J.Spin

It’s definitely not worth trying to push it when it comes to health – I wouldn’t think twice about it if I was in that scenario. Right around 60 F is what we find as a reasonable threshold when we’re just having fun to see how far we might push it in the fall, and last week we were down in that 58-59 F range without any obvious daytime warmups, so it was an easy call. Below about 60 F we find that “room temp” tap water starts to have a chill that makes it tough to use for dishes or whatever, and that’s one of the first places I notice the temperature issue. Also, if I’ve got to work on my computer, grading, or whatever, I’ll turn it on because even borderline temperatures are frustrating if you have to sit still for a while to work vs. moving around.

Thanks for the update on the temps, I guess it has seemed pretty typical. We did put the heat on for a few days last week, but I turned it back off because we haven’t really needed it this week, and that’s often how things go. For fun, we always try to see if we can make it to Halloween before having to turn on the heat, but even in the warmest Octobers we never really get there. There are generally those stretches where it gets cloudy and rainy, and once the house isn’t naturally getting up to 60 F in the day is when we typically make the call. The weather has really been fantastic for soccer season, and that Columbus Day weekend period was insane with the combination of foliage and weather – the levels of visitors and traffic around here definitely spoke to how everything came together. We got that typical October snow during the chilly period last week, and your mountain updates were great. It’s always nice when we can get one of those slightly more robust October events that give you enough to get out on the boards for some early powder (although I’m sure some folks got out on the junkboards and rock skis for the last one), but it doesn’t look like we’re getting one of those this year. The next shot at snow seems to be around the end of the month/beginning of November. 10/20 is the average date for first frozen precipitation at our place, so we’ll definitely be later than average this season. It’s quite the difference from last year at this time – last year we already were onto our third accumulating valley snowfall of the season by this point.

Thanks for the afternoon update PF; your intimate knowledge of the elevation markers at the resort always makes it especially informative for those of us that love the details of snow levels. As I typically try to do, I put up a post on my website to document the October snowfall, with reference to the posts and pictures in here. Thanks again!

That’s great to see PF, thanks for the snow update!

Well, I was just looking out from my office, and there’s a bit of an upslope wall of precipitation look along the western slopes of the Northern Greens. It’s the first time I’ve really seen it this fall, so I looked at the radar and it’s got that appearance too. With the temperatures just a bit above freezing along the ridgeline, I suspect there’s some mixing up there as the radar suggests:

I believe the expression you’re looking for is “incredibly loud”.

2 people with loud voices?

I’m assuming he’s busy with foliage/pre-season stuff, but we need a bit of PF infusion into the main October thread. The SNErs are trying to wish away the potential for some traditional October snow near the end of the month due to that crazy voodoo curse about October snow and a poor snowfall season. That’s not a thing up here – we love our October powder days whenever Mother Nature wants to send them! The family waxing up the boards with the cable radio Halloween station playing in the background is an honored tradition.

No worries; the NNE thread is pretty good about waiting until there’s actually something to talk about. It really won’t be long before there will be snow to discuss around here. Indeed the Mansfield forecast has flakes for later this week, it’s just not anything too notable at this point: It looks like the end of the month has got more potential though – I’ve been seeing it on multiple runs.

I think you summed it up nicely in your later post – it was the right kind of cold, with the bookends and no extended periods of sitting in the dry, arctic chill that gives high temperatures only around 0 F. The only notably cold stretch that immediately comes to mind was around the holidays? We had friends visiting, and we probably would have headed out together for a ski day, but the temperatures really just weren’t friendly. Great surface conditions probably could have tipped the scales a bit and tempted us to head out in the cold, but the surface conditions over the holiday period were nothing to write home about as I recall. Between the cold temperatures and blasé conditions, I only headed out once during the entire holiday period, and that was in the Bolton BC. Bookend cold, no extended arctic outbreaks, and 60+ snowstorms just doesn’t leave one with an especially “cold” taste in their mouth I guess. There were certainly plenty of blemishes (lots of storms tracking to the northwest of the area, an overall poor December, etc.), but it was definitely a fine way to run a winter.

Yeah, up here we LOL at the 50%/150% projections. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see what 150% would be like, since it would be pushing 250” here at the house and 500” in the mountains, but that’s not how our climate works. One S.D. here is probably less than 20%, so 50% is 2.5 S.D., which should happen only once every couple hundred years or so.

Yeah, it seems like the higher Whites are essentially a lock for snow with this upcoming event, but the Greens could easily get flakes as well.

Yeah, it looks like the Whites are easily into the snow above 5,000’, and anything that falls should stick around reasonably for pictures over the weekend based on the forecast. It doesn’t look like the snow is going anywhere with those Friday night temperatures: Tonight Snow, mainly after 8pm. Low around 25. Windy, with a southwest wind 20 to 25 mph increasing to 25 to 30 mph after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 2 to 4 inches possible. Friday Snow likely, mainly before 7am. Cloudy, then gradually becoming mostly sunny, with a high near 29. Very windy, with a northwest wind 35 to 40 mph increasing to 40 to 45 mph in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 55 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New snow accumulation of less than one inch possible. Friday Night Mostly clear, with a low around 19. Wind chill values as low as -1. Very windy, with a northwest wind 45 to 50 mph decreasing to 40 to 45 mph after midnight. Winds could gust as high as 65 mph. Saturday Sunny, with a high near 37. Windy, with a northwest wind 30 to 35 mph decreasing to 25 to 30 mph in the afternoon. Saturday Night Mostly clear, with a low around 29. Windy. Sunday A 30 percent chance of showers. Partly sunny, with a high near 45. Windy. Accumulations could get down to 3,000’ or even below based on the forecast. Over here in the Greens any accumulations would probably be more minimal, but the temperatures are around the freezing mark and there’s moisture, so the potential is there.

What I find hilarious is how the climate change paranoia simply gets adapted to whatever slant people want. Does your area have frequent drought issues? Well, climate change is going to make it even drier. Are floods a problem in your part of the country? You’d better watch out, climate change will definitely make them worse. Have a certain crop that you grow on your farm? You’re screwed. Climate change is going to ruin that by bringing more heat and moisture to the area. You’ll get more rain and warmer temperatures to grow your crops, but don’t worry, they’ll grow worse than before because… reasons. And don’t forget, despite the excess rainfall, your area is going to simultaneously be plagued with drought, so your crops won’t grow anyway. Oh, and if there’s an organism that frequently plagues your favorite crop as a pest, you can be damned sure that whatever the climate changes into, that pest is going to go absolutely gangbusters and eat whatever crop you put it. And you know, since it’s climate change, the modeling indicates that the pest is going to eat your house as well for good measure. Unfortunately, climate change prediction science is a field that can easily be filled with tons of model-based hypotheses that can’t be proven or refuted on a convenient time scale. In most fields, you make a hypothesis, run your experiment, then adjust your model accordingly and run the next experiment. When dealing with climate change it feels like you put together a model (which of course is done with the best knowledge available, but still can’t take into account everything we don’t know about), and then the planet’s population has to sit around for 50 years, discuss the possibilities and potentially prepare for the worst, while we wait to see how accurate the modeling actually was.

Based on what I’ve heard from the meteorologists in the forum, haven’t the number of coastal storms been abnormally high in recent seasons? I hear the SNE folks talk about how their snowfall averages over the past decade are on the high side – is that due to coastal storms? I did a quick look at my storm list from last season and grabbed any that were “coastal”, or along/near the coast for the list below. I found 15 in my storm list, but there may be more because a storm won’t be in my list if we don’t get any accumulation at our site. It seems like defining what a “coastal storm” is could be tough though, with the way things redevelop and take various tracks. What was last season like with respect to the typical number of “coastal” storms? Storm Date Description 3 10/23/18 Compact low pressure system off the New England Coast followed by upslope flow 4 10/27/18 Nor'easter 6 11/9/18 Double-barrel low pressure - eastern Great Lakes & coastal lows 7 11/13/18 Low pressure system hugging New England coast 9 11/15/18 Winter Storm Avery - low pressure just inland from New England coast 12 11/20/18 Low pressure passing through Mid-Atlantic States into Southern New England 14 11/26/18 Winter Storm Bruce - triple point low passing through New England 22 12/17/18 Vertically stacked system off coast + upper level trough/upslope 30 1/2/19 Clipper system with a bit of coastal redevelopment 36 1/19/19 Winter Storm Harper - Low pressure tracking from NYC to Gulf of Maine 40 1/29/19 Winter Storm Jayden - St. Lawrence/Ottawa Valley low & coastal development 45 2/12/19 Winter Storm Maya - low pressure tracking through Great Lakes & redeveloping off the coast 47 2/18/19 Winter Storm Oren - Benchmark low with weak shortwave moving through Northern New England 52 3/3/19 Winter Storm Scott - low pressure passing along coast near Cape Cod 59 3/21/19 Upper-level closed lows consolidating with coastal development and upslope

September Precipitation: 4.93” 2019 Precipitation: 46.39” 2019 Water Year Precipitation: 64.86” September is the driest warm season month in my data set, but this year its total precipitation came in about an inch above average and it wound up being our wettest September since 2012. Typically, even average precipitation for the month is plenty of moisture to keep the lawn happy with the cooler, early fall temperatures, so the extra precipitation was just sort of a bonus. The end of September not only marks the end of the month, but the end of the 2019 water year, and that came in on the high side as well. The average I have in my data here is in the 55” range, and this year it’s about 1 S.D. on the high side. A lot of the water year total came from the extra moisture we got during the winter, with 30.82” of total liquid during the accumulating snowfall season. Calendar year precipitation is currently a bit ahead of its average pace as well, and we’ll see what the next three months bring. We typically average about 50 inches of snow at our site in the coming three months, so hopefully we can keep the moisture train going to get that early snowfall down to start a good snowpack in the valleys and mountains.

It’s certainly getting there for Browning. Annual snowfall in the area is only 60”-80”, depending on where you look, so 48” is definitely approaching that low end of the range. The region seems to get one of these sort of events every few years. With their front range location they typically see a lot of downsloping/Chinooks, so it takes a special sort of setup to get events like this to occur. The area, as with much of the Montana Front Range, is really feast or famine relative to west of the divide.

Yeah, there’s another tenth or two out there in the gauge, so it looks like we’re a bit past 4.8” for the month. This September has been wetter than average, so the lawn is doing well. Seeing the picnic table talk in the forum, I just did a quick check on the Mansfield point forecast, and indeed flakes are starting to appear out there toward the weekend: Friday A chance of rain and snow showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 41. Breezy, with a north wind 16 to 20 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Friday Night A 30 percent chance of snow showers. Partly cloudy, with a low around 33. North wind around 16 mph. If potential flakes are starting to appear down below 4,000’, we’re certainly getting close now. It’s October by that point, so it’s totally normal, but it’s always interesting to watch those first volleys of winter make their way into the models and forecasts.

Certainly, spice of life.

From what I’ve observed over the years, it seems to be a term that weather weenie types often use for dramatic effect. I think they’ve tried to define it here at times, but you’re absolutely right in that some people use it in a threshold manner, and some use it to describe a degree of deviation. Throw in the spin factor and selective use of whatever climate sites people quote to serve their agenda, and you get a beautifully pointless weenie brew of never ending debate about the term.

Indeed your points are well taken wiz, as we know up here in the mountains of NNE we’re potentially multiple climate zones away from the valleys of SNE. Even relative to our normals though, one day of reaching 70 F in September seems… unremarkable.

LOL, seriously – I check in here and listen to the discussion, then go to my point forecast to find highs in the 60s F and think WTF. Indeed, like many, I use the NWS point forecasts. Maybe we’re lucky up here because we’re covered by BTV, but even with the partially automated nature of the service and the fact that we’re in a mountain microclimate area, the simple point and click nails the temperatures and precipitation for us the vast majority of the time. The BTV NWS folks are literally experts in meteorology and our local mountain climates, so it seems silly to not use their products.

Thanks for the update dryslot; it seems right in line with all the recent talk in here about how September is the new August. Most of our friends from back in Montana have been saying how all those record-breaking powder blizzards impacting the lower valleys that used to take place in August are now taking place in September. So I guess it checks out.

Yeah, either way you phrase it, you nailed it. There’s really not another lift-served area anywhere in the Eastern U.S. with its combination of such high annual snowfall and low skier traffic. Weekend powder mornings where you can spend the first couple of hours simply walking right onto the Timberline Quad are something you’re just not going to get at similarly snowy resorts along the spine. In the big leagues of Northern Greens snowfall, Smugg’s is probably the next closest contender, and indeed Smugg’s has got the low-speed lifts to preserve the power like Bolton, but they’ve just got a lot more overall skier traffic. Normally, when a ski area has a good thing going with respect to great powder and low skier traffic, it’s only a matter of time before it gets “discovered” and that changes, unless there are other factors in play. When it comes to Bolton, I think there are a couple of key things helping to keep it so low key: 1) The neighborhood: Bolton Valley is literally surrounded by the ski giants of the Central/Northern Greens. We’re talking about being within about an hour of the likes of Stowe, Smugg’s, Jay Peak, Sugarbush, and Mad River Glen. When you look at these neighbors, you’ve got five ski areas that in terms of snowfall, terrain, and various other factors are perennial contenders for top ten in the entire Eastern U.S. In general, people are going to have a hard time passing up all those places to hit Bolton Valley. 2) Terrain: Bolton indeed has some classic steep terrain in line with those surrounding resorts, but it’s not going to be as long and continuous. Most advanced and expert skiers really like those long, continuous fall lines that go on and on, and that’s just not Bolton’s terrain. On every main lift at the resort you’re going to find that the terrain rolls and/or flattens out in one spot or another, and that just doesn’t appeal to a lot of skiers. As a Tele skier I absolutely love that setup because just as my quads are cooked, I can rest them while making a traverse to the next line, and by the time I get there I’m ready to dive in. If I was on my snowboard though, that would be hell. A fantastic run I love at BV is the full descent of almost 1,700’ vertical from the Vista Summit down to the Timberline Base. That’s hardly what folks would call a “fall line” run, but I love it. When making that run I’m typically going to do 3 or 4 substantial traverses (or in some cases even short ascents) to piece together a combination of untracked trails and off piste areas with appropriate pitches and powder the whole way. All told the run might take close to an hour after meandering among all the nooks and crannies of the resort, and one needs a very strong knowledge of the topography and off piste areas to do it, but that’s the kind of skiing I really enjoy. Even more fun is mixing in combinations of hybrid runs that are both lift-served and backcountry with powder that seems to go on forever. That sort of stuff is certainly not going to be everyone’s cup of tea though, and in my opinion that’s part of what really helps to keep the resort so low key despite the top tier snowfall and powder skiing.

Yeah, it was a bit of a blast from the past as soon as I clicked on that link. I actually saw it this morning but only had a chance to respond about the Freedom Pass and the Indy Pass this afternoon.