snow Report this morning was that resort had finally opened up the Cobrass area, which included Cobrass and nearby trails. Today being my first chance to check out the conditions in that area, I headed right down Cobrass for my first run. Being up near the summit where the warmer temperatures of the inversion had been around for a bit, I found the snow on Cobrass to already be nicely softened. The skier’s right of the steep upper section had excellent soft snow that had been built up by skier traffic. It was so good that I went right back to it on my next run. I also hit Alta Vista off the Vista Summit, and it was nice, but it didn’t offer up quite as much soft snow as Cobrass. We’re moving out of the quiet period of weather that we’ve had over the past several days in a more active regime. The system moving into the area over the next couple of days doesn’t look like it will provide any snow, but the one behind it should give the local mountains their next shot at substantial accumulation, with the potential for upslope snow on the back side.

I’ve been telling my wife about the fantastic powder conditions I’ve been finding on my outings up at Bolton Valley, so today she joined me for a ski tour. I returned to Timberline and brought her on the same tour that I did yesterday, and the powder continued to be just as fantastic as it’s been the past several days. She was definitely impressed with the quality of the powder, and we talked a lot about exactly what was making it come together for such perfection and effortless turns. It came down to the fact that the gradient in it is just ideal; it’s right-side-up with no intervening hollow or dense layers. The top also has a subtle layer of extremely delicate surface hoar, or surface hoar-like crystals, and that really finishes off the uppermost layer of the powder with extremely dry snow to set the starting point of the density gradient. Anyway, the turns were silky smooth, and the skier traffic was very light, so there are still plenty of fresh lines out there for folks who want to check out some really primo powder. Tomorrow might be the last day of this current weather regime though, since some warmer temperatures are coming. Our next potential snowstorm could be coming in just a few days though; the models suggest there could be something around the New Year’s holiday.

High-quality powder snow is generally ephemeral; it’s best skied when it’s fresh because it loses loft as it settles, and the bubby “champagne” effect is reduced. I say “generally” because there are times when powder can improve over time. We’re in one of those weather regimes now, and every time I head out, the areas of untouched snow just seem to ski better and better. The humidity is low, and each night we’re dropping into the single digits above or below zero F; it’s a recipe for great powder preservation. I already noted the improvement in the snow between my ski sessions on Monday and Tuesday, and here we are on Thursday and the powder just continues to impress. I had some time to get out for a tour this afternoon, and I managed to catch some sunset skiing on Timberline. Since I’d had such good snow on Tuesday, I actually followed that same route today and stuck to Spell Binder. The top layer of the powder is just feathers, and it gradually gets denser the deeper you go into the snowpack, which is just the way you want if for skiing. I’m not sure if the skiing could be any more effortless than what I’d experience on Tuesday, but perhaps it was today. Touring skier traffic hasn’t been too busy at Timberline in the past few days, but as always, another storm would be welcomed. It’s certainly not that the quality of the powder needs a reset, but we could use a reset of the ski tracks on the trails. Untracked lines are still there, but they won’t hold out forever, and eventually new snow will be needed.

As of their early morning snow report, Bolton Valley had received 8 inches of accumulation from the clipper that began affecting the area yesterday evening, so I headed up for some morning turns with my wife and our younger son. We’re not fully into the holiday week yet, so visitation at the resort was still fairly modest – around the time of the opening of the early lifts, folks were parking in the second and third tiers of the main Village parking areas. I’d say we found about 8 inches of new snow at most elevations, so that’s right on track with the snow report. The powder was dry, midweight snow – my snow analyses for the storm up to that point came in at 7 to 8 % H2O. Total liquid equivalent from the system stands at 0.42 inches at our site in the valley, so that’s very much in line with the forecasts, and the mountain was probably somewhere in the range of a ½ inch of liquid equivalent. While not enough for a massive resurfacing, it did a decent job of resetting the surfaces atop subsurfaces that are already of decent quality from the past couple of systems. After a couple days of below average temperatures, we’ve warmed back up into the 20s F now, and with light snow falling and no wind, the weather was fantastic out on the slopes today. We started off with a run on the Vista Quad, and Alta Vista had nice powder and chowder available - it was enough to be bottomless in untouched areas on moderate slope angles. Our timing was perfect for catching the opening of the Wilderness Lift, so we did a couple runs there, then finished off with more runs off Vista and Snowflake. The resort even hit Spillway hard with snowmaking and it’s good to go – my wife and I didn’t ski it, but my son and his friend did and said it was fine for manmade snow. Conditions on the slopes are certainly good, but the natural snow trails could still use more cover, and the resort will need that to expand terrain into areas where they aren’t making snow. They haven’t yet opened Timberline, most of the Snowflake area, or the Cobrass area, so there’s a lot of terrain still to be made available.

Yesterday’s turns at Timberline were quite good, so I headed back up to Bolton Valley again today for more ski touring. Compared to yesterday, temperatures were about 10 degrees warmer today when I arrived at the Timberline Base. Even though it was cloudy all afternoon ahead of our next incoming storm, the warmer temperatures were quite apparent. Yesterday I toured in the Twice as Nice and Showtime areas, so today I decided to mix things up a bit and spent most of the tour on Spell Binder. With our sub-zero F temperatures overnight, the snow was extremely well preserved, so the depth and quality of the powder was essentially the same as what I encountered on yesterday’s tour. There may have been a subtle bit of settling in the powder overnight, but I’d actually say today’s turns were better and even more consistent than yesterday’s. It’s hard to say if it was just better overall snow deposition and protection in the Spell Binder area, or the pitch was just right for the conditions, or the snow just settled a bit and set up an even better density gradient in the powder. Perhaps all those factors contributed to varying degrees, but whatever the case, the powder skiing was excellent out there today – bottomless turns with about 8 to 12 inches of medium weight right-side-up powder that made the skiing nearly effortless on fat boards. Conditions are likely to change by tomorrow though, since another winter storm is moving into the area tonight. Winter Weather Advisories started appearing in the area yesterday afternoon, and both the advisories and projected snow accumulations from the National Weather Service in Burlington have been ramping up since then. While I while strolling along during my tour today I figured I’d see what my watch had to say about the weather, so I asked for the forecast. Since what comes from the watch is typically briefer than the phone, all it said was “The National Weather Service Office in Burlington has issued a Winter Storm Warning through tomorrow; it should be snowy tonight.” My first thought was, “Well, huh, that’s new; projections for this system seem to keep escalating as we get closer.” In the verbal forecast there was nothing about temperatures or anything else beyond the Winter Storm Warning and the fact it was going to snow, but I certainly like the way the watch prioritizes things. Anyway, indeed Winter Storm Warnings are up for the Northern Greens now ahead of the next system with potentially a foot of snow at elevation. We’ll see what tomorrow brings, but it could be another great ski day.

I was out on a ski tour at Bolton this afternoon and I while strolling along I figured I’d see what my watch had to say about the weather, so I asked for the forecast. Since what comes from the watch is typically briefer than the phone, all it said was “The National Weather Service in Burlington has issued a Winter Storm Warning through tomorrow; it should be snowy tonight.” My first thought was, “Well, huh, that’s new; projections for this system seem to keep escalating as we get closer.” In the verbal forecast there was also nothing about temperatures or anything else beyond the Winter Storm Warning and the fact it was going to snow, but I certainly like the way the watch prioritizes things. Anyway, indeed Winter Storm Warnings are up for the Northern Greens now ahead of the next system. Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 344 PM EST Mon Dec 23 2024 .NEAR TERM /THROUGH TUESDAY NIGHT/... As of 344 PM EST Monday... snowfall amounts for tonight and Tuesday have been increased by 10 to 20 percent based on the latest guidance. The main reason behind this increase is additional influx of moisture given the slightly higher amplitude upper level trough and increased upper level forcing. Model soundings continue to show a 5000 ft thick snow growth layer around 10,000 ft this evening at the onset of snowfall with strong omega co-located within the snow growth layer. This is perfect for dendritic growth for large snowflakes. One concern with the snow growth layer being so elevated, strong 925 to 805 mb winds may help fragment snowflakes leading to needle-like snowflakes which tend to accumulate at a slower rate. This may initially cut into snow amounts but as the snow growth lowers through the overnight hours, low level winds will also weaken. Snowfall rates between 0.5" to 1" per hour may occur during the overnight hours, especially near the Canadian border in response to the lowering snow growth layer and lighter winds. Given all this information, we have gone ahead and hoisted a few winter storm warning for parts of northwestern Vermont and northern New York as snow totals may approach 8 inches locally.

My wife mentioned to me this morning that she’d been seeing increased snowfall numbers in the forecast, and I also saw on TWC that the Winter Weather Advisories had expanded around here. When I checked the BTV NWS site, indeed it looks like projected accumulations have been bumped a bit for this next system, and the BTV NWS forecast discussion talks about the reasoning: Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 746 AM EST Mon Dec 23 2024 NEAR TERM /THROUGH TUESDAY/... As of 645 AM EST Monday... *A Winter Weather Advisory is in effect for much of northern New York, northern Vermont, and portions of central Vermont. Areal coverage of 3 to 6 inches has expanded over the previous forecast. Moderate snowfall could impact holiday travelers this evening through late morning Tuesday. A clipper-type system will move through the region this afternoon through Tuesday morning bringing breezy winds and accumulating snow. Two facets of the forecast have changed and generally resulted in increasing snowfall amounts: QPF has increased, and the overall 850mb low-level jet has weakened below 40kts for most locations. Moisture is still projected to be mainly along and behind the lljet supporting more snowfall than usual for downslope locations along the eastern Adirondacks while limiting the eastward extent of shadowed precipitation. As such, snowfall amounts were increased pretty much everywhere leading to more widespread cover of 3 to 6 inches of accumulating snow. One foil, which moderated my forecast a bit, is that the dendritic growth zone is rather high for many locations and coincident with 35+kt winds. These winds will likely fracture a good portion of dendrites resulting in more of a mixed snow-crystal structure reaching the ground favoring a dry, but relatively more dense snowpack that could limit snow depth. Should winds decrease further, however, another couple of inches could accumulate.

The forecast for today was even colder than yesterday, but more snow from the back side of our recent clipper system continued to fall even into last night as the cold temperatures allowed Lake Champlain to contribute moisture for lake-effect snow into the mountains. Thanks to the boost from the lake, we picked up 5 to 6 inches of snow down at our site in the valley, and as of this morning’s snow report, Bolton Valley had picked up 16 inches of snow in the past 48 hours. With temperatures hovering in the single digits F, touring was the call for today’s ski outing, and based on what I saw up at the mountain yesterday, Bolton’s Timberline area looked ready for exploration. It was 2 F when I pulled into the Timberline base area in the middle of the afternoon, but thankfully there was no wind, and the afternoon sun really helped take off the chill. There were a few other groups out touring as well, but overall, it looked like a fairly quite Sunday afternoon at Timberline. The Timberline Uphill Route is in excellent shape, and perhaps because of the temperatures, skier traffic on the Timberline terrain has been quite light. The powder depth at 1,500’ at the Timberline Base is about 6 to 8 inches, and up in the 2,000-2,500’ elevation range it’s 8 to 12 inches. There’s not really much base below the powder down at the 1,500’ elevation, and it’s probably a couple hundred vertical feet up before you start getting a decent amount of base snow. Thankfully, the base elevations down near the Timberline Base Lodge are manageable with the available snowpack because most of the on-piste terrain there isn’t too steep. Above that elevation, the base is sufficient for great skiing aside from scoured areas, steep areas, or areas with underlying obstacles in the snow. The Timberline terrain can certainly support touring traffic right now, but there’s no way it would support lift-served levels of skiing, so we’ll need more snow or they’ll need to put some manmade snow down if they want to start up Timberline lift service in the short term. As the lake-effect snow continued last night, the flakes transitioned from more dendritic to rather small and grainy, so snow ratios came down to the 8 to 10% H2O range for my last couple of snow analyses from the event. Consistent with those observations, what I found out there today was fairly medium-weight powder. It did a better job of covering the subsurfaces than super light powder would have, and it was still dry enough that bogging down wasn’t any issue even on shallower pitches. I was on 115 mm fat skis, which helped of course, but I don’t think most folks would find movement an issue with whatever skis they had. A clipper system is forecast to start affecting the area tomorrow, and Winter Weather Advisories are already up for the western slopes of the Northern Greens. It’s not a huge system, but snow forecasts for the local mountains are in the 6 to 8-inch range and liquid equivalent is up around a half inch in some of the modeling, so it would be a nice boost to the snowpack and snow surfaces if it plays out like that.

I saw that – and Winter Weather Advisories are also up for the western slopes of the Northern Greens.

Thanks for latest maps on that Monday/Tuesday system. I mentioned the next couple of potential events in my report above, and that first one has been looking nice in the modeling. The thoughts from the latest BTV NWS forecast discussion are below, and they do mention the potential for more snow in the higher elevations: Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 946 PM EST Sat Dec 21 2024 .SHORT TERM /MONDAY NIGHT THROUGH TUESDAY/... As of 304 PM EST Saturday... Monday night, a weak low pressure system and shortwave aloft will track eastward into our forecast area, spreading some snow over the North Country. Snow will start as early as Monday evening in northern New York, but the steadiest snow can be expected overnight Monday night/Tuesday morning. Once the low moves to our east by midday Tuesday, widespread snow will diminish into more localized showers that will mainly be tied to higher terrain. Total QPF associated with the system will be in the 0.1 to 0.4 inch range. Snow ratios around 15:1 will equate to a widespread 2-4 inches of snow out of the event, with some higher amounts possible over the mountain summits. The good news is that temperatures remain cold enough during the event to keep precipitation type as all snow, which will provide a nice backdrop for a white Christmas and overall limit the impacts of the system. We’re closing in on 40 inches of snow for the month here at our site, so we’re nearing an above average December in terms of snowfall. It’s amazing to think, but this is already the snowiest December here at our site since 2017-2018. Another few inches and we’d actually pass 2017-2018 for our snowiest December in over a decade, so I guess it really has been a minute since we’ve had an overall snowy December. Whatever we end up with, the big period propping this month up in terms of snowfall was simply that first week – and it was just a Northern Greens bread and butter pattern with no major storms. It feels like we’re in a slightly less vigorous version of that now though, which is a good thing in terms of snowfall and the quality of the ski conditions.

It was a cold one out there today; indeed, it was really a good day to just enjoy lots of indoor activities. But we did just have another storm push through the region, and the conditions on the slopes are good and keep getting better, so I still wanted to get out to see what the new snow was like and get some exercise. Bolton’s Wilderness Chair was set to open at 10:00 A.M. again, and with the cold temperatures I definitely wanted to warm up with some touring. So, I decided to go with a session like Thursday, which I kicked off with some touring before moving to lift-served turns. When I arrived at the Bolton Valley Village midmorning, it was 7 F according to the car thermometer, and single digits F is definitely midwinter cold. There wasn’t much for wind in the parking area at that moment, so I was encouraged by that while gearing up. Ascending via the Wilderness Uphill Route was quite comfortable, since it’s well out of any wind, and I was generating plenty of heat. I stopped my tour at 2,500’, enjoyed a run through the powder along the edges of Lower Turnpike, and then hopped on the Wilderness Chair for a ride. My body was warmed up for the touring and Telemark turns, and the wind was happily at my back while I was on the lift, but I could tell it was pretty brutal up there at the Wilderness Summit above 3,000’. The calm conditions from below were gone, and the biting winds along the ridgelines made their presence known. After that trip, I didn’t have much interest in heading up to check out the Vista Summit, so I just stayed low and enjoyed a run off the Snowflake Chair. The warm-up touring definitely helped me stay comfortably warm for a couple of lift rides at least before I headed home. Powder depths have obviously been bolstered by this most recent system, and conditions are good, but certainly nothing stratospheric for the Northern Greens. One factor in that assessment is that this latest storm was nice, but the snow was quite dry, and it was less of a resurfacing than the previous storm. We picked up about 0.20” of liquid equivalent from this system compared to 0.40” of liquid equivalent from the previous one, so scale those up a bit according for Bolton’s elevation and it give you a sense for their contributions to resurfacing. The resort is opening more terrain all the time, but lift-served natural snow terrain could still use another solid resurfacing storm with an inch or two of liquid equivalent to take care of the tougher areas. Overall, the natural snow terrain that’s open is quite skiable with good coverage and quality surfaces, and there’s a decent, consolidated base above 2,000’, but you still need to pick and choose your lines somewhat in those spots exposed to wind that get scoured. The resort was indicating 3-6” of new snow in their early morning report, and I can’t separate out accumulations from this storm specifically, but the changes in surface snow depths between Thursday and today give a sense of the contributions from this most recent event at various elevations. Thursday’s surface snow depths are on the left, and the approximate depths I observed today are on the right in bold: 340’: T --> 1-2” 500’: T --> ~2” 1,000’: T-1” --> 2-3” 1,200’: 0.5-1” --> 3-4” 1,500’: 1-2” --> 5-6” 2,000’: 3-4” --> 8-10” 2,500’: 5-6” --> 9-11” 3,000’: 6-7” --> 10-12” So, there’s a lot of nice, fairly deep powder above 2,000’, and it’s right-side-up and skiing great thanks to this latest storm’s snow being dry. My observations from down at the house have been giving me snow densities in the 2 to 6% H2O range throughout this latest storm, so indeed it’s some quality powder. The back side of this system has actually been aided by some direct lake-effect off Lake Champlain. The bands were mostly oriented to affect the Champlain Valley earlier in the morning, but as midday approached, the bands shifted such that they were more directly hitting the mountains. That definitely helped keep it extra snowy throughout the day and boost accumulations. Tomorrow is supposed to be even a bit colder than today, so if I head out it will just be for a tour vs. riding any lifts. After the warming and consolidation earlier this week, it looks like Timberline is probably getting in shape to support some good touring and powder skiing again, so I may stay low and tour there if a ski session comes together. We’ll see how much additional snow the resort is reporting in the morning, but since we were getting hit at our place by those lake effect bands right into the evening today, Bolton should have been getting even more of that snow. The models suggest we’ve got another couple of clippers affecting the area over the next few days, with warmer temperatures as well, so that’s looking nice moving into the holiday week.

I just looked outside and saw that it was still snowing here, and apparently the lake effect is still going on even now. Presumably these cold temperatures in the single digits are making for a decent temperature differential off the lake water. To some degree it looks like our typical, moist, northwest flow into the spine, but those narrower bands have the more unique look of some direct lake involvement.

Nice, thanks for posting that – it was neat to see the Champlain lake-effect presentations on the radar today. I’d argue that Lake Champlain is always there helping to subtly boost the moisture and snowfall heading into the Greens (at least until the lake freezes over), but it’s only so often that the mountains pull the direct Champlain lake effect from their snowfall arsenal. At the time of your image, the bulk of the bands were certainly affecting the Champlain Valley, although you can see them helping to supply a bit of that moisture pushing eastward into the Greens. As the morning wore on though, the bands shifted such that they were more directly hitting the mountains, and I added a few additional radar images below. I was up at Bolton Valley this morning, so I hadn’t seen the radar to know exactly where the moisture was coming from, but the flakes were starting to pick up as I was leaving around midday, and when I got home I saw that it was due to the bands coming directly off the lake. In terms of the local mountains, typically it’s the Central Greens that get the most benefit from direct Champlain lake-effect, but we were definitely getting some up at Bolton today. Down at the house on the Waterbury/Bolton line we were getting hit by the bands as well to varying intensities, and it definitely helped keep it extra snowy throughout the day and boost accumulations.

Per the discussion in the NNE Winter Thread last night, our most recent winter storm system started up yesterday afternoon. Snow levels were up above 1,000’ to start, but they gradually came down in elevation, and the valleys were reporting a mix of rain and snow in the evening. By 7:00 P.M. we started getting initial slushy accumulations on elevated surfaces down here at the 500-foot elevation, and it took a bit more time for the temperatures to drop below freezing, but within a couple of hours they’d fallen enough that the accumulations really started to take hold. Although we only had an inch or two of snow accumulation here at our site, we picked up 0.40 inches of liquid equivalent from the system, so the snow for the local mountains probably had at least a half inch of liquid in it. That’s definitely enough to get into the realm of a modest resurfacing. When I saw Bolton Valley’s initial early morning report of 3 to 4 inches of snow, I decided that mid-fats were the practical play for today’s skis. My younger son had the day off from work, and I’d planned to get him up if the morning snowfall numbers were substantial enough, but 3-4” was modest enough that I decided to let him sleep in and I headed up by myself to sample what the storm had brought us. Heading up the Bolton Valley Access Road, the elevation dependence of the snowfall was stark: I had ascended above 1,000’ before there was really more than a trace of new accumulation in that area. And even after that, accumulations were slow to increase; it wasn’t until I hit the Bolton Valley Village at 2,000’ that I really felt the accumulation were substantial enough that they were going to make a big impact in the skiing. I did find 3 to 4 inches of new snow at 2,000’ when I did some checks around the Village, so that was encouraging – if the main base had that much new accumulation at that point, it was likely going to be more in the higher elevations. The Wilderness Double Chair was scheduled to start running at 10:00 A.M., so my plan was to kick off the day’s ski session with some touring before Wilderness lift access was available. I ascended up to ~2,700’ to one of my usual transition points by the time lift-service was underway, so my initial descent was from there. My descent was via a combination of Cougar and Lower Turnpike, and the powder turns were excellent. On low-angle terrain, the new snow was substantial enough that it easily provided 100% bottomless powder turns, and on medium-angle terrain I’d say it was in the range of ~80% bottomless turns. The new snow was medium weight powder in probably the 8% H2O range, and just dry enough that you could keep moving fine on even low-angle terrain. When I’d descended to the base of the Wilderness Chair it was one wind hold, and they suspected it would be about 30 minutes before it would be back up, so I checked out the other lift offerings. The Snowflake Chair offered some great turns with a few inches of powder over a groomed base on Sprig O’ Pine, and off the Mid Mountain Chair, Beech Seal had excellent natural accumulations that had resurfaced even the manmade snow on the skier’s left to a good degree. Off the Vista Quad Chair, Sherman’s Pass is finally open, so I used it to make my way back over toward the Wilderness terrain, which delivered great natural snow turns as usual. Riding the Vista Quad, I found that the winds were howling above 3,000’, and temperatures were dropping well into the 20s F. It was getting bitter up there. In terms of snowfall and accumulations, there was at least light to moderate snowfall during my entire ski session, and it was pounding 1-2”/hour snowfall for a while just as I was starting the initial ascent of my ski tour. With continued snowfall and rates like that, it wasn’t surprising that accumulations had jumped up a bit from the initial morning report. Here’s the approximate snow accumulations profile I found from this event as of about midday when I was leaving the mountain: 340’: T 500’: T” 1,000’: T-1” 1,200’: 0.5-1” 1,500’: 1-2” 2,000’: 3-4” 2,500’: 5-6” 3,000’: 6-7” It was really windy up at the Vista Summit, and I couldn’t get access to the usual protected spots I like to use to gauge depth, so what I’ve put down is my best estimate. Overall though, isolating depths for the snow from this most recent storm was relatively easy because we had some warmth earlier this week that consolidated the top of the snowpack. Like with the last storm though, it’s not a rock-hard subsurface – it’s a spongy interface and the new snow has bonded well to it, so that’s great for the skiing. For the elevations below 1,500’, those depths reported above are actually more than what was there when I initially ascended the access road in the morning, because the heavy snowfall during the morning had added accumulations there that hadn’t been present earlier. I was surprised that the base of Timberline at 1,500’ only had an inch or two of new snow, so even being where the precipitation fell as all snow wasn’t quite enough to get solid accumulations that would dramatically affect the resurfacing of the slopes; you really needed another 500 feet or so to get into the best stuff. The continued snowfall today was definitely having an effect though, as evidenced by some of the midday updates to the Bolton Valley Snow Report: 10:30am Update: How's about a couple of rope drops? Glades, Swing, Fanny and more have joined the ranks since we opened this morning, and the snow is still coming down. 12:15pm Update: The ropes keep dropping - we're adding Bolton Outlaw, Peggy Dow's, Cougar, Old Turnpike, and Lower crossover to the mix! This storm was a great way to kick the conditions up some notches as we head toward Christmas, and with a couple more clippers on the way in the coming days plus cold temperatures for the foreseeable future, it looks like conditions will be improving throughout the coming week.

We've been mixing for a while as well down here at 500 feet, and there's a bit of slushy accumulation on the elevated snowboard. The temperature is falling faster now around here, so more snow is mixing in and the snow line is definitely coming down.

After the relatively warm midweek storm moved across the area, we picked up an inch or two of snow in the valley between the back side of that system and the lake-effect snow that followed it. While the storm wasn’t quite a net gain for the snowpack here at our site, we only lost a couple tenths of an inch of snow water equivalent in the snow on the ground, so it was fairly inconsequential in that regard. It did mean a thaw-freeze cycle for the snowpack though, so once temperatures came down, the snowpack was solid with just a bit of fresh snow on top. This was the first notable consolidation event of the season at our site, so we finally transitioned to a much more robust snowpack down at the house now vs. what was there before. It had slowly been settling and consolidating on its own, but it was still somewhat dry, and you could dig down to the ground fairly easily. That midweek storm was likely a net gain for liquid in the mountain snowpack, but I assumed off piste surfaces would be quite hard after the thaw-freeze, similar to what we experience down in the valley. I’d been hearing some good reports out of the mountains with regard to the backside accumulations from the storm, but it was hard to image it would be enough to really get the off piste and backcountry conditions back to where there were earlier in the week. With that in mind, my wife and I headed up to Bolton Valley for some snowshoeing on Saturday. We always find that snowshoeing is a nice change of pace if the snowpack is likely to be punchy, crusty, or icy, since even Nordic skiing with those conditions can be unpleasant if the snow is too firm. We figured we’d mostly be using the crampons on our snowshoes during the tour as we expected something in the range of a dust-on-crust snowpack, but that wasn’t the case at all. I was amazed to find that at around the 2,000’-2,200’ elevations where we toured, there were 6 to 10 inches of powder above the base layers. And, the base wasn’t even rock hard, it was a crumbly interface with the powder above it that made for excellent touring. We couldn’t believe that we were actually having to use the floatation of our snowshoes because of the depth of the powder, and the crampons were needed only occasionally in packed areas. The resort was reporting 8 inches of new snow in the past 48 hours, and it really wasn’t just eye candy, all that new snow set up some very pleasant snow surfaces. The only major issues we noted on Saturday were that some of the water bars had been blow out by the rain. Those areas required some extra navigation, and we could see that people had established routes around them on popular ascents like the Bryant Trail. I’d say our observations were right in line with the big washout on Gondolier at Stowe that Powderfreak talked about – the snowpack itself wasn’t damaged all the much by the rain, the more notable effects were on drainage/water bars. Experiencing the quality of the snow on Saturday, it was obvious that the powder skiing would be great on low to moderate angle terrain, so my son and I headed out for a ski tour on Bolton’s Nordic & Backcountry Network on Sunday. We toured up the Bryant Trail to about the base of the Big Blue area. We wanted to stick to more moderate and low-angle terrain that was a best fit for the depth and density of the powder, so we began our descent in the lower reaches of Big Blue, then worked our way through the relatively low-angle terrain between the Bryant and Coyote trails. Later on the descent we crossed to the west side of Bryant, skied the upper sections of the Cup Runneth Over glade, and finished out with turn on the untracked areas of World Cup. The resort hadn’t set formal Nordic grooming tracks up in those areas of World Cup, but there was a track line that had been made by skiers, and the rest of the trail was untracked powder. Those areas of World Cup were very open and provided some of the most consistent powder turns of the day. The pitch was also perfect for the depth and consistency of the powder, and my son said those sections were actually his favorite turns of the tour.

VT-WS-19 is the number for our reporting station through CoCoRaHS, and all the data are publicly available through their site – PF often posts their maps of rain, snowfall, snowpack, etc. here in the forum. A number of people in the forum are members: https://cocorahs.org/ It’s not as involved as being a reporter for an NWS Coop site – there are fewer of those. And I believe CoCoRaHS likes morning observations with a preference for reporting somewhere in the 6:00 A.M. to 8:00 A.M. range (the preferred specific time to submit CoCoRaHS precipitation data is 7 AM, but you can report whenever works for you, and many people do). If I recall correctly, I think Tamarack has his own time for reporting during the day, to keep his data consistent with what he had been doing for years.

As I mentioned in my recent mountain report, things have been busy between skiing and work, but this most recent system has helped with a little downtime to get some numbers together. For the winter season thus far at our site, the only thing holding it back from really tracking with some of the top dogs has been November. Snowfall for November here in the valley was about a foot below average, so that really set things behind. You can see this in the blue line in the first plot below – the cumulative snowfall plot was rather flat with only minimal accumulations from various warmer/smaller storms until the end of the month when it finally began to rise. It certainly wasn’t a bottom of the barrel November, but it’s been a decade since we’ve had a November with less snow than this one, so that says something. I don’t really track temperatures, but it was pretty warm for a good chunk of the month. Last season, the tenor of November was vastly different. The snowstorms began churning from the first of the month, and of course the cumulative snowfall plot started climbing right from that point as well. You can see that in the red line in the second plot below. We never really blasted well away from average November snowfall pace, but we stayed at or above it for the whole month and overall, it at least came in as a solid/decent snowfall month. You can really see the contrast in snowfall between this November (blue) and last November (red) on that second plot though; this November just started really late. With all that said, this season did give us our 9th white Thanksgiving in a row here at the house. That’s the longest white Thanksgiving streak in our data set, and it now bumps the average/odds for white Thanksgiving here close to 80% by the numbers. In contrast to November, this December’s snowfall has been strong thus far. That immediately jumps out if you look at the blue line on either the first or second plot – it simply takes off after November 30th, and you can see how it crosses the 2023 red line and pulls well ahead of average snowfall pace (white dotted line). We had over 30 inches of snow here in the valley in just the first 10 days of December this year, and it’s easy math to see where the month would end up if snowfall stayed at that pace for 30+ days – that would take the top spot in my December records. Obviously, it’s hard to maintain that snowfall pace for an entire month as our most recent system shows, but the thing is, this December’s snowfall thus far came with no large storms – it was just that modest bread and butter pattern that the GFS showed as we talked about a week or two ago. We’ve had six storms during this season’s initial December stretch, and the largest was only 8.2 inches. Although not directly relevant to this season, the second plot really shows how December played out last season – snowfall just tanked after mid-month, and you can see that nearly flat red line that quickly dropped behind average snowfall pace. In just its first week, this December’s snowfall surpassed last December’s snowfall for the entire month. The third plot below has the cumulative snowfall data for our site for the past five seasons, since you were wondering how we are doing compared to other years. You can see that this season is actually outpacing all of the previous four after this early December run. So, if it’s felt like the first 10 days of December put on a good showing – the data say that they did. And again, that’s with no massive synoptic storms or stationary closed lows sitting to our northwest, just a steady diet of bread and butter. Bread and butter is just that, sort of the typical, staple pattern, so imagine if the mountains just simply had that for an entire season. And finally, the fourth plot below has all the data from my data set so that you can see where this season sits with respect to all the others. This season actually stands in a solid position (fourth overall) at this early stage, but the real big dogs are typically ones that couple together a solid November and December, and you can see those topping the chart. Anyway, the current ongoing precipitation has already changed over to snow here in the local mountains, and snow levels should be dropping to the valley floors over the next couple of hours, so we should continue tacking on to the current December snowfall numbers. For the local resorts, I’ve got the updates on their snowfall progress similar to what I posted a few days ago. Jay Peak is currently at 99 inches of snowfall on the season, so they’re running at 99”/54” = 183% of average snowfall pace. Bolton Valley is reporting 55 inches of snowfall on the season, so they’re running at 55”/49” = 112% of average snowfall pace. Jay Peak has dropped back a bit from where they were when I last checked, of course they were running around 200% of average, and it’s going to be incredibly hard to keep up a pace like that. Bolton has actually picked up their pace from the last update, since they were at 105%.

Between so much great skiing and being extra busy with work, I haven’t been able to keep up with mountain reports, but I’ve finally had a chance to put together the report on Sunday’s outing at Bolton. My older son and I headed up together for some turns, and since the resort has been offering lift-served skiing off Wilderness now, we decided to do some touring down at Timberline. With Timberline’s lower elevations, the snowpack wasn’t really reading for touring earlier in the season, but with day after day of snow during the week, and the depth at the Mt. Mansfield stake pushing 40 inches, the snowpack depths just continued to climb at all elevations. At our house at 500’ in the Winooski Valley, the snowpack had hit 14 inches, so we knew Timberline at 1,500’+ was more than ready to support some quality ski touring. Indeed, Timberline was ready for prime time – at least in terms of overall snowpack depth if not yet its subsurface base depths or the density gradient of the snowpack. Down around 1,500’ at the Timberline Base, the snowpack depth was 20 inches, so that was plenty of snow for skiing. But unlike much of the snowpack up at the main mountain, there wasn’t really any settled base below that snow. So, there was a bit less flexibility in terrain choice, assuming you wanted to ski reasonably safely or didn’t want to risk damaging equipment, but it’s more than enough coverage for the mowed/maintained trails. The only other issue with the snowpack was that the powder was of roughly equal density throughout its depth. It certainly wasn’t upside down, but without a density increase as you go down, skis are prone to sink quite far, and you can get bogged down or experience tip submersions. We’d both brought 115 mm fat skis, so that really helped to mitigate that issue in terms of overall floatation and the ability to have fun on any lower-angle terrain, but it’s something to consider when you’re choosing which equipment to use for an outing. We saw some folks out on snow surfers, and I bet these were fun with decent floatation as long as they were on slope of sufficient pitch. We got out in the morning because we knew that there was the chance for temperatures to go above freezing later in the day, but if temperatures did go above 32 F, it seemed to be just marginally. I’ve mentioned in some of my recent reports that we’ve needed a consolidation event for the snowpack in certain areas, so in that respect this warmer storm that came into the area today has been helpful, but getting an inch of liquid as dense snow would of course have been superior to getting it as rain. I can’t say if this will be a net gain for liquid in the snowpack down here at our site yet, but if it’s questionable here in the valley, it could easily be a liquid equivalent increase for some of the elevations. The mountains are expected to switch back over to snow shortly, and then the snow is supposed to work its way down in elevation over the next few hours, so we’ll have a chance to see how things settled out by tomorrow.