Boston Bulldog

Hour 13 of white rain here. Uptown near Colonie does seem to have a bit of a coating down on grassy surfaces as of an hour ago, so accumulations are getting closer.  Hoping that we start to gain some traction as the wind shifts later today. This has been a true introduction to the Hudson Valley, no doubt about that.

At least the mountains are getting pounded. Magic may open on Sunday now

10 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

It’s looking like this will require height falls and fall rates to be meaningful.  Now casting…. There’s not much of either this hr but it’s supposed to step up after 12z I think 

Yeah nothing more than white rain at the moment

Rain mixing with aggregates in downtown Albany now

38 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

ALB has been moderate to heavy snow the past two hours on the 5-min observations.

Nice look on the radar heading ESE.

Yeah we had a great 30+ DBZ band sit over us for a while. Nice overperformer in the Capital Region 

Moderate to heavy snow in downtown Albany. Roads are covered

Tough news out of Magic Mountain regarding progress on the Black chair: https://magicmtn.com/alpine-update/

What stood out to me is that the timeline for the lift has been pushed back to "carrying passengers at some point this season if all goes well". With the lack of resources available to Magic ownership, and the difficult nature of the new projects they need to complete before the lift can spin, I think its a safe bet the Quad won't spin this year. 

Pretty unfortunate as the general unreliability of the Red Chair can leave them without summit access for extended periods. I hope they can catch a break and finally complete the project as it's pretty essential to securing the future of Magic. Such a great mountain with amazing terrain. I still am hoping to get 3-4 days in there when (if?) the base is good in SVT.

6 inches at Breckenridge last night which already eclipsed forecasted snow totals for the week. 4 at Copper, 1-3 elsewhere. Another backdoor pulse of energy is coming down the trough tonight, perhaps a few more inches in favored areas. 

While this fluff won't do too much for the SWE of the snowpack, it is nice to see CO cash in a bit after just missing out on last weeks bonanza. 

Perhaps a bit of a sleeper NW flow event for Summit County and other favored areas this week. Positioning on the upstream side of the trough is conducive enough to bring decent amounts of jet energy into the region, so I would expect orographically favored spots should be able to squeeze out some good localized showers over the next few days. Breckenridge already showing decent accumulation, I think some ski areas might be pleasantly surprised over the next few days.

Amazing totals out west, though Colorado seems to be getting mere scraps. Hoping they cash in and build a good base before the January AMS conference in Denver 

Fully tropical now according to NHC

21 hours ago, Professional Lurker said:

Thinking about making a trip out west for Christmas. Never been, looking for suggestions as to who'd have the best early season coverage.

Sent from my SM-A505U using Tapatalk
 

Any of the Cottonwood resorts (Alta, Snowbird, Brighton, Solitude) in Utah are probably your best bet due to their unique microclimate. Snowbird and Alta are the largest out of those, and receive the highest annual snowfall of any US resort outside of the Cascades/Sierras. Those two average around 500" a season, while nearby Park City typically sees totals in the 300"-400" inch range, so the Cottonwoods have an advantage over other areas even locally thanks to their microclimate. 

Utah can get unlucky and get stuck in extended dry periods from time to time, so the most "coverage proof" early season resort in North America is probably Whistler above mid mountain. The base area gets warm and can flip to rain during some storms, but with a 5000ft vertical drop its not hard to find good coverage up top.

Wolf Creek and Targhee are good bets as well, but on the smaller side. Larger spots in CO, as well as Jackson Hole and Big Sky, need a lot of snow to fill in their terrain so openings aren't as reliable by Christmas.

Some impressive gravity wave signatures showing up on radar training over the Hudson River Valley right now. Absolutely pouring, but not much wind to speak of thus far

1 hour ago, NorthHillsWx said:

Honestly, not bad structure 

You aren't kidding, suspicious looking curved band on the north side of the center per the last SSMIS pass

4 minutes ago, StormChaser4Life said:

What site do you get these on? Been trying to find it. I just tried address under picture and it didn't work

https://www.metoc.navy.mil/fnmoc/tropical.html 

Click on the Satellite Imagery of Tropical Cyclones link. It often gives a "not secure" warning, just as a heads up. Probably one of the more comprehensive pages for TC information

SSMIS pass shows the outer eyewall making progress, but still open to the south

As the effects of Typhoon Merbok on the general NH longwave pattern, CONUS wavebreaking event, and subsequent downstream trough come into focus, we should start to see more of a consensus develop on the future of Fiona. The ultimate destination of this system (if it survives the Greater Antilles intact) will be beholden to the structure of the rossby wave pattern.

The run to run differences in the positioning of the 500mb trough on the Euro and GFS runs remains quite significant, and likely won't be resolved until ET Merbok completes building the ridge over the Aleutians and the Bering Sea.

Quite the beefy eyewall taking shape on the latest SSMIS microwave imagery

36 minutes ago, NorthHillsWx said:

It’s going to be tough to get a cat 4 to blossom out of a 50 mi diameter truck tire eye

Thinking Earl may peak at a similar intensity to Larry last year given the similarities in the structure of the eye (though far more banding features are present with Earl)

Having now crossed the 26*C isotherm, Kay's core is predictably beginning to degrade. While it may not have reached it's full intensity potential, the moisture envelope remains as impressive as modeled and is beginning to push into SoCal on WV imagery

An anomalous ridge+heatwave meets an anomalous Hurricane. Quite the week for southern California

Indeed (from SkiTheEast's twitter today)

Microcane

After briefly disappearing, Darby has cleared out it's eye again and has unexpectedly restrengthened into a major hurricane. Latest update has winds at 115mph and pressure back down to 968.

Great storm, all the way from when it looked like it was trying to rapidly intensify while as an invest! I can recall that the first advisory had it peaking as a Category 1, quite the overachiever

This might be a bit of a shot in the dark, but does anyone know where to find Wheeler-Hendon MJO RMM Phase diagrams for this past January? The bom.au site (http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/mjo/) appears to have a bit of a hole in it's archives. They have only been updated to December 2021, and the Current Phase 90 day diagram only reaches January 28th 2022. I'm hoping to find 40 or 90 day plots centered on January 2022.

CPC site doesn't appear to have archived W-H diagrams unfortunately.

Yes, it indeed got sticky at around 12:30 from mid mountain on down (felt the snow starting to grab at the skis as I went down Nosedive and decided enough was enough). The morning was fantastic through, with the woods skiers left off of Lookout and skiers left of Starr still housing some pockets of fresh turns and good coverage. The top half of Lookout proper was awesome too.

Between Jay yesterday and Stowe today, easily the best March tree skiing in recent years!