NNE Cold Season Thread 2025-2026

[WxWatcher007]

34 minutes ago, eyewall said:

The Presidential Range on a bluebird day after the coastal storm:
 

 

Oh I love these

[eyewall]

Just now, WxWatcher007 said:

Oh I love these

Thank you!

[eyewall]

6 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

Oh I love these

One more for you:

[WxWatcher007]

16 minutes ago, eyewall said:

One more for you:

I mean you've always been one of the very best on this site when it comes to photography. I assume you use a drone to capture these?

[eyewall]

57 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

I mean you've always been one of the very best on this site when it comes to photography. I assume you use a drone to capture these?

You would be correct and I appreciate it. 

[eyewall]

In this shot you can see the Lake of the Clouds hut in the saddle right of MWN:

[eyewall]

Aerial video of Mt. Mansfield:

 

[IrishRob17]

On 2/24/2026 at 9:27 PM, eyewall said:

One more for you:

Great shot of The Cog.

[eyewall]

5 minutes ago, IrishRob17 said:

Great shot of The Cog.

Thank you! The Presidentials in winter are as close as you get to the Rockies in the East. 

[mreaves]

Looks like about an inch of snow overnight.  I guess I missed that in the forecast. 

[J.Spin]

It was getting late before I had a chance to post, so here’s yesterday’s report from Bolton Valley:

I hadn’t been up to the mountain since Sunday, and I hadn’t followed the temperatures too closely over the past week, but in terms of powder preservation, it looked like temperatures had remained below freezing through the period. Our highest temperature here in the valley had been 36 F, which meant that 2,000’ should have remained safely above the freezing line. In terms of new snow, it hasn’t been a particularly snowy week – there was a decent storm with about a foot of snow at the beginning of last weekend, and then a clipper system with a few inches midweek, but that was about it.

Driving up in the early to midmorning period, it was already approaching 40 F in the valley and in the Bolton Valley Village at 2,000’ it was just above the freezing mark. As I was gearing up for a ski tour, the winds picked up and light snow moved into the area, and the snow continued for roughly the next hour. My ascent was via the Bryant Trail, and on the ascent it was tough to tell exactly where the freezing line was, but by 2,500’ I was definitely above it. I continued on the Catamount Trail and up to the Catamount Trail Glades, topping out around 3,200’.

The higher elevations had definitely remained below freezing all week, because there was some excellent dry powder out there, but you had to pay attention to aspect and wind exposure. Even up above 3,000’, areas with southern exposure or areas touched by winds had seen some notable degradation to the quality of the powder in the form of wind and/or sun crusts. They were relatively minor, but definitely enough to change the surface snow texture and make the turns more challenging. Outside of those areas though, the powder was dry and the turns were great. Without much new snow in the past several days though, the powder had settled, so that did play into terrain options. Although the settled powder wasn’t as good for tight lines on steep pitches as we’d seen last week, it was definitely an improvement with respect to its utility for moderate and lower-angle pitches.

I caught some fantastic lines through the trees in spots I hadn’t visited before, including a new glade route into Gotham City that was quite fun. I can’t say that it was a perfect descent all the way back down to 2,000’ however, because the freezing level had begun to rise. Like a light switch, as soon as I hit the 2,400’ elevation on my descent, I reached the freezing line and the powder changed and became wet and sticky. It was essentially unskiable at that point, so I returned to the Bryant Trail and finished my descent there. That was at midday, so I’m not sure if the freezing level moved any higher than that, but any snow that did stay above the freezing level should be in good shape heading into next week with temperatures staying below freezing for the next few days.

[J.Spin]

We’ve finished up February now, so it’s a good time for an update on seasonal snowfall progress here at our site in Waterbury. February snowfall was 36.0”, so below the average of up around 40”, but it was within 1 S.D. and not too far off of an average month. More notable was that February was the first below average snowfall month we’ve had all season – November, December, and January were all above. Technically, October was also below average on snowfall, but it’s quite variable to begin with, and a below average performance is not uncommon. Also notable was that February was lean on storms – there were only 8 snowstorms for the month. That’s tied for the lowest number of February storms I’ve recorded here, and those other seasons in which it happened were 2008-2009 and 2011-2012. November, December, and January all had between 11 and 16 storms as detailed in the winter storm table below, so it’s clear that the pace of storms has fallen off as of late. We haven’t really been in any of those Northern Greens bread and butter patterns recently, which can obviously knock down the pace of storms and snowfall relative to the earlier months when the storms were just queued up and running into the spine.

The updated seasonal snowfall progression plot is below, and a couple of new comparative seasons (2010-2011 and 2024-2025) have made the plot now that we’re this far into the winter. Those seasons hadn’t made it onto the plot before because they were late bloomers, but once they turned it on they were formidable. As you can see, by this point, both of those newly added seasons were right up there at the top of the pack, setting the pace among some very solid winters. This season (shown in the red line) has recently fallen off the pace a bit, but it’s still right in there among the group.

We’ll have to see what the next 2 to 3 months of winter bring, but the projections for the likelihood of this season hitting certain snowfall thresholds are show below:

≥150”: 100.0%

≥160”: 96.6%

≥170”: 89.3%

≥180”: 74.5%

≥190”: 46.9%

≥200”: 30.7%

Obviously hitting 150” is a lock now, but the odds are also quite strong for surpassing that 160” threshold to reach a roughly average season. Hitting 200” is certainly still possible based on the numbers, and we really only need ~40” or so of snow to do it, but it will depend on how March and April go. These later months of winter have far more snowfall variability and are a lot more “Jekyll & Hyde” in character. We’ve had numerous March-April combos deliver 60-70” inches in strong late seasons, but some late winter periods can act very benign and spring-like. We’ll just have to see how March progresses, but aside from a system in the coming midweek period, there’s not much modeled for the next several days. Looking back, we’d already reached 120” of snowfall by the midpoint of this season, so it was intriguing to check on what the odds were of matching that first half total in the second half of the season, but the odds of hitting 240” have dropped below 1% at this point. So, I didn’t add those higher numbers to the list of odds calculations above. Obviously the odds of stacking together two 120” halves of the season are quite tough, and at this point it would take a record March-April-May stretch to do it. Sometimes we can get those monster March events though, so we’ll see where things stand if something like that happens.

On a final note, I did a quick check on where the Vermont ski areas stand for season snowfall thus far, and the north to south listing of totals is below. The pace of snowfall has obviously fallen off here in the mountains as well, but similar to our site in the valley, the resorts along the spine of the Northern Greens are already closing in on their seasonal snowfall averages with a couple of months still to go. Aside from Jay Peak, which now looks to be mirroring our pace here in the valley with respect to average snowfall pace, the other areas at elevation in the Northern Greens are a bit more off that pace with about 30-40” to go to hit that 300” mark.

Jay Peak: 353”

Burke: 148”

Smuggler’s Notch: 264”

Stowe: 254”

Bolton Valley: 261”

Mad River Glen: 171”

Sugarbush: 199”

Saskadena Six: 71”

Pico: 174”

Killington: 174”

Okemo: 112”

Bromley: 160”

Magic Mountain: 98”

Stratton: 142”

Mount Snow: 117”

[CoastalWx]

I mean Jay Peak. Come on. 

[rimetree]

Sunset from Saddleback. Just a bit too cold for comfort on the slopes. Started at -10F this morning and barely got to 10F above. Tomorrow and Wednesday look almost too balmy but we’ll take it.

[powderfreak]

4 hours ago, rimetree said:

Sunset from Saddleback. Just a bit too cold for comfort on the slopes. Started at -10F this morning and barely got to 10F above. Tomorrow and Wednesday look almost too balmy but we’ll take it.

Great shot.  The past two days have been a bit too cold.  Borderline obnoxious cold after the 40 degree sunshine on Saturday.

Winter isn't over, it'll continue to be wintry at times, but the length of daylight increasing rapidly makes it seem like we will be more prone to mild interludes compared to the past few months.

The temperature curve is starting to go up again, after a multi-stretch month of seemingly colder weather in the means.

It's 0F outside right now.  But you know these arctic cold shots are waning each week we move forward in the sun angle curve.

[mreaves]

On 3/1/2026 at 6:06 PM, CoastalWx said:

I mean Jay Peak. Come on. 

We have poster who has a home at 1800’ there. He hasn’t been posting much this winter. 

[J.Spin]

As folks noted in the thread, with the return of some arctic air, the past couple of days have been a bit too cold to easily entice one out onto the slopes after Saturday gave us that taste of spring warmth. I was last out on the mountain on Saturday, and I finished up my ski tour around noon. On that descent, the freezing line had risen to 2,400’ in the Bolton Valley area, and from that point down the surface of the powder had become sticky and essentially unskiable. I was curious to know just how far the freezing levels had gone, and with temperatures rising into the upper 40s F in the lower valleys on Saturday once the sun came out, I figured the freezing level must have risen even further.

I had some time today, so I decided to head out for a tour on the Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry Network to assess the quality of the unconsolidated snow. With the way the powder had become wetted from at least 2,400’ and below, I wasn’t too optimistic about what I was going to find with respect to the quality of the powder skiing, but I figured worst case I’d get a workout in anyway, and I could always make a quick descent via the Bryant Trail if the powder was a crusty mess. Today I headed up in the midafternoon timeframe, and temperatures were around 35 F in the valley in the 200’-500’ elevation range, I hit the freezing line around 1,000’ on the Bolton Valley Access Road, and up in the Bolton Valley Village at 2,000’ the temperature was around 30 F.

Right from the start of my tour, I could immediately tell that we were still in business with respect to the quality of the powder. There was a light melt crust on the surface, but it was nearly insignificant and the overall snowpack surface was really still holding onto that same consolidated powder that I’d encountered out there on Saturday. So, while those cold temperatures of the past couple of day may not have been appealing for getting outside, it turns out that they were beneficial with respect to the quality of the snow. The dry arctic air let any wetting of the snow dry out, and the powder really recovered quite nicely.

For today’s tour I headed up past Bryant Cabin and onto Heavenly Highway, topping out around 2,900’. I focused my descent on low and moderate angle terrain based on what I’d learned from my tour on Saturday, and those pitches definitely delivered. You still wanted to avoid any terrain that had been hit by sun or wind, because those effects has certainly degraded the powder surface, but as long as you did that and avoided southerly aspects, there were plenty of surfy powder turns. The melt crust did get a bit more noticeable below the 2,400’-2,500’ level, so below those elevations you had to be a bit more diligent about avoiding areas exposed to any sun.

Ironically, as I thought I might be descending on packed terrain today if the powder had been shot, packed terrain was to be avoided if possible. Terrain that had seen traffic during the warmth was too packed to recover its winter character below a certain elevation. It was slick and hard, and it was simply best to just ski in snow off to the side. On my ascent, I had noticed that people had made separate skin tracks off to the side of the packed areas, and I didn’t know why at first, but on the descent it became more obvious – it was just a much better ski surface. I had actually even used those sidetracks on my ascent a bit as well because the main traffic areas with packed snow were somewhat slick and my skins even lost grip at times.

Our next snowstorm is currently ongoing, so we’ll have to see how much snow we pick up and how things shape up with respect to this next layer. This storm may deliver snow on the denser side, but I’m actually not too worried about the powder gradient getting noticeably upside down because there’s already decent density in the surface snow at this point.

[powderfreak]

What a day.

2” (2.25”) new and then 40 degrees.