NNE Spring Thread

[Lava Rock]

Ugh. Days and days of clouds, drizzle and cold.

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[tamarack]

April stats:

Avg high: 52.83  +0.47  
Highest was 75, on the 29th   Co0lest max was 34, on the 1st and 4th. 

Avg low:  31.27   +2.76 
Lowest was 19 on the 3rd.  Mildest min was 50, on the 28th.  This is the warmest minimum in my 19 Aprils, and 48 on both 27 and 29 tied the "high min" record set last year.

Avg mean:  42.05  +1.61   That's 5th mildest of 19.
Mildest mean was 61.5 on 4/29, and low mean was 29F on the 4th. 

Precip was 4.10"  +-0.09" 
Biggest day was 0.65" on the 6th, and the storm total for 6-7 was 1.19", including a modest TS early on 4/7. 

Snowfall:  5.3"  +0.3"
Though slightly AN, this month's snow gets a below average grade.  The 3.5" on 4/1 was nice, and within the 3-6" forecast, but seeing 2-4 times as much 30-60 miles to my south took the bloom off the rose.  Then the "make-up" storm on the 4th busted badly.  Forecasts of 8-12" (or more) 36 hours before faded to a minimal (4-8") WSW by game time.  Then qpf came in at half the estimate and -SN in April daytime is always a poor accumulator.  The 1.6" was less than half the low end of the forecast range, putting this one in my "mega-bust" category.
April snowfall includes two outlier years, 2007 and 2015, which together have recorded 55% of all snow for that month.  The other 17 years have varied from "T" to 6.2", with the average just 2.5".  Median snowfall is 2.0".

Snowpack peaked at 28" with that 3.5" opener, and continuous cover ended on 4/19, or 136 days from its beginning on 12/5.  The average cover of 10.9" (including zeroes for 4/20-30) boosted snow depth days to 2,806, nestled in 3rd place between 2000-01 (2,790) and 2013-14 (2,837.)  2007-08 remains unassailable at 3,835. 

[powderfreak]

Holy crap that was a wild ride on I-89!  Just got home after going from Williston to Waterbury on 89 and that was rugged in the Richmond/Jonesville area.  The rain had just tapered off and it was like a dam had broke.  My SUV was getting tossed around and you could tell others were too, as the average speeds dropped under 60mph for a few miles.  Tractor trailers were visibly swaying as well.  

I had drove through there an hour earlier with nothing noticeable but it was raining hard.  I'm guessing the rain stabilized the low levels but then the dry slot moved in while I was shopping in Williston.  Once back on the highway home, had to be gusts over 40mph and the trees were cranking.  There were some 30-second bursts that seemed pretty impressive though hard to exactly tell in a car.  

My immediate thought was downslope winds as the sky was brighter too in that area.  VAD indicates some strong flow in the 2-4kft range out of the SE and the worst area was exit 11 to Jonesville, exactly in the shadow of Camels Hump.

I see BTV issued a wind advisory about 2 hours ago for the west slopes, so nice work by them.  No hard data but I think it's warranted just by what I saw on the interstate.  Given the tree motion I'd imagine there's some scattered damage around.

 

[Skivt2]

Massive damage in rutland.  Whole town without power.  Ludlow out as well and many in between.  Trees and wires down everywhere in Rutland.

[Ginx snewx]

1 hour ago, Skivt2 said:

Massive damage in rutland.  Whole town without power.  Ludlow out as well and many in between.  Trees and wires down everywhere in Rutland.

Gravity wave winds to 74 mph

 

 

[powderfreak]

The Mansfield stake depth is still higher than it was at ANY POINT in the 2015-2016 winter.

Really think about that, haha.  Funny how in December, the 40" mark is historically when tree skiing "is in" and things are starting to get good.  Now its just old pine needle covered snow rotting away in the spruces.

[powderfreak]

All the drainages on the mountain continue to run very high with water.  The only time of year you'll really see them all crashing with water.

This is the Hellbrook drainage today...its essentially a series of waterfalls that travels 2,500 vertical feet (half a mile) straight down.

This is one small section of it towards the bottom, ends in a large waterfall.

 

Here's a wider view, showing the full half-mile vertical drop and still a lot of hanging snowpack in the upper portions of the watershed. 

More water flowing down the walls of the Notch from the remaining snowpack high above.

 

What's left on the FourRunner Quad terrain.  Mansfield COOP stake is upper right hand side photo, where the clouds meet the mountain.  Still 40" rotting away in the spruce trees.

 

[CoastalWx]

Neat Scott. I have a roaring creek/waterfall fetish. 

[alex]

Occasional hail. Blah. I'm over spring

[eyewall]

Light snow this morning on the Bolton web cam

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[CoastalWx]

Pittsburg NH looks nice and white.

[alex]

Unfortunately, here too

[CoastalWx]

Awesome 

[nzucker]

13 hours ago, powderfreak said:

All the drainages on the mountain continue to run very high with water.  The only time of year you'll really see them all crashing with water.

This is the Hellbrook drainage today...its essentially a series of waterfalls that travels 2,500 vertical feet (half a mile) straight down.

This is one small section of it towards the bottom, ends in a large waterfall.

 

Here's a wider view, showing the full half-mile vertical drop and still a lot of hanging snowpack in the upper portions of the watershed. 

More water flowing down the walls of the Notch from the remaining snowpack high above.

 

What's left on the FourRunner Quad terrain.  Mansfield COOP stake is upper right hand side photo, where the clouds meet the mountain.  Still 40" rotting away in the spruce trees.

 

Looks like the green-up is creeping up the mountain. All white this morning, however, I suspect.

[powderfreak]

Visible snow accumulation down to 2,100ft or so here this morning.  Had some flurries at the office but precip dried out too much to accumulate down to this level at 1500ft.

[J.Spin]

13 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Still 40" rotting away in the spruce trees.

 

And it’s actually doing it somewhat slowly with the current weather.  I headed up for a tour yesterday to enjoy the snow when there was a decent break in the weather around midday, and there are still lots of options with the available coverage.  The turns were nice, but I actually would have preferred the snow to even be a little bit softer.  It will only get so soft without a lot of sun though.  I ascended via the North Slope route, and coverage is actually just about continuous there, but it’s broken up near the top because of the plowing that’s been done on The Toll Road.  I had planned to descend on something in the area where I’d gone up since it’s still an option, but I ended up simply descending via Nosedive due to the plowing.  One upside to Nosedive for the descent is that’s it’s got some grooming due to skier traffic and you can some much smoother turns.  The variety of weather and the associated views certainly added to the fun of the outing.  I’ve added a few images from my report below:

 

 

 

 

 

[powderfreak]

Light snow up at the mountain now.  Crazy to see legit flakes floating around in the base area and not some graupel or white rain.  

Down to 23F at the summit so I guess that explains why this stuff isn't even wet.  It's like dry mid-Feb flakes.  

 

[Sugarloaf1989]

The green up level is about 3,000' in S Vermont. I was up around Magic Mtn on Saturday.

[wxeyeNH]

42.4F cloudy  can see snow showers obscuring ridge tops above 1500 to the west.  Congrats  ( I guess) to all that saw or is seeing snow this AM.  We were in a good spot for heavy showers last evening.  .65" in the Stratus.   One shower after the other as they kept forming and moving NNW...

[backedgeapproaching]

2 hours ago, alex said:

Unfortunately, here too

Ugg, although you should probably get used to those occasional late season snow shots in your location I would guess.

Got back to SVT on Friday night after spending the last 3 weeks in central and southern FL, definitely a little system shock dealing with this weather after weeks of high temps and dews.

Any visible snow here looks pretty high up, like close to 3K, but super light.

[mreaves]

At home waiting for the fence guy to come and give me an estimate and notice my thermometer dropped from 38F to 37F. This is why I say that when I retire, I'll leave Vermont from around March 15th to May 15th. That's the worst stretch of the year for me. 

[eekuasepinniW]

25 minutes ago, mreaves said:

At home waiting for the fence guy to come and give me an estimate and notice my thermometer dropped from 38F to 37F. This is why I say that when I retire, I'll leave Vermont from around March 15th to May 15th. That's the worst stretch of the year for me. 

Probably need to adjust that to October 10th to June 15th. 

[eyewall]

Took the drone to Bolton. A few flurries at the lodge

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[alex]

Goes back and forth from drizzle to giant flakes here, but the plaster snow from this morning has melted in the valley. A few hundred feet up looks like a paste job. What a raw day

[eyewall]

A few flurries in Richmond and the Williston rest area.

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[alex]

Looks like the accumulating snow is around 2200 ft or so now

[eekuasepinniW]

Snowing on Gunstock.

[ORH_wxman]

Nice pic alex, I love the elevation gradient pics of a snow event.

[powderfreak]

It's just straight snowing steadily all the sudden at the office.  

I'd estimate around 1 mile vis in steady -SN.  Moisture pushing in from the west.

 

[alex]

42 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

It's just straight snowing steadily all the sudden at the office.  

I'd estimate around 1 mile vis in steady -SN.  Moisture pushing in from the west.

 

For once, I hope the Greens take it all away. Probably not gonna happen though. At least we've enjoyed a few hours of cloudy sky! Temps maxed out around 38.