NNE Cold Season Thread 2025-2026

[WxWatcher007]

At least 1.3” here yesterday into today. More coming. 

[WxWatcher007]

2.0 as of 10:30

[powderfreak]

Crazy squalls.  Had thunder and lightning at the mountain and shut down for 30 minutes like the summer.

Even in town MVL with the rare M1/4sm visibility.

METAR KMVL 222000Z AUTO 25004KT M1/4SM +SN FZFG VV009 M03/M05 A2983

METAR KMVL 221955Z AUTO 30010KT M1/4SM +SN BKN012 OVC038 M02/M05 A2984 RMK P0001

KMVL 221954Z AUTO 31013G25KT M1/4SM +SN BKN012 OVC038 M02/M05 A2985 RMK AO2

[das]

48 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Crazy squalls.  Had thunder and lightning at the mountain and shut down for 30 minutes like the summer.

Even in town MVL with the rare M1/4sm visibility.

METAR KMVL 222000Z AUTO 25004KT M1/4SM +SN FZFG VV009 M03/M05 A2983

METAR KMVL 221955Z AUTO 30010KT M1/4SM +SN BKN012 OVC038 M02/M05 A2984 RMK P0001

KMVL 221954Z AUTO 31013G25KT M1/4SM +SN BKN012 OVC038 M02/M05 A2985 RMK AO2

 

This was at the office in Burlington an hour ago.

[WxWatcher007]

Went up to 3.8" after the squalls (yesterday and today), and just added 1.8" in the last hour under the big Ontario band. LFGGGGGG

5.6" two day total and counting. 

[WxWatcher007]

Absolutely incredible. Up to 7.5” two day total. 6.2” today. Snow depth over 18”. Amazing day.

[mreaves]

23 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

Absolutely incredible. Up to 7.5” two day total. 6.2” today. Snow depth over 18”. Amazing day.

Lol. Tell the truth, you were always skeptical of the type of snow patterns that can happen up here, weren’t you?

[WxWatcher007]

26 minutes ago, mreaves said:

Lol. Tell the truth, you were always skeptical of the type of snow patterns that can happen up here, weren’t you?

Very skeptical. I am 100% a believer now. 

[lurker]

[powderfreak]

Been getting dumped on.

3” yesterday morning.

Another 3” during the day.

5” overnight.

[WxWatcher007]

Light snow underway. We’ll see how much we can produce today. Been hovering between 10.7 and 11.3 all day. 

[mreaves]

Here is BTV's latest

[DavisStraight]

3 hours ago, WxWatcher007 said:

Light snow underway. We’ll see how much we can produce today. Been hovering between 10.7 and 11.3 all day. 

I assume you're in New York?

[WxWatcher007]

34 minutes ago, DavisStraight said:

I assume you're in New York?

Yep, up in SLK for the next week or so. 

[alex]

What’s causing this snow? It lightened up a bit now it’s dumping again 

[powderfreak]

46 minutes ago, alex said:

What’s causing this snow? It lightened up a bit now it’s dumping again 

Arctic front.  Been snowing steadily here too, harder than radar indicates.

[powderfreak]

Mansfield Magic morning… I swear the top of the Gondola terrain gets 50% more snowfall than the snow plots a lot of the time.

This is what 2” edited to 5” looks like on the snow report, ha.  Could’ve said a foot up top and people would’ve believed it.  But we stick with the standard plots.

[alex]

5 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Arctic front.  Been snowing steadily here too, harder than radar indicates.

Shouldn’t a front cause short lived snow? It’s been going all day. Not being a weenie, just honestly curious 

[powderfreak]

56 minutes ago, alex said:

Shouldn’t a front cause short lived snow? It’s been going all day. Not being a weenie, just honestly curious 

Yeah in most places… but it’s been squeezing out low level moisture ahead of and behind the front.  WSW flow entraining moisture from the Great Lakes, then NWN winds wringing it out… almost like a standing wave.

[mreaves]

1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

Arctic front.  Been snowing steadily here too, harder than radar indicates.

I was at the office in Waterbury, where there were occasional flurries but my wife said it snowed just about all day at home. Continued until a couple of hours ago. Probably added an additional inch for a total of about 2” including last night. Usually it’s the opposite, snowing nears the spine in Waterbury while we get a flurries further east. 

[WxWatcher007]

45 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Yeah in most places… but it’s been squeezing out low level moisture ahead of and behind the front.  WSW flow entraining moisture from the Great Lakes, then NWN winds wringing it out… almost like a standing wave.

Yeah BTV hinted at the possibility yesterday that the front would trigger snow showers/squalls over the course of the day. Yesterday we over produced. Today not so much. It has snowed every day here since the 13th. 

[WxWatcher007]

Well in a season of firsts, here's a new one. Coldest snowfall. 

It was snowing here at -5.7/-11.0 and it was actually ripping a bit briefly. Just under an inch for the day. Incredible stuff. 

[Boston Bulldog]

42 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

Well in a season of firsts, here's a new one. Coldest snowfall. 

It was snowing here at -5.7/-11.0 and it was actually ripping a bit briefly. Just under an inch for the day. Incredible stuff. 

Awesome, now let us know when the exploding tree temperature threshold is!

[WxWatcher007]

5 minutes ago, Boston Bulldog said:

Awesome, now let us know when the exploding tree temperature threshold is!

No explosions yet but the night is young. 

-10.0/-16. Since this isn't a radiational cooling night I've been tracking close to KSLK. They're -11. Wind chill -28. 

[J.Spin]

On 1/20/2026 at 10:01 PM, powderfreak said:

That radar went right over the heart of the ADKs and then turned northward into NVT.  Jay was in it the longest, and it just clipped Mansfield.

We saw 2.5” at the northern plot and 1.5” on the snow cam a mile or so south. 4-5” up at Jay Peak seemed reasonable.

 

On 1/22/2026 at 3:13 PM, powderfreak said:

Crazy squalls.  Had thunder and lightning at the mountain and shut down for 30 minutes like the summer.

Even in town MVL with the rare M1/4sm visibility.

METAR KMVL 222000Z AUTO 25004KT M1/4SM +SN FZFG VV009 M03/M05 A2983

METAR KMVL 221955Z AUTO 30010KT M1/4SM +SN BKN012 OVC038 M02/M05 A2984 RMK P0001

KMVL 221954Z AUTO 31013G25KT M1/4SM +SN BKN012 OVC038 M02/M05 A2985 RMK AO2

 

15 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Been getting dumped on.

3” yesterday morning.

Another 3” during the day.

5” overnight.

 

4 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Arctic front.  Been snowing steadily here too, harder than radar indicates.

 

4 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Mansfield Magic morning… I swear the top of the Gondola terrain gets 50% more snowfall than the snow plots a lot of the time.

This is what 2” edited to 5” looks like on the snow report, ha.  Could’ve said a foot up top and people would’ve believed it.  But we stick with the standard plots.

I wouldn’t describe our recent weather pattern as much of a classic Northern Greens bread and butter setup with Alberta Clipper systems driving right though the area every other day or so; it’s been much more a hodgepodge of systems passing fairly far to the north, cold fronts, lake-effect snows, squalls, and stuff like that. Those types of events are certainly a big part of our usual winter snowfall, but it just hasn’t seemed like the locked-in consistency has been there recently the way it was often around in November and December. In any case, the past couple of days have certainly delivered as PF’s images show, and Bolton Valley’s snow report speaks to that, with 10 inches reported in the past 48 hours.

I hadn’t planned to ski today with no notable systems in the area, but my older son was up at the mountain yesterday and was quite impressed with the amount of new snow he encountered. He’d brought some fairly narrow alpine skis, expecting generally packed/groomed snow, but he was up there when some of the recent squalls started hitting, and the inches built up rather quickly. When he was telling me about it later in the day, he said that he should have brought fatter skis because he was getting into boot top powder quite often.

His report was enough to get me out for a ski tour this morning, and the timing was also good with respect to temperatures –the mountain was in the teens F today, which is much better than it looks like it’s going to be over the next couple of days. I was last out on the hill on Monday, and at that point I was already impressed with how much the powder conditions below 2,500’ had improved relative to the prior few days. These past couple days of lake-effect snow, fronts, and squalls have definitely continued that improvement to the point where I didn’t even notice any difference in the quality of the powder skiing above and below 2,500’ today.

I toured in the 2,000’-2,800 elevation range today, and while the powder does get deeper with elevation, the subsurface has improved so much with settling/drying, and the depths/total liquid equivalent at even 2,000’ have increased enough that the quality of the skiing doesn’t drop off as you descend. Here are the approximate powder depths that I measured during today’s tour

2,000’: 6-8”

2,500’: 8-10”

2,750’: 10-12”

There were even more rounds of squalls today with decent accumulations, as well as a potentially larger storm on the way toward the end of the weekend, so the quality of the conditions should continue to get even better going forward.

[alex]

8 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Yeah in most places… but it’s been squeezing out low level moisture ahead of and behind the front.  WSW flow entraining moisture from the Great Lakes, then NWN winds wringing it out… almost like a standing wave.

Got it. Thank you PF! Interesting stuff. Looks like we finally cleared out sometime overnight after a few more inches of snow. With all the talk of cold, though, we only got to -14F which is pretty common on a good radiational night and quite far from our seasonal low of -29. 

[mreaves]

 

[#NoPoles]

Its a wee bit chilly....Great for ice fishing. No trucks or ATVS breaking through the ice this year. My friend built himself a 5x8 Bob house. Put it out on the ice last weekend at Martin Meadow. Cut some holes in the ice and said the ice was at least 24 inches thick

[J.Spin]

12 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Mansfield Magic morning… I swear the top of the Gondola terrain gets 50% more snowfall than the snow plots a lot of the time.

This is what 2” edited to 5” looks like on the snow report, ha.  Could’ve said a foot up top and people would’ve believed it.  But we stick with the standard plots.

PF, am I seeing the recent snowpack depth report numbers correctly to suggest that the current snowpack (74”) at your High Road Plot at 3,040’ is coming in deeper than the snowpack (70”) at the Mt. Mansfield Stake at 3,700’? Those two spots aren’t all that far away from each other, they aren’t too disparate with respect to elevation, and they both represent similar leeward aspects of the mountain, but is that true and does the lower elevation depth outpace the higher elevation depth frequently?

I’ve never routinely followed the snowpack depths at your snow study plots because I typically only see them when you bring them up in a forum post, but now that Matt Parrilla appears to have them on his Mt. Mansfield Stake page, I’m seeing them all the time (he also monitors some lower elevation CoCoRaHS sites around here in the Northern Greens like ours in Waterbury). I didn’t know your daily depths from the plots were even available – where does he get them from? Or (it’s hard to imagine) are his 3,040’ and 1,550’ numbers coming from somewhere else other than your High Road and Barnes Camp plots?

[WxWatcher007]

As a non skier, I can’t imagine a 70” pack.