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NNE Thread: Heading into the Heart of Winter


powderfreak

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Event totals: 3.0” Snow/0.24” L.E.

Saturday 1/8/2011 12:00 P.M. update: It was snowing decently with some larger flakes at the house in the mid to late morning period, so I decided to head up to the mountain to make some turns and see what conditions were like. The powder depths I observed up there are actually a combination of the fluffy snow from the clipper earlier in the week, with this denser snow from the current Great Lakes ULL/inverted trough on top of it. In Bolton’s Timberline area up to the mid station (1,500’ to 2,250’) I found 4 to occasionally 5 inches of powder, but up at the Timberline summit there was a consistent 5 to 7 inches atop the consolidated snow from before the warmth. On the main mountain at around 2,300’ I found 6 inches of powder, and even up at the Vista Summit (3,100’) I never found more than 7 inches. Toward the end of the day we went out for a tour on the Nordic/backcountry network and I found generally 6 inches of loose snow in the 2,000’ to 2,500’ range.

Down at the house (495’) we picked up some additional snow during the morning, and with some larger flakes, at least at times, the snow density dropped another couple of percent down to 6.9% H2O. By that point we’d received about a quarter inch of liquid for the event. Some details from the noontime observations are below:

New Snow: 1.6 inches

New Liquid: 0.11 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 14.5

Snow Density: 6.9%

Temperature: 27.3 F

Sky: Light Snow (1 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 8.0 inches

After noon, the snow really shut off, and we even had a few breaks of sunshine. Up on the mountain there was a burst of snow when we started our backcountry tour at around 3:00 P.M., but for the most part the snow was very light until we were leaving around 4:30 – 5:00 P.M. and it picked up a little. Flakes were very small (1-2 mm) on the mountain the entire time. Since noon there’s only been a couple of tenths of additional snow accumulation here at the house, and most of that seems to have come from this evening where we’ve had some slightly larger flakes falling.

Looking ahead to tomorrow, BTV has new advisories up for the western slopes from 5:00 A.M. tomorrow through 10:00 A.M. Monday for upslope snow, and the focus of the expected snowfall is very clear on the storm total snowfall maps. Washington County isn’t actually in this advisory, but our NWS point forecast calls for 2 to 6 inches through tomorrow night and the storm total map has the Chittenden County/Washington County border in our area at around 6 inches. I added a bit of the afternoon NWS discussion along with their warning and accumulations maps below:

.SHORT TERM /7 AM SUNDAY MORNING THROUGH MONDAY NIGHT/...

AS OF 315 PM EST SATURDAY...ANOTHER INTERESTING SETUP TAKING SHAPE ONCE AGAIN DURING SUNDAY/SUNDAY NIGHT TIME FRAME AS UPPER LOW SHIFTS EAST/OFFSHORE... MARITIME CYCLONE OCCLUDES AND NORTH/NORTHWESTERLY FLOW DEEPENS. THIS WILL ALLOW CONTINUED OROGRAPHICAL ENHANCEMENT OF LIGHT SNOWS ACROSS THE NWRN DACKS/NWRN GREENS AND PORTIONS OF THE VT CHAMPLAIN VALLEY. INDEED...MODELS DEPICT TO VARYING DEGREES AT LEAST A PERIOD OF MORE ENHANCED ACTIVITY DURING 18Z SUN TO 06Z MONDAY TIME FRAME AS STRONGER UPPER SHORTWAVE PASSAGE COMBINED WITH MOISTURE OF MARITIME ORIGIN WRAPS BACK SOUTH/SOUTHWESTWARD INTO OUR AREA. BASED ON HISTORICALLY HIGHER THAN NORMAL SNOW TO LIQUID SNOW RATIOS FOR THESE SCENARIOS (AROUND 20:1 OR A TAD HIGHER) HAVE OPTED TO ISSUE A WINTER WX ADVSY FOR THE NWRN SLOPES OF THE ADIRONDACKS...AS WELL AS THE WESTERN SLOPES OF THE NRN GREENS AND THE EASTERN PORTIONS OF THE CHAMPLAIN VALLEY OF NRN VT DURING THIS TIME FRAME. MAINLY LOOKING AT A PROLONGED LIGHT SNOW EVENT HERE...OFFERING 3-7 INCHES IN THE NWRN DACKS...AND 4 TO 8 ACROSS THE VT PORTIONS OF THE ADVSY (LOCALLY HIGHER)...THOUGH HEAVIER ACCUM HERE SHOULD BE GENERALLY EAST OF BURLINGTON.

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Nice! Looks like there might be more out over the open water that could swing through here several hours from now. Meanwhile, Mark's snow band has given up the ghost.

-SN now, I don't think it will amount to much, Its pretty weak, My focus is on next weds, Waiting on the Nam...... :weight_lift:

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We ended up with about 4 inches with the snow slowing down significantly around noon, though there have been consistent flurries/light snow most of the day. I had to go to Newport, VT today and the accumulating snow really dropped of the further north I went. Basically just a dusting by the time I got past Danville and almost nothing from St. Johnsbury north. Back to on and off light snow again. Would like to get some more as the week progresses.

:sled:

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Surprise snow is a great thing. The downside is that it'll reach me after midnight and I'll be happily drooling on my pillow by then. Beggars can't be choosers, as they say!

Its coming pretty fast. Here on little sebago i can still see tons of stars while the band is currently already on the other side of town!

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