radarman

7 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Loved this one.  Probably one of the first storms I remember truly tracking online using like unisys weather models (or something like that).  Anyone remember that site?  We had 13” in Albany I think.

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

1 minute ago, MJO812 said:

Beautiful storm

4 inches in the morning and 14 inches at night

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.

23 minutes ago, tamarack said:

I learned parallel at the old Glen Ellen many years ago, on a super cheap January ski week - including gas, meals and lodging I barely cracked $100.  A year later I returned as an intermediate skier and chickened out on the summit, taking the long way around rather than Upper FIS.  Then I tried the narrow and twisty black diamond just left of the lower liftline and had a great run - conditions were excellent.  That told me that the much steeper/much wider FIS was within my reach, but unfortunately we had to head home to NNJ after that run.   (And the real scary trail that I'd never had tried was then called Scotch Mist, down the summit liftline - steep as FIS but narrow and with hard objects in the middle.

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.  

5 minutes ago, PowderBeard said:

I have not done enough exploring at Ellen. My impulsive side gets the best of me and I find it hard to resist checking out "The Church" and rabbit holes around Castlerock each time I am there. 

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.

7 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

Walking up a ski slope and then skiing down sounds downright exhausting, not gonna lie.

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

2 minutes ago, MRVexpat said:

SHHHHH!!!  but yes, that whole ridge from MRG to Lincoln Peak holds so many goodies when the pack is deep, and some even when it isn't!

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.

Just now, J.Spin said:

Ascutney Outdoors (175″)

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. 

26 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

I think the issue here, at least in part, lies with something I brought up in my post above.  The more I think about, the more I wonder how much (i.e. what percentage of annual snowfall) big coastal storms actually play into the snowfall numbers for the Vermont ski areas.  This is where it would be good to bring in some of the meteorologists who know seasonal averages for those types of storms.  I’m wondering if the past decade’s run of (more frequent?) big coastal storms has warped our perspective on how often they really occur.  It takes a lot of things to line up just right to get one of those big coastal systems, and even more to get one that significantly affects a certain area, so is the real average on those more than once or twice a season?  Even if a spot gets two solid hits from coastal storms a season, and each one is a healthy two feet of snow, that’s still a pretty minor component of the annual snowfall, even for a place with an annual snowfall average like Mount Snow.  Those big storms get the attention, so perhaps why they’re thought to have such an impact?  It’s not as if heading southward along the spine of the Greens we find that the big snowfall numbers up north experience some sort of dip in the central areas, and then rise again as one gets into the southern area where potential coastal systems have greater effects; the numbers just continue to drop as one heads south.  If the “coastal” storm track doesn’t really contribute much to the overall annual snowfall averages, there might not really be any sort of in between area.

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.

20 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

Jay Peak (355″)
Burke (217″)
Smuggler’s Notch (320″)
Stowe (333″)
Bolton Valley (312″)
Mad River Glen (228″)
Sugarbush (250″)
Middlebury (200″)
Pico (250″)
Killington (250″)
Okemo (200″)
Bromley (145″)
Magic Mountain (145″)
Stratton (180″)
Mount Snow (158″)

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. 

26 minutes ago, MRVexpat said:

I mean I still think there is a notion of north to south decrease in upslope snow, it may just be a question of diminishing difference as you head south. Strictly anecdotally speaking, if Jay is the high water mark in orographic snows, I imagine Stowe/Smuggs get 80-90% of that, Sugarbush/MRG 45-55%, Killington 25% and areas south of there roughly 15-20% of Jay's total. Of course this is broad brushed and can differ season by season and I'm also sure that among the So VT resorts, distance from the spine plays a part but generally speaking this is always how I've thought of it/observed. 

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

43 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Ha it’s funny you mention this as Killington has been getting hammered in online and social circles for their measuring or lack thereof.  The other day when they reported 8” it was more than anyone and on the Live cams there was like grass showing everywhere and people who skied said there was like 3-4” in the woods up high lol.

Killington’s numbers have been starting to stand out but I’d be curious on Jen’s take there.  She skis it daily.  But at times they’ve been higher than Stowe and Jay in seasonal totals.  The unopened mountains like Sugarbush/Bolton/Smuggs probably miss some snowfall as it’s hard to get upper mountain reports.  We are lucky with a decent snow cam and I also get up a lot for early season snowfall to verify at the Stake and on hill.

I agree with everything you said.  Jay definitely gets the most and I try to explain to skiers who don’t believe it that on the most basic level, snowfall increases as you head north in New England, all else equal.  Jay maximizes orographic lift too.  And then when people are like “I don’t believe they would get 50-75” more than Stowe and Smuggs!”  I usually answer, but you accept that Stowe and Smuggs can at times get 50-75” more than Sugarbush/MRG?

IMO once averages sort themselves out long term, there’s a clear stepwise increase from SB/MRG to Bolton/Stowe/Smuggs... followed by another clear step up to Jay.

I do also fully believe Sugarbush should average a clear step up from Killington.  Just like Killington should be clearly more than Mt Snow.

Mostly agree but that last part I'm actually not totally sure about... Mt Snow often does better than KMart on coastals, and it's pretty rare that the R/S line hangs up between them. And for orographic snows I'm not sure the S Greens are notably different on average than Killington (are the C Greens a thing?).  The height of the mountain helps a bit, but the relative narrowness of the spine there may hurt some.  You are certainly the expert on upslope and I will defer.

+1 to Will for that post about 08 yesterday

4 minutes ago, dendrite said:

He’s talking about his personal wx station.

you'd think I'd have caught that by the fact he called it "weather station"... been that kind of day

14 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

Weather station was caked with snow and slush. Now it is reading the winds at least. 

As long as your signal is not attenuated to extinction, the velocities are unaffected because those are derived from the phase not the power.

3 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

I'm not sure I can think of a time I've seen it that dramatic during a winter storm. Most of the examples I can think of come from our radar training.

s band radome attenuation shouldn't be more than about 1dB and it did seem excessive... But yeah I don't have a better explanation and I don't believe the atmosphere just sh*t out that quickly

6 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

The wedge of high ZDR is definitely all on the N/NNW side of the display.

Another thing that made it very obvious was that the various color contours in the imagery all collapsed inward simultaneously the same (similar) distances, indicative of a fixed power loss offset in the entire sector.

Just now, OceanStWx said:

A big part of our job is figuring out WTF is happening, and diagnosing it quickly enough to shit or get off the pot. 

nice catch.  As someone working with X band that kind of thing happens all the time and it certainly had a familiar look to it.  But one thing I noticed was that the returned power from the cell out on the ocean didn't appear to be changing very much... Could the wind be squeegee-ing away water on the east side, creating some kind of differential radome attenuation?  That'd be interesting.

WaWa opening tomorrow

10 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

This radar definitely has a bit of 12/9/05 to it and a little bit of 1/12/11 to it.

That's kind of like when the 12th pick of the NBA draft is taken and the announcers describe him as similar to Kobe with a little Jordan

3 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

That dark band has to be ripping. Some mix started here

FWIW I'm squarely under that dark band just west of the Quabbin and it's all rain at present, and not particularly heavy.

9 minutes ago, HIPPYVALLEY said:

Just got off the phone with my buddy up at Berkshire East and he said all rain there right now.  I guess elevation not as much of a factor out this way.

Summit cam shows like C-1"