SR Airglow

Flakes in Boston!

Flurries in the Back Bay.

16 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Those winter weather advisories do not make any sense to me. How do you have near 12" as the end of the range, and damage to trees and power lines from 0.1'"-0.25" of ice.  How is all that only an advisory. Unless it's due to duration and not meeting criteria in 24 hrs.

I’d assume it’s that 24 hour criteria is 8” and that it’s spread out over close to 48 here, but I definitely LOLed at the 4-11” advisory for CT when I checked BOX this morning. 
 

This is what @WxWatcher007 went with yesterday evening for CT, a little more aggressive than consensus, but I think I like it after seeing the overnight runs. Think we should hit the low end pretty easily and there’s opportunity for the high end depending on how round 2 sets up/how strong round 1 is. Still not convinced the dryslot is as dramatic as advertised, although it’s definitely real to some extent.

6 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I'm sure we will do Worcester shortly after the new year; hell, if people aren't receptive to this, I'll head out that way and chill with you guys before the holiday.

I’ll be at Clarke’s 12/21 or 12/23 at 7 PM if you are. Anyone else in?

Took long enough yesterday but when we finally flipped back to all snow a little before 3 it was worth the wait. Ended up with 4” but most of it after lifts closed, today should be nice for the lucky folks that don’t have to go to work, sadly I’m not one of them so I got to spend 3:45 on 93 getting back to Boston instead, Plymouth to Tilton in the heart of that band was 15 mph and cars in the ditch all over the place.

4 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Pretty size-able bust all around.  I don’t know if anyone is doing 4-6+ after models had a widespread chance of that.

Yeah, I’d be happy with 4-6 cm at this rate. But hey a ski days a ski day!

Radar looks like there’s some banding through the central whites that may be all snow, but we’re gonna get fringed here for a while it seems. Hopefully the whole thing goes away and 93 isn’t a skating rink on the way down.

-RN 34f at Loon, skiing is surprisingly not bad despite the soggy ambiance. Good news is that I don’t think K did any better based on radar?

1 hour ago, wxeyeNH said:

30.5F  Freezing rain.   Best I can tell it's snowing at Waterville Valley and Loon.  No mangled flakes here, just ZR.  Had a coating of snow and then bit of sleet earlier.  Temp inching up

Snowing on top, mix further down, although it seems to be doing nothing at the moment. 1/2” or so on the summit, have a hard time believing that we’ll hit the 4-7” forecast but a few quick bands this afternoon would go a long way.

28 with flurries in Lincoln, coating so far.

3 hours ago, powderfreak said:

From a few storms we’ve had to track so far, my biggest concern is the lack of consistency and it seems like if 1 models shift, they all do.  I feel like we used to see more stepwise shifts vs windshield wiper flips back and forth.  

And the more interesting part to me is that all the models seem to be ingesting the same data that is causing some big swings.  Like all the sudden at 18z the models yesterday went apeshit amped up...but it’s not like just the NAM did it or something.  They all did and the Euro was probably the worst of them all shoving 1-2” QPF to Canada.  

So they initialized something that made them go nuts for a couple runs.  Then 12 hours later initialized something that made them go “oh whoops, back to the starting point.”  

Going to be a long winter of models, ha.  I feel like they all just follow each other around, when in the past it would be a bigger spread but those models would be more consistent in their respective camps....if that makes sense.  Like the Euro or GFS or NAM would disagree in a big way and hold that position for several runs.  Now they all flip back and forth with whatever data they initialize with.

That's very true and I agree completely. I remember we used to see models establish in 2-3 camps, they'd persist for several runs, then one caved to the other and we'd have some sort of consensus - most of my discussions would be something along the lines of "the NAM caved to the Euro". Now over the last couple seasons it seems like we get consensus much faster (4-5 days out even) and then lose it several times as the models become much more sensitive to variations in data. I'm sure we'll adapt and become less trusting with time, but it definitely takes some getting used to for forecasting.

My unscientific hunch from a data science perspective is that higher resolution and more frequent panels is making things more sensitive and compounding errors, but I don't have anything to back that up. Has more sampling data been added over the last couple of years? That could explain things as well to an extent, but I don't believe there have been expansions? Take it all with a grain of salt because I don't really know the details of how models work behind the scenes, but interesting to think about for sure.

21 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

18z HRRR even further SE, might get no measurable up this way.  

Gonna be a fun winter on the forum when every storm has huge changes inside of 48 hours.

Might be good trends for the ORH hills. 

 

Not only has this one had one huge change, it's arguably had three; went NW, then went pretty far SE, then came back and now seems to be going SE again. And all inside 72 ish hours. Wild. Not sure what's causing this, but it only seems to be more and more prevalent in modeling over the last couple of winters, sure makes this a more aggravating (but also more enjoyable) hobby.

Updated BTV/GYX maps seem reasonable, but I still think there's time for changes here given how variable this has been. Guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

14 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

If you don't have to make a decision until tonight, you could see another full round of guidance (plus 18z runs) to see if there is a tick in either direction. If it ticks SE then obviously Loon is the choice. 

Probably will make the final call tomorrow morning on 93N, but would like to have some idea nailed down tonight, definitely still have some time though as you said for this to go either way.

9 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Loon is probably ok if the track holds. Gets close, but I think they’re alright. I’m biased since it’s so easy to get to. If they get a pellet or two, it’s probably brief.

Yup, closest mountain to Boston that's what I would consider a large resort (2k+ of vert) with great snowmaking, decent natural, and some pretty fun terrain. Unfortunately that means it's often a gongshow on busy weekends, but it's still a great time if you know the place and know where to not go. Guess we'll see what happens over the next couple of runs, too bad Sugarbush has so little open as they'd be the winner here. They generally are pretty aggressive opening things on natural but probably need another storm or two first.

7 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Kmart is prob safer than Loon. 

That was my gut feel as well, Loon probably has the higher ceiling but also a far lower floor. Should be a fun one regardless, could be 55* and raining so I’ll take what I can get in November.

If you were gonna ski tomorrow would you do Loon, Killington, or make the haul to Sugarbush on limited terrain because the other two have too much of a mixing risk? My gut says Loon and K will be okay but the mix line flirts too closely to both of them for my taste.

15 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

The runs today have deepened the core of the ULL more than before...which is the trend we need for snow. So we're seeing a little more dynamic cooling in the meat of the deformation precip. We'll see if we can cool things another tick...but CNE is starting to maybe thread the needle here? 

 

Prepping the skis to launch for Loon; I’d think their far enough north to remain all snow and it seems like the QPF axis will be pretty similar between there and SR so an hour less driving is appealing.
 

This has been quite the back and forth on the guidance, wouldn’t be surprised if we keep seeing more ticks as it’s a pretty sensitive setup. Good to be back model watching again, forgot how addictive this hobby can be, but gonna be a long winter if every system is this turbulent in the short-mid range.

12/21 or 12/23 please, never made one of these in my 5 years in Boston since I’m always traveling and am again this year but I’ll be back by then and would love to finally meet some folks in person. First weekend in December would work well too. 

56 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Wow.  Sugarbush cleared their snow cam at 930am and have 5" by 11:30am. 

5"/2hrs at Sugarbush.  11" total.

I’ll be in line at superbravo by 7:55. Hope the winds aren’t too horrible

Thought I saw some flakes mixing in Copley but could have been a mirage.

@powderfreak is this one of those upslope situations where Sugarbush is worth the extra 45 mins over Killington or should it be pretty uniform up and down the spine Friday night? Trying to figure out where to launch to Friday night for an early start Saturday.

Light snow at Mt. Abram, Greenwood, ME

Bought tickets to Wildcat yesterday because it looked like they’d be safe from any pingers. Haven’t kept up with anything but see the trend is warmer, how screwed am I? TIA and remember if there’s no snow IYBY come ski it in the mountains

Still not sure yet one way or the other Steve and probably won’t know until Thursday night/Friday morning. Really hoping I can make it out but I’d say it’s 50/50 at this point, if I do make it it’ll be for the early shift (1-3/4 ish).

There’s a chance I might actually be able to make it to this one! Will let you know as the week goes on.

A+ day at Sugarbush today, never made it over to Castlerock (bootpacking/skating are both not great for my bad knees and we were having too much fun on the lift-served stuff) but the rest didn't disappoint.

Tons of pow on Lixi's Twist

Entering the white room on Heavens Gate - later in the afternoon when the winds picked up it was pure whiteout on the chair, couldn't see the next tower ahead of you.

Nat taking a break on Paradise

More Paradise (I think?)

Me on Stein's

Don't remember what this one was, maybe Stein's again? We lapped it because it was so good the first time.

The pics from the trees are all on my friend's phone since my old iPhone hates the cold, but you can imagine what you think they'd look like and you were right. Plenty of 2-3' untracked pillows of snow in the trees all day. Back at it at SR on Saturday but everywhere should still be incredible. Go go go!

5 hours ago, mreaves said:

By exit 4 on 89 in VT, you should be excited.

Holy wow - you weren’t kidding! Solid foot and a half here at sugarbush; bumps/pow on the trails and mostly untracked in the woods. A+ day for sure. Out of storage so can’t post pics from my phone but I’ll put some in the ski thread when I’m back in Boston.

Been snowing lightly here all day, hasn’t added up to much but it’s certianly keeping the stoke going!