J.Spin

It's been great having Phin, and all the new blood in the NNE thread – it’s been quite active. We need to get more people up here, because as you said in your other post, the mountains are the place if you like active/interesting weather. And if you like winter weather, the mountains of NNE are arguably the best place to be in the country east of the Rockies.

Event totals: 2.1” Snow/0.11” L.E. The snow density came down significantly with the addition of those larger flakes to the stack, and we’ve been back and forth with both larger and smaller flakes throughout the afternoon and into the evening. Details from the 6:00 P.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 1.3 inches New Liquid: 0.06 inches Snow/Water Ratio: 21.7 Snow Density: 4.6% H2O Temperature: 30.2 F Sky: Light Snow (1 to 4 mm flakes) Snow at the stake: 2.5 inches

Ha! Nice shots, and nicely put. I guess that calls for another Northern Greens symbolic image to add to the collection…

That sounds great. We’ve generally had rather small, synoptic-style flakes until about an hour or so ago, when we started getting larger, ½” – 1” flakes. That allowed the rate of accumulation to pick up a bit, so we’re at around 2” now. This next round of accumulation will likely come in below the roughly 12:1 snow density from this morning, since the stack it should have a mix of flake sizes in there.

LOL Phin, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard you say you go hiking with the kids! Sure, boot-packing up a steep slope with your skis over your shoulder through two feet of powder would definitely end up being more work that a typical hike, but most of the time that’s not how we’re doing it. When ascending with skins, a round trip up the mountain and down is actually less effort than an equivalent hike on a typical hiking trail. With a pre-made skin track or a groomed slope, proper skinning technique, and an appropriate ascent angle, climbing snow on skis is actually easier than hiking. You’re not carrying your skis; when you’re skinning, you just lift your foot slightly take the pressure off your ski to allow it to slide, then repeat to take the next step. On a typical packed surface, ascending on snow via skins is easier than hiking because the surface is flat and consistent, and you don’t need to expend extra energy negotiating trail obstacles, picking foot placement, etc., etc. And then the down… LOL. As long as you’re a competent skier, it’s literally an order of magnitude less effort/easier than hiking down. In terms of energy usage, skiing down a mountain is like putting your car in neutral and cruising with gravity. In contrast, hiking down a mountain is the equivalent of applying your car’s brakes, and then revving the engine way up to overcome the application of the brakes so that you can move at a regular speed. It’s hugely counterproductive, and a massive waste of all the potential energy that you just earned by ascending. And, the above comparison doesn’t even take into account the powder aspect. Most often, we go ski touring so that we can ski untouched powder on the descent. So instead of just skiing down, you’re descending the mountain as if you were floating on a cloud. A descent that was already incredibly easy, is now made ridiculously easy and hugely enjoyable. Oh, and as if that wasn’t already enough, there’s the additional aspect of often having the entire trail to yourself. Now there is one caveat to this – powder skiing is only easier than groomed skiing if you’re a competent powder skier. If you’re not proficient at skiing powder, then it can actually be more work than skiing groomed terrain. There’s an easy fix for that though… just learn to ski powder. If you’re already a good powder skier then you know what I mean, and if not, well you literally live in the mountains of NNE, so you can ski a lot of powder if you want and get really good at skiing it. My wife and I hiked Mansfield with the boys this fall, and it was a roughly 3,000’ vertical hike. For whatever reason, the downhill was especially brutal that day. I still hike, but ski touring has kind of ruined plain hiking for me somewhat because the touring is just so much more enjoyable and requires much less effort. So while it may seem exhausting, it’s actually not if done efficiently, and of course the result is days like this:

Event totals: 0.8” Snow/0.05” L.E. The current snow from this system is a notable change from what we’ve been seeing over the past few days – the flakes here are relatively small, with a definite synoptic feel. The density of the noontime core came in at 8.0% H2O, which is higher than anything I’ve recorded in a couple of weeks. This snow is definitely adding more substance to the snowpack though. Details from the 12:00 P.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 0.5 inches New Liquid: 0.04 inches Snow/Water Ratio: 12.5 Snow Density: 8.0% H2O Temperature: 31.5 F Sky: Light Snow (2 to 3 mm flakes) Snow at the stake: 1.5 inches

We’ve got steady light snow here, so if the usual trends you talk about hold up, you should have snow falling again before too long.

Event totals: 0.3” Snow/0.01” L.E. We got a brief break in the snowfall last night, so Mother Nature has made it relatively easy to find the demarcation between the end the last event and the start of this one. The point forecast here suggests something in the 3-6” range for snowfall with this system. Details from the 6:00 A.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 0.3 inches New Liquid: 0.01 inches Snow/Water Ratio: 90.0 Snow Density: 3.3% H2O Temperature: 30.0 F Sky: Light Snow (2 to 4 mm flakes) Snow at the stake: 1.0 inches

Yeah, there are definitely people out there with this perception, but from what I’ve seen we’re talking very casual skiers here – folks that would be at a level where if you asked them what the typical annual snowfall was for a ski resort, they’d have no idea. Similarly, they also have to be folks that don’t follow weather very closely, and the times they do pay attention to it a bit would be when a big coastal snowstorm is making headlines. So if it’s a storm that is positioned correctly such that it’s making headlines because it’s affecting the big coastal cities, the NNE resorts are typically getting fringed, and it’s going to be resorts in SVT and similar areas that are getting walloped. So I assume this is where this population of casual skiers/casual weather observers gets that impression – they watch the news/weather during these big storms, and see the big totals highlighted at SVT resorts. That’s all they know, and they assume this is the normal snowfall routine; they have no idea that big storms like that are maybe a once or twice a season thing. They’re not following snow reports at other times of the season, so they’re oblivious to what’s typically going on, and they’re also not the type to go looking into ski resort websites to look up annual snowfall numbers. PF interacts with visitors a lot at Stowe, so I wonder if he’s ever experienced this phenomenon. The thing is, his visitors are already up at Stowe, so they may already be far more aware of the differences from down south vs. folks who only ever visit the Southern Vermont Ski Areas.

I totally agree, and with the numbers that keep staring me in the face, that’s got to be the case. Combine 150”+ of reasonably dense synoptic snowfall with the excellent retention of a place like Sunday River, and things will generally work out fine. You’re even going to have some nice powder skiing on the days with fresh snow, you’re just not going to get, on average, the supply of powder that you’re going to get in places like the Northern Greens with an additional 150”+ of champagne on top of that. I think Sugarloaf falls right in line with that theory as well. In that 1995 Powder Magazine article, their annual snowfall average was reported as 164”, although I’ve now also seen numbers out there like 189”, and it looks like they’ve got a “very round” 200” on their website. They’ve probably got bit more elevation, perhaps a bit of help from their great latitude, and then they might get in on a bit of upslope, to boost them over Sunday River. With the incredible snow retention at Sugarloaf, things work out quite well with the annual snowfall they get.

I see that the BTV NWS is getting a bit more detailed on the upcoming system; the Mansfield point forecast suggests something in the 6-10” range. Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 634 PM EST Tue Dec 8 2020 .SYNOPSIS... Light snow returns though early Wednesday as an upper level disturbance passes over the region and continues Wednesday night before becoming confined to the mountains on Thursday. Snowfall will range from a dusting to an inch in the lowest elevations, with 2 to 4 inches across the western upslope regions, and over 6 inches on the higher peaks.

I hear that on the dust – I didn’t even get 0.01” of liquid out of the 0.4” on the board at the 6:00 P.M. clearing. I did get a total of 0.38 mL of liquid from two stacked cores, but that comes in at 0.0021” of liquid per core, which is still well under the 0.005” threshold where it would round up to the 0.01” level.

Event totals: 3.8” Snow/0.07” L.E. Well, maybe this is the last round of observations for this event. We’ve still got some flurries out there, but accumulation since the last clearing is sub-0.1” at this point. Whatever goes on with the tail end of this storm, the next system is virtually on our doorstep anyway. Any clearing that we might have had today is supposed to give way to cloudiness tonight, and I see snow chances in the point forecast starting up tomorrow morning. The current point forecast here suggests something in the 4-7” range for this next event. Details from the 6:00 P.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 0.4 inches New Liquid: Trace Temperature: 23.2 F Sky: Flurries Snow at the stake: 1.0 inches

I’m right there with you; I’m shocked every time I look at the reported snowfall averages up and down the spine, especially with so many people having the perception that the Southern Vermont Ski Areas get the most snowfall in the state. Does the annual snowfall really fall off nearly 100” over the southern half of the state? I guess it’s not inconceivable, since it appears to fall off roughly that much over the northern half of the state, but it would seem like there would need to be a “floor” for annual snowfall numbers at some point. I almost feel like I’ve previously seen (I’m not sure how many years ago) Killington/Pico with snowfall averages around 225”, which kind of fits nicely in the annual snowfall gradient from north to south. But, that’s clearly my memory trying to smooth things out, because I just checked back in the SkiVT-L archives from 1997, and even then, Killington is listed as having an annual snowfall of 250”, and that was referencing the big Powder Magazine ski area snowfall article from 1995: https://list.uvm.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9703&L=SKIVT-L&P=359221 A few things to note on the 250” number though: 1) Remember that Killington does have roughly 700’ of vertical over Mount Snow in terms of summit elevation, so if both resorts are reporting summit area snowfall numbers, that’s a pretty substantial disparity. That’s more vertical than some of the SNE ski areas that people were recently talking about in one of the threads. 2) You know when you’re seeing super-round numbers for averages , such as “250 inches”, they are very likely heavily rounding whatever the average is. So they could easily have average snowfall of something like 235” and be rounding to the nearest 50”. 3) Continuity – see below The fact that the Killington annual snowfall average was listed as 250” 25 years ago is worthy of consideration here. I’m pretty sure they have been owned by various companies during that time, and there has to have been substantial turnover in management, snow reporters, and other positions. Is there really some systematic conspiracy in place to have everyone consistently over-report snowfall numbers so that they can get to approximately 250” every season? It’s really hard to imagine that over all that time, there’s not one person who’s going to stand up and refuse to fudge numbers? Or somehow, despite what must have been plenty of managerial and mountain ops turnover, some sort of sacred edict to inflate snowfall numbers to 250” has been handed from manager to manager, observer to observer, etc.? And here’s a related argument that seems even harder to punch holes in. Mount Snow reports that mid-150” snowfall average, and I’m pretty sure they’ve been reporting that number for a similar time to Killington’s 250” number. The same argument goes for how in the world are they going to get by low-balling their snowfall numbers for all those years? As an example to reinforce that, one that always blows my mind as well, is the annual snowfall average for Sunday River. They report an annual snowfall average similar to Mount Snow (I’m seeing current numbers out there ranging from 155” to 167”). Think about that, Sunday River has plenty of latitude – they’re at essentially the same latitude as Stowe. How in the world does a place like that get such little snowfall? Are they low-balling their snowfall numbers as well? What resort in their right mind though is going to constantly low ball their snowfall numbers? Even if “snowmaking” is your thing, and you’re not really concerned about natural snowfall, what’s the point in doing that? The conclusion I keep coming to, year after year as I think about this, is that those 150”-ish numbers are the real annual snowfall numbers for places like that. Think about it, Sunday River has plenty of latitude, and they’re positioned ridiculously well for getting hit by typical “coastal” storms. How do they only get 150-ish inches of snow a season? I think part of it is what I was saying in that big “coastal” storms (or even with the Atlantic as a primary moisture source as you nicely put it) just don’t contribute a ton of extra snowfall on a seasonal basis. I think it really comes down to that theory that PF has – there’s sort of this “floor” of synoptic snow around the Northeastern U.S., that doesn’t change a ton with respect to an area’s geographic position. There are of course the usual elevation effects on that, but that’s pretty much canceled out comparing mountain sites that are all in the 3,000’ to 4,000’ range. I think if mountains don’t get in on some sort of “extra” moisture/snow, such as upslope, lake-effect, or whatever, then those low numbers are what you’re going to see. The increases above that base annual snowfall are what really set them apart, and that increases dramatically as you head north up the spine of the Greens.

Oh, I meant that add that in my post. My list is made north to south with respect to latitude, so when you see deviations in the snowfall trend from north to south, they are typically because of areas that are well off the spine (such as Burke, which is far to the east) or have lower summit elevations, like Middlebury. At least that’s what I’ve seen with respect to the deviations; the general trend in annual snowfall from north to south if you stick to the spine at fairly similar elevations is amazingly consistent. The deviations from that trend because of longitude definitely show the importance of being on the spine with respect to getting optimal snowfall. Ascutney, which is no longer operating as a typical lift-served resort so it’s not on my list of major resorts, was another great example of that – it’s annual snowfall was notably less for its latitude because it was well east of the spine. It may have been in the NNE thread when we talked about it, but I also have a list of Vermont’s smaller ski areas on my Ski Areas Page, and that one is also done north to south with respect to latitude. You can see on that list that there’s really not obvious trend with respect to annual snowfall. Those areas are really scattered around from east to west, and elevations probably vary a lot as well, so that would also destroy any obvious latitudinal snowfall trends. Hard’ack (82″) Pete’s Tow (99″) Lyndon Outing Club (103″) Chapman Hill (79″) Cochran’s (88”) Cosmic Hill (104″) Northeast Slopes (91″) Pine Mountain (65″) Harrington Hill (87″) Twin Farms (82″) Suicide Six (80″) Ski Quechee (90″) Bear Creek (150″) Ascutney Outdoors (175″) Timber Ridge (145″) Bellows Falls (56″) Hermitage (150″) Living Memorial (56″)

I think the issue here, at least in part, lies with something I brought up in my post above. The more I think about, the more I wonder how much (i.e. what percentage of annual snowfall) big coastal storms actually play into the snowfall numbers for the Vermont ski areas. This is where it would be good to bring in some of the meteorologists who know seasonal averages for those types of storms. I’m wondering if the past decade’s run of (more frequent?) big coastal storms has warped our perspective on how often they really occur. It takes a lot of things to line up just right to get one of those big coastal systems, and even more to get one that significantly affects a certain area, so is the real average on those more than once or twice a season? Even if a spot gets two solid hits from coastal storms a season, and each one is a healthy two feet of snow, that’s still a pretty minor component of the annual snowfall, even for a place with an annual snowfall average like Mount Snow. Those big storms get the attention, so perhaps why they’re thought to have such an impact? It’s not as if heading southward along the spine of the Greens we find that the big snowfall numbers up north experience some sort of dip in the central areas, and then rise again as one gets into the southern area where potential coastal systems have greater effects; the numbers just continue to drop as one heads south. If the “coastal” storm track doesn’t really contribute much to the overall annual snowfall averages, there might not really be any sort of in between area.

You’re on this forum, so you obviously know a lot about the actual snowfall trends up and down the spine, but you bring up a great point about the snowfall from coastal storms. There are actually a lot of folks out there (we’re talking very casual skiers/snowstorm watchers) who have the impression that the resorts in the Southern Greens actually get the most annual snowfall of anywhere in the state. This is because, as you note, they can often do quite well with respect to accumulations from notable coastal storms. I assume that if these are storms affecting the big coastal cities, they garner the most attention, and people may pay attention and get wind of the associated ski resort accumulations. But the actual annual snowfall numbers up and down the ski areas of the Green Mountains (see below) tell the real story and point out how ironic that is. I can only assume that the effects of the prominent coastal storms are so infrequent that they are vastly outweighed by 1) the greater frequency/impacts of storms to the north, 2) the far greater upslope enhancement in the mountains to the north, and 3) the latitude effects with respect to occasions when the rain/snow line for storms is in these latitudes. It’s probably a fun discussion to try to figure out what percentages each of these factors play in the snowfall increases heading north, and of course there may be other factors as well. I’ve pasted below the list of north to south annual snowfall numbers I have on the Ski Areas Page at my website. I’ve kind of kept these where they were when I put the page together for the most part, so they’re not all perfectly representative of the most recent years, but the trend is incredibly obvious. I just checked Mount Snow’s most recent reported annual snowfall average to compare to what I had, and their website has an average annual snowfall of 156” vs the 158” I’ve got on my site, so that’s pretty darned consistent over whatever period it’s been since I updated the page. You can imagine how strange it must appear to people who think SVT gets the most snow to learn that Jay Peak has an annual snowfall average of well more than double what Mount Snow gets. It just speaks to the fact that there must be a lot of systems that are either not affecting that area, or delivering rain/mixed precipitation there. Even for someone who follows the winter weather in Vermont very closely (and makes an effort to post ski area snowfall totals up and down the spine of the Greens for every notable system), it’s still startling how much the snowfall drops off down there. But the numbers are the numbers, and there just must be a lot of lean snowfall times that far south. It's not like a ski area to downplay or “underreport” their snowfall (unless you have someone like PF being extra cautious to ensure no over-reporting), so you have to assume they’re counting all the snow there is to count. I will say that as I run through the snow reports for the Vermont ski areas after each storm, I notice that in general the Southern Vermont Ski Areas don’t seem to take their snowfall measurement as seriously as the resorts up north do. I don’t mean to say they’re inaccurate or anything, it’s just that they don’t care about it too much. When I go to their websites for putting together storm snowfall numbers, their snowfall reports are often much harder to find, or buried deeper in the website. I think it’s because relatively speaking, supplying reliable manmade snow is a much bigger part of their marketing strategy vs. capitalizing on natural snow. They definitely feature their snow reports more prominently after a notable storm (such as with a headline or headline link on their websites), but for every day reporting, the placement of their snow report within the website definitely comes across as “Whatever, here’s the snow report if you really want to check it out.” Jay Peak (355″) Burke (217″) Smuggler’s Notch (320″) Stowe (333″) Bolton Valley (312″) Mad River Glen (228″) Sugarbush (250″) Middlebury (200″) Pico (250″) Killington (250″) Okemo (200″) Bromley (145″) Magic Mountain (145″) Stratton (180″) Mount Snow (158″)

The Central Greens are most definitely a defined geographical/geological area, per Peakbagger.com: http://www.peakbagger.com/range.aspx?rid=16131 In terms of their defining geology/geography, I know they are marked on the north end by the Winooski Valley; I’m keenly aware of this because we live right near the dividing line between the Central/Northern Greens sub-ranges. We’re just a bit north of the Winooski River, so our house is at the very southern end of the Northern Greens, and the Central Greens are across the valley. I’ve heard the Winooski Valley is a very notable geological feature because it is the most prominent east/west cut through the wall of the Green Mountains. I heard something at one point about how that was very significant, perhaps from PF, but it could have been somewhere else that I picked that up. On the southern end, I’m not as familiar with the geological feature dividing the Central Greens from the Southern Greens, but it looks like the valley encompassing Vermont Route 103 is a major component of the demarcation. Killington Peak is definitely the highest peak in the sub-range, so it’s certainly important in that regard, although as you can see, it’s near the southern end:

For some visitors, that wintry appeal is probably important. For the hard core skiers, they’re likely not too concerned if the situation in town isn’t supremely aesthetic, as long as the snow on the slopes is in good shape. But when you have families come up to vacation with non-skiers who want to just enjoy other winter activities, such as doing things around town, browsing the shops, etc., I bet it keeps them coming back if they know they can come up and expect to get those bucolic, wintry VT scenes.

The “bread and butter” expression is in used around here in line with its “basic means of support; source of livelihood; sustenance” definition, and it developed to describe some of the typical/frequent Clipper-style weather systems we get up here in the Northern Greens, and it of course would apply to other parts of NNE with similar climate. The meaning of the expression has actually been a pretty good fit because indeed the storms don’t look flashy on the surface, but they’re frequent, typically quite reliable, and help sustain the quality of the conditions on the slopes. They often don’t look like much to folks who aren’t in the know, but they can routinely put down a half a foot of snow in the higher elevations, simply due to the mountain orographics doing their thing. In the analogy, big synoptic storms like nor’easters would be some sort of special meal I guess. The term can be used to describe the type of systems, as well as the pattern, but this doesn’t feel quite like a full blown bread and butter “pattern” at the moment, at least in the longer-term sense. That type of pattern is most obvious when we can see multiple Clippers/shortwaves queued up on the models upstream, and then they come through every couple of days – sort of when it’s just the northern branch of the jet stream affecting our area. When the southern branch of the jet gets involved, it seems like there’s a lot less reliability (there can be issues of phasing, warm temperatures, larger deviations in track, etc.). But getting continuous/nearly continuous snow for days on end like this is definitely what you can get when bread and butter storms come through like they do. They hit the mountains, drop front side snow, and then back side snow can hang around for quite a while. When the systems are coming in fast enough sequence, they just sort of blend together and it can be hard at times to know when one system ended and another began. As someone who organizes my snow data by specific systems, this can get to be a bit of an organizational challenge at times. Anyway, if it’s continuously snowing over by you guys like it is over here, enjoy! Alex has commented on the aesthetics of this type of snowfall a number of times, so one gets the impression that he likes that sort of climate. The way it’s been lightly (although at times more heavily in spots) snowing almost continuously for the past few days is where the “snow globe” expression comes from as well.

There’s really only one thing to say about the look of that event…

You just replace the sleigh with a 2021 Subaru, and off you go. Currier and Ives actually do a pretty nice job with some of that snow globe snowfall.

Event totals: 3.4” Snow/0.07” L.E. I was going to suggest that this might be the last round of snowfall observations for this event, since we’re getting more and more breaks of sun and the snow seems to be winding down, but as I write this we’re getting another resurgence. Checking on the local radar, there’s a batch of moisture hitting the spine from the NNW, so the beat goes on. Details from the 12:00 P.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 0.9 inches New Liquid: 0.01 inches Snow/Water Ratio: 90.0 Snow Density: 1.1% H2O Temperature: 28.0 F Sky: Flurries Snow at the stake: 1.0 inches

Event totals: 2.5” Snow/0.06” L.E. Based on the robust snowfall rate here around observations time, it was obvious that it hadn’t been snowing that hard all night, and the radar below suggests the snow is associated with a recent push of moisture building in from the north and that small band quickly building in from the east. Details from the 6:00 A.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 0.7 inches New Liquid: 0.01 inches Snow/Water Ratio: 70.0 Snow Density: 1.4% H2O Temperature: 23.4 F Sky: Snow/Light Snow (2 to 15 mm flakes) Snow at the stake: 1.0 inches

Event totals: 1.8” Snow/0.05” L.E. Details from the 12:00 A.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 0.6 inches New Liquid: 0.02 inches Snow/Water Ratio: 30.0 Snow Density: 3.3% H2O Temperature: 22.6 F Sky: Light Snow (1 to 3 mm flakes) Snow at the stake: 0.5 inches