J.Spin

Following up on the recent snowfall, I was up at Bolton Valley yesterday and can pass along where accumulations sat at that point. I topped out in the 2,500-2,600’ elevation range during my time on the mountain, so I can speak to snow depths up to there. Accumulations began at around 1,600’ near the bottom of the Timberline area, and here’s a quick elevation profile report: 1,600’: Trace 2,000’: ~1” 2,500’: 2-3” Low angle slopes with manicured cutting and few rocks like Lower Turnpike were definitely skiable if you wanted to get out the rock skis, but I didn’t see any tracks, so it doesn’t look like there was anyone around who wanted to commit to those levels of snow at this point. I didn’t catch what their specific report of summit level accumulations were for this most recent system, but their season snowfall total as of today stands at 14 inches. It looks the next chance for snow or potentially other types of frozen precipitation is with the next clipper system coming through in the Monday timeframe.

It’s been almost two weeks since our last round of snow that hit the valleys (see PF’s post above), but the snow potential for tomorrow night into Tuesday seems to be appearing on just about every short and medium-range model at this point. It looks likely that at least some elevations are going to see snow with this next event, and the BTV NWS forecast discussion talks about it. At the beginning of the month there wasn’t much in the medium-range models with respect to snow chances, but for several days now just about every system coming through the area on GFS runs shows some possible snow, so apparently November climatology is starting to take hold as we move past the first third of the month. Last year we’d already had three accumulating snowstorms by this point in the month, but that was definitely on the early side and ahead of average pace: we had our first storm of an inch or more on November 1st last year, and that’s a week ahead of average. Unlike last year though, we had accumulating snow to the valley bottoms in October this year, so that gave this year a bit of a jump with respect to early season accumulations. .NEAR TERM /THROUGH MONDAY NIGHT/... Shower activity will redevelop Monday night as a cold front pushes through the region overnight, with a robust broken line of showers moving through overnight. Strong cold air advection will take place behind this feature, with temperatures dropping after midnight. Showers will become more focused across the western slopes of the Adirondacks and northern Greens as the winds become more northwesterly, becoming breezy behind the front. Snow levels will lower tomorrow night, with some snow mixing in, with light snow accumulations possible across the higher terrain, above 1500ft elevation.

The first flakes of the season here at our site were back on the 16th with that last big snow event, but today marked the first accumulations I’ve seen here. Based on posts that are showing up in the thread though, it sounds like a lot of folks are getting snow today. Temperatures are certainly above freezing here in the valley, but the intensity of the precipitation is what brought on the accumulation when that cell on the radar came through. Definitely be on the lookout for flakes when these radar echoes move through, and with temperatures anticipated to drop down well into the 20s F as we progress through the evening, chances for accumulation should only improve as long as the precipitation remains around.

Well, based on the modeling and the recent BTV NWS forecast discussions, it looks like we could be moving into our fourth round of early season snows in the coming days with these continuing cold frontal passages. With valley lows projected to get down into the 20s F, it seems that snow levels could get down to the valleys again. On that note, I finally had time to put together my website post summarizing last week’s snow event, so that’s available and I’ve put the text from that below as well. Lots of thanks go out to PF for the numerous posts and photos he added in the forum as someone who is literally in the thick of it so often with firsthand timely observations. https://jandeproductions.com/2024/10/16/third-round-of-early-season-snows-for-vermonts-green-mountains-have-been-the-most-impactful-yet/ We’re wrapping up our third round of early season snows here in the Green Mountains of Vermont, and this cycle has certainly raised the bar with respect to accumulations. For several days, the weather modeling has shown the potential for a solid shot of snow at elevation, and as of Sunday’s runs, it was becoming more obvious that the event was coming together. Personal observations related to this latest cycle of snow began for me on Sunday – I was up at Bolton Valley around 2,500’ and was getting into some frozen precipitation even down at that elevation. Right around that time, Powderfreak reported in from the upper elevations of Stowe Mountain Resort at the Gondola with a picture of big flakes coming down. As of later that afternoon, the snow level was around 3,200’, but it was expected to potentially mix all the way down to the valley floors by Monday. Late that evening, the 3,000’ Lookout plot on Mt. Mansfield was showing about a half inch of snow, so accumulations were clearly beginning. By midday Monday, the Mt. Mansfield Lookout plot was at 2 inches of accumulation, and later that evening, snow was mixing in down to the valley floors as expected. As of Tuesday, snow accumulations were pushing farther down the mountainsides, and the evening update from Powderfreak was that the 3,000’ Lookout plot had seen 7 inches of snow up to that point in the event. Snow was even mixing in with the rain down at our house at the 500’ elevation in the Winooski Valley, and our site recorded its first trace of snow on the season. Wednesday was the culmination of the event, with accumulations on Mt. Mansfield topping out around 15 inches. At Stowe Mountain Resort, the snowmobiles and snowcats were out trying to open the Gondola for summer/fall operations for the tourists. The snow depth at the famed Mt. Mansfield Stake came in at 12 inches, which is certainly solid for mid-October depths. Powderfreak put together a great collection of photos from the upper elevations of Mt. Mansfield that nicely showed the accumulated results from this early season snowstorm. This was a great early season event for the local mountains, and even at elevation, there were still enough leaves left on some of the trees to create excellent snowliage images.

I thought it might be the emphasis on mid-October that was the difference – but I remembered a season or two where October snow seemed to have remained right on through when I was working with the Mansfield data, so I figured it was good to clarify. It certainly doesn’t look like even late October snowpack retention has happened during your tenure on the mountain though, so it’s quite rare for October snow to persist right on into the season. It probably takes a special combination of October and November snow and temperatures to make it happen, so maybe that’s why it’s still not all the frequent, even on Mt. Washington.

What about the ‘62-‘63 and ‘76-‘77 seasons on Mansfield? That ’76-’77 season is the same one mentioned above, but it’s surprising to think that if Mansfield can pull of keeping October snowpack though the entire winter, that Mt. Washington doesn’t do it even more often with an addition of 2,000’+ of elevation where monitoring takes place.

With this latest round of autumn snow culminating in over a foot of snow on Mt. Mansfield, the setup was calling for some early season turns. I think yesterday was the way to go for potentially the best snow quality with the way temperatures were predicted to rise today, but I was too busy to get out. I did get out this morning though, and while snow preservation was undoubtedly better yesterday, the clouds totally disappeared today to reveal incredible snowliage in the sunshine. I started my ascent from the Gondola base at 1,600’ and walked with my skis on my pack for a few minutes to get above the areas with the most melting, then I put on my skins and skinned from there. The snow was already becoming spring-like down low in the sun, and areas in the shade featured refrozen snow. So even yesterday, the freezing level made it above the base elevations. I encountered my first real winter snow that had not seen a thaw-freeze cycle at about 2,800’ in the shade, and then at around 3,200’ I began finding some winter snow even in the sun. I made snow depth checks along the way, and here’s the depth profile I found in the late-morning to midday period: 1,600’: T-2” 2,000’: 4-5” 2,500’: 9-10” 3,000’: 12-13” 3,600’: 13-14” Depths had consolidated a bit even up at 3,600’ based on the earlier pictures I’ve seen from PF, and the sun was really doing a number on the snow down low. The Gondola terrain gets hit by the sun, and the accumulations down near the Gondola base were just about gone by the time I finished my descent In terms of the skiing, I encountered just about every sort of condition that Mother Nature can thrown at you, from dense, silky powder, to refrozen areas with unbreakable melt crust, to spring snow, to sticky, freshly melted snow. Once you were down below the driest snow up top, the best approach was to fucus on the snow that was in that happy medium between seeing the most sun on the skier’s left, and that which had seen no sun on the far skiers right in the shade of the trees. The snow on the skier’s left that had seen some hours of sun was getting sticky, and snow that was shaded by the trees was still frozen with either an unbreakable or breakable melt crust, but in between there was an area of quality snow that had seen just enough sun to soften up but not get sticky. Once you were down below roughly 2,000’, everything was melting, so you just sort of kept going until you felt the snow was too thin. You could still make it all the way to the base with the help of shaded areas depending on what level of rock skis you might be on, but I took off my skis for the last few hundred vertical because I didn’t want to beat them up. That was a solid dump for the middle of October though, and with the bonus snowliage it was a great way to kick off the season.

I was up at Bolton Valley at around 2,500’ this afternoon, and at some point after 3:00 P.M. I started getting hit with frozen precipitation. I was never up above 3,000’ to see what it was doing up there, but it was generally a mix of precipitation types at 2,500’ and I didn’t see anything frozen back down at 2,000’. On the weather side, Bolton had a fun promo for mountain biking today where the cost of a lift ticket was based on the temperature (and they were using the Vista Summit 3,000’+ temperature, which certainly favors the customers). Even in the rain and snow the lifts were running and the riders were still pounding out the laps. Every time I’m up there I see more trails going in and more work being done, so they are clearly investing heavily in the biking as one of their warm season activities. Based on the number and quality of machine-built flow trails they have already, they must have put in hundreds of thousands of dollars or more at this point. Hopefully they’re recouping on that investment, but it’s definitely brought a lot more warm-season traffic with multiple tiers of the Village parking lots being used. They just had their first bike event at night under the lights on Friday, so it seems like they continue to add more options for riders. This looks like a good stretch coming up to monitor the local snowfall and snow levels – the Mansfield graphical forecast from the BTV NWS has plenty of flakes in it.

I was up at Bolton Valley today and would say that description is spot on for around here. Up on the mountain it was clearly past peak, but of course it was still beautiful in the forest with plenty of leaves to enjoy. The valleys around here are still in roughly peak form, so the visitors that come up for this big weekend at least have plentiful peak foliage down low to experience.

I’m glad you had a chance to check out the summary. Indeed, it was quite a poor season with respect to snowpack retention – we had roughly average snowfall but about half the average SDD, so it was a notable disparity.

PF’s post explains it quite well. What we really have for consistent data regarding first snows each year in the Northern Greens is the first date of Mansfield accumulations – like what PF showed in his images today. Just witnessing first flakes in the air without accumulations is incredibly ephemeral, so you’re just not going to catch that unless you happen to have someone in the right place at exactly the right time, and they decide to document it like that person did at Jay Peak back in September. I always try to document these September and October snows in our area on my website for posterity, so if you head there and check the posts from September and October each year (there’s an index that lets you click on any month from any year in which there were posts), you can get a sense for how that season’s first snows went down. I can’t recall the last time I had a first post with only flakes like I did this year – it happens, but it’s just infrequent, based on luck, and nothing that we catch with regularity. Since the average date of first Mansfield snow accumulations is right around now (Oct 11th ± 14 days according to the data set), I’m sure the average date of first flakes is earlier, but it’s hard to say how much earlier. Some years, first flakes and first accumulations are from the same event, and sometimes it’s like what happened this year with the first flakes well out ahead of the date of first visible accumulations. It would be fun to know those dates for first flakes every year, but that’s tough to get without 24/7 human observation or some sort of very sophisticated video monitoring, etc. on the peaks.

Cheers indeed. I just did a quick text search through the details of last season’s storms that were posed above, and upslope didn’t come up once. That doesn’t mean we didn’t have any upslope snow – it’s often baked in as part of the back side of storm cycles, but it’s at least a sign that we didn’t have any storms that were upslope-focused enough to make it a major component of the storm description. And, I did note that even that past January with snow on 29 out of 31 days wasn’t all that notable with respect to upslope snowfall, so that’s another sign. It’s tough enough to dissect upslope snowfall out from total snowfall that even I don’t try to do it, so you need to go by tenor/feel, but it does feel like we haven’t had an “upslope-heavy” season in a bit.

That’s great, and I did a quick check on the data I have, and October 9th is right on track for first accumulating snow on Mansfield – the mean date is October 11th, and the median date is October 10th. Last year was a bit on the later side on October 22nd, but the year before was very similar to this one on October 8th. I’ll have to put this latest data point into the data set and plot at some point when I get a chance.

If the NNE cold season thread is starting, it must be that time of year, so I figured it was a good time to put together the final numbers at our site for the 2023-2024 winter season. It turns out that we’re already well into the new snow season here in Vermont, since we had snow back on September 9th at Jay Peak., and I guess we’re already into our next snow event and first accumulations from the current upper level low based on PF’s recent report and photos from Mt. Mansfield. Now for some data and highlights from the 2023-2024 winter season at our site. In terms of overall snowfall, it was a solid, respectable season – snowfall came in at 156.7”, which is near average and an improvement of about a half foot above the previous season. As shown in the seasonal snowfall progression plot below, we spent more time behind average snowfall pace than ahead of it, only catching up to or slightly surpassing average pace during the strong November and January periods. The very strong finish in March and April is quite evident on the plot and that undeniably helped the season recover from what would have been a subpar result. The season snowfall rank of 8 out of 18 seasons puts it just in the top half of the pack and is another nod to the decently average nature of the season. November was an interesting month last season – it ended up being quite a standout, but in a stealthy way. The November snowfall of 19.9” was only a few inches above average, so not especially notable, but November quietly set a different record for the month: days with snowfall. November 2023 had 19 days with new snow, besting the previous record of 18 days for November 2018. In line with the numerous snowfall days, there was snow on the ground for 19 days of the month. That’s not a record by any means (three other seasons have 20+ days of November snow cover), but it’s well above the average of 12 November days with snow on the ground, and with the initial accumulating snows moving in right on the first of the month, it certainly helped crank up the holiday vibe right from the start. The continuous season snowpack did start on November 19th, but it wound up being touch and go in December when the snowpack start date almost reset because of the slow second half of the month. We had 10 accumulating snowstorms this past November, which is above the average of 6 storms. That’s a robust performance, but it only earns an honorable mention because along with November 2018 it tied for second place behind November 2019 with 12 storms. On a related November note, this past season marked the eighth white Thanksgiving in a row, and that now brings the average up to near 75% for snow on the ground for turkey day. January was the other month that claimed some records for the season. January snowfall of 46.1” was above average, but only modestly so, since it was still within 1 S.D. So, while not special in terms of overall snowfall, it was in other snowfall-related categories where the month set one record and tied another. The record set was the number of storms for the month with 19, and that total didn’t just break the previous record, it absolutely smashed it. The 19 recorded storms blew right past the second-place contender of January 2023, which had 14 storms. In fact, this past January has now assumed the top position in that category for any month – the previous record holder was December 2013 with 16 storms. It wasn’t that this past January was especially notable with respect to upslope snowfall, it just wound up presenting a solid parade of both larger and smaller systems, and the details for those 19 January storms can be found in the detailed 2023-2024 storm list below. In line with all those storms, the record that was tied this past January was days with snowfall at 29. Even though this past January only tied January 2020 for snowfall days, it’s still an impressive number when you think about it because that means there were only two days during the entire month where it didn’t snow. That’s some strong consistency with respect to snowfall, even for around here in the Northern Greens. Mother Nature certainly decided to take care of the VT snow globe requirements this past January. Total Snowfall: 156.7” Season Snowfall Rank: 8 of 18 October Snowfall: Trace November Snowfall: 19.9” December Snowfall: 13.0” January Snowfall: 46.1” February Snowfall: 21.4” March Snowfall: 42.1” April Snowfall: 14.2” May Snowfall: 0.0” Total Days with Snowfall: 99 October Days with Snowfall: 1 November Days with Snowfall: 19 December Days with Snowfall: 15 January Days with Snowfall: 29 February Days with Snowfall: 17 March Days with Snowfall: 11 April Days with Snowfall: 7 May Days with Snowfall: 0 Snowstorms: 54 October Storms: 0 November Storms: 10 December Storms: 8 January Storms: 19 February Storms: 10 March Storms: 4 April Storms: 3 May Storms: 0 Average Snowfall per Storm: 2.9” Largest Storm:15.9” 2nd Largest Storm: 13.9” 3rd Largest Storm: 12.5” 4th Largest Storm: 11.2” 5th Largest Storm: 10.4” Sum of 5 Largest Storms: 63.9” Storms ≥10": 5 Date of Largest Storm: 3/9/24 Earliest Frozen Precipitation: 10/29/23 Earliest Accumulating Snowfall: 11/1/23 Earliest 1" Storm: 11/1/23 Earliest 2" Storm: 11/9/23 Earliest 3" Storm: 11/22/23 Earliest 4" Storm: 11/28/23 Earliest 6" Storm: 12/12/23 Earliest 8" Storm: 1/7/24 Earliest 10" Storm: 1/8/24 Earliest 12" Storm: 3/11/24 Latest Accumulating Snowfall: 4/22/24 Latest Frozen Precipitation: 4/25/24 Length of Snowfall Season: 174 days Start of Season Snowpack: 11/19/23 October days with Snowpack: 0 November days with Snowpack: 19 December days with Snowpack: 31 January days with Snowpack: 31 February days with Snowpack: 29 March days with Snowpack: 31 April days with Snowpack: 12 May days with Snowpack: 0 Days with >0" Snowpack: 153 Days with ≥1" Snowpack: 103 Days with ≥6" Snowpack: 61 Days with ≥12" Snowpack: 15 Days with ≥24" Snowpack: 0 Days with ≥36" Snowpack: 0 Max Snow Depth: 16.0” Date of Max Snow Depth: 1/17/24 End of Season Snowpack: 4/11/24 Continuous Snowpack Season: 145 days Snow-Depth Days: 768.0 inch-days Total liquid equivalent: 28.06” Frozen liquid equivalent: 12.76” % Frozen L.E.: 45.5% Total Snow/Total Liquid Ratio: 5.58 Total Water Content: 17.9% Total Snow/Frozen Liquid Ratio: 12.28 Frozen Water Content: 8.1% 2023-2024 Winter Storm List 11/1/23: 1.5” Decaying shortwave trough 11/7/23: 0.4” Low pressure system passing through southern Canada 11/9/23: 2.0” Surface low moving across the Adirondacks and through Vermont 11/13/23: 1.1” Low pressure passing well north of region 11/19/23: 1.7” Shortwave rounding the base of longwave trough centered over Northeastern U.S. 11/21/23: 3.9” Low pressure from Great Lakes/Ontario redeveloping into coastal low traveling through southern New England 11/24/23: 0.2” Cold frontal passage 11/26/23: 3.7” Winter Storm Cait - Low pressure redeveloping off Mid Atlantic Coast and lifting northeastward through New England 11/27/23: 1.0” Lake-effect enhanced snow showers from Lake Ontario 11/28/23: 4.4” Weak cold front swinging through the region 12/3/23: 2.1” Low pressure slowly trekking along the international border 12/5/23: 1.4” Upper-level trough passing south of region with several pieces of shortwave energy rounding the base 12/10/23: 6.0” Strong, dynamic storm with low pressure passing over eastern Massachusetts 12/12/23: 2.2” Cold frontal passage with northwest flow & squalls 12/19/23: 0.2” Upper-level low swinging through the area 12/21/23: 0.1” Flakes blowing over from Lake Champlain lake-effect snow band 12/23/23: 0.5” Decaying mid/upper-level cyclonic circulation north of Lake Ontario, with bands of moisture rotating across our area 12/29/23: 0.5” Weak low pressure scooting along the international border dragging a weak cold front along in its wake 1/1/24: 0.6” Localized Stowe & Waterbury Vermont snow bands 1/3/24: 1.5” Sharpening upper-level trough moving in from the west with cold front 1/5/24: 0.7” Weak cold front dropping south across the area 1/6/24: 0.1” Shortwave energy with weak frontal boundary dropping through northern New York and Vermont 1/6/24: 11.2” Winter Storm Ember - Deepening low pressure system off the Delmarva peninsula tracking along the New England coast 1/9/24: 8.9” Winter Storm Finn - Powerful low-pressure system pushing into the Great Lakes 1/11/24: 0.2” Moist westerly flow off Lake Ontario 1/11/24: 1.8” Weak low pressure/upper-level shortwave traversing the international border 1/13/24: 1.7” Winter Storm Gerri - Powerful storm system lifting across the central Great Lakes 1/14/24: 1.7” Ontario lake-effect moisture and embedded snow squalls 1/16/24: 8.1” Winter Storm Heather - Intensifying coastal storm moving from mid-Atlantic to Cape Cod 1/17/24: 0.2” Lake effect snow showers 1/18/24: 3.2” Arctic cold front 1/20/24: 1.4” Surface trough with relatively deep moisture pushing south over the international border 1/23/24: 2.7” Winter Storm Jarvis - Stalled frontal boundary from central New York state to southern New England moving north across the area 1/26/24: 0.3” Surface low pressure tracking east-northeast across the Catskills and coastal New England 1/27/24: 0.1” Upper-level trough passing across the North Country 1/27/24: 0.5” Weak confluence aloft from combination of northerly and northeasterly flows 1/28/24: 1.2” Coastal low pressure tracking within the benchmark and upper-level low crossing the region 2/12/24: 0.1” Frontal boundary across southern Quebec 2/13/24: 4.3” Potent shortwave passing through upper-level flow 2/15/24: 10.4” Quick moving moisture-ridden clipper 2/17/24: 2.7” Shortwave swinging through the BTV NWS forecast area 2/18/24: 0.2” Lake effect snow with south/southwest flow 2/18/24: 1.6” Arctic boundary with snow showers and embedded heavier snow squalls 2/20/24: 0.4” Light snow showers on northwest flow 2/22/24: 0.5” Weak low pressure tracking through the North Country 2/26/24: 0.9” Weak wave of low pressure moving through the area 2/28/24: 0.3” Strong cold frontal passage across the region 3/9/24: 15.9” Powerful late winter storm with deepening low passing through southern/central New England becoming vertically stacked in central/northern Maine 3/18/24: 5.7” Polar longwave trough with upper-level low pressure spinning just northwest of Montreal 3/20/24: 8.0” Potent piece of northern stream shortwave energy 3/23/24: 12.5” Winter Storm Ronnie - shortwave in northern stream phasing with energy from a southern stream system 4/3/24: 13.9” Winter Storm Tormund - Secondary area of low pressure forming over Chesapeake Bay and tracking through eastern Massachusetts 4/20/24: 0.2” Cold front and potent upper-level trough 4/22/24: 0.1” Strong cold front

As others noted, we actually had our first VT flakes of the season back on September 9th based on reports and video from Jay Peak. The flakes from that cool period last month sort of flew under the radar though – it was probably a week later before I ended up hearing about it by chance.

The forecast suggested Saturday was going to be the better weather day of the weekend, so I decided to make use of it and get in a ski tour. My previous tour was at Stowe, so I headed back to check out Bolton’s snow for this one. Based on what I’d seen on my last Bolton tour I figured the lower elevations of Timberline would be mostly melted out by this point, but the views from Burlington showed that there was still plenty of snow at the main mountain. Heading up the Bolton Valley Access Road, the first signs of snow were around the 1,400’ elevation mark, and there was still some snow left at the Timberline Base at 1,500’. On the whole though, there’s only patchy snow down on Timberline now, and it’s nothing that would be practical for turns. Up above 2,000’ at the main mountain there are still various areas of snow that offer up options for ski touring. On the lower mountain there are spots like Valley Road and Beech Seal that have continuous snow, and on the upper mountain there are numerous options with good coverage. I didn’t even bring my skins for yesterday’s outing, since I figured there would be enough areas melted out for easy hiking, and skinning might require dealing with some substantial gaps in coverage anyway. In the terrain off the Mid Mountain Chair, areas of continuous coverage start about 100 feet up from the base. I opted to hike up the Bear Run route, which has an access road, and I was able to travel on roughly 50% dry ground/50% snow. On the upper mountain, the hike was about 20% dry ground/80% snow using a combination of Sherman’s Pass and Schuss. I hiked up to where continuous coverage ended, which was in the plateau area at the top of Cobrass/Preacher. From there, I skied Sherman’s Pass to Spillway, and there’s a small break in coverage near the top of Spillway, but below that it’s continuous snow down to Mid Mountain. The Mid Mountain area is mostly snow with a bit of bare ground, and then once you get past the first bit of Beech Seal you can ski down to where the snow ends about 100” above the base area. Temperatures were probably in the 60s F, so the quality of the corn snow itself was fine, but there are a lot of areas of the snowpack that are sun-cupped, so the surface consistency isn’t great there. Stretches in the middle of Spillway and Beech Seal had smooth enough snow for nice turns thankfully, but there just hasn’t been that much skier traffic to help much with smoothing out areas beyond those. There will likely still be plenty of snow for turns in another week, but it won’t really be practical for an efficient tour; the snow coverage will get discontinuous enough that it won’t be great for a top-to-bottom descent without numerous gaps that require walking.

Yesterday started out beautifully sunny in the morning, so once it warmed up enough, I decided to head out for a ski tour in the early afternoon before the heaviest clouds built in later in the day. Temperatures by that point were up into the 50s F, so there really weren’t any concerns about the snow being soft enough for quality turns. Since I’d visited Bolton’s Timberline area on Thursday, I decided to mix it up and head to Stowe for this tour. I was hoping that the south-facing slopes of Spruce Peak were still holding enough snow to serve as relatively efficient touring terrain, and they were far better than just sufficient. Not only is the snow continuous all the way down to the MMSC parking lot level at 1,750’, it was even continuous all the way down to the Spruce Peak Village at 1,550’. Overall coverage in the area definitely seemed better than I typically see at the end of April, so some combination of the amount of snow made, our numerous late-season winter storm cycles, or our recent weather seems to have slowed melting in some of these lower elevation areas. The snowpack depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake is a bit above average for this point in the season, but it can be hard to correlate the state of the high and low elevation snowpacks with how disparate those environments are in the spring season. Since snow coverage was plentiful and there was no need to hike, I was able to stay on my skins for the whole ascent. It was warm in the lowest elevations, enough that I was using some venting on my pants, but it was chilly enough up above 3,000’ around the Spruce Peak summit elevations that I closed the vents up and was fine putting on a shell. I saw a few other folks out for turns on the slopes of Spruce Peak, but there were fewer than a half dozen cars in the MMSC lot at any given time. The quality of the ski surface was definitely good – the corn snow is in great shape since we’ve had repeated freeze-thaw cycles. Most of the surfaces weren’t that perfect, unblemished corn snow that you can sometimes get on Spruce Peak – there were some irregular areas of melting and sun cups in spots. The nuances of the snow surfaces really depend on the weather patterns though, and I’m sure it takes just the right combination of freeze-thaw, sun, precipitation, temperatures, etc. etc. to really create those perfect, unblemished expanses of spring snow. Skier traffic can have a bit of an effect on that, but when the snow isn’t perfect, a bit of skier traffic can actually create some of the best snow for skiing since it can wipe away most of the imperfections and dirty snow that sits atop the snowpack. Since the opportunity to ski all the way down to the base of Spruce Peak usually isn’t there, I continued my descent all the way down the to the Spruce Peak Village, then hiked back up via Inspiration and along the 12th hole of the Spruce Peak Mountain Golf Course. It was nice to see things greening up in the valley – the disparity between the vegetation and coloring in the higher and lower elevations always makes for some interesting views this time of year.

On Thursday I had some time to get out for turns in the afternoon, so I can pass along a conditions update from Bolton Valley. Thursday was beautifully sunny, but it definitely had a chilly feel with dry air being blown into the area by northwest winds. Even in Burlington, temperatures were only topping out around 50 F, and it felt brisk walking around the UVM campus to the degree that I was wearing my coat and hat. With the combination of relatively cool temperatures and winds even in the valleys, I wasn’t sure how the snow conditions were going to be in the higher elevations; if the temperatures were still in the 30s F at elevation, along with those winds reducing the ability of the sun to warm the snow, conditions could end up too firm for good turns. When I checked the midafternoon temperature on the Bolton Valley website, I saw that it was at 41 F, and as far as I know that reading is from the main base at around 2,100’. That was far enough above the freezing mark that I decided to head up for a tour. Ideally, I was hoping to tour down at Timberline, since the lower elevations and great western exposure to the afternoon sun down there give you the best chance of getting soft snow. We’re now at the end of April though, and I was skeptical about the amount of snow left down at Timberline. Those sunny afternoons and lower elevations are great for softening the snow, but they’re brutal on snow retention. On my way up to the mountain, I swung through the Timberline Base Area to take a peek at the snow, and low and behold, it looked like Showtime still held nearly continuous snow for turns. They must have really loaded up the snow on Showtime this year, and combined with a bit of natural snow bolstering from all those late-season storms, it’s definitely holding on longer than usual. There is snow all the way down to the Timberline Base Lodge at 1,500’, but there are a couple of large enough breaks in the coverage that I hiked roughly the first couple hundred vertical feet. After that I was able to put my skins on and skin the rest of the way up to the Timberline Mid Station at around 2,250’. There are a couple of tiny breaks in the continuity of the snow up to that point, but it’s essentially continuous. There’s also more snow above that point up on Intro, but the Mid-station plateau area seemed like an efficient starting point for the descent. The snow consistency was excellent – we’ve had lots of temperature cycling below and above freezing over the past week, so that corn snow has set up well. The combination of sun, temperatures, and a bit of breeze was perfect to keep a nice layer of peel away corn such that conditions were neither too hard nor too soft. I even saw a bit of winter snow left over from recent systems in shady areas up high that had been kicked around by a previous skier. That afternoon sun was bright – I had my darkest goggle lenses at 6% VLT, and they were a great fit for the intensity of late-April sun. It’s not too often that I use those lenses here in the Northern Greens with our penchant for snow and other active weather, but they fit the bill for this tour like they did on our sunny eclipse day earlier this month. I don’t think those near continuous turns down at Timberline will last too much longer – especially if temperatures start to increase the way the forecasts are indicating. It was definitely a treat to still be able to get Timberline turns in at this point of the season though, since it adds some variety to the mix before moving on to other touring spots with more snow as we move on toward May.

In the NNE threads we’ve had a lot of discussions about upslope snowfall trends throughout NNE and surrounding areas in the past – it can be tough to find specific discussions with the search tool, but it might yield some results. There’s definitely been plenty of conversation on why the upslope totals fall off as one heads southward along the Spine of the Greens, but an important one as I recall was that the Northern Greens have no mountain ranges to their northwest – it’s just relatively flat land where northwest winds suddenly encounter ~4,000’ of vertical relief. And, if you look at a topographic map, the Green Mountain Spine begins to turn in the northern part of the state such that it no longer has such a direct north to south alignment – it curves a bit to the northeast, setting the spine more perpendicular to northwest flow. Both the vertical relief and the perpendicular orientation are great for orographic lift. And, the Great Lakes help to keep more moisture in the atmosphere relatively to what would otherwise be present. As one heads southward along the spine, the orientation is more north-south, and there are more and more mountains/ranges upwind, so the northwest upslope isn’t as prolific. It’s funny, because just as I mentioned about all the large storm jackpots that seem come to the Southern Greens, I can recall many times where the flow off Lake Ontario heads right into that area, but it must not be as frequent or prolific enough to produce the same consistent results that it does in the Northern Greens. On the plateau/width concept, I’ve always thought that height/vertical relief was the bigger factor in promoting orographic precipitation, but I really don’t know the relative contributions between the height and width factors of a mountain range for orographics. PF or some of the meteorologists on here might be able to reply if they have a sense for that.

The explanation makes perfect sense, and of course it’s coming from someone who is literally involved in the process. I didn’t know that Smugg’s had switched to the single site methodology, but now that you’ve confirmed that it clearly explains the change in their snowfall numbers. From the perspective of skiers who are skiing all over the mountain at various elevations and aspects, it seems appropriate that you described it as “apples and oranges” vs. “right and wrong” or “good and bad”. A single site (hopefully an appropriately representative one) is probably more optimal for long-term record keeping and comparison, but it might be less representative in some storms vs. others than the range that was found when sampling various parts of the mountain.

On that note, I grabbed what was available for the season snowfall totals at the Vermont ski areas – the north to south listing is below. The numbers may increase for areas that are still open like Killington, Jay Peak, Sugarbush, etc., but typically the increases aren’t huge through the end of April and May. Jay Peak: 371” Burke: 180” Smuggler’s Notch: 264” Stowe: 289” Bolton Valley: 335” Mad River Glen: 242” Sugarbush: 249” Pico: 239” Killington: 239” Okemo: 133” Bromley: 135” Magic Mountain: 132” Stratton: 142” Mount Snow: 120” As you noted, I’m sure Stowe would be right up there above 300” if snowfall measurements were taken from ridgeline/summit areas like Bolton Valley and Jay Peak are presumably doing. I’m not sure what to make of the Smugg’s number though; they were traditionally right in line with the increasing snowfall numbers as one headed northward along the spine, but their numbers have been consistently on the low side all season relative to the other resorts in the Northern Greens. Perhaps they’ve switched to recording snowfall at mid-mountain or base elevations instead of near the summits. It wasn’t really a big season for upslope snow (December can be a big period it was relatively slow this season), so I thought that might be an issue for a west-side resort like Smugg’s, but it didn’t seem to prevent Bolton from getting roughly average snowfall, and it played out that way at our site in the valley with roughly average snowfall as well. That Smugg’s season total is still higher than anything reported from the Central Greens thus far, so that’s consistent with the usual trend. The snowfall numbers just fell right off a cliff once you get to the Southern Greens though. The snowfall typically drops off as you head southward, but this season showed an even sharper cutoff than usual - all those season snowfall numbers are even well below what we recorded for snowfall at our site in the valley at 500’. The perception of the snowfall in those Southern Greens resorts is very interesting. I can remember map after map after map this season showing projected storm jackpot zones in those areas, and some of them even played out that way in reality with pretty substantial hits of snow. Maybe those events just get big fanfare around here in the forum because they are more in line with systems that are affecting the more populated areas of the Northeast. I’m not sure exactly what the deal is, but the numbers are paltry, and it’s not as if it’s just one resort being conservative – that’s 120”-140” of snow for the entire season across five independent ski resorts. Mount Snow at the southern end of the state ultimately recorded less than a third of the snowfall that Jay Peak recorded at the northern end of the state, so the typical disparity was even more enhanced than usual this season. Ultimately, I don’t think a few big storms a season is really a great climate for a ski resort in the Northeast anyway, since the variability in the weather around here calls for more consistent refresher snowfalls to recover conditions back to something respectable. From what I’ve seen over the years, it’s not as if the northern areas are simply getting the same amount of snowfall just spread out more evenly throughout the season; the more consistent snowfall of various types vs. just large storms seems to end up in larger overall totals as well. I’ve seen people scoff at the disparity in snowfall from south to north because they assume the northern resorts are just inflating the numbers, but I think it’s perception – people seem to have a hard time integrating all the smaller, more frequent snowfalls into their perception of the overall snowfall vs. the larger, attention-grabbing systems.

Saturday was really the last day of powder and cold snow conditions from Winter Storm Tormund, but the storm cycle had delivered three great days of skiing and riding on winter snow, which is certainly decent for April. On Sunday, temperatures were expected to move into the 40s F in the mountains, which would be enough to start the snow transitioning to more spring-like conditions. My wife and I decided to head up for some turns at Bolton in the afternoon to take advantage of the sun, warmer temperatures, and hopefully the soft snow that would arise from the change in weather. Temperatures were indeed warm as expected when we headed up to the resort in the afternoon – somewhere in the upper 40s F. The mountain was certainly hopping with visitors, but we’d arrived late enough that some people had left and we could park right up near the main base lodge. Sunday was the first time this season I’ve seen the spring party atmosphere really take off on the back deck of the base lodge, so that was a clear sign of the weather. The claim to fame in the Northern Greens is really the snowfall, and true to form there’s been a solid amount of storm days in the past few weeks, so the spring vibe is especially noticeable when warm weather hits. My wife and I were extremely impressed with how the snow had transitioned from winter into spring so beautifully. We’d waxed the skis diligently in preparation for the transitioning snow, both with a good coat of regular wax followed by a topping off with Zardos Base Boost™ (i.e. NotWax that I learned about here on the forum), but we would have been fine without it. The snow in the sun was excellent – it was soft without any stickiness. Temperatures on the mountain were such that snow in the shade was actually too hard and not as fun to ski, so the sunny snow was the place to be! We had some great fun on steep terrain options like Spillway and Hard Luck – coverage was fantastic and any snow in the sun was providing beautiful peel away turns. We were finishing up a last run on Cobrass and discovered that people had set up a snowball gauntlet in the Cobrass Café area, but we managed to make it through alive. Lots of activity at the Cobrass Café is definitely another sign that spring skiing had arrived at Bolton Valley! Monday was eclipse day, so that was certainly going to be the feature presentation, but our day also involved skiing as well. We learned that Bolton Valley was having a special eclipse celebration, and they were restricting access to the resort to only season pass holders and folks who had purchased lift tickets ahead of time. Getting the chance to view the eclipse from atop a mountain peak seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up. We weren’t planning to ski a full day, but we headed up in the midmorning period to make sure we could get a parking spot. The resort was unsure of exactly how many season pass holders were going to come, so they had to be ready for some very heavy crowds. They did have a note posted on their website that they sold out of the available day tickets for skiing. Vehicle traffic at the resort was very regulated through a single path which went up and around the Village Circle, then an employee checked your pass credentials on a tablet via Wi-Fi. We were directed to park in the second tier from the bottom in the main lot, and all the tiers above were filled at that point. We hung out in the car and did some reading and work for a while, and our plan was to do some skiing after lunch. The bottom tier of parking never filled up, so eventually we moved our car right down in front of the Bolton Valley Sports Center, which gave us great Wi-Fi access. We watched a couple nearby that was assembling a very elaborate photography setup for getting images of the upcoming eclipse. We started skiing in the early afternoon, and the conditions had definitely changed since Sunday. Now, the snow in the sunny areas of the trails was rather sticky, and not that great for skiing, but the shaded areas were nice. Monday was a bit warmer than Sunday, and the temperatures had clearly crossed a threshold for snow consistency. In areas where there was appropriate shade though, like the left side of Hard Luck, the turns were very nice. While riding the Vista Quad Chair, we met up with a father and daughter who were up visiting from Connecticut. They are both ski instructors at Butternut Ski Area in Massachusetts. The dad is actually working to visit all ski areas in New England with over 1,200’ of vertical, and Bolton Valley was one of those. He specifically chose to go with Bolton for this trip because of course they were in the path of totality, but he also saw that they had western exposure, which sounded like a good setup for the eclipse. He chose very wisely. At around 2:45 P.M. we decided to get ready for the eclipse, and we opted to view it from the Vista Summit. Bolton’s game plan was to stop the lifts around 3:00 P.M. for about an hour during the darkest period of the eclipse, during which they didn’t want people skiing around the mountain. The eclipse experience itself was, of course, spectacular. There were some high clouds around, but nothing of significance, and having a few clouds actually set up some fun perspectives and views. As the light slowly faded with the sun disappearing, one aspect of the sunlight that was very special was the fact that it had the intensity of a sunrise or sunset period, yet it was still at a high angle. That’s certainly part of what makes the ambiance and lighting unique. Seeing the backlit moon in person was impressive, and of course the color and intensity of the surrounding light is very distinctive as well. I’d seen the partial solar eclipse in 2017, but this was my first time being in totality, and that’s obviously special. My impression was that it felt like being in a sci-fi movie on another planet. I was immediately reminded of the way the planet Vormir is represented in some of the Marvel’s Avengers movies. You get the impression that Vormir is sort of in a perpetual eclipse state, but they did a really nice job setting the environment for that location, because that’s the first thing that came to mind as a comparison to the scene of totality during our eclipse. From up on Vista Peak, we were able to watch the darkness of totality creep across the Champlain Valley and see lights turn on throughout the Burlington area. One thing I hadn’t heard about the overall eclipse experience prior to the event was the sunset aspect – areas just outside of totality displayed sunset/sunrise colors. Another superlative, but rather unexpected aspect of the eclipse was that it actually reset the snow surfaces so that they skied beautifully. As is common, the temperature dropped substantially during totality, but it was also lower during the partial coverage leading up to and subsequent to totality. All in all, it was enough to remove the stickiness in the snow and reset the surfaces to something similar to Sunday’s great conditions. Having solar eclipse totality centered right here over the Northern Greens in April with plentiful, deep, spring snowpack for skiing, and having beautiful weather for it, has got to be a one-in-a-lifetime event. It seems that the event also created some once-in-a-lifetime traffic congestion. We didn’t notice any issues when we headed home from Bolton in the afternoon, but later that evening when I had to head to Burlington, traffic in the other direction (southbound) was backed up for miles on both I-89 and Route 2. It was like that for hours, and my wife said it had just cleared on Route 2 when I was heading home around 9:00 P.M., but even then, the southbound lane of I-89 was still back backed up all the way to our house. What I generally heard though was that even people who were stuck in the traffic said it was worth it to experience solar eclipse totality.

Saturday was the third day of our ongoing storm cycle, and Winter Storm Tormund had brought Bolton’s storm total to 32 inches after another few overnight. My wife and I headed up for a morning session of turns with our older son, and it was a great chance to see how conditions were looking as the system began to wind down. Bolton wasn’t kicking off lift service from the Vista Quad until 10:00 A.M., so there was no need to rush up to the mountain first thing in the morning. As a bonus, the Wilderness Chair was opening at 10:30 A.M. for the first time since the storm cycle started, so that represented a nice opportunity to get into some fresher snow. Snow was starting to mix with and change to rain in the valleys when we headed up to the mountain, but the snow line was still fairly low – certainly below 1,500’. More snow continued to fall all morning while we were out on the mountain, but it was of moderate to only occasionally heavy intensity. The clouds were also not as thick as they’d been earlier, and at times the weather was a mix of sun and snow, so the snowfall wasn’t accumulating as efficiently as it had over the previous couple of days. The upside of the thinner clouds was that the light intensity was much higher than it had been, so it made for some easier action photography. There was some wind when we first arrived up at the resort, and it really set up an overly wintry feel, but those winds dissipated before too long even up near the summits, and it started to feel more like a late-season ski day. Since temperatures had come down overnight, the new accumulations of snow were once again drier than what had been falling on Friday afternoon, so like I’d experienced Friday morning on my tour at Timberline, the quality of the powder in the morning was even better than it was in the afternoon. It does show the importance of typically getting out early for powder as we move through April, since the sunlight intensity is growing stronger and it more easily affects the quality of the snow. I brought my wife and son for a run through Vista Glades, since it had been so nice on Friday afternoon, and it delivered once again. Up at those elevations around 3,000’, the snow has been quite dry at any time of day, so you’re really getting some of the best conditions. We spent the rest of our session on Wilderness, taking advantage of all the new terrain it offered, and the lower traffic definitely helped supply a lot more fresh snow. Bolton Outlaw was skiing great, and we had some nice turns in the Outlaw Woods, and a couple of great runs in the whole length of Wilderness Woods. We explored some of the tree skiing terrain to the left of Peggy Dow’s that were really nice, and that’s a place I don’t visit too often. The freezing level seemed to be climbing as our session continued. Toward the end of the morning, on each run it seemed that the snow began to get wetter at a higher elevation. It did keep snowing all morning, but it was comfortable with the lack of wind and there was definitely an “April” feel to the storm yesterday because it didn’t have as much bite as a midwinter one. It looks like we’ll be moving out of the wintry conditions into more spring-like conditions in the coming days based on the forecast, so it should be fun to see how the snow changes. The snowpack should have some extra staying power after all the substantial late-season storms though.