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NNE Winter Thread


wxmanmitch
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Event totals: 3.5” Snow/0.81” L.E.

 

When I headed off to Burlington this morning, the snowfall was actually more intense and was made up of larger flakes than what I’d seen at home in Waterbury.  Visibility was actually pretty low at times on I-89, but driving was generally fine because the roads were just wet.  It snowed all day in Burlington at a pretty steady clip, but it was warm enough that it only seemed to accumulate to an inch or two.  The situation was essentially the same as I headed back to Waterbury this afternoon, with more intense snowfall out in the Champlain Valley, but we probably picked up at least as much of not more snow here at the house.  Perhaps our temperatures were a bit cooler.  We’re closing in on an inch of liquid here, and it’s been interesting to watch the snow to water ratio climb a bit at each 6-hour observation:

6:00 A.M.:  4.0 to 1, 25% H2O

12:00 P.M.:  4.9 to 1, 20.5% H2O

6:00 P.M.:  6.1 to 1, 16.4 % H2O

 

We’ll have to see what tonight’s snow brings, but based on what I’m seeing I’d suspect the next core to show a continuation of the trend.

 

Details from the 6:00 P.M. Waterbury observations:

New Snow: 1.1 inches

New Liquid: 0.18 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 6.1

Snow Density: 16.4% H2O

Temperature: 34.5 F

Sky:  Light Snow (2 to 12 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 23.0 inches

 

 

Details from the 12:00 P.M. Waterbury observations:

New Snow: 2.0 inches

New Liquid: 0.41 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 4.9

Snow Density: 20.5% H2O

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I had the opportunity to sample the entire I89 corridor out on a site visit for work today.  Left home at 7:15 with 2” of paste here at 1200’ in E Montpelier.  Then headed north up to Lake Carmi.  Snowing pretty steadily and accumulating till about the Bolton Flats then really rain/snow mix was more prevalent.  Roads were fine except for a little burst of heavier snow south of St Albans where some glop was accumulating on the roads.  Could really see even with dense cloud cover that March sun angle was working because black pavement surfaces were noticeably clearer than newer lighter pavement sections during that heavier burst.  From Saint Albans on to Carmi and for the remainder of the morning just light snow/rain mix with no accumulation.

On my ride home, precip became steadier the further south but it still seemed pretty wet with not a lot of evidence of accumulation.  That changed on a dime around the Middlesex exit when clearly I entered a zone where heavy accumulating snow had fallen, I think where deformation band had setup during the morning. Then sat for 1 1/2 hr on the highway due to accidents.  Thick Compacted  slush all over the roads.  On arrival back in parking lot in Montpelier 6-8” on the ground.  Very wet.  At home about an hour ago I measured 12” compacted new.  That’s one measurement so am guessing at least 13 or 14” overall.

Interesting day, interesting storm.  We’ll see what round 2 holds.

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4 minutes ago, EMontpelierWhiteout said:

What’s the word from Mansfield? I heard from a friend who skied today there was not much accumulation. 

Andre had 6" at 2pm and 7" at 4pm so it was half inch per hour rates.

Bolton Valley reported 5" at 3pm and Smuggs 7-9" at 4pm.

The mesoband was definitely south of I-89 and radar showed it well.

Here was the 2pm reading:

IMG_2651.PNG.346232378c290865033850d08816a559.PNG

 

Summit station showing gusts to 80mph this evening so it's blowing all over now.  Probably going to be variable depths on trail with that wind.  Lots of scouring possible on trails with deep woods drifts.

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8 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Andre had 6" at 2pm and 7" at 4pm so it was half inch per hour rates.

Bolton Valley reported 5" at 3pm and Smuggs 7-9" at 4pm.

The mesoband was definitely south of I-89 and radar showed it well.

Here was the 2pm reading:

IMG_2651.PNG.346232378c290865033850d08816a559.PNG

 

Summit station showing gusts to 80mph this evening so it's blowing all over now.  Probably going to be variable depths on trail with that wind.  Lots of scouring possible on trails with deep woods drifts.

Thanks.  I’m counting on upslope machine cranking tonight.

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27 minutes ago, EMontpelierWhiteout said:

I had the opportunity to sample the entire I89 corridor out on a site visit for work today.  Left home at 7:15 with 2” of paste here at 1200’ in E Montpelier.  Then headed north up to Lake Carmi.  Snowing pretty steadily and accumulating till about the Bolton Flats then really rain/snow mix was more prevalent.  Roads were fine except for a little burst of heavier snow south of St Albans where some glop was accumulating on the roads.  Could really see even with dense cloud cover that March sun angle was working because black pavement surfaces were noticeably clearer than newer lighter pavement sections during that heavier burst.  From Saint Albans on to Carmi and for the remainder of the morning just light snow/rain mix with no accumulation.

On my ride home, precip became steadier the further south but it still seemed pretty wet with not a lot of evidence of accumulation.  That changed on a dime around the Middlesex exit when clearly I entered a zone where heavy accumulating snow had fallen, I think where deformation band had setup during the morning. Then sat for 1 1/2 hr on the highway due to accidents.  Thick Compacted  slush all over the roads.  On arrival back in parking lot in Montpelier 6-8” on the ground.  Very wet.  At home about an hour ago I measured 12” compacted new.  That’s one measurement so am guessing at least 13 or 14” overall.

Interesting day, interesting storm.  We’ll see what round 2 holds.

It was pretty intense for a good part of the morning in Montpelier. I work in the Pavilion Building and my window looks out at the new Taylor Street building. There were times this morning when the hillside across the river disappeared.

I live at 1250’ in Barre Town and would estimate we got a similar amount to you. I posted a picture of my back deck in the storm thread. 

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That was the hairiest approach on a plane I've ever had.  Kids crying, plane jumping what felt like 10-20 feet at a time, pilot circled and came in from SE into the NW wind.  Dumping snow in the wing lights...like end of the world scene at 2-4kft based on flight info screen.  Had 65mph headwind at 4,000ft.  Pilot came on and was like "Folks don't mess around.  Make sure your seat belt is tight." 

Pilot f'ing nailed it though. Couple inches of grease it looks like on the runway with snow falling sideways.

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1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

That was the hairiest approach on a plane I've ever had.  Kids crying, plane jumping what felt like 10-20 feet at a time, pilot circled and came in from SE into the NW wind.  Dumping snow in the wing lights...like end of the world scene at 2-4kft based on flight info screen.  Had 65mph headwind at 4,000ft.  Pilot came on and was like "Folks don't mess around.  Make sure your seat belt is tight." 

Pilot f'ing nailed it though. Couple inches of grease it looks like on the runway with snow falling sideways.

I'm assuming that was your BTV arrival and you've made it back to the promised land of the Green Mountains where snow falls by the foot?  If so, congrats, it's dumping out there!

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26 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

Event totals: 7.5” Snow/1.43” L.E.

 

Details from the 12:00 A.M. Waterbury observations:

New Snow: 4.0 inches

New Liquid: 0.62 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 6.5

Snow Density: 15.5% H2O

Temperature: 34.0 F

Sky:  Snow (2 to 10 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 26.0 inches

Worst drive ever on 89 from 1130p-1am.  

Your zone seemed to be getting rocked.  Flake size decreased and wind increased by exit 10 and Shaws.  

I posted more obs in the main thread.

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It’s still snowing of course, but from resorts that have been able to report in already this morning, the list of north to south storm totals from the Vermont ski areas is below:

 

Burke: 31”

Smuggler’s Notch: 23”

Stowe: 21”

Mad River Glen: 30”

Sugarbush: 23”

Middlebury: 26”

Pico: 11”

Killington: 11”

Okemo: 14”

Bromley: 9”

Magic Mountain: 11”

Stratton: 9”

Mount Snow: 10”

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Another 1.5" last night.  Storm total 4.5".   One town south (Bristol NH)  had a dusting of slop yesterday AM and another dusting last night.  Big gradient through my area.

Congrats to areas NW.  I keep thinking of the NWS map just before the storm without an advisory or warning in the state of NH.  (No disrespect to OceanST whos a great Met.)

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Absolute valley screw job below 1000ft. Maybe .5-1" max at 1k or lower. Thought some upslope would kick in over night even for valley floor, thinks temps were like 33-34F when best returns were overhead below 1k, also flow was little too blocked I guess and also best returns looked down in taconics in WMA/ENY and Rensselear Plateau in ENY. Every model had at least 4-6" at even the lowest elevations.

5.7" final here at my place.  Never seen such a dramatic difference in just 100-200ft of elevation, at least here in the valley.

1100-1150ft

rps20190323_081506.thumb.jpg.8689c1468e7999b815be01e491a72649.jpgrps20190323_082738.thumb.jpg.4077089de306a8ad676470fc22ae7b96.jpg

900-950ft

rps20190323_113541.thumb.jpg.2ea198857126614caf42efb7816ccc32.jpg

 

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4 hours ago, J.Spin said:

It’s still snowing of course, but from resorts that have been able to report in already this morning, the list of north to south storm totals from the Vermont ski areas is below:

 

Burke: 31

Smuggler’s Notch: 23”

Stowe: 21”

Mad River Glen: 30”

Sugarbush: 23”

Middlebury: 26”

Pico: 11”

Killington: 11”

Okemo: 14”

Bromley: 9”

Magic Mountain: 11”

Stratton: 9”

Mount Snow: 10”

Sweet that 40 the 3K had pretty much verified just a tad south

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10 hours ago, radarman said:

Ellen never spun chairs other than the park quad.  Skinned up to the summit, super windblown, very dense.  Deep in the woods.  Tough traveling at times.

Everything was initially on hold yesterday at Bolton except the Mighty Mite, so we packed Tele and alpine gear and were all set to skin at Timberline until they started running things.  By mid-morning though, they were announcing openings of the Mid Mountain Chair and the Timberline Quad, so we’d be able to start lift-served skiing once we got there.  Unfortunately though, they were still plowing out the Timberline parking lot and asking people to park up at the main base.  This meant connection over to ski Timberline, but the Snowflake Chair, which is the best way to connect over, was down on maintenance.  This made for a big line at the Mid Mountain Chair, and that connection still requires a short hike anyway, so we made the hike up Villager to get over.  That did have the benefit that we got in some of our cardio even though we didn’t end up skinning.

In terms of the skiing, I’d say that the quantity of the new snow was absolutely there – it was a fantastic resurfacing and the groomed slopes were skiing as beautifully as one could imagine.  The powder skiing definitely left something to be desired relative to our typical off piste conditions from a storm though.  The snow was quite dense, and often windblown, just as you mentioned.  We found that the trees offered some protection from the winds, so we typically got our highest quality turns there, but it was still Sierra Cement/Cascade Concrete type stuff and it would toss you around easily if you weren’t on your game or as it became more chopped up.  It actually looked like a nice day to be on a board with the dense snow.  The skiing was still awesome of course, but it was just surprising that the backside champagne never developed enough to set the impressively right-side-up turns we’d anticipated.  Presumably the parameters for optimal snow growth didn’t come together everywhere as the storm was finishing up.

Some pictures from the day:

23MAR19A.jpg

23MAR19D.jpg

23MAR19C.jpg

23MAR19B.jpg

23MAR19E.jpg

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47 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

Some pictures from the day:

 

Nice ones as always.  Here are few going up/down...

Inverness area is always pretty with open Birch forest.  Much less windblown through here too.  They should have spun the lift.

20190323_105005_HDR.jpg

20190323_105009_HDR.jpg

20190323_110332_HDR.jpg

Once at the top, the choice of sticking in the trees was obvious as you were saying.  Lighter and somewhat less windblown.  

20190323_130837.jpg

Exposed trails didn't hold that much snow in the face of the battering, but protected trails did.  But the mounds were whipped into big, slabby crests that were tough to navigate.  Could have used about 130s underfoot and just gone straight.

20190323_133328_HDR.jpg

20190323_133317_HDR.jpg

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2 hours ago, powderfreak said:

The Mansfield Stake hit 124" yesterday on yesterday's evening report.  

That is 2nd highest for March 23rd since 1954. 

1969 was 128".

2001 was 120".  

Of course those winters had additional snowfall with 2001 maxing at 132" and 1969 at 149".

IMG_2672.JPG

I was about to send along a post on the stake depth PF, but I see you’re all over it!  Indeed that 10-foot snowpack depth has been eclipsed at the stake after this latest storm:

24MAR19A.jpg

There’s a small system/frontal passage coming into the area tonight, and the models suggest that after there’s more potential coming down the pike as we head toward next weekend and on into April.  It’s too far out to know exactly how that’s going to go, but it never hurts to have that elevation in your pocket:

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION

National Weather Service Burlington VT

735 AM EDT Sun Mar 24 2019

.LONG TERM /TUESDAY NIGHT THROUGH SATURDAY/...

As of 321 AM EDT Sunday...The next chance for precipitation comes Friday night into Saturday as as a an upper level trough and associated front swing down through region. Models are still split on timing and on amounts of QPF, but right now temperature profiles suggest a rain-snow event with the valleys remaining rain while the higher elevations see a mix and the highest peaks seeing just snow. Things should come into better focus next week as we get closer to the event.

Storms like this last one are the type that can really boost the snowpack going into the spring though.  We picked up just shy of 2 inches of liquid equivalent here in the bottom of the valley with the snow from this last one, so I have to think the mountain got at least that much.

The snow from this storm definitely had real meat to it – here’s another shot from yesterday of E, and you can see how high in the powder she’s riding.  That’s 20 inches of snow and she’s just using the top few.  It certainly wasn't one of those storms to produce the "over-the-head" powder shots.

23MAR19F.jpg

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