J.Spin

With the latest updates, it doesn’t look like the BTV NWS is seeing much snow potential on the back side of our current system, but they are starting to talk a bit more about the potential from the weekend system now that it’s getting a bit closer. Accumulations of 12-18” are already mentioned in the forecast discussion for the Saturday night through Monday night period – and some of the modeling has that snow continuing right into Wednesday. On top of that, the GFS has been showing more snow potential, with storms stacked up right through the end of its run. The farther out one goes, the more the storms are subject to change of course, but there is some ensemble support for another snowy stretch coming up. .LONG TERM /SATURDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY/... As of 411 PM EST Wednesday...No major changes made to the forecast for the weekend into early next week as the 12Z medium range deterministic and ensemble guidance did not significantly shift from previous runs. After a tranquil Saturday morning under exiting high pressure, a digging upper trough over the Great Lakes looks to phase with southern stream energy ejecting out of the TN/OH Valleys. A primary surface low develops over the Ohio Valley and tracks northeast through the St. Lawrence Valley Saturday night, while secondary low pressure develops along the southern New England coast early Sunday morning, eventually becoming the primary low Sunday afternoon while bombing to around 980 mb along the Maine Coast. In contrast to the 00Z guidance, latest guidance supports the secondary low becoming the primary a bit sooner, with less of a mid-level dry slot noted, which will help to filter colder temps back into the forecast area Sunday afternoon/evening before a transition to more terrain-focused precipitation Sunday night through Monday and potentially Monday night. Overall, thermal profiles continue to support snow being very elevationally dependent with elevations below 2000 feet mainly rain through Sunday, ending with a light accumulation of snow Sunday night into Monday. Across the higher elevations though, snow remains the dominant ptype, very wet and heavy Saturday night through Sunday night, before decreasing in density on Monday. A first guess at storm total snowfall would support a winter weather advisory Sunday night through Monday across the western slopes of the Adirondacks and northern Greens for 3-6" of snow, while elevations above 2000 feet could see accumulations of 12-18" from Saturday night through Monday night.

I didn’t expect Saturday’s cloudy conditions and temperatures in the 30s F to do much in terms of softening up the snowpack, but with today’s forecast calling for temperatures in the 40s F, there seemed much more potential for softening the slopes. Temperatures looked optimal in the afternoon, so my wife and I headed up to Timberline at Bolton for some runs. The weather for our session started out with a mix of foggy and cloudy conditions, and even a light mist of rain, but that quickly dissipated and moved on to produce mostly sunny conditions by the end. When I checked the snow report earlier today, I saw that some of the natural snow trails were closed down at the Timberline elevations, and that initially had me worried about the available coverage. When we got to the mountain though, coverage was actually much better than the trail report had led me to believe. Twice as Nice was indeed closed, but it wasn’t as if it was devoid of snow – there were bare spots on the back sides of some of the rolls that would have made the skiing challenging, so I can see why they had it closed. I though Spell Binder was going to be closed, but it wasn’t – they’d made snow on the steep headwall section at some point, so it had an incredible amount of snow. The lower parts of the trail that have not seen any snowmaking were under a sort of “soft” closure – they had signs suggesting it was closed, but no rope and most people were skiing it. From the Timberline Summit, Intro was open with wall-to-wall coverage, and they blew in so much snow in the gap above the Timberline Mid Station that the ledges aren’t even visible. Conditions were definitely soft enough to get in some nice corn snow turns, but it wasn’t really warm enough to soften the snow too deep into the snowpack. We found that terrain that had not been touched by other skiers was the best, because you could peel away a couple inches of snow without encountering the firm subsurface too much. Areas that had seen higher traffic revealed more of the firm subsurface and resulted in louder turns that were much less spring-like. It looks like the coming week will feature some warmer spring-like days in the first half, which should be enough to get the snow softened more than today. Later in the week, the weather cools a bit and becomes more unsettled with snow chances. There’s nothing in the modeling yet that indicates a slam dunk March storm with solid mountain snows, but some runs show the potential. We’d need a decent shot of liquid equivalent to get much of a resurfacing, but the base is ready if we do get enough, and the more that falls as snow, the more terrain that would be in play for quality turns.

I see that the stake had even pushed back above average a bit with Monday and Tuesday’s snowfall, so that’s consistent with the ups and downs the snowpack has had. Our recent stretch of roughly a week brought almost 20 inches of snow to our site in the valley, and another double-digit storm to add to the season, so it’s not too surprising that the snorkels came out in the high country. 2/12/2024 0.1 Frontal boundary across southern Quebec 2/13/2024 4.3 Potent shortwave passing through upper-level flow 2/15/2024 10.4 Quick moving moisture-ridden clipper 2/17/2024 2.7 Shortwave swinging through the BTV NWS forecast area 2/18/2024 0.2 Lake effect snow with south/southwest flow 2/18/2024 1.6 Arctic boundary with snow showers and embedded heavier snow squalls 2/20/2024 0.4 Light snow showers on northwest flow Sum 19.7 It wasn’t enough to quite catch us back up to average pace at our site, but it was another nice jump on the seasonal snowfall progression plot, and it did get us to 92.6% of average Monday’s snow even pushed Bolton Valley’s season snowfall total just above average for the first time in a while: their 217” season total put them at 100.6% of average. A couple more of those bread and butter periods would be nice to keep things rolling, but it doesn’t look like we’re quite going to get a stretch like the past week in the immediate future. The GFS does show those three systems coming up in the next few days, but they don’t seem as potent as the recent ones.

I was fairly busy yesterday, but I did have a chance to get out for a sunset ski tour up on the Bolton Valley Nordic and Backcountry Network. I’d say powder depths were roughly similar to what I found on my Monday tour, with perhaps a touch of settling. The powder in the backcountry just seems to get better each day though as the lower layers of the surface powder settle and bond to the subsurface. This is one of the more impressive progressions I’ve seen in the improvement of the powder skiing over time, and as I was gearing up for my tour yesterday, I heard other skiers talking about it as well. I didn’t have a ton of time before dinner, so I did a quick loop up Brant to Coyote and on to Gotham City with a descent of Gun Sight and subsequent glades. As mentioned, the powder was simply fantastic, and by the time I was descending the sun had gone down and I was skiing by the light of the moon (with headlamp assistance at times). There are still plenty of untracked lines throughout the lesser used glades, although you have to work a bit more to get untracked lines in the more popular glades since it’s now been a couple of days since the last substantial snowfall. Since it’s a big vacation week, the night skiing was going full tilt when I got back to my car, and it seems like the resort is getting some solid visitation. For those who are on school vacation this week, they certainly got a doozy in terms of both snow conditions and weather.

I was too busy to get out for turns yesterday, but I had some time this afternoon and was able to head up to Bolton. Thanks to the arctic front that came through overnight, they picked up another 4-6” of snow, bringing their recent totals to 16” in the last 48 hours and 36” in the past week. I was definitely interested in checking out the new snow, but between still being in the holiday period, temperatures a bit on the chilly side, and the typical consistency of the subsurface I’ve observed in areas with skier traffic, touring on the Nordic and Backcountry Network seemed like the best option. Based on my experience out there today though, issues with the subsurface snow quality are rapidly disappearing. While we’re not typically looking for the champagne powder on the slopes to settle, it eventually does, and in this case the compaction of the lower levels of the surface snow is really starting to pay dividends with respect to the overall quality of the skiing. When we first began to get these latest rounds of fluff, it was just dry powder atop the old firm base. There was no bonding between the old and new snow, and if you weren’t in bottomless snow, you were hitting a very hard subsurface. Whether due to the new overnight snow, the settling of the lower layers in the surface snow, or more likely a combination of both, I noticed a dramatic change in that surface/subsurface interface today. There’s a substantial, denser layer of snow above the subsurface now, and contact with the old subsurface is far less frequent. Even when it comes to very dry powder, if you get enough of it, you will eventually get to the level of a resurfacing, and apparently, snorkel-deep levels of champagne are enough. In any event, powder turns were absolutely fantastic out there today. With the lower levels of the powder getting crushed into denser snow, in undisturbed areas you’ve got a right-side-up snowpack that is reaching very high quality. The powder is so good that it’s now supporting great turns on low-angle, mid-angle, and even high-angle terrain. The addition of the new snow combined with settling seems to have held powder depths in the range of what I found on Saturday, with probably 12+” at 2,000’ and 17-18” around 3,000’. I’m amazed that the powder still works for low angle terrain with how deep it is, but it’s so dry in the upper layers that it just does – at least on 115 mm fat skis. With the powder hitting the depth for even high-angle terrain, I opted for exploring some steeper lines today. On my tour, I started up Heavenly Highway and set in a skin track out toward Devil’s Drop to get in some turns there, and also put in a track to get me out to some of the steeper terrain above North Slope. All the terrain out there is really good right now. The clouds pulled away today to leave us with a brilliant, sunny, midwinter afternoon. Anyone out there touring in the backcountry was definitely getting a top 10-20% day, and the snow quality should stay great with these cold temperatures, so tomorrow should be just as good. As a bonus, I was surprised to see that despite the holiday weekend, traffic on the Nordic and Backcountry Network has actually been fairly light the past couple of days – I’d say 75% of the glades I saw had in the range of zero to three tracks in them when I was out this afternoon.

Indeed, hard not to love that - the Northern Greens went from a settled snowpack to snorkel deep snow and we never even had a big storm, just…

With the off piste conditions being so much better than the trails right now, my older son and I had plans to take a ski tour up to Stowe View yesterday and hit some of the Moose Glen terrain at Bolton Valley. I was just up there a couple of weeks ago, and there are many acres of high elevation glades that I’d expect to have fantastic snow with the way the spine has recently been getting round after round of heavy snowfall. It was dumping huge flakes at the house when we left in the morning, and 1”/hr. snows in the valley turned to 1-2”/hr. snows as we ascended the Bolton Valley Access Road. The snow was falling so hard and fast that the access road was absolutely covered. Even down by the Catamount Trail parking area before the big S-curve below Timberline, vehicles were already lined up due to some cars not being able to get enough traction on the grade. I’m not sure where they were in the plowing cycle for the road because there wasn’t a plow around that we saw, but with the rate the snow was falling, it almost wouldn’t have mattered. Cars were turning around to descend, and some were evening having to back down in the downhill lane because they couldn’t turn around. Descending cars were moving at an absolute crawl to avoid sliding, and some still struggled with sliding just due to the crown of the road. After about 15 minutes we made it up to the base of the S-curve and started the ascent there, and I saw that a line of cars were stopped about halfway down from the top of the grade. That’s one of the steepest parts of the access road, and you don’t want to have to restart there from a dead stop if you can help it. I could see that the whole situation was going to be trouble, and there was no immediate sign of the next plow, so we made the split second decision to turn around and simply park at the Catamount Trail parking area about 100 yards below us. We were going to be ski touring anyway, so we figured we’d just start our tour from there instead. It does add a couple of extra miles to the route, but we had the time, and it was far better than sitting in traffic and risking an accident on the road. And as bad as it was at that point, the snow simply continued to pound down and make the road worse. While gearing up for our tour at the car, we met another couple of guys who had decided on the same plan. They weren’t too familiar with the resort, but I assured them that the trail network connected right up to the Nordic Center and Village, and from that point they could head wherever they wanted on the network. The ascent to the Village was beautiful, and the very heavy snowfall was with us for the first mile or so before it tapered down at least a bit. I’d actually never skied that full connection before, so it was great to be able to experience the route. We didn’t need to stop in at the Nordic Center, so we just cut right up to the Bryant Trail along with a couple of women who were out on a similar tour. From there, it was just the usual route on up to Stowe View with some water and snack breaks. My son hadn’t had any breakfast, so with the extra distance, he quickly made use of the snack he’d brought, and I dove heavily into the reserves in my pack to get him additional calories. It was about 4.5 miles and over 2,000’ vertical up to Stowe View by that route, so that’s about double the vertical and triple the distance relative to a typical tour to that area starting in the Village. That increase definitely required more calories. We skied various parts of the Moose Glen glade areas as planned, and the powder was simply fantastic. Even down at 1,200’ there was a solid 12” of settled powder, and up around 3,000’ it was typically in the 17-18” range. It was champagne light, so it actually worked well on a variety of different slope angles. As long as you had first tracks, even steeper terrain was in play for bottomless turns. We had a long, long run, with glade after glade of powder, down through areas White Rabbit and Branches, and eventually we reached the Village where we could take a quick break and plan our next move. We were on contact with my younger son, who had parked at Timberline and we decided that instead of heading back to the car via the Nordic and Backcountry Network, we’d complete our tour using the alpine trails. We got a lift assist off the Vista Quad, and made our way from Cobrass to Maria’s where there were still plenty of untracked lines to ski. Lower Tattle Tale was also still really good along the edges where we found untracked snow. We met up with my younger son at the Timberline Base Lodge and caught up over some El Gato burritos. We’d planned to ski down to our car at the Catamount Trail parking area if necessary, but we just caught a ride with my son and it made for pleasant finish to a tour that was almost 10 miles in total and brought us literally from one end of the resort to the other using the Nordic, backcountry, and alpine trail networks. It was a great way to make use of all the recent snows and great conditions that have developed.

That seems right in line with what Bolton had in their snow report yesterday afternoon, so it’s been a nice couple of days along the spine up here: “Saturday, February 17, 2024, 5:15pm Update: With 20" of snowfall in the last 48 hours we are thrilled to have 100% of the mountain open with all 6 lifts and 71 trails across our 3 summits expected to have another go of it for Sunday Funday tomorrow with lifts from 9am to 4pm - night skiing is Tuesday to Saturday.” Today’s update says well over two feet in the past few days, and indeed it’s great out there. I’ll put together some Saturday photos when I get a chance. I see that Bolton is reporting 211” on the season now, which is right where they should be based on average pace, so the past few days have allowed them to catch back up after that February lull.

On Friday, my wife wanted to catch up with some friends who were doing some night skiing, so on top of my morning session, I ended up right back up at the mountain in the evening. It was very busy for a Bolton night skiing session, and we ended up parking in the lower tennis court lot because the others were so full. It’s very dark down there, but it does provide some neat views of the resort at night. It’s also right along the Nordic trails, so it makes for a fun evening ski to get back to the car. With so many visitors on Friday night, I assume all the new snow and the kickoff to the holiday weekend came together to really ramp up people’s interest for getting out for turns. I doubt I would have headed up for the evening session were in not for getting out to make some turns with friends, because I would only have expected the on piste conditions to deteriorate further after a full day of traffic. And at night, only the most popular trails are open, so that means extra traffic in the high-traffic areas. One thing about the end of a long day though, especially when there’s been new snow, is that you do get those terrain areas where the snow collects due to traffic. Directly under the Mid Mountain Chair was one of those spots on Friday night. Patrol has set up marking poles right beneath the chair because the snowpack is deep enough that you might run into people’s skis, and even after the caution area, people never return to skiing the center near the lift towers and just push a lot of snow there. So, that held some of the best snow we found in the Beech Seal area. Areas with traffic-related accumulations, and low-angle terrain were definitely the best bets when we were out Friday evening, but when possible, I’d recommend just heading out in the day and venturing off piste if you can. The off piste conditions are just so much better right now, especially on moderate-angle terrain and anywhere that is untracked. The subsurface is definitely firm, so do watch out for places where the wind has scoured the powder or evergreens are dense enough that it’s reduced accumulations – those areas can leave you bottoming out on some unforgiving snow.

The clipper that began affecting the area Thursday evening was definitely potent – by the time I headed up to the mountain early Friday morning, we’d already picked up 7 inches of new snow at the house. I couldn’t really get a sense for accumulations heading up the Bolton Valley Access Road, but up in the Bolton Valley Village elevations around 2000’ I was measuring 8 inches of new snow. That was definitely a transient number though, because it was snowing at least an inch an hour. Visibility was so low in the heavy snowfall that you could only see about a dozen chairs on the Mid Mountain Lift – beyond that it simply disappeared. I started off my session with a quick tour up to about 2,500’ using the Wilderness Uphill Route. Powder depths didn’t seem to increase drastically with elevation, as I measured about 9 inches at the 2,500’ level. Being a weekday morning, it was very quiet and I don’t recall seeing another soul until a lone rider appeared as he descended the Wilderness Liftline off in the distance. The Vista Quad had started loading, and the appearance of the rider meant that people were starting their first descents. It was a good sign that it was time for me to descend as well. I descended on Lower Turnpike, which hadn’t seen much skier traffic, so there were plenty of fresh turns to be had. I’d brought my 115 mm fat skis, and they were definitely the right tool for the terrain, keeping me surfing at a nice pace on the lower angle slopes. My analyses from down at the house indicated that we’d picked up about a third of an inch of liquid at that point, and assuming something similar for the mountain that meant the powder was somewhere in the 3 to 4% H2O range. It offered little resistance with respect to slowing my descent, and fat skis were more than enough to keep the turns bottomless. After my descent I caught up on texting with my colleague Stephen about getting together for some turns. He and his son were just finishing up in the lodge and met up with me a few minutes later. We rode the Vista Quad and hit Alta Vista followed by Fanny Hill. The subsurface out there is really firm due to the extended period we recently went through without much snowfall. Aside from the areas of powder along the trail edges, Alta Vista was really firm. Fanny Hill was much better – after the initial steep chute area, the rest of the trail was out of the wind and had seen little skier traffic. It had a mid-angle pitch that skied perfectly for bottomless turns in the available powder. I couldn’t stay too long at the mountain, but from what I was able to sample, that mid-angle terrain was great. You really wanted to be getting fresh tracks though for quality turns – there just wasn’t enough liquid equivalent down at that point to really hold up to multiple skiers before you’d be contacting the base. A third of an inch of liquid can’t go too far in that regard, but thankfully it was midweek so there were plenty of opportunities for untracked snow.

I think PF’s thoughts are quite reasonable as usual – the larger numbers can likely come about depending on how high the snow ratios are. I put some of the BTV NWS forecast discussion below – it looks like they are seeing some increased QPF values relative to earlier. I’m not sure which specific models they’re focusing on, but they do mention the extra moisture from the Great Lakes, which we wouldn’t always have as much of this time of year. The quality of the resurfacing for the slopes really depends on the amount of liquid equivalent anyway, so in that regard the actual snow amounts are really just for record keeping. .NEAR TERM /THROUGH FRIDAY/... As of 911 AM EST Thursday... Mainly clear skies will prevail this morning before high clouds begin to stream in later today ahead of a quick, moisture- ridden clipper. With this update, moisture has increased across several model solutions, causing us to increase our QPF amounts. The low pressure clipper appears to draw some extra moisture from the Great Lakes, which remain virtually free of ice. With this QPF increase and expected snow ratios remaining relatively high, our snow totals have also increased, which spurred both an addition to the Winter Weather Advisory already in effect as well as an issuance of a Winter Storm Warning in southeastern St. Lawrence County. For the Winter Weather Advisory, we have added Essex, Caledonia, and Orange counties of Vermont with expected snowfall amounts of about 3 to 6 inches. The spine of the Greens could also score a large amount of snow with this system with up to 10 inches possible at highest peaks. One of the main concerns for this clipper will be the potential for high snowfall rates of around 1 inch per hour in northern New York and gusty winds blowing snow around to reduce visibilities. Travel for the Thursday evening and Friday morning commutes may be treacherous. The snow growth zone is looking well saturated for the duration of the event, and models indicate solid frontogenesis stretching across northern New York.

I saw that the BTV NWS updated their maps this morning, so the new ones are pasted below. On the Event Total Snowfall map, a notable update is the appearance of the 8-12” orange shading along the spine. The point forecast for our site is in the 6-10” range through the day tomorrow, and that seems consistent with the map, which goes through midday Friday. More snow is expected into Friday night though, and with a quick look at the series of impulses coming through, I wouldn’t be surprised if the mountain areas along the spine of the Northern Greens didn’t see too many breaks in the showery regime right through Monday. Even in the valley, the graphic panels from our point forecast suggest snow chances throughout the period:

The cumulative snowfall plot for our site (below) clearly shows the period of snowfall stagnation we just went through – we’d recovered right up to a very average pace with those early January storms, and held that pace for much of January. A flat stretch like we had obviously threw us behind. We’re ~66% of the way through the snowfall season as of today, and snowfall at our site is currently 82.3% of average (down from being at 96.7% of average snowfall pace as of the end of January). This recent slow stretch wasn’t as long as the December one though. Up at elevation above us, I see that Bolton is reporting 186” on the season as of this morning, and based on my calculations, they should be at about 206” if they were on average pace, so that would put them at 90.2% of average. They were a bit ahead of the game due to some of those large, elevation-dependent storms, so that’s kept them closer to average. If we get into a bread and butter pattern like the modeling shows though, we could certainly make up a bit of ground. We really haven’t been in that bread and butter clipper pattern much this season. We made up for it somewhat with those larger systems, but those maintenance snows are part of the climate up here that really makes a difference. One potential benefit going forward is that Great Lakes moisture is somewhat more in play than it normally would be at this time of year because they haven’t cooled off as much with the mild weather.

Hmm, not sure on the alerts – they do come in the same text stream as all my Washington County VT-511 traffic alerts though.

This afternoon I received a text that we’d been put under a Winter Weather Advisory in association with the upcoming clipper system, and the latest BTV NWS maps are below. Our point forecast comes in around 5” to 8” of snow accumulation through Friday night, which generally lines up with the Event Total Snowfall map having us in the darkest blue 4-6” shading, but fairly proximal to the yellow 6-8” shading. Checking the point forecasts in the Bolton-Stowe-Smugg’s stretch of the spine just to our north, I’m seeing projected accumulations through that period top out in the 4-10”/5-11” range, which is where they’ve put that concentration of yellow shading.

Today was forecast the be the warmest day of this current stretch, and while there was a chance for showers, it was sunny most of the morning. We had an appointment in the afternoon, but with sunshine and valley temperatures expected to get into the 50s F, it seems like too nice a day to pass up the chance to get in some turns. We headed up to Bolton’s Timberline area, since the relatively low elevation and exposure there make it the best bet for the snow to start softening up. I think even snow on the main mountain would have been fine though – the snow was already nice and soft all the way up to the Timberline Summit at 2,500’ when we arrived in the midmorning period. With the soft snow and sunshine, today on the slopes had more of a March feel than a typical February feel. I don’t think the snow has seen too much freeze-thaw cycling over the past couple of days, but in general it was skiing quite well. I felt that my skis were sticking just a touch at the start of my first run, but that seemed to disappear quickly, so it was likely just an issue of working off some old wax or maybe some residual skin glue that had been left over from last weekend’s ski tours. We found the best turns to be where others were churning up the snow and getting down a bit into the cooler layers, but in general you could go anywhere. In terms of coverage, even the natural snow trails down at Timberline elevations are doing well, with a few bare spots here and there that were inconsequential in general. They’ll need some additional winter storms though for those lower elevation trails to maintain robust coverage into March and April.

That’s great to hear you got out – I wasn’t sure if you would change plans based on the size of the most recent storm. Thankfully that clipper was helpful in at least taking the edge off a bit with respect to the snow surfaces, and as you noted, the base isn’t bulletproof hard or anything. As you probably observed as well, turns in untracked snow on those lower angle pitches were actually fairly pleasant. It sounds like you hit a lot of great areas in your tour, so I hope you get a chance to try them out with a more substantial dump at some point. That first image of yours looks like it’s from Stowe View based on that caked-up tree on the right – it seems to be the same one I had in my image from that area.

Today was gorgeous, but we’re definitely in a dry spell with respect to winter weather events. Relative to the usual frequency of winter storm in the Northern Greens at this time of year, the period we’re in right now feels like being in the middle of a desert. The little clipper system that came through at the end of the week would typically be just a blip in the storm parade, but in this case it was a much appreciated mini oasis for this stretch of winter. I wasn’t sure if I was going to ski at all this weekend, let alone get out for two sessions, but the way the new snow set up the low angle terrain for powder turns wound up creating some respectable conditions. And then of course there was today’s perfect midwinter weather with clear blue skies and temperatures pushing into the upper 20s F – that really sealed the deal to get out for another ski tour. On yesterday’s tour I hit a good collection of low angle terrain and explored some new spots that don’t typically lend themselves to great turns in deeper powder. Whereas yesterday I’d topped out around 2,800’ on Heavenly Highway, today I pushed out a bit father out toward Stowe View and topped out around 3,200’. Even up at that altitude, I wasn’t detecting any notable increases in new snow depths, so the general 2 to 3 inches that I’d encountered yesterday was still the rule. My target terrain for today was some of the lower angle slopes in the Moose Glen/White Rabbit area. I hadn’t been up there in a while, and it turns out there was a lot of terrain that was steeper than I’d remembered, especially in the initial parts of the descent dropping down from Stowe View and Moose Glen. Although that terrain was a bit steep for today’s conditions, the visit did serve as a reminder to get out there when the powder is a bit deeper, because the terrain is quite expansive. I eventually got into more of the lower angle terrain that I’d remembered, and that offered some nice powder turns with similar consistency to what I’d experienced yesterday. Overall I’d say yesterday’s tour had a slightly higher yield in terms of catching smooth, bottomless turns on the right terrain, but today being Sunday, it did mean another full day of visitors getting out there in the snow. Even on the backcountry network, traffic eventually tracks up the snow, and with these conditions, you really needed untracked snow for the best turns. Just one pass through the snow by another skier makes a big difference with these lighter accumulations. One neat thing I did see today while heading up Birch Loop was a skier returning from out on the Catamount Trail heading toward Bryant Cabin. There’s a bit of rolling terrain there that isn’t optimal for having skins either on or off, and what he did was to have a skin on one ski but not the other. When he was skiing, he was one-footing it on the ski with no skin for maximum glide, and then he could use the other ski with the skin on it for better grip going uphill. I thought that was a pretty slick compromise for that sort of rolling terrain. Being on Telemark gear, I typically just go without skins on rolling terrain since herring boning on the uphill sections is simpler with the light gear, but that guy’s technique could be a nice way to go on a heavier setup like alpine touring gear. The snowpack out there is midwinter deep and ready for prime time as soon as we get another decent storm - let’s hope something pops up before mid-month so we don’t have to spend another ten days in this veritable snowfall desert.

That does tell you how potent the winter climate is up here when temperatures can run greater than +8 F and the average high is still below freezing. January is the perfect month to do that, and it’s a great way to run the month – we didn’t have to sit through any of those arctic weeks where you’re constantly dealing with all those cold weather issues like the hassles with vehicles, frigid lift rides, etc. And, without that artic air constantly being driven right into our back yard, we didn’t have the problem of the moisture and storm track being pushed elsewhere. Over the years, one of the reasons I’ve seen our January snowfall take a hit in some seasons is because we deal with those artic weeks where you just can’t get new snow. The snowfall averages are the averages for a reason of course, so that’s baked into our climate, and it’s really just a “perceived” loss in snowfall because the parade of storms stops relative to what it was. In any event, this was one of those Januarys where we didn’t have to take that arctic snowfall hit. The stats at our site definitely tell the tale. While January snowfall was actually just a bit above average and not especially notable, it was the most January snow we’ve seen in five seasons. And while the snowfall wasn’t overly noteworthy, the month did take its place among the records in a couple of different categories. Speaking to your comments about the lack of sun, we only had two days in the entire month without snow here at our site. That’s 29 out of 31 days with snow, and it tied January 2021 for the highest number of days with snow for any month in my records. This January actually has its real claim to fame in another category though – number of storms. The month had a total of 19 distinct storms/events, which simply blew away the previous record holders of December 2014 and December 2008, which both had 16 storms. So if it felt like it was snowy and we rarely got to see the sun out here in the Northern Greens, your perception was indeed correct. I don’t have the exact numbers, but Bolton Valley probably reported around 80 inches of snow from the month based on the 100 inches they had through the end of December? That’s not quite the typical doubling I often see for snowfall relative to what we record here in the valley, but it’s reasonably close. Similar to here in the valley, it was definitely a solid snowfall month for the resort. I think if most skiers had their choice though, what we experienced was the way to run January: moderate midwinter temperatures that keep things below freezing, with solid snowfall plus lots of refreshers to top off the conditions and keep the powder days coming.

The clipper system that came through the area at the end of the week had been shown in the modeling for quite a while. Some of the earlier runs even suggested the potential for some additional upslope snow on the back side of the system, but that component faded in the prognostications as the week wore on, and the system was essentially a clipper passing north of the area. Yesterday morning’s early snow reports of 2 to 3 inches for the Northern Greens resorts were somewhat encouraging, and that was bolstered by PF’s comments from Stowe indicating that the snow wasn’t just fluff – it had some substance to it. After a consistent run of storm cycles throughout January, we’re in a relatively slow period of snowfall right now. We haven’t had a substantial storm in several days, and it looks like it will be at least a few more until our next one, so this is likely our best immediate window of fresh snow. With that in mind, it seemed like a good day to get our for some turns, so I headed up to Bolton Valley for some touring on the backcountry network. Starting from the Village at around 2,000’, I skinned up past Bryant Cabin to roughly 2,800’ on Heavenly Highway. The new snow depths were very much as advertised, with 2 to 3 inches of powder through that entire elevation range. There really wasn’t much increase in the snowfall totals at those elevations where I was touring, but the totals definitely started to tail off below 2,000’. I can’t say exactly how much fell at 1,500’, but it was noticeably less, and once you got below 1,000’ there was no new snow. At some point in the past several days there’s also been some riming in the mountains; you can see the rime on the trees at various elevations throughout the resort. With the available snow I stuck to low-angle glades for as much of my descent as possible, and as noted, the new powder had some substance to it so the turns would up being quite decent. On mid-fats I was probably getting 25-50% bottomless turns on terrain with the appropriate pitch. And even when touching down, the turns were still feeling very good because the subsurface has some pliability – it’s certainly dense, but nothing like the sheet of ice that would result from a big rainstorm. The base snow is soft enough that you can punch down into the snowpack if you’re not on a floatation device like skis or snowshoes, and I saw numerous signs of this happening where snowboarders or hikers were traversing areas in boots. For the last part of my tour on the backcountry network I worked my way along Gardiner’s Lane and made good use of the low-angle terrain there. In many areas I was able to explore lines that you often can’t hit because the powder is too deep to sustain good momentum, but they were great today, so I experienced a lot of new sections of the network that I often breeze past. I connected onto the alpine trails at Lower Turnpike for the last part of my tour, and let’s just say, if you didn’t get out for lift-served turns around here today, you’re really not missing anything. Lower Turnpike typically maintains some of the highest quality snow on the alpine trails because of relatively low skier traffic, modest pitch, and good protection from the wind. Even there, the surface was firm unless I was able to get into the untracked powder off to the sides, and if it’s firm on Lower Turnpike you know it’s going to be very rough elsewhere. I don’t actually have to imagine what the conditions were like on the main trails though, because some friends sent us video of their son snowboarding today, and the sound of his board on the snow was excruciating. That’s probably going to be a common situation until the next substantial storm comes into the area or it gets very warm, so we’ll be looking for Mother Nature to get another good winter storm system through here as soon as possible.

I’m seeing reports of 2 to 3 inches of new snow from the resorts in their early morning reports, so it’s going to be a nice addition, but we’re not talking the levels of snow/liquid that would be needed for a thorough resurfacing. It is actually snowing here in the BTV area at the moment, and the short-term models show the snow continuing through tonight along the spine as they have been, so we’ll see what additional snow they pick up through tomorrow. Watching the Bolton Valley Live Cam you can see that things look nice with the new snow, but the event would definitely need to be a couple notches bigger to really kick things up.

Most of the models seem to be suggesting something in the range of 0.2” to 0.5” of liquid from the system through Saturday morning, with the GFS on the high end at 0.60” up in the Jay Peak area from its most recent run. As I mentioned, this far out, I find that the GFS seems to have better depictions of what happens in the Northern Greens with these northerly systems (maybe the other medium range models don’t have the mountains incorporated into their modeling in the same way). It’s interesting to note that the BTV NWS actually touches on this concept in their discussion: “For now, leaned towards the GFS depiction, enhancing QPF a bit in areas that do well with low Froude numbers.” One can’t even use the short-range models yet for total precipitation because they don’t really cover out through the end of the event, so they’re not quite in the mix yet. The current timing of this event is great though in terms of hitting the slopes, it would start up on Thursday and finish up on Saturday morning. For the most part this is an icing on the cake event since the snowpack is plenty robust in terms of coverage with four feet at the Mt. Mansfield Stake. Personally, I’d need some sort of event to entice me out though, since the conditions are going to be fairly blasé otherwise. My younger son was out on Saturday and he confirmed that – there just wasn’t enough interest among his friends to head back out on Sunday. The BTV NWS is definitely starting to dissect the potential in their discussion though; we’re definitely lucky to have them using their expertise for all the mountain recreation interests. This should be nice to watch over the next few days to see how it ultimately plays out. Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 924 AM EST Tue Jan 30 2024 .SHORT TERM /WEDNESDAY NIGHT THROUGH THURSDAY NIGHT/... As of 409 AM EST Tuesday...Most, or possibly all, of the active weather during the next seven days will be in this timeframe as a clipper rolls through near or just north of our region. To see moderate snowfall from these systems you need the track to our south, and its low pressure center may also be on a slight weakening trend as it approaches. That being said, widespread light precipitation will occur for much of the day Thursday, transitioning into potentially a decent upslope snow event Thursday night. Some possible limitations for snowfall during the daytime will be associated with warm boundary layer temperatures and track of the upper level shortwave. If precipitation is on the light side and/or arrives well after sunrise, expect temperatures in the wide valleys/lowest elevations to be above 36 degrees, making rain about as likely as snow. However, if the system tracks overhead as depicted by the 00Z NAM-12, better cooling and upper level divergence will aid in both precipitation rates and snow growth. The strong global model consensus at this time does favor a track farther north. Without particularly deep moisture to draw from, low level westerly flow could induce a shadowing effect of precipitation, east of the high peaks of the Adirondacks and Green Mountains. Overall, snow accumulations will probably be elevationally dependent and on the wetter side of average (about as 10-12:1 snow-to-liquid ratio) during the day, with some slick travel possible across the Adirondacks and central and eastern Vermont, especially northeastern areas. Moving into Thursday night, there are signals for upslope snow with blocked flow given weak westerly to northwesterly flow and abundant low level moisture. As cold mid-level temperatures and associated push of stronger northwesterly winds lag behind the exiting clipper, snow showers will be quite terrain-driven. For now, leaned towards the GFS depiction, enhancing QPF a bit in areas that do well with low Froude numbers. With 850 millibar temperatures on the warm side Thursday night (roughly -6 to -7 Celsius), snow ratios will tend to be lower than normal for upslope snow showers, limiting snowfall amounts. A preliminary snowfall forecast through Friday morning shows the expected upslope impacting amounts greatly, where 2 to 4 inches in much of the western Adirondacks tapers off to an inch or less in areas like the Ausable Valley. Similarly 2 to 3 inches may be common in the western slopes of the Greens, tapering to 0.5 to 2 inches in the eastern Champlain Valley and with lowest snow amounts of a dusting or so in the lower Connecticut Valley.

Yeah, I’d noticed that for a few runs. About 48 hours back, the modeling suggested the possibility of the low pressure hanging up in Northern Maine and the Canadian Maritimes for a bit, and we of course know what potential that holds for the Northern Greens, but that isn’t prominent in the more recent runs. You’ll see that right now that the BTV NWS forecast discussion mentions the shortwave that pivots through the region Thursday into Friday. Even if it just pivots through though, the current GFS modeling suggests a half inch or so of liquid equivalent, which is a decent resurfacing for the low and moderate angle slopes, although it’s not going to cut it for the steeper pitches. It could be double digit snowfall depending on the ratios, but it’s really the liquid that matters for the resurfacing. None of the other models are as robust with the moisture as the GFS, so it can’t be taken more seriously until other models start to bump up the QPF. The BTV NWS will be all over it in their discussion if the QPF starts to increase in the next couple of days. I do find that the GFS is excellent in general when it comes to typical northern stream systems interacting with the Northern Greens in the medium range, actually the best overall from years of casual observation. When it comes to our bread and butter type systems, all I find I typically have to do is quickly run through what the GFS shows for roughly the next week out, and you’ll pretty much have an idea of what’s going to happen up here. Phasing systems and all that are an entirely different beast, but whatever coding and algorithms they have in the GFS, it seems primed to show what’s going to happen in the Northern Greens for our bread and butter systems better than any of the other medium range models.

That’s seems very likely! I saw a couple of big open areas like that as I was heading to that Sterling Forest area, and they produced some great views of the Sterling Range. There were definitely signs of snowmobile activity in the area as well. In fact, there was a snowmobile trailer parked at the Sterling Forest parking area, and I saw one guy pass through the parking area on his snowmobile. Also, when you head out from the main access point to the trails, you cross a perpendicular VAST trail after a few minutes. With the elevation and snowpack they have in the area, it’s not surprising that there’s so much winter activity there.