J.Spin

I saw the conversation about December vs. March as wintry months and found it very interesting – it was surprising to see March coming out on top in some parts of the region. While I wouldn’t say the two months are absolutely night and day, December clearly wins with respect to being wintry in this area. Average December snowfall is in the 30-40” range, whereas March is in the 20-30” range, December has an average of 11 to 12 accumulating storms, while March averages 7 to 8 storms, and I have to think December easily wins in terms of colder average temperatures. March would probably win in terms of snowpack, and maybe frequency of larger storms, but I’d have to run the numbers on those. December actually tops all months with respect to number of storms, and until a few seasons ago, it was the month with the highest average snowfall here at our site. The run of relatively poor snowfall Decembers as of late (only one December that was modestly above average in almost a decade!) has seen February pull ahead of December in terms of average snowfall now, but it will be interesting to see where that race goes in the future if we can see a return to some snowier Decembers. Regarding some of the other parameters that were discussed, the mean date for the start of permanent winter snowpack here at our site is December 2nd, so on average, snowpack will be present for essentially the entire month. With the level of sunlight at that time of year, it’s just really hard to get rid of snow once it’s down. Sunny days are sparse to begin with at that time of year, so it’s not the sun taking out the snowpack, it’s most likely an especially potent warm system that does it. Thanksgiving is typically a bit too early for the start of the permanent winter snowpack down at this elevation, but it’s happened four times in the 16 years of my data set, so that percentage is at 25.0%, or a quarter of the time. Average occurrence of white Thanksgiving is obviously much higher, and that currently sits at 68.8%, so around 2/3 of the time.

We're now into that window of time discussed earlier in the thread, and as you can see from the BTV NWS forecast discussion below, it's really just a chance for a few snow showers (and it sounds like some have been hitting northwest Vermont thus far). The trough is coming through as expected, with those sub 0C 850 mb temperatures capable of delivering snow, but there’s really no low pressure present off to the east of us that would have set things up for more notable snows. It looks like what we’ve been getting is thanks to good “ol’ reliable” Lake Ontario and friends, putting some moisture in the flow. The upper level low just sort of sat around in the Great Lakes before moving this way, and generally seemed to petered itself out, but I did see some reports of up to 18 inches out there when I was watching TWC. So it’s certainly a trough that brought some nice early season snows, and that’s even without the benefit of elevation that we have around here. The next window for potential snow seems to be around the end of the month based on the runs of some of the models. There also seemed to be a bit of a blip of a window around the 23rd or so, but it looked like that was just something to do with that potential coastal system. There’s nothing too pronounced at this point, but we’ll see of anything develops in the next couple of weeks; snow windows are certainly increasing as more troughs come through and temperature normals continue to decrease. Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 1052 AM EDT Wed Oct 19 2022 .SYNOPSIS... Upper low pressure continues to bring lake effect showers along the St Lawrence Valley with instability showers over and adjacent to Lake Champlain as well as mountain rain and snow showers in the Adirondacks into Thursday. .NEAR TERM /THROUGH THURSDAY/... As of 1032 AM EDT Wednesday...Light showers have be ongoing over northern Chittenden and southern Franklin counties; at times, producing light snow pellets. Large closed upper low continues to spin over the Great Lakes and North Country with our region under dry air intrusion aloft. The cold core of the low will be infiltrating into the Adirondacks and Vermont bringing 925-850mb temperatures down to/below 0C supporting chances for higher elevation snow showers.

That’s interesting about that CoCoRaHS station – it’s funny because the same thing happened to me a few weeks back. You posted a map with the personal weather stations, and I learned that our neighbors down at the end of the street have one. That’s literally 2 to 3 houses away, so there’s remote data online that will be essentially representative of our site. It obviously won’t be able to do snowfall, but it’s been pretty nice to check on temperatures and liquid. The liquid catch has been right on with our Stratus the few times I’ve checked, but it doesn’t look like it did so well in the case of this storm. On that note, this system pushed rainfall past 40” on the calendar year here at our site, and with that, we’re about 3-4” behind average pace. I do see that there’s another 0.20” in the gauge now, so it looks like 2.87” liquid will be the storm total unless something else pops up before we clear out. It does feel like we’re getting into the more reliable orographic season now though, vs. the “hit or miss” convective season.

That signal for snow has actually been on the GFS for at least a week now, and that’s pretty impressive work at 2+ weeks out for a deterministic output if it remains steady and comes to fruition. The key factor is of course that overall trough moving through the area, which the ensembles show. If you’ve got a trough bringing reasonably cool air into the area, and a surface low that sets up shop in (or even just passes through) the Maine/Maritimes region, you’re certainly talking snow potential at this time of year in the Northern Greens. As a skier, I generally find the GFS great with these northerly systems around here that don’t require complicated phasing or lots of other marginal nuances. I guess every model is going to be better with those setups vs. the more complicated ones, but the GFS ease of accessibility, output, robustness, and reliability just puts it out front for me when it comes to scheduling. Two weeks out is a lot to ask, but we’re getting into the realm of one week, where one can certainly start checking their schedule to accommodate the potential. Sometimes it ends up just being a dusting or a coating, but with the potential there it’s good to plan ahead. The couple rounds of snow we’ve had so far this season haven’t really been at the level to think about getting the boards ready, but this next one is a different setup as currently shown. We’ll see which direction this heads over the next week, but the BTV NWS does have the possibility noted in their most recent discussion: Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 1026 AM EDT Wed Oct 12 2022 .LONG TERM /SATURDAY THROUGH TUESDAY/... As of 325 AM EDT Wednesday ...higher terrain snow possible early next week as the cold pool aloft and upper trough drop into the area.

Nice, thanks for starting this up, and well put on the snow stuff. Your comment on the crap season got me wondering how Jay Peak actually did in that horrendous 2015-2016 season, so I checked the historical data on their website and Tony Crocker’s website. SNOWFALL (INCHES) 2020-2021 291" 2019-2020 252" 2018-2019 423" 2017-2018 378" 2016-2017 491" 2015-2016 205" 2014-2015 373" 2013-2014 317" 2012-2013 362" 2011-2012 254" 2010-2011 374" 2009-2010 293" 2008-2009 368" 2007-2008 417" 2006-2007 409" 2005-2006 387" 2004-2005 334" 2003-2004 266" 2002-2003 268" 2001-2002 305" 2000-2001 581" 1999-2000 465" 1998-1999 305" 1997-1998 355" 1996-1997 407" 1995-1996 389" They still broke 200”, and that season had to bring together a seriously impressive collision of factors to really bottom out on snowfall in the Northern Greens like that. We’ve certainly got the relatively low annual snowfall variance going on around here, and analysis on my data set indicates that 2015-2016 was bottom 1% of seasons. So hopefully we’ve paid our dues for quite a long time with that one, and Phin is safe. Looking at the Jay Peak data, the past couple of seasons have actually been below average, so an uptick wouldn’t be too surprising – based on the data from the past 25+ seasons, it doesn’t like look like they typically see more than two sub-300” seasons in a row.

It looks like that first potential shot of snow is still on track for tonight based on the BTV NWS forecast discussion, with snow levels anticipated to drop to the 2,000 – 2,500’ range: Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 425 AM EDT Thu Sep 22 2022 .NEAR TERM /THROUGH FRIDAY/... Once the front moves through, we`ll enter into a chilly northwesterly flow regime, which will keep some showers and clouds over the northern Adirondacks and higher elevations of Vermont. Temperatures today will cool throughout the day, and most areas have already hit their daily high temperatures early this morning. Relatively strong cold air advection is expected throughout the day today, with 850 mb temps falling to below 0 deg C by this evening. Post-frontal winds will be breezy from the northwest with gusts between 15 and 25 mph this afternoon. As we head into tonight, the cold air advection continues in earnest as 850 mb temperatures drop to between -2 and -4 deg C. Overnight lows will be in the upper 30s to low 40s for most locations, except in the low to mid 30s over the northern Adirondacks. Mountain showers will linger into tonight, and as the cold air advection continues snow levels will drop to around 2000 ft in parts of the northern Adirondacks, and around 2500 ft in the northern Greens. Thus, any mountain showers still persisting early Friday morning above these elevations could fall as a rain/snow mix or light snow at the summits.

The Bolton Valley Village is up above 2,000’, so I’d estimate annual snowfall at 200”+ based off of what they report for annual snowfall from the summit. One way to get an estimate of snowfall at some intermediate elevations would be to make use of the numbers we actually have and do some simple linear interpolation. The most precise numbers I’ve got would be the 154.0” mean annual snowfall from the 16 seasons of data I have from my site at 495’, and the 312” annual snowfall I’ve seen reported by Bolton Valley. That’s presumably at the Bolton Valley summit elevations, so we’ll call that 3,150’. Linear interpolation off those numbers with elevation as the independent variable and snowfall as the dependent variable uses the equation y=0.0595x + 124.54, and with that you can just plug in any elevation you want for x, and it will spit out an annual snowfall as y. There are of course some potential caveats with a method like this, since my observations site is along the Green Mountain Spine, but just slightly east of it, the Bolton Valley Village is at elevation, but slightly on the west of the spine, and the Bolton Valley summit areas are literally on the spine. The method also assumes a linear relationship between elevation and snowfall over all those elevations, which may not be the case with all the factors like summit areas being scoured, snow transport, leeward areas accumulating more snow, etc., but it’s probably close enough for some estimates. One can even extrapolate with the equation, which is always dangerous as well, but there’s no specific reason to assume the trend wouldn’t hold. I added a couple of extrapolations in the list below, but the calculated numbers are of course all going to be approximations. Anyway, here are some annual snowfall estimates for some spots in the Bolton Valley area using the equation, rounded to the nearest foot: Base of Bolton Valley Access Road (340’): 145” J.Spin’s observations plot (495’): 154” Timberline Base (1,500’): 214” Bolton Valley Village (2,100'): 249” Base of main mountain lifts (2,150’): 252” Top of Bolton Valley Village (2,300’): 261” Bolton Valley Summit (3,150’): 312” Ricker Mountain Summit (3,400’): 327” Bolton Mountain Summit (3,700’): 345”

Thanks for all the updates PF – based on the way the snow was starting to break up on Main Street, I’ll probably be checking out the Mansfield side for my next Stowe outing. Today I actually headed to Bolton for turns, since it might be the last weekend for practical/productive touring there. Based on what I saw on my last Bolton outing a couple weeks ago, I figured the lower mountain would be discontinuous at this point, but the amount of snow on Spillway was obviously going to last a while. I decided to hike today vs. skinning, and I think that was the right call. The bottom half of the mountain has some decent areas of snow, but it’s discontinuous enough with plenty of dry ground for walking, that hiking is the more practical option. Above Mid Mountain, one could skin up Spillway, but that’s really steep, and they’ve plowed Sherman’s Pass most of the way to the Vista Summit, so I used that for a lot of my ascent today. The snow on Spillway is still continuous, and it was skiing great. There must have been some productive freeze/thaw cycles recently, because it was the best corn snow I’ve skied during this April/May period. Spillway is quite steep, so you get some of those nice fall-way turns, which are so much fun in good snow. At Mid Mountain on my way up I met a couple that was on their way down. They said that “Spillway was about as frosty as it’s been in a while”, and they weren’t kidding. It’s fun traveling around the area right now and taking in the views as spring begins to make its presence known. You can see that greenery is appearing in the lower mountain valleys, and it’s just starting to make its slow creep up the mountainsides. A few shots from today:

Over at Spruce on Sunday was really deserted when I was there in the afternoon, so here’s a quick update and a few photos: While Friday turned out to be a bit too cool and breezy to really soften up the slopes around here, and Saturday didn’t seem much better, Sunday saw more warmth and sunshine as the forecast had suggested. Mother Nature wasn’t messing around at that point, with temperatures moving up into the 60s F, a cloudless sky, and the disappearance of those persistent winds. There was no question about whether or not the snow was going to soften up today, so I decided to head to Stowe for some afternoon turns. I hadn’t been to the general Stowe area in a while, but the usual views of Mansfield started to appear as I headed through Waterbury Center, and the alpine terrain was certainly lit up in the May sunshine. I’d hoped that the south-facing terrain of Spruce Peak still had enough coverage to provide some nice uninterrupted turns, and indeed as I approached the resort I could see that the Main Street area and surrounding trails still had nearly continuous snow down the base of the Sensation Quad. With the route I took on the lower part of the mountain, I ended up hiking about 1/3 of the ascent, and then skinning the final 2/3. I was initially questioning my decision to bring skins as I navigated the lower slopes, but once I hit the point where I started skinning, it was definitely the right choice in terms of efficiency; the upper slopes of Main Street have so much snow that it would take more effort to find dry areas for easier hiking. In terms of the skiing, it was far superior to what I had experience on Friday. The warmth and sun took care of getting the spring snow into something that was definitely worthy of turns. It wasn’t perfect, because there were still some sticky areas from recent snows on terrain that hadn’t seen the sun and/or skier traffic, but those were generally avoidable by skiing the sunnier sides of the trails. With such a gorgeous day, I was surprised that I didn’t see a single other skier out there during my entire tour on Spruce. I did see two other cars when I first arrived at the MMSC Clubhouse parking lot, but they were just hikers. I saw them finishing up their hikes while I was ascending, and the entire parking lot was empty when I got back to my car. Everyone must have been skiing over at Mansfield! A few shots from the outing:

Oh, just an FYI about that most recent storm that I noticed as I was entering data from it – that was our 60th accumulating snowstorm of the season here at our site. I doubt it will contend for top spot in my records, which is 2018-2019 with 64 storms, but it’s second on the list, and still quite notable when the mean and median number of storms for a season is in the 50 to 55 range. It looks like Jay Peak also sailed past the 300” snowfall mark on the season with this last storm, so while it’s presumably going to end up below average in total snowfall, the average or near average behavior over the past couple of months has helped to keep it well ahead of some of those really poor seasons. And, checking out the Matt Parrilla plot, Mansfield snowpack is actually ahead of average now, so hopefully that sets us up for a decent May.

As it’s been for the past few days, it was quite windy yesterday in the Champlain Valley, but with partly cloudy skies providing some sun, and the temperatures getting into the 50s F, it seemed like there might be enough warmth to make the slopes worth a visit. That thought was tempered somewhat as I headed into the mountains on the way home; the skies became notably cloudier, and the temperatures felt several degrees cooler, even at valley level. At that point I was definitely questioning if there was sufficient warmth at elevation for softening the snow, but it still felt like it was worth the quick trip up to Bolton for some turns. On the way up the Bolton Valley Access Road, first signs of old snow snowpack were at ~1,400’, and first signs of the new snow left from our most recent storm appeared in the 1,800’ – 1,900’ elevation range. I’d contemplated skiing at Timberline if the snowpack was continuous enough, but it’s too broken up down at those elevations to be worth it. As expected up at the main mountain, there’s still plenty of snow for top-to-bottom turns on the main routes like Beech Seal and Spillway. Sherman’s Pass seems close to continuous, but there’s at least a break or two in the snowpack there. While the quantity of the snow is looking quite good, we’re still going to need some more warmth and temperature cycling to get the snowpack to some quality corn. Even with Bolton’s western exposure and afternoon sun, a lot of terrain still needs some rounds of softening. The combination of temperatures, which I guess were somewhere in the 40s F, and the cooling breeze that we’ve had the past few days, just isn’t enough to really soften the snowpack. Granted, I was out on the mountain in the later afternoon period when the sun angle is getting lower and temperatures are starting to drop off, but it was obvious that only areas in direct sun had seen much cycling of the snow to get to appropriate quality corn, and even those areas still need work. Heck, most of terrain above 2,000’ that was not in the direct sun, still had snow from our most recent storm earlier this week. I toured up to about 2,500’, but didn’t push above that elevation that because it was only getting cooler and windier as I ascended, and the quality of the snow just didn’t seem to be worth it. So while spring snow conditions weren’t quite there yesterday, the recent snows and good preservations we’ve been seeing do bode well as we head into the next several weeks of the season. Today’s forecast around here seems sort of similar to yesterday’s, so I wouldn’t expect primo ski conditions, but tomorrow is supposed to kick things up a notch with temperatures around 60 F and more sun. That might be enough to get some of that south-facing terrain into good shape. A couple of shots from yesterday at Bolton:

Event totals: 0.9” Snow/0.46” L.E. It was still snowing this morning, so there will be a bit more accumulation to report, but this event has brought about an inch of snow and a half inch of liquid to our site thus far. Details from the 6:00 A.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 0.6 inches New Liquid: 0.03 inches Snow/Water Ratio: 20.0 Snow Density: 5.0% H2O Temperature: 33.8 F Sky: Light Snow (1-5 mm flakes) Snow at the stake: Trace

I was just looking out toward the spine and the peaks are hidden because the cloud ceiling seems to be in the 1,500’ – 2,000’ range, but the precipitation was looking like snow, so I checked some of the mountain cams. I see there’s an inch or two of accumulation at the Sugarbush 3,900’ webcam with snow falling, and it’s even snowing down to ~2,000’ on the webcam at Bolton’s main base. So it looks like this next storm is underway.

I’m not sure I’d say this late season is all that unique specifically – it’s April being exactly like April, and I think April snowfall and number of storms thus far are probably average at best? We’re still a few inches behind average snowfall for April at our site, so it’s probably something similar for the mountains, but PF might have his April stats to know for sure. Maybe the season as a whole is a little more unique because of the way the snowpack caught back up to average at this time of year, but I’m sure similar things have happened before with the way these spring storms can drop so much liquid equivalent.

Nice – I saw that Mother Nature had caught back up to average at the stake, and I was going to post the plot if you hadn’t. That definitely bodes well for the rest of the season relative to where the snowpack was a few weeks ago. And there’s no concern about the snow from this most recent storm falling short on its contribution to the snowpack – with the density I encountered out there, it’s probably close to the density of settled season snowpack already. This storm was a really solid addition of liquid to the pack, even if it didn’t produce quite the right-side-up quality of deposition that some storms do.

I wasn’t able to get out for a ski tour on Tuesday morning, but I did have enough time to head out to Bolton later in the afternoon and check out what this most recent storm had to offer. As we know, a great feature of the March through June portion of the ski season is the long lasting daylight, and that makes late afternoon and even evening ski sessions very practical. It kept snowing right through the day on Tuesday, but it did warm up enough to melt back the earlier snow a bit, especially the lower one went in elevation. There was still a solid coating of snow in place even in the late afternoon at the base of the Bolton Valley Access Road, and here’s the storm accumulations profile I found at that point: 340’: T-1” 1,000’: 1-2” 1,500’: 3-4” 2,000’: 7-8” 2,500’: 8-10” 3,000’: 10-12” This storm was unquestionably another solid resurfacing of the snowpack at elevation. The mountains must have had at least an inch and a half of liquid equivalent as snow, and combined with the density of that snow, it was enough to resurface slopes of just about any angle, right up to the steepest of the steep. The density of the snow meant that it covered, and stayed stuck to, just about every slope out there. It’s easy for snow to be too dense to enable quality turns though, and this storm didn’t just flirt with that line, it flew way past it. Even the folks out in the west coast ranges that routinely deal with Sierra Cement and Cascade Concrete would have cried after dealing with this stuff. There are times when you’re ski touring, and you can’t quite tell what the quality of the turns is going to be like until you really rip off the skins and start your descent; this was not one of those times. Right from the start of my tour, I could tell that the skiing was going to be disastrous. On the lower half of the mountain from say 2,000’ on up to ~2,500’, the snow was super dense, with a bit of melting going on to up the density just a bit more for good measure. I held out a little hope that the quality of the snow in the higher elevations would improve, as it often does with lower temperatures producing drier snow that skis better. Ha, not this time. As I continued to ascend, the snow conditions only got worse. The snow went from something that was super dense and a bit wet, that you really didn’t sink into much… to an even worse version of that. As temperatures dipped below freezing on the upper mountain, the top couple of inches of snow has become a solid mass to produce the most horrible, upside-down snowpack you could imagine. The skiing was challenging, dangerous, disgusting, and everything in between. So the snowfall from this storm was indeed a great resurfacing, and a solid addition to the mountain snowpack, but it would have taken another good half foot or so of drier snow to really get the immediate quality of the ski surfaces up to snuff. It was snowing while I was out there on Tuesday, with some nice steady snow at times, but there was probably only another inch or two of additional snow above the dense stuff, so not enough to really bring up the snow quality to something more respectable. Every spring snowstorm is different though, and that’s part of the fun of experiencing them, and we’ll just have to see what the next one does. A few shots from Tuesday:

Event totals: 1.1” Snow/1.38” L.E. We had a few flakes flying at the house this morning that will call for another trace in tomorrow morning’s CoCoRaHS report, but the totals above should be it for this event at our site. I’m seeing plenty of storm totals around here in the 1.5” range for liquid equivalent, so you know the mountains picked up at least that much. That’s certainly a solid resurfacing for the slopes, and I’ll pass along some mountain observations as soon as I get a chance to write those up. Details from the 6:00 A.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 0.2 inches New Liquid: 0.12 inches Snow/Water Ratio: 1.7 Snow Density: 60.0% H2O Temperature: 36.0 F Sky: Cloudy Snow at the stake: Trace

Event totals: 0.9” Snow/1.09” L.E. This morning’s snow at our site was impressively dense – there was more than half an inch of liquid in just an inch of snow. Lifting the snowboards to clear them this morning was a monumental effort. We’d already had more than an inch of liquid equivalent from this storm as of this morning’s early report, and I haven’t been up to the slopes yet, but it must have been an almost instant resurfacing with the amount of liquid equivalent that has come through the area thus far. Power is out in a lot of places due to the dense snow, and Bolton’s main base webcam is down for presumably that reason. It looks like there’s about a half foot of new snow on the Stowe snow stake webcam though. Details from the 6:00 A.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 0.9 inches New Liquid: 0.58 inches Snow/Water Ratio: 1.6 Snow Density: 64.4% H2O Temperature: 32.7 F Sky: Snow (2 – 10 mm flakes) Snow at the stake: 1.0 inches

After Saturday’s fresh powder out on the hill, I hadn’t really planned to ski on Sunday, since the forecast called for gray skies and temperatures heading above the freezing mark. We were thiking we might have left one of our water bottles up around 2,800’ on Wilderness during our tour on Saturday though, so that was incentive enough to get me out for another go. If in doubt, it’s generally good to get out and get some exercise anyway. I made my way up to Bolton around midday, and whereas temperatures on Saturday were in the upper 20s F when we’d arrived, on Sunday they were in the upper 30s F. Some of the new Friday/Saturday snow had definitely melted back, and that effect decreased with elevation, but the freezing line was still somewhere above the 3,000’ mark. So, I never encountered any snow yesterday that had been fully preserved below freezing. With that said, the snow skied really well. On the upper mountain, the new snow had seen little settling, and untracked areas skied like dense powder vs. any sort of mush. At all elevations, even where the snow was transitioning due to the above freezing temperatures, it seemed to be doing it a subtle way. It wasn’t sticky, just dense, and perhaps that slow change was due to the cold overnight temperatures and the overcast keeping away dramatic warming from direct sunlight. In thinner areas where the new snow had melted back, the skiing typically transitioned right to the underlying corn snow, and that skied really well. It was sort of strange to move from areas of dense powder skiing, right to spring corn snow, but somehow it worked. In any event, the water bottle ended up being right where we thought it was, so that part of the tour was quite successful. A few shots I took during yesterday’s tour:

Yeah, I guess one positive way to think about it is that they have a lot of ski days under their belts, and they'll have those skills for a lifetime. My son said he had what was probably his best Telemark day ever in terms of comfort level and confidence with his turns, so they're still learning and improving, even at this age.

With the snow from this latest storm, my wife and I headed up to Bolton for a session yesterday with our older son, who is back from school on spring break. We got to the mountain reasonably early, with some concern about how the powder was going to hold up as the day warmed, but even as of midday that wasn’t a concern at elevation. It was probably in the 20s F when we arrived, and combined with the breeze, it was chilly. It was excellent touring weather, and the powder stayed cold and dry. Even at midday, the higher elevation snow was dry, although snow in the mid to lower elevations in directly sunlight was starting to be affected by the sun. The mountain was reporting 4 inches of new snow, but I’d say that was a fairly conservative report – I was finding 5-6” new at the 2,000’ elevation, and as much as 8” up above 3,000’. We started our session with a tour at Wilderness up to ~2,800’ or so. Wilderness is 100% natural snow, so the amount of base in many spots was impressive, but the usual windswept or sunny spots were lean on coverage. Those areas of lean coverage were fine for grassy and/or low angle slopes, but you wouldn’t have wanted to tackle anything steep that didn’t have existing base. I’d say the very best snow we encountered yesterday was on Alta Vista – the ridgeline and skier’s right of the headwall were windswept as usual, the protected left side of the headwall held some nice, semi-packed snow. Below that though was the real gold mine. They had groomed the skier’s left of the trail, but the skier’s right held about 8 inches of chowder that was mostly bottomless, and we couldn’t believe how good the skiing was there. We were wishing they hadn’t groomed anywhere if it could have meant the snow would have been like that. The Vista Quad was on wind hold until about midday though, so we were up on Alta Vista not too long after the lift started running, and I think that helped set up the incredible snow quality there.

Event totals: 1.9” Snow/0.79” L.E. Details from the 6:00 A.M. Waterbury observations: New Snow: 0.4 inches New Liquid: 0.02 inches Snow/Water Ratio: 20.0 Snow Density: 5.0% H2O Temperature: 29.5 F Sky: Partly Cloudy Snow at the stake: 1.5 inches

I just looked outside and the precipitation is all snow here at the house. I’m not sure when it changed over, but the snow level has dropped to the valley floor.

It was a busy week, but I’ve had a chance to put together a few more thoughts and shots from Monday. Based on my sessions from Sunday and Monday at Bolton, I wouldn’t put the skiing from the weekend event in the top 20% of the season’s turns, but probably into that next quintile down. It was definitely good, but even in this season, we’ve had a number of better storm cycles in terms of both total liquid equivalent, subsurface quality, and powder quality/dryness. With the continued snowfall, Monday was certainly a bump in accumulations as I noted in my earlier report, and that additional liquid equivalent was enough to bump up the resurfacing to really encompass blue and some black terrain. Monday morning was pretty cold, down in the single digits F, so I found the snow a bit slow except for the less settled/lower density areas. The more consolidated areas of powder with the finer grains or wind-based compaction were just on the slow side due to the combination of temperatures and the snow density. The biggest bump I think this most recent event gets when it comes to the overall quality of the ski experience was due to skier numbers, which were way down. I was touring in the late morning on Monday and there were only 3 or 4 tracks coming down Lower Turnpike where the Wilderness Uphill Route is located. A typical midseason day would definitely have seen more activity by that point. Sure, it was a Monday, but Sunday was sort of the same; it’s just that time of year when many people don’t have the drive to ski because it’s no winter where they are, or they’ve moved on to other activities, or whatever. That’s of course one of the reasons March and April are so great in the mountains, as your images have been showing. Anyway, I’ve got a few more shots below – the first one was a leftover from Sunday that I didn’t get to post, and the others are from Monday’s session. It is nice to see another round of snow hitting the mountains now, so maybe we’ll get a chance for more fun this weekend.

I just checked the BV webcam at 2,000’ and they’re getting some solid snowfall with accumulation down to that elevation now. I’m not sure if Mother Nature intends to keep it up at that intensity all night, but that would set up some great turns tomorrow. I’m sure those 30-40 db echoes are helping the matter.