NNE Cold Season Thread 2025-2026

[powderfreak]

39 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

Overperformah! Just measured 3” of fluff. Temp has leveled off. 17.6° now.

Yeah 3-4” of fluff and still coming at the Mtn.

[WxWatcher007]

3.6” now. GREAT DAY

Took a long walk and it was timed perfectly for the second temp crash. 10.0 w -3 WC

[tamarack]

Squalls passed to the south, only a few flakes here, but wind is noisy and temps diving.  Might go subzero tomorrow morning, would be the season's earliest since 2019.

[mreaves]

6 hours ago, tamarack said:

Squalls passed to the south, only a few flakes here, but wind is noisy and temps diving.  Might go subzero tomorrow morning, would be the season's earliest since 2019.

Just went sub zero here. 

[tamarack]

13 hours ago, mreaves said:

Just went sub zero here. 

Reached -9 this morning, coldest we've had this early in the season.  Saw -15 at HIE.

[mreaves]

27 minutes ago, tamarack said:

Reached -9 this morning, coldest we've had this early in the season.  Saw -15 at HIE.

I ended up at -6.5°.

[WxWatcher007]

Snow depth of 8” here. 

[Baroclinic Zone]

Amazing overnight/early am lows so early in the season. Can’t imagine it makes for good snowmaking though. Always love the photos, so keep em coming.

[powderfreak]

Have to watch the clipper for a little regional refresh.

[WxWatcher007]

13 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Have to watch the clipper for a little regional refresh.

BTV is down on it, but some models are looking juicy

[das]

Easy 3” in that 0.2” liquid at 10°F unless the winds break up the flakes too much. These high ratio events are fun. 

[Baroclinic Zone]

Definitely looks like a nice refresher storm for the slopes. 

[WxWatcher007]

2 hours ago, das said:

Easy 3” in that 0.2” liquid at 10°F unless the winds break up the flakes too much. These high ratio events are fun. 

[WxWatcher007]

BTV now going with 4” here. Should be a good little clipper. Let’s keep juicing through game time. 

[WxWatcher007]

Already 1.2” of fluff from last night and this morning. 

[das]

0.5” of gusty fluff last night in Charlotte as the front roared through. Had a 32mph gust at 1:30am in my (very) sheltered location. I could hear it roaring in the tops of the trees for over two hours. 

[eyewall]

I took a trip to Farmville VA for a snow chase down here and it reminded me of when did the same up there for upslope events. Thankfully my Forester handles like a champ in southern snow events. It was a beautiful little event. I definitely need to correctly time a VT visit this winter.

[WxWatcher007]

3.7” as of 5:45

[Boston Bulldog]

Nice looking band!

edit: appears as though I linked a dynamic radar that is updating. The band doesn’t look as nice now due to beam blockage

[powderfreak]

39 minutes ago, Boston Bulldog said:

Nice looking band!

Nice burst of moderate to heavy snow with the cold front.  Probably translates more to an orographic nature following the band.

METAR KMVL 080220Z AUTO 36009KT 1/2SM SN FZFG BKN009 OVC018 M07/M09 A2990 RMK P0002

The small flake WAA steady light snow that dropped a couple inches on the front side, transitioning to CAA fluffy/breezy snow.

[WxWatcher007]

Over performer. Finished with 6.2” of fluff. Biggest event of the season. 

[powderfreak]

8 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

Over performer. Finished with 6.2” of fluff. Biggest event of the season. 

That’s awesome.  What a start to a season to move to the northern Adirondacks.

You just saw a half a foot of dry powder from a clipper.  At cold temps.  That has to be such a different experience from CT, in terms of weather interest.  

[WxWatcher007]

5 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

That’s awesome.  What a start to a season to move to the northern Adirondacks.

You just saw a half a foot of dry powder from a clipper.  At cold temps.  That has to be such a different experience from CT, in terms of weather interest.  

It’s an entirely different planet. Wild stuff.

[mreaves]

Eyeballing about 1.5”. Had snow on and off for a good part of the afternoon and it became steady later in the day, ending with a heavier burst. I think there is 6”-8” on the ground now. It is enough to buzz the snowmobiles around the yard for a bit. Down to 15.2°. 

[J.Spin]

I’ve been waiting on these past couple of systems to let some fresh snow build up before heading out for turns, and I went on an afternoon/evening ski tour today, so I can pass along some conditions updates. As of this morning we’d picked up about an inch of snow in the valley from the disorganized cold front that hit the area, then we had a brief lull in snowfall during the morning today before snows from the next clipper started to fall around midday. We’d picked up another inch or two in the valley by the time I popped up to the mountain in the late afternoon. The flakes this afternoon had been on the smaller side, so accumulations didn’t come on too quickly, but we were getting a medium-weight snow with some density to it.

Up in the Bolton Valley Village at 2,000’ they were similarly receiving those fairly small flakes, although the snowfall intensity was certainly a notch up from what I’d seen in the valley. I toured in the 2,000 – 2,500’ elevation range using the Wilderness Uphill Route, and you can really feel the way that the pattern of system after system has been building that surface snow. My depth checks in that elevation range revealed that untouched areas generally have 15-18” of powder above the old subsurface from the last thaw. I’m sure the surface snow is a bit deeper up around 3,000’ and above, and the total snowpack depth is presumably in that ~50” range based on the latest depth report from the Mt. Mansfield Stake. In areas that had seen some skier traffic, I was generally skiing in 5-6” of powder, and that seems to match up fairly well with the 6 inches of new snow that Bolton Valley is reporting in the past 48 hours as of this afternoon’s snow report. There should be at least a few more inches reported as of the morning report the way it’s been snowing down here in the valley.

With the small flakes falling while I was up at the mountain, the powder density was in the light to medium range, so it offered some resistance. In untouched areas of powder you really need moderate to steep slope angles because the powder is just too deep for really good movement on low angle slopes, but those areas with about half a foot of powder skied well on any slope angle. I was on mid-fats for today’s tour, but I suspect one could go with anything in the mid-fat to fat range by tomorrow morning.

Based on the accumulations n my car when I got back from my tour I’d say it was snowing in the 0.5”/hr. range or more. It may not have felt like the snowfall was that robust, but if you’re accumulating in that range with such small flakes, you’re certainly getting some liquid equivalent down. My tour took me from late afternoon light to dusk to December’s early darkness, and there was all that snowfall on top of it that further reduced visibility. For once I’d planned ahead and had a clear lens on my goggles and a full charge for my headlamp, so even with the snowfall I had really good visibility for my descent. There were numerous other skiers out there touring by headlamp, and after this evening’s great experience with the snow quality, visibility, and temperatures, I’m definitely looking forward to more headlamp powder skiing. It was so much fun that I’m starting to think about getting a dedicated headlamp for these types of tours – with LEDs you can get them so bright now compared to a decade or two ago.

The storm had progressed to much larger, upslope-style flakes by the time I got home, and the density of the accumulating snow had definitely come down. My evening liquid analyses revealed that the afternoon portion of the storm produced snow with an average density of 5.6% H2O, so the snow was certainly getting fluffier as the system progressed.