NNE Cold Season Thread 2025-2026

[sankaty]

Funny that the KENX radar now shows a hole over us but it's snowing harder and with better growth than it has at any time this evening. Maybe the beam picks up snow differently depending on what altitude it's being generated?

[dmcginvt]

2 minutes ago, sankaty said:

Funny that the KENX radar now shows a hole over us but it's snowing harder and with better growth than it has at any time this evening. Maybe the beam picks up snow differently depending on what altitude it's being generated?

you never know what your gonna get with radar in VT, it's the nature of the business

[WxWatcher007]

38 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

I was wrong.

This mid level band has gone nuts.  Fluff factor under this strong lift has been great.  Outside of the deeper lift, it’s sand… but in the band, this is fluff.

Pure powder. It makes a big difference even though the snowfall intensity may be lower than earlier today. HRRR has it going a couple more hours and then we're relying on tomorrow. Just want to get to a respectable total. 

[dmcginvt]

3 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

Pure powder. It makes a big difference even though the snowfall intensity may be lower than earlier today. HRRR has it going a couple more hours and then we're relying on tomorrow. Just want to get to a respectable total. 

Yup totals will depend on tomorrow evening, but I think we will still wake up to more than expected....you want science, all the dog tracks from the past 2 weeks are filled in.  Thats an epic feat...I jest that its science, but it is a big deal it shows how much snow we got and thank goodness I was getting sick of them.

[dmcginvt]

Also PF, I saw something where they said jan 83 was the biggest storm in Albany.  Is that true.  Is it only 24 hr.  Because I know that area has had way bigger storms.  I remember you being from albany from ne.weather on usenet

[J.Spin]

4 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Sometimes I just get gun shy of 10-20" forecasts on like 0.75" water.  Though the soundings are ideal... the DGZ is super deep. As long as the air is saturated it should be larger flakes... which is intensity driven.  As soon as the rates diminish, that arctic air wants to dry up a bit.

I mean, the whole column is essentially in that -12C to -18C zone up to 500mb (18,000ft).

 

1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

I was wrong.

This mid level band has gone nuts.  Fluff factor under this strong lift has been great.  Outside of the deeper lift, it’s sand… but in the band, this is fluff.

 

1 hour ago, dmcginvt said:

I went for a snowshoe, its coming down so hard and its soooo fluffy, rap and hrr both showed vv and rh giving the omega despite pw being less than ideal, the lift is what's doing it.

Well, the modeling certainly knew what it was talking about with the snow growth potential. At least when snowfall rates were on the higher side, I was seeing flakes up to 20-30 mm in diameter, but midnight observations here still had flakes up to 20 mm. I wasn’t sure if that 6 PM to 7 PM snow ratio would be maintained for the whole 6 PM to 12 AM block, but LOL, no worries there. This most recent block’s snow density just came in at 4.2% H2O for a 24:1 ratio – that impressive for an entire snow collection period, and indeed it’s right up there with the quality of upslope snow. This has certainly been some of the loftiest snow I’ve seen with temperatures hovering around the 0 F mark, so some unique conditions have come together with this system. At 24:1, even 0.75” of liquid produces 18” of snowfall, so the forecast numbers certainly aren’t crazy for areas that are in the banding.

[WxWatcher007]

4.5” total so far

Cleared before going to bed. Still got nice snow growth right now. Hopefully tonight and tomorrow produces. 

[EMontpelierWhiteout]

10” storm total as of 4:45 AM.  I measured 3.75 at 9:30 last night, so 6.25 over 6 3/4 hours.  Beautiful fluff.  Like walking through air!

[powderfreak]

4 hours ago, J.Spin said:

 

 

Well, the modeling certainly knew what it was talking about with the snow growth potential. At least when snowfall rates were on the higher side, I was seeing flakes up to 20-30 mm in diameter, but midnight observations here still had flakes up to 20 mm. I wasn’t sure if that 6 PM to 7 PM snow ratio would be maintained for the whole 6 PM to 12 AM block, but LOL, no worries there. This most recent block’s snow density just came in at 4.2% H2O for a 24:1 ratio – that impressive for an entire snow collection period, and indeed it’s right up there with the quality of upslope snow. This has certainly been some of the loftiest snow I’ve seen with temperatures hovering around the 0 F mark, so some unique conditions have come together with this system. At 24:1, even 0.75” of liquid produces 18” of snowfall, so the forecast numbers certainly aren’t crazy for areas that are in the banding.

Lol couldn’t have been more wrong.

10-11” of total air.

[dmcginvt]

dude they never plowed gregg hill

It's still 1 ft of snow 

But so light and fluffy it's delightful

I will share video, but I have lived here since 1987.  I have never seen a road as unplowed as this, well closed class 4 maybe.  They never made a pass today at all 

[Froude]

9" here of absolute fluff. A nick stack of some of the lightest snow I've seen fall here at my house.

Snow has filled back in and at this ratio should have no trouble hitting the 3-6" in the forecast.

[powderfreak]

5am Barnes Camp pics…

10” new and depth went 32” to 42”.  It is deep at 1500ft for snowpack by the Barnes Camp boardwalk.

[powderfreak]

Very even snowfall distribution.

11” town at 750ft and 11” at 3,000ft.

No change with elevation.

I saw Jay showed 8-12”… wonder if they somehow saw a big change with elevation. Not seeing a range at all here.

[mreaves]

4 hours ago, EMontpelierWhiteout said:

10” storm total as of 4:45 AM.  I measured 3.75 at 9:30 last night, so 6.25 over 6 3/4 hours.  Beautiful fluff.  Like walking through air!

Same here in Barre Town. Measured 5" last night and another 5 this morning.

[alex]

What a day on the slopes with the kids 

[EMontpelierWhiteout]

8 hours ago, mreaves said:

Same here in Barre Town. Measured 5" last night and another 5 this morning.

Five more today for 15” storm total.

[mreaves]

21 minutes ago, EMontpelierWhiteout said:

Five more today for 15” storm total.

I measured another 4.5" around 4:00 and it has been snowing since.  We are heading towards 16"

[powderfreak]

49 minutes ago, EMontpelierWhiteout said:

Five more today for 15” storm total.

 

27 minutes ago, mreaves said:

I measured another 4.5" around 4:00 and it has been snowing since.  We are heading towards 16"

About the same here in Stowe.

Also had 16” at both 1,500ft and 3,000ft snow plots on Mansfield.

Very even snowfall distribution with no change in elevation.

[powderfreak]

9 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Very even snowfall distribution.

11” town at 750ft and 11” at 3,000ft.

No change with elevation.

I saw Jay showed 8-12”… wonder if they somehow saw a big change with elevation. Not seeing a range at all here.

 

Added 5” today for 16” total.

 

1,500ft was 10” + 6”… or like 10.5” and 5.5”.

Either way 16” at all elevations.

[alex]

The radar is almost clean but it’s POURING snow. Great storm. 

[powderfreak]

Up to 45” depth at 1,500ft.

[J.Spin]

On 1/25/2026 at 8:16 PM, powderfreak said:

Sometimes I just get gun shy of 10-20" forecasts on like 0.75" water.  Though the soundings are ideal... the DGZ is super deep. As long as the air is saturated it should be larger flakes... which is intensity driven.  As soon as the rates diminish, that arctic air wants to dry up a bit.

I mean, the whole column is essentially in that -12C to -18C zone up to 500mb (18,000ft).

Well, you were absolutely right to be gun shy with respect to that type of forecast – how often do we actually get upslope-style snowfall ratios with surface temperatures around 0 F? I will say that thankfully, temperatures did come up quite a bit today – we got up to 15 F in the valley, which felt really nice. While that may not seem all that warm, without any wind it’s dramatically different from temperatures below zero F with brisk winds.

Anyway, we certainly doubted whether or not Mother Nature could pull off those higher snow totals in the forecast at those temperatures, but she did. We just hit 20” on the storm as tonight’s snow is rolling through, and low and behold, we are just about to hit 0.75” of total liquid equivalent. So, it was just like the upper end our ~10”-20” point forecast range here suggested, and the overall snow to liquid ratio is around 27:1 for the storm. Kudos to the BTV NWS for their forecasting as usual.

And for folks that got our for powder turns today, if you were wondering why the quality of the powder seemed like it was off the charts good… well, you weren’t crazy. The quality of the powder was off the charts. OK, well maybe it wasn’t quite off the charts, since I can, actually, chart out just why the powder skiing was of such incredible quality around here.

As noted earlier in the discussion, the storm started off Sunday afternoon with a couple inches of 11.1% H2O/ 9:1 snow, then during Sunday evening, the snow to liquid ratio more than doubled, for another 7 to 8 inches of 4.2% H2O/24:1 snow. Then overnight, the ratio nearly doubled again, leaving about a half foot of 2.4% H2O/42:1 snow. Then through the day today there was another half foot of snow that fell in the 1-3% H2O range. Even for around here, that’s some impressively dry powder, and with the way that right-side-up density gradient came together, it skied really well. This certainly wasn’t an especially large storm by Northern Greens standards, but the very high quality of the powder that fell was definitely noticeable.

[Froude]

12 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Very even snowfall distribution.

I saw Jay showed 8-12”… wonder if they somehow saw a big change with elevation. Not seeing a range at all here.

10-14” on their 730am report. I’m convinced that if you add up the lower number of Jay’s range you’d get their actual annual snowfall.

[WxWatcher007]

Thank goodness we can produce even in adverse conditions. Got my double digit snowfall. 

Now at 103.6" on the season. Snow depth 22.5". 

[J.Spin]

I’d initially thought of heading out for a lift-served alpine skiing session today to check out the snow from Winter Storm Fern, but while temperatures have been warming somewhat since the cold spell over the weekend, morning temperatures were still going to start out in the rather unappealing single-digit F range. Once the snow reports started coming in though, it was clear that there wasn’t much elevation dependence with the storm, and that made the idea of touring at Bolton’s Timberline area where the uphill route has just officially opened for the season, a bit more appealing. And with the Timberline Quad not running on Mondays and Tuesdays, the area was only going to see ski touring levels of traffic.

It was clearly a god day for a Timberline tour, and a number of people had similar thoughts - there were more than a dozen cars in the Timberline parking lot when I arrived in the mid to late-morning timeframe. Temperatures had risen into the double digits F, and backside snows were continuing to add to the accumulations. By the midday timeframe I was finding a general 12-18” of powder depending on exposure. Areas with 12” weren’t quite enough to deliver bottomless turns on the steepest pitches, but 18” was enough to do it. The quality of the powder was simply fantastic, with a right-side-up gradient that started off around 11% H2O and tapered down to the 1-3% H2O range. It was so super dry champagne that it skied well on any pitch – you could crash the steep pitches, and the snow was so light and dry that it simply let you float your way down through even lower-angle terrain.

[WxWatcher007]

Still snowing here. Pixie dust. 

[sankaty]

Approximately 14-15" in Rochester, VT. Measured 11" this morning and looks like another 4" fell while we were away. Skiing at Pico was heavenly. Sugarbush tomorrow.

 

[powderfreak]

14 hours ago, Froude said:

10-14” on their 730am report. I’m convinced that if you add up the lower number of Jay’s range you’d get their actual annual snowfall.

Agreed.  I just think its tough because we know it's an estimate and not an actual measurement.  Thus the range that really doesn't exist in certain events.

I think it was reported 13-20" for this storm (10-14" and 3-6").  Add the 20" in the season total.

Here are the totals around the area… there was a clear slight drop off up north, so maybe 13”, but I’d struggle with 20” smack between the Montgomery Center and Westfield observers (given very little elevation enhancement noted at most other spots) and the most claimed of any ski area in the Sugarbush to Jay stretch.