Vermont Snow Updates 2010-11

There’s no new snow to report here in Vermont yet, although as is usual for August, autumn-like temperatures are becoming more and more frequent throughout the region, and Mt. Washington already dipped below freezing a couple of weeks ago. I actually added this post because over at Eastern, Powderfreak informed us that one of the automated Bolton Valley weather stations at 2,100’ is finally on line. In terms of snowfall, this additional information should allow more refined monitoring of the freezing level in the Mansfield-Bolton stretch of the Green Mountain Spine during elevation-dependent snow events. It would be nice to have some information from the 3,000’ range as well, since that is the largest remaining gap, but for now here are links to selected automated stations in the area for monitoring the vertical temperature and wind profiles:

318’ Bolton/Jonesville (Winooski Valley - VTDOT)
950’ Stowe (Emily’s Bridge)
1,640’ Stowe (Resort Base)
2,100’ Bolton Valley (Resort Base)
3,950’ Mt. Mansfield (Ridgeline)

That collection of stations should provide a reasonable look at temperatures and winds from the lowest valley locations right up to the ridgelines for the Stowe/Bolton Valley area, so it seemed like a good post for initiating this thread.

Thanks for the links ,noticed that some plants have already started to change over in colour , even at low elevations .

There's no snow to report today, but winter storm watches are up in parts of the state due to the Nor'easter that's coming through, and there should be some snow in the higher elevations around here by toworrow. Powderfreak has made some forecast posts at SkiVT-L, and FIS has a nice discussion with a map.

Snow started in the Green Mountains this morning, and snow levels appear to be down to around 1,500' with flakes seen mixing in as low as 700'. There's certainly going to be enough snow for skiing tonight/tomorrow in the higher elevations, now it just comes down to seeing which areas do the best in terms of accumulation etc. It sounds like Marc is going to put together a collection of images, so that will probably provide some useful information.

As of the past hour or so we've been over to straight snowfall with accumulation even down here at ~500' in the Winooski Valley, so presumably the local mountains are getting hit pretty hard with snowfall at this point.

J.Spin":15632hev said:

As of the past hour or so we've been over to straight snowfall with accumulation even down here at ~500' in the Winooski Valley, so presumably the local mountains are getting hit pretty hard with snowfall at this point.

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Appreciate the update!

I've added in my EasternUSwx observations posts from last night and this morning for reference below. We had another 0.31 inches of liquid precipitation overnight, which was presumably snow in the higher elevations (Mt. Mansfield is currently at 30 F at 3,950'), and it is still raining, but no doubt the snow level has been rising based on what I've seen down here, so the skiing should certainly be done sooner rather than later. Bolton Valley at 2,100' is already 34 -35 F.

Event totals: 0.3” snow/2.12” liquid

I cleared the snowboard at 10:00 P.M. and took a core sample for liquid. The snow was very saturated with water, so the 0.3 inches contained 0.21 inches of liquid. The funnel of the rain gauge was starting to fill with slush, so once I got everything out for measurement I switched it over to winter mode in case it decides to keep snowing tonight. The grass is white from the accumulated snow, but we seem to be switching back toward rain down at this elevation, so we’ll have to see if there is any additional accumulation by morning. Some 10:00 P.M. observations have been added below:

Friday, October 15th, 2010: 10:00 P.M. update from Waterbury, VT

New Snow: 0.3 inches
Liquid Equivalent: 0.21 inches
Snow/Water Ratio: 1.4
Snow Density: 70.0%
Temperature: 34.3 F
Wind: 0-5 MPH
Sky: Light-Moderate Snow (1-3 mm flakes)
Storm snow total: 0.3 inches
Storm liquid equivalent total: 2.12 inches
Current snow at the stake: trace


Saturday, October 16, 2010


Event totals: 0.3” snow/2.43” liquid

Once the snowfall slowed down yesterday evening at around 10:00 P.M., the precipitation gradually changed over to all rain, and glimpses of the projection thermometer during the night revealed that the temperature just kept rising from the lowest readings in the 33 F – 34 F range during the snow. At 7:00 A.M. this morning the temperature was 41 F and the precipitation was light rain. A few observations are below:

Saturday, October 16th, 2010: 7:00 A.M. update from Waterbury, VT

Temperature: 41.0 F
Wind: Calm
Sky: Light rain
Storm snow total: 0.3 inches
Storm liquid equivalent total: 2.43 inches
Current snow at the stake: 0

The Nor'easter is finally over here and we actually had some sunny skies today. Storm totals here at the house were 0.3" snow/2.68" liquid equivalent, and for Mt. Mansfield were 25" snow/4.93" liquid equivalent. Ty and I skied up at Stowe yesterday and the snow was certainly wet compared to some October storms, but it was a decent dump. I've added a couple of shots from yesterday below, and the rest are in my Stowe, VT 10/16/2010 report. There must have been more melting today, but the snow was still clearly visible in the higher elevations once the clouds cleared, so there are still turns for those that didn't get out yet.

There’s no new snow accumulation to report at the house, but it sounds like there may have been some snow in the air based on what E saw in Morrisville and Powderfreak’s reports from Stowe. The mountains picked up a bit of additional snowfall with that event, with an inch of new snow recorded at the stake today. The skiing goes on, even if it’s not quite as good as it was last weekend. Powderfreak’s report from Wednesday has some of the most recent pictures I’ve seen from Mt. Mansfield.

I’m not sure if he’s posted a report anywhere else yet, but Powderfreak’s latest trip to Stowe was from Saturday, and he added a few pictures in a post at Eastern. It’s our first “snow on snow” around here as he calls it, and based on his comments to MRG over at Eastern, it sounds like it was nice skiing with a few inches of new powder blown around on the old base. Temperatures are warming up now even in the higher elevations, so conditions should be spring-like, but there should still be some skiable snow.

Over the weekend we had another dump of snow in Northern Vermont that got some of the skiers out - it sounds like this one generally dropped 6 to 12 inches of snow. I didn’t head out for turns, but I’ve seen reports on SkiVT-L from WM Walker, Jumpin’ Jimmy and Justin Woods. It sounds like the snow was decent, just not as deep as the last round.

We actually got accumulating snow down into some of the lowest valleys again, with 0.7 inches of snow here at the house. We had snow here early on Saturday morning, which changed over to rain during the daylight hours, and then we went back to snow on Sunday. The precipitation was pretty much snow from there on out. It snowed almost continuously for the next couple of days, although it was just a bit too warm to accumulate much in the lower valleys. At the Mt. Mansfield stake they did record 34.1 inches of snow for the month of October, and set October records for both snowfall and rainfall. As of yesterday there were 10 inches of snow at the stake.

There’s certainly still skiing to be done out there, after several cloudy days the ceiling is starting to lift and the snow line is visible in the 1,500’ – 2,000’ range. I took a quick shot of the mountains when I was in Burlington this afternoon, and added it below. It had almost completely cleared out in town, but the clouds were still rising up the mountains.



There’s another storm on the way for later this week – there doesn’t seem to be much discussion about it around here, but the NWS point and click forecast at least suggests some snow for Mt. Mansfield.

My last addition to this thread was back at the beginning of the month, so I figured I’d add another. There hasn’t been anything too inspiring in the snow department to pull me away from other stuff, but folks have been skiing, including lift served at Killington. The Friday Ski Club guys had their first outing down there a week ago Friday, and Jumpin’ Jimmy sent in a quick report to SkiVT-L. It sounds like the snow was pretty nice. We actually had our biggest valley snowfall of the season at the beginning of this past week, but it was a rather warm storm and really didn’t do much for the mountains. Since then we’ve been under high pressure with lots of sun, and temperatures have supposedly been “warm”, but in November that’s definitely relative. It hasn’t seemed all that warm, evidenced by the fact that it hasn’t even melted all the snow left in our yard. The nights have been quite cold with the dry air, so with the freezing of the snow every night that is probably helping to keep it around. There was actually a substantial temperature inversion around here for a couple days though, and the mountains were above freezing. Jumpin’ Jimmy sent in another short report to SkiVT-L yesterday; I’m not sure where they were skiing, but it looks like plenty of snow was around and it sounds like they were enjoying the sunshine and the corn that came with it. The lift-served skiing goes on at Killington, and hopefully they’ll simply expand their offerings as more consistently cold weather returns. That looks to happen this week as moisture comes back into the area. Snow levels are high at first, but on the NWS point and click forecasts, snow shows up for Mt. Washington tomorrow night, makes it down to Mt. Mansfield on Monday night, and is even back in our valley forecast by Wednesday night. The thoughts I’m hearing from the gurus at Eastern/Americanwx.com, as well as Roger Hill, suggest that it’s going to get a lot wintrier in the North Country as we head into Thanksgiving.

As I mentioned in my last update, the weather did get somewhat wintry for the Thanksgiving period, and down at the house we picked up our fifth accumulating snowfall of the season. In that AmericanWx thread, Powderfreak also added an update from Stowe, with a shot of accumulations at the base area and an action shot from the slopes. It looks like the mountain picked up about four inches of new snow in the Saturday episode. Jumpin’ Jimmy also sent in a text report from Saturday, and Greg Petrics provided a report at FIS with his usual superb action shots. The base certainly wasn’t deep, but there was definitely enough of that Mansfield pow for some nice turns. Today into tomorrow, it looks like we’ve got one more warm storm in this roller coaster period before the cold starts to stick around with more consistency. Snow levels are expected to lower back down tomorrow night, and as Roger Hill commented in his early broadcast this morning, the mountains should be getting snow right through Tuesday. There are no big storms expected in that timeframe, but a storm will be spinning off to the north of the area providing snowfall, with snow levels coming all the way back down to the lower valleys. I’ll keep an eye on the accumulations and may head up for some turns if things start to look good enough.

As the forecast indicated, we’re back into the snow here in Northern Vermont. Accumulating snow levels came down to around 1,500’ at the end of the last storm and the mountains have a fresh coating of white. We actually had some snow in the air at the house (~500’) as well, but no accumulation to report. It looks like some additional snow is on the way, and the NWS has mentioned it in their latest discussion from this afternoon with a nod to the snow sport types:

…BY THE END OF THE NEXT WEEK WE`LL LIKELY HAVE A PRETTY SIGNIFICANT SNOWPACK ON THE GROUND, ESPECIALLY IN THE HIGHER MOUNTAINS WHERE WE`LL PROBABLY MEASURE IN FEET. I SUSPECT THAT WILL BE GOOD NEWS TO WINTER OUTDOOR ENTHUSIASTS.

Favorable conditions appear to be coming together for some upslope snow in the Northern Greens. More details can be found in Powderfreak’s brief update to SkiVT-L today, the FIS weather update from Lionel Hutz, the upslope thread at AmWx, and the NNE thread at AmWx.

J.Spin":3u0xzut4 said:

As the forecast indicated, we’re back into the snow here in Northern Vermont.

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Why no mention of the recent and highly significant rain and damaging wind event?

I agree with MarcC that with the thoroughness of JSpin's reports he should post details of the wind and rain. That said, I'm sure the easterners would rather have the rain early falling on close to bare ground than messing up a winter snowpack.

Tony Crocker":24zccr29 said:

I'm sure the easterners would rather have the rain early falling on close to bare ground than messing up a winter snowpack.

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actually the rain falling on our snowpack consolidates it giving us the amazing corn skiing that we enjoy for months on end, especially on mt washington. rain also smooths out the snow and washes all of the old tracks away.

rain on snow is good tony.

rog

icelanticskier":17pc11xb said:

rain on snow is good tony.

rog

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That's an optimistic way to look at it. I tend to see it as: Rain on Snow followed by freezing temps is ICE. Rain on snow followed by warm temps is WATER. Rain, not so good in my book.

Rain on snow is BAD!!!....

spoken like true resort skiers whos season ends once yer lawns start turnin green. i like your very uni-dimensional outlook on rain on snow. if you only knew..... :mrgreen:

rog