radarman

He may have done better in part one up there.

Snowing decently. Very small flakes.

Gearing up in the car is the fooking worst, especially once it's a spring mud bog. That's what the muckers are for. Clop clop clop clop clop

Berkshire East just announced opening on Thurs 12/17

Berkshire East has been hammering away and I saw cat tracks on the webcam tonignt. Wonder if Pro Lurker has heard anything about opening?

Reminds a little of 12/1/19 how that thing gets squeezed underneath.

Either way... The last week of January 2000 featured 2 sizable storms for the Capital region. They were probably pushing 2+ feet OTG. Maybe more in places.

It's that same Feb 01 storm probably. Definitely rivalled Feb 13 for snow in the valley except somewhat more localized.

Somewhere deep in the archives here I think I dug up the March 01 BTV afd from the old UVM ski bb mentioning 5SD east flow and generally calling for snow destruction. It's like the skier's Katrina disco. Weenie HOF material.

Pretty sure it's 1/30/00. You were way off

FWIW, Killington reported 3" today. Mt Snow snowed lightly most of the day but the cam on the stake really only shows like a half inch, maybe a little more. Sugarbush reported 2". Radar did look decent over Killington.

The AVN and the MRF days... JB daily vids and still good crazy.... and an epic, epic winter for VT. (here too)

Feb 2010 references might summon Logan from the NY wilderness. He got like 40"+

3/7/18 was a bit of a disappointment in the valley, with only like 6-8" on a forecast of nearly double that. Same as Boston proper. But the Berks and S Greens got destroyed.

Cool. Scotch Mist is now called Black Diamond. Makes you wonder why they changed it. Kind of like they changed my town name from the perfectly nice Cold Spring to, well... nvm. I presume the twisty diamond you mention is Lower FIS, and that's also just a wonderful long pleasant mogul run. The short hike out at the bottom tends to keep the crowds away so you can save it for later and still find fresh tracks late morning.

You can't really go wrong over there either. Rumble woods accessed from the top of Middle Earth is absolute prototype steep eastern trees and small cliffs, and even the trail itself premier Vermont cut narrow moguls down the fall line. Ellen summit is a little more exposed with scrubbier trees as you pointed out. So if it's foggy or especially windy you're better off elsewhere. Also, sometimes after a big storm, they might hold off on opening Ellen an extra day. But if you hit it right, especially on a bluebird, I don't think you'll wish you had splurged on the LP ticket.

yeah and tack on a 3 hr drive on either end. But once home and showered, you feel amazing.

The woods skiers left of Black diamond holds literally like 1-2 lines, but it's frickin chest deep in there... And the other side ain't bad either Nothing whatsoever against LP, but I have a special fondness for the Ellen summit. I think it's overlooked sometimes.

As for on the actual trail, 12/1/18 was the best I've ever seen it. 90" in November and very little wind... a pure west coast style powder puff. Skinner's reward.

Sparse trees on either side of Upper FIS are usually good to great. Not many turns in there, but they hold it. Cut over through the woods from the top of black diamond and it opens up.

I mean, I think this says it all about reporting nuances. Close to zero percent chance Mt Snow gets less than Ascutney. I'm always fine with throwing caution flags when it comes to personal anecdotes, but I feel pretty good about anecdotally coming to that conclusion.

Well, even here we get a pretty substantial percentage of our snow nickel and diming from northern stream shortwaves and on the front side of cutters/SWFEs... ie. not pure coastals. I'd be inclined to suppose that Killington incrementally scores with the CAD events based on latitude, but we know also that the west side of the mountains are prone to torching and they're tickling that edge pretty good, whereas Mt Snow has some buffer. At any rate, I don't entirely mean big nor'easter type events, which as you say likely don't contribute hugely on a percentage basis, but also your standard fare March clipper that blows up under LI, quick hitter anafrontal waves, waves on cold fronts hung up offshore, etc. Basically everything synoptic with the Atlantic as the primary moisture source.

Nice post as usual. If some objective truth were available I'd be shocked if KMart gets 100 more inches than Mt Snow. I mean when folks talk about Killington posting 8" with bare grass showing, that's a non-negligible amount of inflation. Or maybe as you said the southern areas just don't care as much or aren't clearing their boards every hour. Over the course of a few seasons I'd be interested to identify all these events where Killington is cleaning up and Mt Snow isn't, to the tune of 90 something inches annually, which is the difference basically between MBY and YBY.

Again, we have plenty of experts on this here, and you may well be one of them... so take with a grain of salt... but I've always felt that where Jay cleans up is on the lingering N/NE flow from bombing coastals in N Brunswick, etc., throwing back moisture across SE QC and the extended St Lawrence valley and they being the first beneficiary of orography. Whereas the more typical W/NW flow is fairly evenly distributed, perhaps with Mansfield even outdoing them. And SB/MRG can occasionally score big on streamers especially, but for most upslope events they certainly average less than those others further north. Even if I grant that Killington may do better than further S on westerly flow just purely based on relief, I've always kind of considered them between typical storm track paradigms, whereby they're a little too far removed from clippers and coastals that get the Berks and S Greens, and don't benefit from the seemingly daily snows that the big boys get. With temps closer to the former and moisture closer to the latter.

Sugarbush confirmed opening on the 10th today